The Yummiest Turkey Meatloaf

I've never been a fan of meatloaf. For some reason, it just has never appealed to me in any way, until...UNTIL I saw this recipe, and began to wonder.

Hmm. There's mushrooms, fresh sage from my herb garden, leeks, and even cheese, so maybe, just maybe it will be good?

Oh MY. It was not just good, but it took some serious self restraint not to just sit down and tuck into the entire thing because my kitchen just smelled like heaven. The original recipe was from the September 2009 issue of Every Day Food, but I did make some changes that are noted below.

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 lb cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 small leeks (sliced, just the white and light green part. Wash and dry thoroughly)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup shredded fontina or gouda cheese (I used lactose free medium cheddar)
1 slice day old bread, cubed (I used whole wheat bread and left it out on the counter overnight)
1 large egg
2-3 oz of prosciutto, sliced into bite sized pieces
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh sage leaves
1 1/2 lbs lean ground turkey

Pre-heat your oven to 350 F, and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a skillet, saute the mushrooms in 1 tbsp of oil in batches until they are a deep golden brown. Transfer to a large bowl. When you are finished with the mushrooms, saute the leeks and garlic over medium heat until soft. Add the prosciutto and continue to saute for about 3 minutes. Transfer to bowl with the mushrooms and allow to cool.

When your mixture is room temperature, stir in the cheese, cubed bread, sage, and an egg until well combined. Mix in turkey, 1/4 tsp pepper and 1/2 tsp of salt. I found it easiest to just use my hands to mix. Then shape the meat into a 10 inch loaf on the baking sheet.


Bake about 45-55 minutes until cooked through. Allow to rest 10 minutes before serving.


Makes one 10 inch loaf, that would serve 4 people easily.

I served it with mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. Hubs and Jake loved it, saying that they weren't sure about meatloaf either but this one has so much flavor it completely won them over. Guess what we are having for leftovers tonight?

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How to Can Tomatoes

This morning, these babies beckoned from my kitchen. Thirty pounds of ripe, luscious tomatoes, all waiting to be canned and put away for winter. I love using these in my home made butter chicken, spaghetti sauce, and clam pasta sauce. Heaven. Plus they are so much cheaper, and just better than what you get at the store. I know exactly what is in that jar-and it's not any weird things I can't pronounce, either.

Before you start, fill your canner with water and turn it on so it will be hot when you need it. Put all your jars into the dishwasher and get them good and clean (you will need about 4-5 pint jars for 5 1/2 lbs of tomatoes). Put your snap lids in some hot water, and keep it on low so it stays hot and they are ready to go when you need them. After my jars are clean I put them on a cookie sheet in my oven, set at 250 F to keep them hot.

Have everything on the counter ready to go; a set of jar tongs, screw bands, a magnetic jar picker-upper thing, a ladle, canning funnel, etc.

First you have to peel the tomatoes. That's not hard at all, actually. Just lightly score the bottom, and then dunk them into boiling water until the skin starts to split. Fish them out, and plunge them into cold water.


See? Now the skins just come right off. Go ahead, just peel 'em. Be careful though, they can be juicy. I often do it over a bowl-one bowl for the peels, one for the naked tomatoes.


Now you core them and chop 'em up. This part gets kinda messy. I put an old tea towel under my cutting board to catch the juice, and every 2 or 3 tomatoes I tip the juice on the cutting board into the bowl. Usually I cut each tomato into 4-6 pieces.

Put your sliced tomatoes into a large pot and turn the heat to medium. You want to heat them up just until they start to boil. The ladle them into hot 500 ml/ 1 pint canning jars, leaving about 1/2 inch of space between you tomatoes and the top of the jar. This is important! I leave a bit of extra room, and run the handle of a wooden spoon around the inside to make sure there's no air bubbles. Then I add 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp coarse (pickling) salt, and 1 Tbsp lemon juice to EACH pint (500 ml jar).

If there's extra room and I'm not 1/2 inch from the top yet, I top it up with a bit of the juice or tomatoes. Wipe the rims with a clean cloth, top with hot snap lids, then screw on a band until finger tip tight. Place them in your boiling water canner and top up the water until it's covering the jars.


Keep an eye on it, and when you get it back to boiling, time it for 35 minutes. When they are finished, remove the jars to a tea towel on the counter and let them cool. Don't re-tighten the lids!

You will hear popping sounds-that's your lids sealing up! Yay! If any don't seal, after they are cooled to room temperature, stick them in your fridge and use them up over the next few days.

Mmm...now I have 24 jars of tomatoes just waiting in my cupboard, ready to be made into yummy dishes in the middle of winter. I can hardly wait!

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Drunken Peaches

So, what do you do with a bunch of fresh peaches and a bottle of rum?

You get them naked and drunk.

NOT the cook, people, the peaches (sheesh, get your minds out of the gutter!) I found a great recipe on Canadian Living's website and decided to try it. If you have never canned peaches before, it's not really for the faint of heart. There weren't a lot of technical directions on how to exactly DO this recipe, so I'll walk you through it.

First, I put all the jars in the dishwasher to get clean and sterilized. I also filled up my canner with water and put that on the stove to get hot. It's always a good idea to have everything out and ready to go before you begin canning.


To peel the peaches, I put a small x in the bottom of each with a sharp knife, then dunked them in boiling water for a minute before plunging them in ice water. The skins come of really easy then. Slice them up. To keep them from browning I tossed them with a bit of lemon juice.



The recipe gets you to make a sugar syrup, and cook the peeled, sliced peaches in it for about 5 minutes. You then pack them into hot jars, top with some rum, and some of the sugary juice. I found that I actually needed more peaches then the recipe called for to fill the 7 jars, and had a lot of juice left over. They were some juicy peaches!

Next you wipe the rims clean, top with hot snap lids and the screw bands, before processing for 20 minutes in a boiling water canner. This part was, for me, the most frustrating. The jars did wonderfully IN the canner, but as soon as I removed them, all the juice boiled and overflowed out of the jars.

Okay, not ALL the juice, but a lot of it. I'm not quite sure what I did wrong. If anyone wants to fill me in, please do! Ever scientific Jake believes that it's the addition of rum that is the culprit.


They all still had lots of juice, AND they all sealed so even though the loss of some liquid was frustrating, it didn't ruin them completely. If you would like to give them a go, here's the recipe! Let me know how it worked for you.

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