Turkey Pesto Meatloaf with Balsamic Tomato Sauce

I tried two meatloaf recipes recently. One was a traditional meatloaf made with all beef and a balsamic glaze on top. It wasn’t all that great. You won’t see it here. The other is a healthier version made with turkey and pesto with a balsamic (and tomato sauce) glaze. This one is blog-worthy. It’s been a hit both times I made it. The leftovers are fantastic whether they’re cold in a sandwich or reheated for another dinner.

Oh yes, I do have a third meatloaf recipe. It was a sensation when I made it for Halloween a few years ago. Have you seen my Meatloaf Hand?

Wait! I have a fourth meatloaf recipe, deep in the archives. I remember it now. It’s also a tasty one using both beef and turkey. And beer.

Like all meatloaf recipes, this turkey pesto meatloaf is pretty straightforward. Taking the turkey out of the refrigerator ahead of time will prevent your hands from freezing when you combine the ingredients. Also, don’t keep mixing the ingredients beyond the point of just being combined. I don’t have any experience (that I’m aware of) doing this but I’ve read that over-handling will compress the meat and toughen the meatloaf.

Turkey Pesto Meatloaf with Tomato Sauce

You’ll need a roasting or broiler pan, small skillet, large bowl, small bowl or ramekin for sauce, pastry brush and meat thermometer.

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1-1/2 pounds lean ground turkey – This is a pain when ground turkey at your market only comes in 1# packages. I used 2# and increased the garlic, pesto, cheese and breadcrumbs.
• 1/4 cup basil pesto
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs – Make in the food processor from whole wheat bread, 1 or 2 slices will do it.
• 1/4 cup marinara sauce, preferably low-sugar like Classico (per Kalyn) — I used Barilla, I have no idea of its sugar content.
• 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

Let the ground turkey come to room temperature while you prep the other ingredients, so you don’t freeze your hands. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a roasting pan with olive oil or nonstick spray. I like to use the broiler pan so the fat drips into the moat along the edges.

Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onion over medium-high heat until it’s starting to slightly brown, about 7-8 minutes. Add the garlic, lower heat slightly, and sauté about 2 minutes more.

Using a bowl that’s large enough to get both hands into it, combine the ground turkey, sautéed onion and garlic, pesto, Parmesan cheese, salt and breadcrumbs. Mix the ingredients just until they’re combined.

Form the mixture into a loaf shape and place on the roasting pan. Bake meatloaf for 40 minutes. While it bakes, stir together the marinara sauce and balsamic vinegar.

After 40 minutes, brush the sauce onto the meatloaf, until it’s completely covered with sauce. Continue to bake, and if you have any sauce left over, brush the meatloaf a few more times. Bake until a meat thermometer shows a temperature of 160F. I cooked my meatloaf for a total time of one hour before it got to that temperature. Kalyn’s took one hour and 20 minutes.

Original recipe: Turkey Pesto Meatloaf, Kalyn’s Kitchen

Salmon with Citrus Pesto

Last weekend I added basil to my herb “garden” on the deck, as well as sage, dill and thyme. Last year’s rosemary, oregano, mint and lemon thyme survived the mild winter and already have new growth. I’m still on the hunt for tarragon. My local Lowe’s and Ace Hardware didn’t have any. I’ll probably have to visit the State Farmers Market for that.

Luckily I still have 2011 pesto in the freezer, so I made this delicious Giada recipe using salmon instead of swordfish. I never thought of adding citrus to my pesto – it’s amazingly good!

I included two variations of the recipe in case you have to make pesto from scratch. Since I already had pesto, all I had to do was thaw it out and add the lemon and orange zest and juice to it. I also added Parmesan cheese since I don’t include cheese in my pesto before freezing it.

It’s worth growing a few basil plants so you can always grab a few leaves for whatever you’re cooking (or for your salad) or make your own pesto. Just keep trimming off the growth so they don’t start flowering. Once they start flowering, the leaves become more bitter. My father’s green thumb doesn’t extend to me – my brother got that gene – so if I can grow basil, you can grow basil.

Yeah, we really piled on the pesto.

I served the salmon with my favorite Broccoli Rabe with Onions and Sun-Dried Tomatoes and a brown/wild rice mix.

Salmon with Citrus Pesto

You’ll need a food processor (if you’re making pesto from scratch), small bowl, and a skillet or grill pan.

Pesto from scratch ingredients:

•  2 cups of fresh basil leaves — I usually fill up the processor with leaves.
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts or walnuts, toasted
• 2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1 orange, zested and juiced
• 1/2 cup olive oil — eyeball in batches
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Pesto on hand ingredients:

• 1/2 cup prepared pesto
• 1/2 lemon, zested and juiced – some of the juice, probably won’t need it all
• 1/2 orange, zested and juiced – some of the juice, probably won’t need it all
• Optional: 1/4 cup grated Parmesan (because my pesto didn’t have any cheese in it, I had to add cheese, you probably won’t)

Additional ingredients:

• 2 (6-ounce) salmon fillets
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Blend the basil, nuts, garlic, salt, zests and juices in a food processor until the mixture is finely chopped. With the machine running, gradually add the olive oil until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the Parmesan.

Place a grill pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Brush both sides of the fish fillets with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook the fish about 3 to 4 minutes on each side for a 1-inch thick fillet.

Transfer the fish to serving plates, top with the citrus pesto, and serve.

Original recipe: Swordfish with Citrus Pesto, Giada de Laurentiis, Food Network

Baked Stuffed Chicken with Pesto and Mozzarella

I rock, but I don’t roll. Or stuff. But that will change. I made a stuffed (not rolled) pork loin roast this weekend that was fantastic. The stuffed (and rolled) chicken breast recipe I’m sharing with you today is another good find. I predict more stuffing and rolling in my future.

The chicken recipe is from the Kalyn’s Kitchen blog. She specializes in healthy food inspired by her experience with the South Beach diet and low glycemic index foods. I’ve subscribed to her blog for a while, but never investigated the philosophy behind it. Now that I’ve read this explanation of the glycemic index, it makes a lot more sense.

The glycemic index (GI) is a ranking of carbohydrates on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the extent to which they raise blood sugar levels after eating. Foods with a high GI are those which are rapidly digested and absorbed and result in marked fluctuations in blood sugar levels. Low-GI foods, by virtue of their slow digestion and absorption, produce gradual rises in blood sugar and insulin levels, and have proven benefits for health. Low GI diets have been shown to improve both glucose and lipid levels in people with diabetes. They have benefits for weight control because they help control appetite and delay hunger. Low GI diets also reduce insulin levels and insulin resistance.

Food that’s good and good for you, I like that. Maybe Paula Deen could learn a thing or two from Kalyn.

Deen’s food always made me uncomfortable. Sure, she’s a hoot, and her food is over-the-top laughable, but she pushed that crap through TV shows and cookbooks. And now we find out she has diabetes (no surprise). She’s had it for three years, kept it to herself (her right) yet kept selling her heart-attack menu. I know, we’re all responsible for our own choices and health. What a funny coincidence her son’s new healthy cooking show is debuting right about now. Ugh. No shame.

Back to my chicken. This recipe is easy to prepare, but it can get a bit messy. I use an old rubber mallet to pound meats. I bought it years and years ago at Ikea to assemble furniture. It’s lived in a kitchen drawer ever since. After pounding, your chicken may look ragged. Don’t worry, patch it up from the inside with pieces of chicken, and tuck in the parts that stick out too much.

I could have pounded the chicken even thinner because the filling was oozing out a bit, as you can see in this ‘before’ photo.

The final product, however, looked and tasted great. I’ll make this recipe again soon. I love the idea of substituting nut meal for bread crumbs. Walnuts would also work well. I served the chicken with a cauliflower dish that I really didn’t like (so you won’t see it here) and the usual microwaved easy sweet potatoes.

Baked Chicken Stuffed with Pesto and Cheese

You’ll need a casserole dish big enough for the chicken, heavy plastic bag or wrap (for pounding), rubber mallet or meat pounder (or improvise, I used a wine bottle at the beach), three small bowls and a spatula.

• 2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of fat
• 2 heaping tablespoons basil pesto 
• 2 tablespoons low-fat sour cream
• 2 heaping tablespoons grated mozzarella cheese
• 2 eggs, beaten 
• 3 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 tablespoons almond meal (grind almonds in a food processor or coffee grinder) or almond flour
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Spray the casserole dish with non-stick spray. Put chicken breasts one at a time inside a plastic bag and pound until the chicken is as thin as you can get it.

In a small bowl, mix together the pesto, sour cream and mozzarella. Use a spatula to spread a thin layer over each chicken breast, stopping about 1/2 inch from the edge of the chicken, so it doesn’t run out that much as it cooks. Roll up the breasts and secure them with a couple of toothpicks. 

Prepare two bowls, one with the egg and the other with the Parmesan-almond mixture, seasoned with black pepper to taste. Dip each roll first into the egg mixture and then into the Parmesan-almond mixture, patting it on so the  roll is well-coated. 

Put chicken breasts into the casserole dish and bake until the chicken is firm and lightly browned. Start checking after about 25-30 minutes, total baking time will be 30-35 minutes.

Original recipe: Chicken Stuffed with Pesto and Cheese, Kalyn’s Kitchen

Summer Vegetables with Pesto

Pesto lives in our freezer all year long thanks to my diligent harvesting of our basil plants throughout the summer and into the fall. Yet I tend to cook more with pesto in the summer. Pesto is summer. I’m always amazed at how damn good it tastes.

We only have three basil plants this year. Hopefully I’ll get enough pesto out of them to last until next summer. We’re still using last fall’s pesto so I’ve got a bit of a cushion.

Here’s a recipe that makes an appearance on our table at least every other week in the summer.

Photo of basil by Isaac Wedin

Summer Vegetables with Pesto

I make this recipe so often in the summer that I don’t really think of it in recipe terms. Like many Italian-style dishes I make, I don’t measure ingredients, but here’s an approximation of what I did last night.

You’ll need a large skillet.

• Olive oil
• 3 zucchini, sliced lengthwise, then into 1/4” slices
• 2 summer squash, sliced lengthwise, then into 1/4” slices
• 6-8 oz cremini or white mushrooms, sliced
• Salt
• 1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
• Kernels from 2 cobs of corn
• 4 ice cubes of frozen pesto, thawed, or 1/4-1/3 cup of prepared pesto (guessing at that amount)

Other options:

• What else do you have in the refrigerator that would work? Last night I had a broccoli stem after using the florets for salad. I chopped that up and added it to the pan. Roasted eggplant also works well in this dish.
• My pesto has garlic in it so I don’t feel the need to add any more to the pan, but if you’re garlic crazy, you might feel differently.
• Do you want a little heat? Add some red pepper flakes.

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add zucchini, squash, mushrooms and a sprinkling of salt to the pan. Sauté until vegetables are just beginning to soften. Stir in tomatoes and corn, and sauté until tomatoes are beginning to soften. Stir in pesto and take off the heat.

Pesto Mashed Potatoes

You know how cheese makes everything taste better? Pesto works that way too, and it’s a lot less fattening. The best pesto is homemade. The best homemade pesto comes from basil plants in your garden or in pots on your balcony or deck. We had about five good-sized basil plants last year and they provided enough pesto to last us well into this summer. It adds a bit of summer to every dish.

In a few months it will be time to buy seeds or seedlings. Starting from seed is much less expensive than buying small plants. We followed the directions on the seed package and did just fine — no other education required.

I made these potatoes (and Italian Spaghetti Squash) to accompany my Provencal Chicken dinner. It’s a nice twist on mashed potatoes. If pesto isn’t your thing, you could try Cheesy Broccoli Mashed Potatoes instead.

Pesto Mashed Potatoes

• 2-3 pounds red-skinned potatoes, cut large ones into pieces
• Salt
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 Tbsp pesto, or more to taste
• 2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
• Freshly ground black pepper

Cover potatoes with water and bring to a boil. Add salt and cook until potatoes are tender, 10-12 minutes. Drain potatoes and return them to the pot. Add broth and mash the potatoes a bit, not too much. Add pesto and mash a bit more, until they’re the desired consistency. Stir in parmesan. Season with salt and pepper.

Original recipe: Pesto Mashed Potatoes, Rachael Ray, Food Network

Flickr photo by Shoshanah

Eggplant Marinara & Mozzarella Stacks

Thou shalt not covet fat shiny purple-black eggplants. Oh, but I do. I know the season is over and wonder where my market is getting theirs, but I love their glossy fullness, the contrast between the dark skin and green stem cap. They even squeak. I can’t resist them. Their meaty flesh is the perfect accompaniment to tomato sauce, cheese and pesto.

I found this recipe on the Proud Italian Cook blog. Marie cooks soul food. Many of her recipes, including this one, don’t specify ingredient amounts or cooking times, you have to use your instinct or nose to figure out how much is enough. But that’s easy to do with this recipe. All you have to do is create stacks — no need for specifics.

You’ll need to roast eggplant slices for this recipe. That’s an easy thing to do ahead of time or just before assembling the stacks. Use leftover roasted eggplant slices for sandwiches — add a little provolone cheese and pesto mayo — or in stir-fry.

Her recipe calls for fresh mozzarella but I bought an 8 oz bag of shredded regular mozzarella instead because it was half-price. I’m a proud frugal not-really-Italian cook.

Once you make this recipe, you’ll always return to it because it’s so easy and so delicious. My recipe for Garlic Bread is below too.

photo courtesy of Marie of Proud Italian Cook blog

Eggplant Stacks

• 6 oz shredded mozzarella, or fresh mozzarella
• 2 eggplants — for six stacks
• 6 tablespoons basil pesto — homemade or store-bought
• ½ jar marinara sauce, or homemade – I prefer a spicy sauce, add crushed red pepper if necessary
• Coarse breadcrumbs — whole wheat, white or both
• Grated parmesan cheese — you can add romano or mozzarella to this

Prepare the eggplant by picking off the stem caps, then slicing each end off. Stand it up and peel the skin off with a knife. Sometimes if you cut the eggplant in half crosswise, it’s easier to handle its curves. You can leave some skin on and take some off, in zebra fashion, striping it as you go around. Or you can peel it all off. Slice the peeled eggplant into 3/4″ rounds. Brush the slices on both sides with olive oil, place them on a sheet pan and bake in a 450F oven until the slices are golden and tender.

Toast the breadcrumbs. If you’re using fresh mozzarella, slice it into rounds.

Spread marinara sauce in the bottom of the baking dish. Place six eggplant slices, or one for  each stack, spaced out, on the bottom of the dish. Spread about 1 Tbsp, or whatever amount covers the eggplant, of marinara sauce on top of each slice, then a piece of fresh mozzarella or about 1 Tbsp shredded cheese. Place another eggplant slice on top and spread with a scant Tbsp of pesto. Add the final eggplant slices, more sauce and another piece of fresh mozzarella or shredded cheese. Top with more sauce, toasted breadcrumbs and, finally, the grated parmesan cheese. Go easy on the crumbs — you don’t want too much dryness on the top.

The assembly order looks like this: marinara on bottom of dish, eggplant, marinara, mozzarella, eggplant, pesto, eggplant, marinara, mozzarella, marinara, breadcrumbs, parmesan mix.

Bake uncovered at 375F until heated through and cheese is melted, about 15 minutes. Serve with a green salad and garlic bread.

Garlic Bread

Slice a baguette in half crosswise and then lengthwise. Melt some butter in a dish in the microwave. Add some olive oil to it. Brush that onto the cut sides of the bread. Sprinkle chopped fresh parsley and oregano (or dried oregano) on each piece. Add some chopped sautéed garlic (or garlic powder or garlic salt). Sprinkle with a little shredded mozzarella if you have some left over, or parmesan. Cut the baguette into serving size pieces — big slabs — and wrap each in foil. Bake in oven while your Eggplant Stacks are finishing up, 5-10 minutes.

Original recipe: Proud Italian Cook – Eggplant Stacks

Shrimp Pesto Pasta

The night before we left for the beach, I got out the scissors to harvest some basil to make pesto to take along with us. I’m milking these basil plants as long as I can by cutting off leaves and new growth weekly so I can hold off the inevitable flowering. Since they’re in pots they’re not going to get too big. Each harvesting gives me about 1 to 1-1/2 cups of pesto.

I had no ideas about what I might do with the pesto, but I figured I could always make pasta. And sure enough, when Jim’s uncle gave us a huge bag of fresh shrimp (heads and all), I knew pasta was on the menu that night. I saved the heads and shells for my friend Scott to use as a stock base for the delicious clam chowder he makes every summer for the clan — this year, about 45 of us. He sweats under the relentless sun while clamming in the  low-tide mud of the lagoon and we get the rewards –  two huge pots of chowder.

I’m sorry to say that making pasta is never an exercise in measuring for me. I’m guessing at these ingredient amounts. At the beach I made enough for about 10-12 people, but I’m estimating here for about 2-4 people, depending on your appetite and love of leftovers. Sorry, I can’t get any more specific. When in doubt, use more ingredients.

One tip: don’t add all the cooked pasta at once to the pan in case you made too much pasta for the amount of sauce you have. If you do have leftover cooked pasta, toss it with some olive oil and store in the refrigerator to use later in the week.

No original photos, again. I forgot to bring my camera to the beach. I did find a photo on another website that looked a bit like what I made, minus some ingredients.

Mine was better.

Shrimp Pesto Pasta

• Olive oil to coat the pan
• 1 large onion, at least, cut in half and sliced
• Optional – 1 large zucchini, cut in quarters lengthwise and sliced — I had some in the refrigerator so I used it. You could add any vegetable you think would enhance the dish, like asparagus or broccoli.
• Garlic – a few cloves, minced or sliced
• 1 large tomato, chopped, or grape or cherry tomatoes, cut in half or quarters, or chopped sundried tomatoes (go lighter on the sundrieds since they are more intensely flavored)
• Shrimp, minus heads and shells, cleaned, left whole or cut into large pieces
• 1/4 cup or so of white wine
• Optional – cream or milk, if you want a creamy pesto sauce
• Pesto — add Parmesan cheese to it if you haven’t already
• Reserved pasta water
• A few Tbsp of butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 to 1 pound of pasta — fettuccine, linguine or whatever is on hand

Start heating your pasta water until it comes to a boil. Then add pasta, stirring a good amount at the beginning so it doesn’t stick.

Add olive oil to your heated pan. Saute onions (and any other vegetables) over low heat until soft. Add garlic and saute until it starts to smell good and turn a bit golden. Then add chopped tomatoes and salt. When tomatoes have “melted” a bit, add shrimp and saute a few minutes.

Add wine to pan, let it reduce a bit and then add milk or cream, if using, and let it reduce further.

Reserve some pasta water before draining your pasta. Meanwhile, add and stir in pesto to your pan. Taste for seasoning. Then add your drained pasta and mix it all up good, adding pasta water if you need more sauce. If feeling indulgent, add a few Tbsp of butter and mix in before serving.

Make a salad and some garlic bread, pour some wine and enjoy this pasta.

Pesto Frenzy

For many years I’ve grown lots of basil for the sole purpose of making and freezing pesto. Opening up a bag full of frozen pesto cubes is like inhaling summer. Basil is easy to grow in pots or in the ground. It likes to be well-watered and live in a sunny place.

Keep picking the upper bracts off above new growth so that it doesn’t flower and will keep growing. Once it starts to flower, the leaves get bitter as the plant’s energy focuses on the flowers instead of the leaves, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.

Recipes for pesto are easy to find online. Long ago I followed Marcella Hazan’s recipe in The Classic Italian Cook Book: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating. That book is out of print, however, it’s now  part of her newer Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Once you make it, you won’t need a recipe for future batches, just eyeball it. Here’s Marcela’s recipe for Blender Pesto with my notes.

• 2 cups of fresh basil leaves — I usually fill up the processor with  leaves.
• 1/2 cup olive oil — eyeball in batches
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted — I substitute walnuts.
  
• 2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese – you won’t need cheese if you’re freezing the pesto.
  
• 3 tablespoons softened butter — I only add butter, if I remember, when I’m making pesto to serve immediately
  

photo by flickr/thebittenword.com

Put basil, some of the olive oil, walnuts, garlic and salt in the food processor (that’s what I always use) and process, scraping down sides and checking consistency. Or, you could use a blender, or the old-fashioned method of mortar and pestle. Add olive oil until it looks right for your needs — liquidy enough to freeze or serve.

Scrape into a bowl and add cheese and butter — unless you’re freezing the pesto, in which case, omit these for now and add later when thawed.

I usually freeze all my pesto, except what I’m using immediately. Spoon it into an ice cube tray. Cover the tray with wrap and put it in the freezer. Once it’s frozen, pop them out and store in sandwich bags inside a freezer bag. Remember to add the parmesan cheese and butter, if desired, after thawing, if you omitted them earlier.

How to use pesto? Here are some of the ways I’ve used pesto, there are many more possibilities.

• Pasta — in all kinds of pasta sauces — plain pesto (with pasta water), pesto cream, white or red clam sauce, tomato or meat sauce,  vegetable saute
• Sauteed or grilled vegetables, ratatouille
• Tomato salad or stuffed tomatoes
  
• Pan-roasted or grilled chicken
• Fish
  
• Omelet or scrambled eggs
• White beans
• Pesto mayonnaise – great for tomato or eggplant sandwiches
• Pizza — white or tomato sauce
• Soups – add a bit to the top of minestrone or other soups
• Pasta or broccoli salad
  
• Chicken salad

My nephew loves pesto