A turkey is not just for Christmas.......

Although not often, we do eat turkey throughout the year, as we quite like it (why would you eat something on a special day of the year if you don't like it ), and it can be really cost effective if you make the most of it.

We get a lot of our meat delivered to our door, frozen, from a specialist company who major in free range and organic foods, and support UK farmers by selling their produce (drop me a PM if you want more information), and for Christmas we bought a couple of boned and rolled turkey breast joints instead of buying a whole turkey - not only was this significantly cheaper, but it also allowed us to avoid the whole 'turkey-everything for days' trap that many people fall into. We also got a load of fresh veg from them (proper dirty tatties, sprouts, carrots etc etc), which has served us well for almost a month now. We even still have quite a bit of 'proper' cranberry sauce and chestnuts in stock!

We are coming to the end though, so yesterday I decided I would cook up a storm and have Christmas Mark 2 to make the absolute most of what we had.

Boned & rolled turkey joint, seasoned and roasted

Potatoes, par-boiled in vegetable stock, cooled and then roasted in goose fat

Sprouts, boiled in vegetable stock (why waste all that flavour....), drained, rolled in melted butter with some ground white pepper

Stuffing balls:
1 x pack Paxo Sage & Onion Stuffing
1 x onion, finely diced
10 x chestnuts, chopped
Big knob of butter
1 x clove garlic, crushed
Chilli flakes
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Gently melt the butter in a pan, and add the onions on a very low heat. Add the garlic, and continue to cook over a low heat until onions are translucent. Meanwhile, make the Paxo stuffing according to the pack instructions. Add the onions, garlic and butter to the stuffing mix, add the chestnuts and stir in well. Allow to cool a bit, then pop in the fridge (makes it easier to form the ball shapes)
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Parsnips, trimmed and lightly coated in oil, then roasted.

Serve with cranberry sauce and gravy.

Even if I do say so myself, the stuffing was just on a completely different level, mostly thanks to the bit of chilli heat

 

To change things up a wee bit today, I am going to do the following:

Finely sliced turkey breast, re-heated in a light chicken and vegetable stock (I will re-heat in our new microwave which has been christened Chernobyl 3!)

Stuffing pretty similar to yesterday (it was just too nice!)

Boiled baby carrots, boiled in a ham stock

Roast tatties (well, you have to, don't you?) - I will likely par-boil these in the ham stock also

Sprouts - butter and a little oil melted in a pan, sprouts halved, half an onion finely chopped, 2 crushed garlic cloves. Add the butter to the pan and heat until it starts to foam, add a small amount of oil to stabilise the butter, then add the onion and garlic, stir through the butter, then place the sprouts cut side down in the pan and cover to cook for roughly 15 minutes over a medium flame.

 

Well, we have just had round two (I forgot to do the carrots, but just as well as there was tons to eat anyway) and it was absolutely gorgeous; the sprouts were the best I have ever had.