*Mom's Ground Turkey & Peppers

*Not my moms.

Before I get into this new recipe, let me say I have tried to post a few times in the last few weeks but things just weren't working out for me! My most recent attempt was crab cakes. Not only was the flavor bad, but they did not hold their shape. No sense posting a horrible recipe! I am still cooking and still eating however so don't fret. Hopefully I'll have some more successful recipes for you soon.

Now, check out this site I found for some gluten free recipes:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/gluten-free/

As a very visual cook, I love the fact there's a picture beside each and quite often additional pictures of the steps. There's quite a few things in the list that I would like to try. While reading through them, I found that most of the ingredients are things I would normally have in my fridge or pantry. This works well with my project for the next 2 weeks: buy only fruits and vegetables for groceries and use what's already in the freezer in pantry. We have so many dried things and frozen things and pastas kicking around that I need to use up! They aren't going bad but they are taking up space and the collection seems to grow a little bit each time we do our Sunday grocery shop.

Here's what I tried tonight (with a package of already purchased & forgotten ground turkey):

*Mom's Ground Turkey & Peppers

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion, including some chopped greens from scallions or green onions (just had the yellow onion)
• 1 bell pepper (red or yellow preferred), chopped (I used yellow)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• Kosher salt
• 1 lb ground turkey, preferably ground turkey thighs
• 1 teaspoon chipotle powder or chili powder (or to taste) (chili powder)
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley or cilantro (I used parsley)

Method

1 Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet on medium high heat. Add the chopped onions and bell pepper and cook until onions and peppers are softened, a couple minutes. Add the garlic and cook 30 seconds more.

2 Push the vegetables to the edge of one side of the pan and position that side of the pan so that it is off the burner, away from the heat. The empty part of the pan should be right over the burner. Add one or two more tablespoons of oil to coat the empty part of the pan. Put crumpled chunks of ground turkey in the pan, sprinkle with salt and chipotle or chili powder.

3 Cook the turkey without stirring until it is browned on one side, then turn the pieces over to brown the other side. Once the turkey is just cooked through, stir in the onions and peppers, and sprinkle with more salt and chili powder to taste. Remove from heat. Stir in fresh chopped parsley or cilantro.
Serve alone, or with steamed rice or noodles.
Serves 4.

To go with the turkey and peppers, I made some Russian Buckwheat (from the Italian Market). Despite the suspicious name, it is gluten free. It's also full of fiber and a nice change from the usual rice or quinoa. Once it's cooked I just add a little salt.

MY REVIEW: This was a good meal! I don't usually cook my ground turkey in that manner but it worked nicely and left the meat in larger pieces than usual. It was a quick and colorful dish.

JASON'S REVIEW: The turkey was hearty and delicious.