What can I make with...

          So I found myself waking up from what seemed like a stupor of life recently. I had stopped cooking completely since August, when the SO and I split, and cooking just didn't feel like the right thing to do for some reason. My mom had always told me that food takes on the flavor of the emotions of the cook--and honestly, right about then, my food would have tasted bitter and unappetizing.

But, for some reason--be it my own heart's will to regenerate or just the passing of time--I suddenly wanted to cook again.

So, what to cook?! I found myself with little to no cookable food items in my house...at least, nothing that seemed like an obvious meal solution. I DID have some turkey cutlets and some very, very, very almost bad tomatoes. But that was pretty much it. However, after a bit of scrounging, I came up with this very easy (and very delicious) meal.

TURKEY CUTLETS

some thinly sliced tukey cutlets
1 c. bread crumbs
1/4 c. parmesan cheese crumbs
some herbs and spices (I used parsley, sage, and chives)
salt
butter

TOMATO/ONION TOPPING

1 medium tomato
1 medium onion
1 large clove of garlic (or 2 small)
butter
herbs and spices (I used sage and oregano)
salt

1. Wash the cutlets and pat dry with a paper towel. Put the 1 c. of bread and the 1/4 c. of cheese crumbs into a bowl (as opposed to your hand?). Add salt to taste. Yes, you stick your finger in and taste it. Add a pinch of your chosen herbs and mix well. Make sure the whole mixture is evenly distributed.

2. Take each cutlet and put it into the bowl to coat it in crumbs. They obviously can't be TOO dried off for this to work. If they are, quickly stick them under running water and dry them off again to almost dry-ness. The crumbs need to stick, after all.

3. Heat up a skillet on medium heat with two pats of butter, 1/2 Tbsp. each. When it melts, swirl it to coat the pan, and put the cutlets in the butter. Fry about three minutes to a side, more if the cutlets are thicker. The crumbs and the butter help to keep the cutlets moist inside and not too chewy, as is the nature of cutlets sometimes!

4. For the topping, I seeded and cubed the tomatoes, chopped the onion into medium chunks, and minced the garlic. Since I like to absorb flavor, I used the same skillet as the cutlets, and I melted a bit more butter in there (because the bread crumbs tend to absorb the butter they are fried in.) I threw the whole mix into the pan, added some salt and herbs, and let it sautee until the onions were clear. Immediately, I topped the cutlets with it, and served with mayonnaise.

A word on mayonnaise and turkey cutlets: YUM.


I happened to have some desperately frozen peas (last thawed about 1 year ago?) in the freezer, and luckily they thawed out deliciously. I sliced a cuke and called it a meal!
Voila!

So, this week's tip is to be resourceful...it's easy to make great meals with very little. You just have to be creative. :)