Eating Turkey All Week ....It's a Good Thing

I put a turkey breast in my Crockpot and let it slow cook all day so I could have turkey this week.   My mother cooks like this and she says, “You can eat on it all week”.   I salt and peppered the frozen breast and placed it in the Crockpot on low for the entire day and did not have to heat up my kitchen.  The turkey is moist and tender and ready for many meals.  Mom bought a pork loin on sale and has “been eating on it” all week.  It sure makes life simpler and easier and I'm always for that.

You can plan you meals ahead of time and bag up the turkey according to your needs.  I thought I would begin the week with a turkey and spinach salad with a honey and mustard dressing.

Spinach Salad with Honey and Mustard Dressing

Dressing

5 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons yellow mustard

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (you can substitute plain vinegar also)

A pinch of kosher salt and pepper

Put the ingredients in a mason jar and shake well.  You can store it in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.  This recipe makes enough for several individual salads. 

Salad

Baby spinach

Baby lettuces

Grated carrot

Radicho

Cubed cold turkey or chicken  

Your favorite nut (optional)

Clean spinach and greens and put them in a salad spinner or on top of paper towel to dry so your dressing will adhere to the greens.   You might want to look at the pre-mixed salad mixes out there so you don’t have a lot of left over’s or spoilage.  They have a lot of them on sale this week at Fareways for only 99 cents each, so I’m using the Tender Garden mix for this salad.   I have noted above what is in the mix if you wish to know. You can add or take out any of the veggies. 

For this spinach salad, you can add a nut for texture and taste if you like. Try pumpkin seeds or cashews.  The bag makes enough for 3 large salads and the dressing should dress 3 salads.

I also got a pre-packaged Caesar Salad mix on sale and will do the same thing with it and turkey this week. 

Variation – I’m using turkey because I have it, but you can use the tiny, peeled, with tails off shrimp.  Just put a little butter in a pan, season the shrimp and sauté them until they are done.  Applebee’s used to serve a wonderful spinach and shrimp salad. They used an oriental dressing.  When I was working, I used to order it with their tomato basil soup when I had lunch there.  I loved them both. 

Here is a copy cat version of the dressing.  It would work well with my salad today also.

Copy Cat Applebee’s Oriental Dressing

3 tbs. honey

4 tsp. mayonnaise

½ tsp. dark roasted sesame oil

1 tbs. Dijon mustard

1 ½  tbs. white vinegar

Add honey, mayonnaise, sesame oil, Dijon mustard and white vinegar in a mason jar and shake well. Chill.  It will keep for a couple of weeks.

My menu for the rest of the week:

• Tuesady - I'm on a bus trip to Chicago and need a bag lunch so am making a turkey sandwich
• Wednesday - Turkey and brown rice with left over salad (I saved the juices from the turkey for this)
• Thursday - Caesar salad with cold turkey 
• Friday - Turkey cheesy asparagus casserole (Fareways had grated cheeses on sale also)

If you are on a fixed budget, planning ahead and looking for sales makes a huge difference in your grocery bill.  I read the Fareways ad and work out a menu for the week and make a grocery list and I try to stick to my list.  Cut out any coupons you can. The turkey breast will easily give me 5 meals or more and the salads being on sale helped me decide what is for lunch several days.  We have another week of heat ahead of us, so cold salads and heating up the kitchen as little as possible sounded really good to me. 

Be frugal and be happy.  May God bless you and yours.