turkey – The Simple Elements

Making Marielle’s baby food has become a lot more interesting in the past week. Now that she basically eats anything that’s put in front of her, we’re going from single ingredient purées to multiple ingredient purées. It’s always best to use foods your baby has already tried when mixing purées together. Marielle loves sweet potatoes and apples, and I wanted to make sure she learned to like proteins as well. I call this recipe, Baby’s Thanksgiving. Why? It’s a turkey, sweet potato and apple purée parfait. Why parfait? I don’t know, aesthetically it’s more appetizing to layer the ingredients and then freeze them than mix them together 🙂 This way, she can have varying amounts of each food with each bite. I mean, as appetizing as baby foods can possibly look, right?

Ingredients

1/2 pound of organic ground turkey, cooked on the stove with 1/4 cup of water and blended in a food processor until smooth. You may need to add additional water to get to the right consistency.
Organic Apple Purée
Organic Sweet Potato Purée

Bring all finished purées to room temperature and layer them in 4 ounce baby food containers. Freeze for up to 1 month*

*Fruit and veggie purées may be frozen up to 3 months, but meats should be eaten within 1 month.

I’m first going to start out by saying, that cream of (chicken, mushroom, etc) soups get a really bad reputation for no reason. I’ve seen more blogs and recipes stating that their recipe does NOT include them and how awful they are. Yeah, they are high in sodium, but so are most soups and processed foods you cook with. Moderation, moderation, moderation. I have a few recipes that use them, and I happen to really like them. It’s very down home comfort food cooking. However, using a slow cooker does not mean that you HAVE to use them. There are so many ways to use your slow cooker to create really healthy, homestyle meals. My husband and I do try to eat as healthy as we can, and that’s tough when you’re married to an entrepreneur with a crazy schedule! I have this fantastic cookbook full of healthy slow cooker meals. The following recipe is a new favorite. The recipe calls for a turkey breasts, but, 4 lb whole chickens were BOGO at Lunds (can’t resist) so I swapped the turkey for chicken and it turned out fabulous. The best part about this recipe is that I had almost all the ingredients in my house already.

Recipe adapted from The Healthy Slow Cooker by Judith Finlayson

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 3.5-4 lb whole chicken
3 medium leeks, cleaned and thinly sliced
4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
4 tsp dried Thyme leaves
1 tsp cracked black peppercorns
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
2.5-3 cups of chicken stock (depending the size of your chicken, you may need to add more broth to the slow cooker)
salt
1 cup plain dried cranberries (not Craisins or any juice infused cranberries)
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsely

Directions

In a large slow cooker, place your whole chicken (or turkey breast) skin side up to the slow cooker stoneware.
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and add the leeks. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, thyme, and peppercorns and cook for another minute.
Add flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the chicken stock to the pan, stirring until mixture begins to thicken, about 2-3 minutes. Season with salt if using, and add in the cranberries.
Transfer the sauce to the slow cooker, covering the chicken with the sauce. It’s okay if the sauce doesn’t cover the chicken, just make sure there is a few inches of liquid on the bottom. You can add more chicken broth if you need.
Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours or high or 3-4 or until chicken is completely cooked through.
To serve, transfer to a platter and serve with sauce. I served with mashed potatoes and green peas.