Recipe Review from 3/30/20

Ah.  Tis the Season of Mud now.  Where here in the Northland of Minnesota, the snow is melting, it's either raining or sleeting, and little puppy paws are covered in mud.  Inside rugs are rolled up until it's a bit less...damp, outside.

                                                           Andy          and        Kepler (2019)


While I made two new recipes last week, I'll only be posting one.  The Breakfast Jambalaya (New Orlean's Celebrations by Kevin Belton) while fabulous, was more than I wanted to type out.   It is a delightful riff on jambalaya - with bacon, sausage patties, and sausage links instead of chicken and shrimp.  The best part - it's served with an egg on top!  Any kind of egg you like: fried, poached, sunnyside up, scrambled.  Delicious!  Seriously, I could eat this again this week.  Go check out his cook book!  

The pulled pork is this recipe here:   Instant Pot pulled mojo pork    Great in tacos, great base for pulled pork sandwiches.  Recommended!


The Meal Plan
Sat (L) leftover butnut soup (S) Breakfast Jambalaya
Sun (L) leftover jambalaya (S) pulled pork sandwiches
Mon - leftover pulled pork
Tues - leftover jambalaya
Wed - leftover pulled pork
Thurs - leftover pulled pork
Fri - leftover jambalaya

Lunches - Turkey wild rice soup

Turkey and Wild Rice Soup (Eating Well, Soups)
I'm always on the look out for a new-to-me wild rice soup recipe.  While I do have my favorite, there might be one that I like a bit better.

What I liked about this one was the ease of assembly.  I do use regular (harvested by myself and a friend) wild rice.  For the first time ever, I pre-cooked the rice in my Instant Pot with great success and time savings!  Whoo hoo!  I added about 3+ cups of cooked wild rice toward the end of the cooking process with the turkey.

This does, in part due to the rice, turn out almost casserole like - very thick and stew-like.  Which I don't mind at all.  If you are looking for something a bit more soup like, you may need to add liquid upon reheating.

Overall, I would make this again.  It's easy to assemble, a great way to use leftover turkey or chicken, a great way to use wild rice and it made enough for two of us for lunches for the week. 


I got 6-8 (lunch)

photo from eatingwell.com

servings out of this.

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups sliced mushrooms, (about 4 ounces)
¾ cup chopped celery
¾ cup chopped carrots
¼ cup chopped shallots
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup quick-cooking or instant wild rice, (see Ingredient Note)
3 cups shredded cooked chicken, or turkey (12 ounces; see Tip)
½ cup reduced-fat sour cream
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley


Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add mushrooms, celery, carrots and shallots and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add flour, salt and pepper and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes more.

Add broth and bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits. Add rice and reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook until the rice is tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in turkey (or chicken), sour cream and parsley and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes more.



Recipe tips:
Ingredient note: Quick-cooking or instant wild rice has been parboiled to reduce the cooking time. Conventional wild rice takes 40 to 50 minutes to cook. Be sure to check the cooking directions when selecting your rice--some brands labeled “quick” take about 30 minutes to cook. If you can't find the quick-cooking variety, just add cooked conventional wild rice along with the turkey at the end of Step 2.

Tip: To poach chicken breasts, place boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a medium skillet or saucepan. Add lightly salted water to cover and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer gently until chicken is cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, 10 to 12 minutes.