Turkey Cacciatori and Salad

Tonight, I made some turkey cacciatori and salad.  This was pretty similar to the chicken cacciatori  dinner I made for my friend's band, except for the type of meat, and this time I added carnberries and roasted red peppers to the sauce.

Ingredients:

Salad

• Romaine mix from Whole Foods
• Roasted red peppers
• Fresh mozzarella
• Avacado
• Tomato
• Balsamic vinegar reduction
• Olive oil

Pasta

• Ancient Harvest quinoa and corn rotelle
• Whole Foods (365) Tomato Basil pasta sauce
• Ground turkey thigh meat
• Onion
• Garlic
• Basil
• Oregano
• Paprika
• Balck pepper
• Salt
• Cane sugar
• Cranberries
• Roasted red pepper
• Honey

Procedure:

Salad

For the salad dressing, I made some balsamic vinegar reduction by simmering with cane sugar, honey, and a bay leaf.  I chopped up the rest of the ingredients and added them to a store bought salad mix.

Pasta

The pasta itself is a quinoa and corn pasta that I've never had before.  It tasted pretty good.  For the sauce, I carmelized some onion with the listed spices, added the turkey, and simmered it with some gewurztraminer.  Then, I added the store bought sauce.  While that simmered, I boiled some cranberries in sugar water and peeled some red peppers that I roasted earlier.  I added those and some sugar to the sauce and kept it simmering until the pasta and salad were ready.

Resulting Deliciousness:

The pasta and salad both turned out really well.  I've been into the flavor combination of cranberry with roasted red pepper, but I didn't add enough cranberries to really bring that out.  Gewurztraminer is more of a desert wine than something to cook and drink with pasta, but this one wasn't very sweet, so it worked out alright. 

Chicken Cacciatori

From Dinner with Bombadil and Paleface!

Last week, Bombadil and Paleface played at The Red and the Black in DC. The show was fantastic! While they were in town, they crashed at my place. I made them a pretty solid dinner:

Ingredients:

• Rice Pasta

• Chicken Cacciatore Sauce
  
• Pre-made regular pasta sauce, can't remember what kind
  
• Ground chicken
  
• Onion
  
• Green pepper
  
• Celery
  
• Spices to taste - salt, pepper, oregeno, garlic salt, basil

• Quinoa Pilaf
• Red quinoa
  
• Frozen vegetables
  
• Garlic
  
• Salt
  
• Pepper
  
• Oregano
  
• Basil

• Side salad
• Bag of pre-mixed salad
  
• Black olives
  
• Buffalo mozzarella
  
• Tomatoes
  
• Olive oil
  
• Balsamic vinegar reduction (leftover from my spare rib dinner)

Procedure:

I started by caramelizing the onion, green pepper, and celery in some olive oil and spices. I added the ground chicken to that, then the store bought pasta sauce. That was left to simmer while everything else was made.

The quinoa pilaf was about the same as I've made in several other posts. I just added frozen vegetables and some seasoning to the quinoa while it cooked. This is very simple, tasty, and healthy. It goes with just about anything.

The salad was just a pre-mixed bag to which I added a couple tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and olives. I used olive oil and my balsamic vinegar reduction for the dressing. For the reduction I added sugar, honey, and a bay leaf to about a cup of balsamic vinegar and let it simmer for 20-30 minutes. That went really well on the quinoa too.

Resulting Deliciousness:

The dinner hit the spot. It provided some good fuel for the show the next night. Make sure to go see Bombadil or Paleface if they're playing near you!