Monday, February 11, 2013

SSFC: Baked Turkey with Tomato, Basil, Mozzarella


Baked Turkey with Tomato, Basil, and Mozzarella
Hello friends! I don't mean to keep taking breaks from the inter-webs, but stuff just keeps happening to get in the way of my play time. Nothing serious, just the usual, busy life stuff. I can't believe we're almost at mid-February! I realized this morning that I'm about 6 weeks overdue for a haircut. I have a shaggy mess on my head and have been wearing my hair in a pony-tail since Christmas. :(
 

Fried potatoes

I haven't done much in the way of garden prep yet, but I have been keeping up with the challenge to incorporate more local food into my everyday meals. I've also been busy cleaning out my freezer of all the produce I stored last fall. I think we're doing really well on this! Recently for dinner we had baked turkey breasts with oven-dried tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella melted on top, along with delicious, salty fried potatoes and summer squash.

Baked Turkey with Tomato, Basil, and Mozzarella

Turkey breasts - Ecofriendly Foods 
Potatoes - farmers' market, storage
Summer squash - my garden, frozen (slightly freezer-burned, unfortunately)
Oven-dried tomatoes - my garden (oven-dried last September)
Basil - my garden, frozen into cubes with olive oil last summer
Mozzarella - Blue Ridge Dairy

It was nice to have turkey not at Thanksgiving. It was also nice to eat tomatoes in the middle of winter, and they retained the yummy herb flavor from when I dried them in the oven. The house smelled so good when it was baking! Same for the basil--I'd never frozen basil into cubes before, and I was happily surprised that it retained the fresh basil flavor. The only disappointment was the summer squash, which were a little mealy. I guess they had been in the freezer too long? Overall, though, a very good meal!

Did all of you on the East Coast do all right with that storm that blew through over the weekend? Here in DC we got lucky, just some rain and wind.

5 comments:

  1. Looks so delish! I need to learn your techniques for drying the tomatoes and freezing the basil.

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  2. That looks so good. I very nice hearty winter meal. I can imagine your oven dried tomatoes had fabulous flavor! YUM!

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  3. Yum - it all looks so good! Isn't it nice to be eating things that came from your own garden - even in February? I looked back again at your oven-drying tomato post. It made my mouth start watering!

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  4. Those pan fried potatoes look yummy. I wouldn't have thought to freeze basil but will really give it a go this year.xxxx

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  5. Yummy..I like the turkey idea. We had 2 feet of snow and then the next day sun...but Monday we had ice and last night eight more inches...we are at 12 feet of snow so far this winter...i am ready for spring.

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