Teriyaki Turkey Meatballs & Stir Fry

Need dinner in 10 minutes (no joke!)? My daughter & I played "Iron Chef" and she timed me. We were both laughing so hard as I literally *threw* items into the wok. A fun memory and a delicious, low-fat & cal, high fiber & protein meal. What more could you ask for?

I grabbed 2 bags from the freezer & all my remaining fresh veggies. Guess what? The WHOLE family LOVED it!

Ingredients:
1 bag of Trader Joe's Turkey Meatballs
1 bag of Trader Joe's Pre-cooked Organic Brown Rice (organic is key, regular = disgusting)
1/2 bag of Trader Joe's broccoli Slaw
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 zucchini, finely chopped
1/2 container of crimini mushrooms
1 handful of mini carrots, finely chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1 handful of snap peas, sliced on diagonal
{remember: you can just use any hard vegetables left in your drawer, you don't have to use all of these or you could add more)
2 T peanut or vegetable oil (EVOO will NOT work with stir fry, gets too hot)

Sauce:
1/2 C (or more) Soyyaki sauce
2 T cornstarch
2 T honey

Directions:
1. Turn stove onto high heat (7 or 8); Add oil into Wok.
2. When oil is hot, stir in vegetables, salt & pepper to taste & cook until they begin to look transparent. Remove.
3. While vegetables are cooking, defrost meatballs for 2 minutes in microwave (entire bag).

4. Turn Wok heat to medium. Add in sauce & stir quickly, add in meatballs. Keep stirring. Don't let sauce burn. Coat meatballs in sauce until saturated and covered.
5. While meatballs are coating in sauce, put rice in microwave & cook.

6. Serve meatballs over rice, vegetables on the side or add on top of rice, then meatballs.

Enjoy!

Turkey Meatballs by M. Lazaro

Ingredients:
1lb of ground turkey
1/2 packet of Italian dressing mix
1 C of Italian bread crumbs
1 egg
1T olive oil

Directions:
1. Mix all together, except EVOO
2. Form into meatballs
3. Add EVOO into pan & brown meat balls on all sides
4. Place onto a baking sheet and cook @ 375 for 20-25 minutes (watch).

Serve alone w/ rice OR with your traditional spaghetti and Bolognese or Marinara sauce.

*This is a VERY easy recipe that your children will love to make "by themselves".

Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey

Super easy…got it off a show on the food network. My dad said it was the best turkey he’d ever had!

All you’ll need is
Chicken broth
kosher salt
celery salt (this was difficult to find but at local grocery stores)
paprika
2 cubes of butter (melted)
a pan (make sure it’s big enough I waited to figure this out until the morning of…not good)
a basting brush
a thermometer (the last 3 you can get at Ross or Marshalls, much cheaper)
I got a 21 lb turkey for 16 people and we had some leftovers. This turkey barely fit in my mom’s *huge* pan. So depending on how many people you have, you can downsize from this.

Instructions:
Heat oven to 350
Clean turkey – rinse w/ water inside and out. Take out giblets and anything else that is packaged inside the turkey.
Place turkey in pan.
Add ¼ C chicken broth to the bottom of the pan
Smother in melted butter – brush it all over the outside of the chicken
Sprinkle the entire top of turkey w/ salt mixture (3 T salt, 3 T celery salt, ½ T of paprika) – you can “eye” these proportions and make more if needed.
Lightly cover w/ foil (one piece over the top and secured on 2 edges is fine).
Bake @ 350 for 12-15min per pound (For a 21lb turkey, I put it in the oven at 5:30am and it was ready by 11:00/30 and cut by 12noon). They take forever to cook, but it’s super easy b/c you can do the rest of your baking while it’s cooking since you’re already up). Watch it around the last hour to make sure it’s not getting too done and add more butter to it (may want to drizzle to not remove salt that’s already on it).
Remove foil for the last 15 minutes (this gives it the golden color)

KEY! For a moist turkey = let it stand for AT LEAST ½ hour before cutting. If you cut it too early it’ll dry out. It’s okay for turkey to be warm/room temperature but it’s not okay for the sides to be cold. This ½ hour gives you the perfect amount of time to bake your side dishes and warm the rolls.