Quick And Easy Turkey Meat Loaf

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Although I derive great pleasure from making my own sauces and condiments, I also love seeking out quality products that save time and serve to enhance a dish to my standards.

Tender and juicy, this turkey meat loaf was prepped and out of the oven in just one hour - a blessing to be sure on a busy weeknight. Its flavor and moistness I attribute to the marinade-slash-sauce that I discovered a while back and used here. It's called Narsai's Assyrian Pomegranate Marinade. The promo says ". . . it's not only fabulous with lamb but goes equally well with beef and pork." Well, add turkey to that list because this meat loaf tasted fabulous. The marinade ingredients are red wine, pomegranate concentrate, herbs, spices and garlic. No catsup needed. And no beef or pork needed to moisten up the turkey and raise the fat content.

This recipe will yield a large amount of meatloaf - enough for dinner, several lunches, plus leftovers in the middle of the week. If you have a small family, cut the finished loaf in half and freeze for another time.

Quick and Easy Turkey Meatloaf
Christine's Original Recipe
Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds ground turkey (I think I used closer to 3 lbs.)
3 eggs
1 cup sweet onion, such as Walla Walla, chopped fine
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 cup finely ground bread crumbs
2 teaspoons Spike seasoning
2/3 cup Narsai's Assyrian Marinade
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black peppercorns
olive oil spray
Preparation:
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Spray an oblong, 9"x11" baking pan (glass preferred) with the olive oil spray.
Place the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl and, using your clean hands, mix thoroughly.
Plop the meat mixture into the prepared pan and pat it evenly to the edges.
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until the meat has pulled away from the edges of the pan and the juices are bubbling wildly.
Out of the oven, allow it to settle down for about 15 minutes then slice and serve.

Cook's Notes:
Unless you're a die-hard catsup user, you can skip it here. The meat loaf is that good on its own.
If you really can't do without the catsup, here's another recipe that employs lots of it.

Copyright © 2005-2007, Christine Cooks. All rights reserved

Grilled Stuffed Turkey Burgers

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I try to keep packages of ground turkey in my freezer at all times. It's so handy for a quick meat and tomato sauce, a low-fat meat loaf, or these cheese and avocado stuffed burgers.

Because ground turkey doesn't have much fat, I usually mix something into the meat to help it retain moisture while cooking. With meat loaf it can be egg, milk, rolled oats or good bread crumbs. But for grilling, I like to mix in a spicy jam to kick the flavors up a bit.

For these burgers I used a red onion confit, spiced up further with NapaStyle's Toasted Spice Rub. Now you can use my red onion confit, Sher's onion jam, or The Girl and The Fig Red Onion Confit, which is what I did, with these burgers. Any of these choices will have you pining for turkey burgers at odd hours of the day and night.

Grilled Turkey Burgers Stuffed with Avocado and Swiss Cheese
Christine's Original Recipe (with inspiration for stuffing ground turkey from Cuisine at Home Magazine)
Makes 4 to 6 burgers

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey
1/2 cup red onion confit (or a spicy jam of your choice)
1 tablespoon Toasted Spice Rub
1 teaspoon kosher salt
generous grindings of Tellicherry black peppercorns or other good black pepper
1-2 ripe avocados
1/2 pound Swiss or Swiss-like cheese or Gruyere (I used French Madrigal, called a 'baby Swiss')

Preparation:

In a large bowl, combine the ground turkey, jam or confit, spice rub, salt and pepper and mix with your clean hands until fully blended.

Using about 1/2 cup turkey blend per patty, roll and pat them out to a 1/4-inch thickness, shaping them into rectangles. Make all the patties a uniform size. The size you make them will determine how many patties the mix will yield.

Setting the patties in pairs on waxed paper (2 patties = one burger), place several slices of cheese on top of one of each pair of patties, then top with several slices of avocado.

Using the waxed paper to help you, flip the unadorned patty on top of the cheese-avocado patty and seal the edges by pinching gently.

Repeat this process with the remaining patties.

Cook patties until just done, using an outdoor grill or an indoor grill pan. Don't overcook or the meat will dry out.

One of these grilled burgers makes a nice low-carb meal with your favorite low or no-sugar coleslaw, salad or roasted vegetables as a side. You can kick the carbs up, if you wish, by serving your grilled burger on a toasted whole wheat bun.