turkey, turkey, turkey...

Rosemary Scented Turkey Quesadillas with Cranberry Salsa

In our house the left over turkey from Christmas day usually gets made up into a delicious turkey curry or popped between a couple of slices of bread and served up as sandwiches until it has all been devoured. I thoroughly enjoy both of these but thought how nice it might be to serve up something different. I've had a scout around and come up with a few new recipes that I will share with you. I found this recipe in a healthy eating magazine and have already tried and tested it so i know not only do they taste amazing but they are pretty healthy too. They taste light and fresh and are the perfect meal for the day after Christmas when you may have overindulged a little too much.

Ingredients:
8 Stalks celery, minced
1 yellow onion, minced
100g fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped (thawed, if frozen)
2 large pears, peeled and diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
Juice 1 orange
1/2 tsp sea salt
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp dried rosemary
500g shredded turkey, if you are not using leftover turkey you could use ground turkey for this.
8-15 corn tortillas (6-inch diameter)
grated cheese, enough to taste, why not use up the left overs from the cheese platter and create lots of different flavour combinations.

1. To prepare the salsa add 2 stalks of celery, 1/2 onion, cranberries, pear, 1 clove of garlic and orange juice. Season with sea salt and black pepper. Set aside for later.
2. Preheat a large non stick frying pan or skillet and add the remaining celery and onion and cook for 3 minutes. Add in the rosemary and the remaining garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. If you are using the ground turkey add this now and cook for 5 minutes breaking it up as you do. With a fine mesh colander drain the turkey mixture and leave to sit in a large bowl. If you are using leftover turkey you just add this to the bowl of celery, onion, rosemary and garlic now.
3. Wipe out the frying pan or skillet and reheat to a medium heat. Add a tortilla to the frying pan then add a few spoons of mixture to cover the tortilla. Sprinkle cheese to cover. I like a lot of cheese so I get a little carried away at this point. Leave this to cook undisturbed for 3 minutes.
4. With a spatula gently fold the tortilla in half and cook for one minute gently pressing the tortilla closed if need be.
5. divide the quesadillas between the plates and add some salsa to garnish. They are so tasty, you will just love them.

I love making quesadillas as you can add any leftovers you have in the fridge and make delicious snacks in no time. They can be as simple or adventurous as you like and always go down a treat. I love to add some sour cream to top mine off perfectly. Enjoy.

smile... it's friday...

Well December is upon us and although it doesn't feel very much like Christmas in Australia, we are hopping on a plane to New Zealand tonight and taking a months holiday including Christmas spent with my wonderful aunt in Auckland. In light of this I thought Some festive facts would go down a treat this week.

US scientists calculated that Santa would have to visit 822 homes a second to deliver all the world's presents on Christmas Eve, travelling at 650 miles a second.

Although now mostly vegetarian, in Victorian times, mince pies were made with beef and spices.

The tradition of putting tangerines in stockings comes from 12th-century French nuns who left socks full of fruit, nuts and tangerines at the houses of the poor.

Carols began as an old English custom called wassailing, toasting neighbours to a long life.

In Greece, Italy, Spain and Germany, workers get a Christmas bonus of one month's salary by law.

If you received all of the gifts listed in "The Twelve Days of Christmas" song, you would receive 364 presents!

During the Christmas season, 1.76 billion candy canes will be made.

The average person spends 2 hours and 27 minutes wrapping presents!

The average person will go to one Christmas party, sing five carols and eat 30 pieces of chocolate candy!

Based on previous surveys, 17% of you will embarrass yourselves in some way at your office Christmas party!

Nearly 3,000 tons of aluminium foil will be used to wrap Christmas turkeys!

Happy Friday all and hope people are beginning to get into the festive spirit a little bit too. x

car engine cooking...

About two years ago Sazzle and I were going on a road trip to the circus. Sazzle was driving and I was to be her co driver. She even prepared some light reading for the journey which included instructions and ideas for cooking food on a car engine.

Unfortunately the journey we were making wasn't really long enough to cook a pork tenderloin (although if you include all the time we spent lost, tearing around country lanes we probably would have managed some sausages), but I have always said someday I would get around to trying this car engine cooking. I'm now almost ready to hop on a plane and head to New Zealand so I decided to revisit this plan as we will be spending a week travelling in a campervan.

I'm not too sure if I'd be brave enough to try some chicken or pork but maybe a piece of steak or some roasted veggies might be good. Something that we're less likely to get food poisoning from if it's not cooked 100% through. The concept is pretty easy. At least three layers of tin foil and make sure everything is wrapped up good and tight. Then make sure the food parcel is put on the hottest part of the engine to ensure you get the best out of your drive. You need to make sure the parcel is really secure aswell as you don't want it moving about once you start driving.

Maybe I'm taking on too much here and we might just stick to beans and two minute noodles after all...

hate to say goodbye...

So my little brother, who is not so little anymore has left Australia to go home and I'm pretty sad to say the least. We have had moments in our lives where we couldn't stand the sight of each other but in the last few years we could not have gotten on any better. He's cheeky and drives me crazy at times and never ever turns up on time for anything but he does make me laugh and he's always there if I need him.

Family is super important to me and although I'm going to miss him and this is our second Christmas apart I'm glad my mom and dad will get to spend time with him this year and I know we'll definitely make up for lost time next year.

He told me under no circumstances to put up a blog post about him but then he did mention in the same breath that the picture below was one of his most favourite pictures ever so I'm just hoping I get away with it. Miss you already you little brat.

packing party...

We leave for New Zealand in a few days and packing is my least favourite job of all time. I always want to take everything with me, this includes stilettos on a backpacking trip through South East Asia. Needless to say they didn't even make it out of the bag. You would imagine that since I only came to Australia quite recently that I wouldn't have gathered too many belongings but you would be wrong. Luckily for me Billy likes to travel light. How anyone could up and leave home for a year and only pack 12 kilos of luggage is beyond me but I'm thankful for those extra eight kilos that I now get to fill.

I learned a very valuable lesson when travelling to Kenya a number of years ago to do some chairty work. Your hand luggage is the most important bag you will pack, because if you are lucky like me and end up having to wait a whole week for your bag to arrive, you need to have sufficient supplies to survive. I didn't. But you can be sure I wont be caught again. Luckily we were limited to 10 kilos of clothes each anyway so most people were wearing the same clothes each day so I didn't stand out too much.

In saying all this I do also believe that less can be more and once travelled to Madrid for a weekend with nothing but my handbag and a clean pair of pants and survived just fine.

This time I aim to be the perfect packer. Firm but kind in my selection of outfits. I'm even going to try to plan out most of my outfits to avoid bringing extra things that I know I definitely wont be wearing but you know a pair of stilettos might just come in handy when visiting the Franz Josef Glacier right? and I wouldn't want to run into Bilbo Baggins dressed in any old thing you know. Wish me luck! Or maybe reserve that luck for Billy who will have to carry what I can't fit.