Leftover Turkey Tikka Masala-Great alternative to turkey sandwiches!

Like most of you, my diet has consisted of turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and other Thanksgiving leftovers since Thursday.  This isn't an issue because I love all of the foods in our fridge, but I'm running out of time, and taste buds, to get it eaten.  So I started thinking-hey, chicken tikka masala is made with already cooked chicken, wouldn't leftover turkey work?

So of course I Google that "stuff" and sure enough, there are many returns for turkey tikka masala.  Most are full on recipes with a variety of homemade tikka masala sauces, different ways to cut/shred the turkey and all kinds of delicious sounding ideas.  But I also know I won't make sauce from scratch, so I run by the store, get some Saffron Road Tikka Masala Sauce and jasmine rice.  I get home, throw the rice in the rice cooker (two whole ingredients-rice and water) and get out the leftover turkey.  I strip down one drumstick and one thigh and grab some of the white meat.  The turkey gets chopped into about 1 inch cubes, some pretty square, others all kinds of shape.  Many recipes also called for shredded turkey-that may be next time!  Two tablespoons of butter go in a large pot (no ghee-said this was the quick and shortcut way to tikka masala) and once melted in goes the turkey. I brown/stir-fry the turkey for a few minutes, then dump the sauce all over it.  It doesn't look like much sauce, so I add water to the pouch and add the water.  This isn't recommended by Saffron Road on the package, but didn't weaken the sauces too much as it called for simmering the sauce and turkey.  So we're now up to three more ingredients-turkey, sauce, and butter, plus water but since I also used that with the rice, we're talking 5 whole ingredients.

I let the sauce and turkey simmer for about ten minutes. It could have gone longer and likely would have thickened everything up, but it was hot and I was hungry!

I split the leftovers into four lunch size servings.  2 or 3 would have been closer to my "real" serving sizes but I need to cut back on main course/rice and potatoes only or focused meals and add more variety into my diet.  So these will be good for that.

BTW the link above to the sauce is my Amazon Affiliate store-please help out with a purchase of the sauce or another item of interest. Thank you!

Pre-Thanksgiving Feasting Bicycle Ride Complete

Got out on the bicycle since it's a typical beautiful if not actually too hot San Diego day.  We're in the midst of a Santa Anna, so it's going to be almost 90 degrees today and windy.  So I went for an early ride and did just under 9 miles with a couple of the usual climbs.  I'm still getting back into riding so didn't push too hard.  I kept the average up just above my minimum acceptable pace (hey, I'm still an EOD guy even if retired-EVERYTHING is a competition!)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Do some activity to make room for the pie!

Quick and Easy Sweet Potato Planks

Just a quick update to capture a recipe I made last night-Sweet Potato Planks.  I had a couple of sweet potatoes in the pantry and I have been wanting to try making sweet potato planks, so I looked up a few recipes and gave it a shot.  I need to do better cutting consistent pieces, but the seasoning worked pretty well, and for softer planks, 350 for 30 minutes worked.  I may try broiling them for 3 minutes a side (recommended on one site) next time.

Basically all you do is cut sweet potatoes into either "planks" 1/3-1/2 inch thick or equally thick "discs", place in a large bowl, and add 3 tablespoons olive oil.  (this is actually a bit much-lots left in bowl and on baking sheet).  I added freshly ground sea salt, black pepper and some Italian Seasoning.  I then laid the sweet potatoes out on a baking sheet and put in oven.  Took them out half an hour later and ate a bumch but still have leftovers from two potatoes.  I'm guessing two to three servings per average to large sweet potato.  Or less if you eat sweet potatoes like I do!

Enjoy!

Platelet donation tomorrow

I'm a zealot about donating blood, and have been doing apheresis platelet donations for nearly two decades now.  A few appointments ago I was turned away for low iron-the first time that has ever happened to me.  So I waited two weeks, took an iron supplement every 3-4 days, and was fine the next donation.

So here's to having a high iron count, and lots of healthy platelets-1,000,000,000,000 to be accurate to give away!