Yep, this recipe is delicious sesame goodness, only with turkey instead of chicken. There is a distinct turkey taste, but it’s good and an excellent, non-traditional way to use up leftover turkey!
We like to serve these with my newest discovery, cheese puffs (aka crab rangoon without the crab). You can find wonton wraps in the refrigerated area in your grocery – at Hy-Vee, they are next to the salad mixes and tofu. And of course, these goodies aren’t complete without some homemade sweet and sour sauce!
The original sesame chicken recipe is from RecipeZaar.
Sesame Turkey Recipe Ingredients
- Turkey – I use about 4 cups leftover turkey. But I you can adjust the amount.
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1/2-1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2-1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds – put sesame seeds in a hot pan and stir. They’re done when they’re light brown.
Sesame Turkey Recipe Instructions
- Cut turkey into bite size pieces.
- Heat a large non-stick skillet that has been sprayed with Pam, over medium-high heat.
- Cook turkey until no longer pink. (Or just reheat turkey.)
- Mix together honey, soy sauce, water, corn starch, ginger and red pepper flakes.
- Whisk until no corn starch lumps appear.
- Pour sauce mixture into skillet with turkey.
- Cook until sauce thickens slightly.
- You can add more water if sauce is too thick.
- Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
- Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until turkey starts to soak up the sauce.
Cheese Puffs Recipe
- Put a spoonful of cream cheese on a wonton wrap.
- Rub water around the edge.
- Pinch the edges toward the center.
- Drop in hot oil until light golden brown.
Homemade Sweet and Sour Sauce
The following recipe tastes just like the packaged stuff but doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup. Instead of a bright red color, it’s a translucent brown. This recipe is from About.com.
- 1/3 cup white or rice vinegar (Note: rice vinegar gives better results)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with 4 teaspoons water
Mix the vinegar, brown sugar, ketchup, and soy sauce together and bring to a boil in a small pot. Mix together the cornstarch and water, add to the other ingredients and stir to thicken.
Thanks for visiting! If you’re interested in more recipes you can check out my food and recipes pages. If you want to know what I’ve been up to this week, visit my front page or subscribe via RSS!
I’m also participating in the following carnivals today! You can find many more recipes here:
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Things I’m thankful for:
- God – for all that He has given me.
- My husband – who supports me and my adventures.
- A roof over my head and a husband who has a stable job.
- My family for being there for me. My dad especially has spent so much time, energy, and money, helping us out. He makes the two hour drive to help us haul things and take lawn “trash” to the local compost heap.
- Creativity – from myself, D, and other bloggers. How would we get our house redecorated without creativity? There are so many inspirational people out there.
- Music – it gets me through the day and makes for some fun moments with D.
- Independent contracting – the mystery shopping, auditing, merchandising companies I do jobs for, writing this blog, and online auctions.
- Our 2 dogs and 3 cats for providing countless hours of entertainment (good or bad) and teaching us valuable lessons.
If you’re on here taking a break from cooking the turkey, don’t throw the turkey juice out! Use it to make delicious and easy homemade gravy.
1 part butter (melt in a pot)
1 part flour (when butter’s melted, stir in)
8 parts turkey broth (when butter/flour gets thick, stir in a small amount of broth until thickened, repeat until all broth is used)
If you need concrete numbers instead of a ratio:
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 cups broth (I got about 2.5 cups from a 14 pound turkey)
I know how to do three things with my slow cooker: roast beef (I know, who doesn’t do this?), whole chicken, and yogurt. I’m interested in learning more recipes when I’m in need of one. Although the recipe originally called 1.5 pounds of chicken breasts, I just used a whole chicken. Chicken is my favorite meat, but it’s hard to carve. Slow cooking it solves this problem!
If you’re not ready for the spicy peanut chicken yet, but want to try a whole chicken in the crock pot, I suggest this:
Pour a cheap bottle of wine or 3 cups stock in the crock pot, add a whole chicken, and then slow cook.
Most of the time I don’t pay attention to how long I slow cook – I just crank up the timer – and I have yet to ruin a meal. 
Yeah, someday that is going to come back and bite me… Anyway at the end of the day, you have delicious chicken that requires no carving!
The one thing I don’t like about slow cooking a whole chicken is the skin, as it starts to come off and gets mushy. Next time I will try removing it beforehand to see if I like it better. I hadn’t thought of that until now. All of the spices make your home smell wonderful ~ I loved it!
I have modified the original version of this recipe from Recipezaar. The recipe suggests serving it with basmatti rice and bread.
Ingredients:
- 4 pounds whole chicken
- 28-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice (I used 4 mini cans V8 – don’t do this, it doesn’t thicken the sauce)
- 2-3 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup peanut butter (I used chunky, it leaves chunks in the sauce and I didn’t like that)
- 1 small diced onion
- 3 garlic cloves (minced)
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1+ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (as desired)
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 2 tablespoons white sugar (optional, but recommended if using natural peanut butter)
Instructions:
- Put all ingredients except the chicken into a slow cooker. Stir to combine.
- Add the chicken. Cook on low until liquid has thickened and chicken is cooked. I cooked it for 8 hours.
If you’re interested in more recipes you can check out my food and recipes pages. If you want to know what I’ve been up to this week, visit my front page!
I’m also participating in the following carnivals today! You can find many more recipes here:
Yep, you read that right! And yes, we’re still working on eating all of those potatoes I mentioned a while back. I am now out of town to attend Blogworld 2009 (twitter #bwe09) and D will be joining me on Sunday to attend a convention as well. For the last couple days we’ve been trying to use up the fridge foods and he decided he wanted to try making tater tots.
D wanted me to make sure I told you that if you’re not feeling adventurous or patient, just go to the store and buy a bag of tots for 99-cents. He followed the directions of other recipes and got frustrated so he made his own. Also, the way D cooks, this recipe is also not for those who get annoyed by non-measured-out recipes.
1 – Instructions for Potato “Glue”
(this holds the potatoes together)
- Potatoes – peeled and shredded
- Flour
- Egg
- Oil
- Spices – your choice. D used Salt, pepper, and paprika
- Mix flour, egg, oil, and spices together until you form a paste.
- Mix potatoes into the paste
- Form balls
- Then…
2 – Instructions for the “Crust”
- Flour
- Spices – your choice. D used Salt, pepper, and paprika
- Mix the above ingredients together
- Bread the potato mixture one at a time
- Place on a plate and flatten into patties
- Then…
3 – Carefully put the potato patties into hot oil and fry both sides until light golden brown.
4 – Drain on a paper towel lined plate
5 – Sprinkle with salt if you want and enjoy! Or use them in a recipe… 
My Opinion: In the future I would add a lot more potatoes to the mix – just enough to hold them together. This would make them more potato-y. The crust was excellently crunchy!
Tater Tot Casserole
Ingredients:
- 1 can Cream Soup (We used Cream of Mushroom)
- 1 can Corn
- 1 pound ground beef
- Shredded cheese
- Homemade Tots
Instructions:
- Mix soup, corn, beef, and cheese
- Pour mixture into a 9×13 dish
- Top with shredded cheese
- Layer tots on top
- And if you’re like D, top with even more cheese!
- Bake at 350 degrees F until bubbly (about 30 minutes)
- Enjoy!
If you’re interested in more recipes you can check out my food and recipes pages.
I’m also participating in the following carnivals today! You can find many more recipes here:
The days are getting shorter. In Iowa, the leaves are starting to change and the cool, sweet scent of fall permeates the crisp air. Of course this is after the grey days and cold rain that are happening right now. The smaller farmer’s markets are winding down and the larger markets are preparing to move into their “winter market” homes.
Iowa Fall Produce
- Apple
- Onions
- Pumpkins
- Radishes
- Squash – spaghetti, acorn, butternut
- Sweet potatoes
- Turnips
- Tomatoes
- Zucchini
My favorite fall treat is acorn squash. It brings back memories of my dad bringing some back from a local market. The way I fix it now is the way he fixed it – cut in half with butter and brown sugar… yum! I have yet to get my acorn squash this season because I set out to try some new-to-me foods. Honestly, I don’t think that I’ve ever eaten butternut squash. At least not that I can remember, so that was my experiment this week. For you today I have not one, not two, but three ways to use up butternut squash!
The “appetizer” today is…
Roasted Butternut Squash Seeds
- Cut open the squash. Scoop out the seed mess.
- If you’re not ready to roast, you can put them in a container for later use.
- If you’re ready to roast, place the seeds in a colander. Spray some water on them and slosh around.
- Pick out all the stringies you can and discard/compost.
- Let the seeds dry for about 30 minutes.
- Place the seeds in a baking pan.
- Let them dry some more.
- Preheat your oven to 275 degrees F.
- Pick a seasoning! (However I did not need as much as their recipe calls for, so I made minor adjustments.) I did basic butter and my favorite salt! (I put them in a bowl for this part.) Lightly baste the seeds.
- Bake at 275 degrees F for 10-30 minutes, checking every 5 or so.
- Scrumptious! They taste just like pumpkin seeds.
For the “main dish”, you are having…
