A few more kitchen frenetics...

A bit of sunshine in another wise grey, grey, grey week. I do like winter to a certain extent, but January always succeeds in reminding me why I hate it too.
But the whole house is smelling of sunshine as I am making marmalade. For the first time ever, so I have no idea how it will turn out. We can not buy Seville oranges in this country unfortunately, but I have been able to lay my hands on some untreated oranges in our health food store, so these will have to do. The smell of oranges and lemons always makes me think of sunshine, so it does do a whole lot in cheering me up.
As I am in the process of using up Christmas leftovers, I stumbled upon this recipe and cooked it the other day.

White turkey chili
serves 1

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
coarse salt and ground pepper
1/4 pound ground turkey
1 can (15.5 ounces) Cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
Garnishes such as lime wedges, coriander, sour cream, and grated cheese

In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion, jalapeno, garlic, oregano and cumin; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to soften, for 3-4 minutes.
Add turkey and cook, breaking up with a spoon, until no longer pink, 2-3 minutes. Add beans and 3/4 cup water. Bring to the boil, whilst mashing some of the beans against the side of the pan to release starch. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until thickened, 5-10 minutes.

Quicker and easier you can not make it. This recipe is easy to adapt for greater quantities. I did not actually use ground turkey, but the little pieces of turkey I took off the carcass after I had made stock from it. In our house nothing gets thrown out. This is actually quite tasty as you get the goodness of the herbs added to the stock as well. And, as I am a girl that a) simply can not follow instruction, and b) loves her greens; I added some chopped celery sticks, a few left-over Jerusalem artichokes and a small can of sweet corn to the mix. I spooned it over some rice which was left from the day before, and had a wonderfully satisfying meal.
Sometimes the telly is a good source of inspiration as well. I watched a re-run of Nigel Slater's programme and came across this marvellous idea. He sweated off some onions, then added two generous tablespoons of mustard ( smooth and grainy), some broken up sausages and a lot of double cream. All this he used as a pasta sauce. Now I liked the idea of the mustard as that is one of my favourite condiments. Thinking of the left-over stuffing from the Christmas turkey in the freezer ( which basically was sausage meat, sage onions, breadcrumbs and chestnuts combined in this case) this seemed an excellent recipe to use this up. So again, I added some extra veggies, i.e. leeks and celery sticks and softened those first with the onions. Then I added the mustard and cream, and a good bit of parmesan. I added the cream and the sausage meat which I had formed into meatballs. I then cooked some pasta and added that to the mix.
Again, even though this is not very sophisticated, more hearty winterfare, but I loved it.

And last but not least, a bit of progress to show you on my crocheted blanket...
As I am making this from wool from my stash, the colour combinations could start to be a bit tricky and daring at some point, but that is half the fun of it. Wonder when it will be finished though.

Enjoy a relaxing weekend!