I need help!  I’m all turkey-ed out.  This is not normally a problem; I would ordinarily just stop cooking turkey.  This year, however, we have several reasons for cooking more than our usual number of turkeys. 

One reason we’re over-indulging in turkey is because we have more gatherings than we usually do over the Holidays.  With so many family members all over the globe, our Holiday meals are scattered throughout the season, trying to accommodate as many family members as possible.  And everyone likes turkey best.

The second reason we’re cooking a lot of turkey this year is the budget.  Turkey is cheap, cheap, cheap.  Our budget can really use the help, and cooking a turkey seems like the best way to get the most out of our money at this time of year.  What with a-million-and-one leftover dishes and boiling the bones for turkey broth, turkey is our frugal choice; we can eat for another month for next to nothing.

Here’s my dilemma – I need to be creative when cooking yet another turkey. It won’t do to start suffering from turkey-fatigue too early in the season.  I would be very happy to find some great marinades, maybe some grilling tips, or any unique method of cooking a turkey.  I have considered buying two smaller turkeys to cook at the same time just so they can each have a different style or flavor.

What sort of flavors, spices, marinades, or glazes have you used to perk up your Holiday turkey?

When I find a really great recipe for baked ham, I’ve got to try it.  I remember having wonderful baked ham during the Holidays at my Grandparent’s house and am always trying to recreate that memory.  I’ve made some fabulous baked ham recipes and enjoyed them immensely.  Of course, I always cook way too much food and end up with leftovers that, after a few days, start to frighten me.  What can be done with all this food?

So, once again, I’m faced with a plate of ham piled high in my refrigerator, and a family begging me not to make it into sandwiches again.  I feel their pain.  I’m rather tired of ham sandwiches, too.  Although I think I could convince them to eat ham sandwiches once more if I toasted them with a slice of provolone cheese, add a little mustard, and I think everyone would be happy.

Still I have quite a bit of ham left, even after the sandwiches.  I believe with just a few more recipes in my repertoire, my family and I would be happy to see leftover ham in the refrigerator.  Then I can continue to bake beautiful hams in my Grandparent’s tradition and love the leftovers, too!

If only I would learn that less is more.  When I travel in Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Michigan, there seems to be an invisible force that propels me to the wild rice stands that pepper the roadsides.  I’ll find myself loading up the car with bags and bags of wild rice from every corner of the countryside.  Now I’m home with beautiful bags of wild rice and only a handful of recipes. One recipe that I turn to is a classic casserole made with wild rice.  It’s simple but always warms the heart, and belly!  Some people like to mix in a bit of brown rice to make the dish a little more mild.  Here’s how simple it is:

1.  You’ll need 1 cup of raw wild rice.  Cook the rice according to the directions on the package until almost tender.  (If you’ve lost your directions, it’s pretty standard.  Rinse rice thoroughly.  The ratio is 1 to 3, rice to water, or broth if you like.  Bring rice and water to a boil, lower heat, cover and simmer for about 45 to 50 minutes, or less if you are cooking it in a casserole, like this recipe.  Uncover, fluff and continue simmering about 10 minutes or until all water is absorbed.  Drain if you have to.)
2.  Meanwhile, chop up 4 or 5 slices of bacon and fry with 1 small diced onion, and about 1/2 cup of finely diced celery, and one clove grated or minced garlic.  Fry until bacon is crisp and celery is transparent.  Remove the mixture from the pan and spoon it into your casserole dish and set aside.
3.  Now put 1 pound of ground beef in your pan and fry until brown and no pink color remains. Remove to casserole dish.
4.  Then in the same frying pan, saute 4 to 8 ounces of cut up mushrooms (more or less depending on your feelings about mushrooms) in a little vegetable oil until nicely browned and cooked all the way through. (Remember; don’t salt your mushrooms while cooking.  It makes them watery.)  Remove to casserole dish. 
5.  Now you can add your cooked wild rice to your casserole with the other ingredients you’ve prepared, add one can of cream of mushroom soup and about 1/2 the can water, salt and pepper to taste, and mix it all up thoroughly.
6.  Bake covered in your oven set at 325 for 40 to 45 minutes.   

Although the classic wild rice soup and wild rice mushroom casseroles are great, I have an abundance of seafood here and am wondering if wild rice and seafood makes a good combination.  How about oysters?  I would really like to surprise my husband with some fantastic wild rice meals so he finally believes that all those stops at the roadside stands were worth it!

There are very few vegetables that have price fluctuations like green bell peppers.  I have seen the price go from “feed a family of six” cheap to “not on your life” expensive.  When green peppers are cheap, or at least reasonable, I like to make a full meal out of them, usually by making stuffed green peppers. 

The incredibly simple and delicious stuffed green pepper I make is (and I tweak this quite a bit depending what I have in the pantry):
1.  Cut the top off of four large or six small green peppers, scoop out the insides, throw insides away, and rinse pepper well.  Cut a little tiny bit off the bottom of each green pepper just so it will stand up in a casserole dish.  Dice up the cut off top and bottom pieces of the green peppers. 
2.  In a large skillet, fry up 1/2 pound ground pork and 1/2 pound ground beef with some diced onion, a little garlic and the diced green pepper. (Or use whatever meat is convenient.) Salt and pepper to taste. 
3.  Once the meat is fully cooked and the onions and green pepper pieces are tender, add a small can of diced tomatoes and stir well.  Here’s where you can add a little leftover rice or some bread crumbs or even some stuffing mix.  Don’t go overboard… you want your mixture to be moist. 
4.  Now you’ll want to add a little Worcestershire sauce or maybe a little Tabasco sauce or taco seasoning if you like your food spicy. 
5.  Then add a handful or two of grated cheddar cheese, mix well and begin stuffing your green peppers.
6.  When they are all stuffed, pour just about 1/4 cup chicken broth or water in the bottom of the casserole dish with the peppers and top each pepper with some more grated cheddar cheese, or Parmesan cheese if you like and put the cover on the casserole, or cover it with tin foil. 
7.  Bake in your oven on 350 for about 40 to 45 minutes or until the peppers are nice and soft. 

I don’t think my stuffed peppers ever come out the same twice!  This is a great recipe to use up what you have on hand.  Play around with it as much as your taste buds will allow.  I’d love to see how you would embellish this recipe, or if you have another green bell pepper recipe that you make I’d love to see that, too!

When we enter the months of hurricane season, we make sure our cupboards are stocked with non-perishable supplies of all sorts.  Unfortunately, my husband’s idea of a hurricane survival-kit is a case of Vienna Sausages.  As interesting as I find that concept, it isn’t something that I can really wrap my head around.  The thought of eating those little sausages for countless days while we wait for the power to come back on is a little unnerving, to say the least.  But, now that I have numerous cans of Vienna Sausages in my cupboard, I’m thinking I will need a way to cook and eat them.

I’ve seen a few recipes for appetizers using Vienna Sausages, or other types of little sausages, but I’m wondering if there isn’t some kind of recipe that is more of a main dish.  I’m having trouble picturing such a meal, but I hope you good folks will be so kind as to share any recipe you might have  for using this unique sausage product.  Thank you!

I guess not a lot of people make beef stew in July because my grocery store is running a nice sale on stew meat. I grabbed a few packs, figuring I’d make “something” out of it, but now that I have it sitting in my fridge, I have no idea how to prepare it.

I don’t really want to cook a big pot of stew… not only is it too hot to eat it, it will also heat up my entire kitchen if I slow cook it all day. I guess I could make the stew in the crockpot and then freeze it for a few months.

Any ideas for some summery dishes that include stew meat? Or any recipes for that matter… as always, I appreciate it if you share your favorite stew meat recipe as a comment.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of grocery shopping at Aldi and they have some whole frozen chickens there. Since it’s one of the cheapest meats I can buy these days, I’ve been buying about one of them a week and then used it to cook several dinners.

Here’s what I do…. I thaw the chicken and then cook it for about 6 to 8 hours in the crockpot along with some onion, celery and any other veggie scraps I have laying around (for flavoring).  I let the mixture cook down a bit and then take out the chicken and pick all the meat of the bones. I also strain the liquid which by now has turned into a rich chicken broth / stock.

I use the broth, some of the cooked chicken, rice and veggies to make chicken soup. We also use the shredded meat for anything from chicken salad to chicken enchiladas, wraps, or in sauces etc.

How about you? What’s your favorite way to cook a whole chicken?

Since today is Good Friday and I was raised catholic, I’m going to prepare some fish for dinner. Depending on the weather, I usually bake it or cook it on the grill. Since it’s supposed to be rainy today, we’re having some baked white fish fillets for dinner.

By far my favorite is to wrap a salmon fillet in some aluminum foil with some lemon and dill and then either bake it or cook it on the grill (in the foil) until it is done.

How about you? What’s your favorite fish fillet? Submit your recipe as a comment below.

We’ve been spending a lot of time at the beach lately and since this is Oyster season, we’ve splurged and got a whole bushel of local oysters. They are absolutely fabulous raw and steamed, but even so there’s only so often I can eat them and we have barely made a dent in this huge bag of oysters.

My favorite way to eat them is to just steam them, dip them in a little melted butter and eat them, but I’m sure there’s a lot more you can do with them. Do you have a good recipe for oyster stew? How do you fry them and what else do you make with fresh oysters? I’d love to hear your ideas and recipes, so please leave them as a comment below.

Ground beef of one sort or another almost always seems to be on sale at one of the stores in town. It’s also usually one of the cheapest meats to buy and pretty versatile. I usually keep a few packs of it in my freezer and use them for anything from burgers and meatloaf to spaghetti with meat sauce, but to be hones, we are starting to get a little tired of the same standard hamburger dishes.

I’m looking for some fresh recipes and ideas that use ground beef – will you help me and my family out? Please post your favorite recipes as a comment below.