Suzanne's Secret Six-Minute Sauce

This is one of my daughter's favorite recipes and a foolproof way to transform leftovers into something special. We'll all have leftover turkey this week, so consider putting some of it in this easy sauce. This recipe produces a velvety sauce in the microwave in 6 minutes. Seriously. I started tinkering with this method as a teenager, once I learned the magic thickening power of cornstarch. You can add items to the recipe that you enjoy, but here is the basic method.

You'll need:
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 white wine (optional, but I love it)
2-3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

You can use any glass container, but I prefer a 4-cup glass Pyrex measuring cup with a spout and handle. This lets you stir and pour easily. Add all the ingredients to the container and stir to combine. Blend the cornstarch completely; the cheese will not incorporate until the sauce is hot.

Here's what it looks like to start:

Place the container in the microwave and heat on high for two minutes. The butter will start to melt and the sauce will look like this:

Stir the sauce and heat for two more minutes. The sauce will tighten up more and look like this:

Again, stir thoroughly and give the sauce 1-2 minutes more (based on the power of your microwave). I find that three rounds of 2 minutes each is perfect at my house.

You sauce will now look like this:

I added about a cup of cooked chicken, a half cup of sauteed mushrooms and some steamed spinach to produce this:

Yummy, huh? This is a great way to use roasted chicken, like I suggested on Sunday. This is one of my daughter's all-time favorites, plus it is easy and quick to prepare. And you don't have to whisk or try to avoid lumps. This is a lump-free method that yields about 3 cups of sauce.

Herbed turkey legs

In keeping with the holiday theme, here is an easy recipe for turkey legs. Turkey legs and thighs are often available and are so much easier to cook than a whole turkey!

I roasted the turkey legs with a variety of fresh herbs from my herb garden. I can't say enough about the importance of using fresh herbs, especially since most are so easy to grow. Rosemary and thyme are perennials and need hardly any human care. Plant them in a sunny spot where they will get some rain, then reap the benefits.

You'll need:

3-4 turkey legs
1 teaspoon oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh rosemary, thyme and sage

These herbs are the essence of holiday cooking and are easy to grow in any sunny area. I picked 2 large sprigs of rosemary and about 6 small sprigs of thyme. I bought some fresh sage becuase it is not an herb I am (yet) growing. Rinse and dry the herbs. Pat the turkey dry and place it in a roasting pan. Slip some of the herbs under the turkey skin, then toss the rest around the meat. Rub the legs wth a small amount of oil, then sprinkle with lemon juice -- I squeezed 1/4 of a lemon over the meat, then tossed the lemon wedge in the pan. Season with salt and pepper, then cover with foil.

Roast the legs in a 400-degree oven for an hour to 90 minutes. Remove the foil for the last 20 minutes or so to brown the meat. I made gravy from the pan drippings and served the turkey with gravy, peas and the sweet potato crunch. Delicious and easy!

Turkey legs to come

I've got three turkey legs in the freezer for a shortened version of Thanksgiving dinner this week. I saw this delicious recipe on allrecipes.com, but it calls for pomegranate molasses, something most people don't keep on hand. You could add a splash of pomegranate juice (Pom) and some molasses, or you could try the recipe without it. I am a big believer in using what you have on hand, or adjusting the ingredients to suit your tastes and ingredients.

I'll post my own turkey leg recipe soon -- gotta get them thawing first!

Turkey and spinach manicotti

This is the concoction I whipped up last week to share with the family of a neighbor who is recuperating. The recipe made enough for two casseroles; one to keep and one to give away. I didn’t work from an existing recipe; I had ground turkey, spinach and mozzarella cheese on hand. With the addition of pasta, some cottage cheese and the manicotti noodles, I came up with a pretty impressive casserole.

Turkey and spinach manicotti

1 pound ground turkey
2 cups fresh spinach
16 ounce container cottage cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (1/2 cup for each casserole)
16 ounce jar prepared Alfredo sauce
2 teaspoons parsley
Salt and pepper (about a ½ teaspoon of each)
14-16 manicotti noodles (7-8 per casserole)

Brown the turkey in a large skillet; drain any excess fat. Mix in the fresh spinach, tearing the leaves and folding them into the meat. The heat from the skillet will wilt the leaves. Stir in the cottage cheese, parsley and salt and pepper. I soaked the manicotti noodles in warm water for about 5 minutes; they were slightly softened, but still firm enough to fill easily. Hold your thumb over one opening and fill the noodles with a small spoon.

Pour about ¼ cup Alfredo sauce each into two 9X9 casserole dishes. Lay the filled manicotti noodles over the sauce and scoop around any extra filling to fill in the gaps. Top the noodles with ¼ cup Alfredo sauce and ½ cup (each casserole) mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with extra parsley to garnish. Bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, until casserole is bubbling and browned on top. Serves 3-4.

The casseroles can be covered with foil and refrigerated for up to three days or frozen for up to three months. To cook from frozen, thaw the casserole in the refrigerator for about 24 hours before baking. Taking a little time to whip us a casserole and freeze it is a great way to always have an emergency dinner on hand.

I only soaked the manicotti noodles to soften them because they will finish cooking while the casserole bakes. Cooking them ahead of time will yield overcooked pasta at the end.