Newburyport Farmers Market

For the past couple of years, I’ve been looking forward to experiencing the Newburyport Farmers Market in Newburyport, MA. I am on their e-mailing list and it always seemed like an exciting market with lots of vendors, even in the colder months. Unfortunately, it’s about 35 miles from home, a little too far for a casual Sunday drive.

A few days ago, I was lucky enough to get my chance to visit the market on the way to visit Maine. It was incredible and I wish it was closer, as I’d be dropping by more often!

Heron Pond Farm – 1lb potatoes $2.50 and small lettuce for $2
New Hampshire Mushroom Company – $4.80 for blue oyster mushroom at $16.99lb
Farmer Dave’s – $4.50 for mix-your-own-bag of baby greens for $12/lb
Arrowhead Family Farm – $3 for huge bundle of green onion tops

Turkey Meatloaf – Round 3

I don’t know what it is about this turkey meatloaf recipe (from Epicurious.com), but I am almost obsessed about perfecting it! I made it again last night, and while it was better than last time, it still needs a few more tweaks.

To recap, the first try, it was delicious, but it tasted too much like “stuffing” with all the bread crumbs. Second time, I made the mistake of adding way too much chicken stock/broth, so it was swimming in juices. Still delicious, but not right.

Okay, so last night, this was the recipe:

  • 1 lb ground turkey (93%)
  • 1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth/stock (low sodium preferred)
  • 1 egg
  • shallots, zucchini, and a few chopped peppers. You can use mushrooms, or any other veggies like onions, carrots, etc.
  • I roasted a whole pepper in the oven, and sliced it to add to the top of the meatloaf as well
  • whatever herbs or spices you have: I used chopped fresh parsley, and dried thyme.
  • salt and pepper

The consistency was less liquidy this time, but it was still a bit too mushy. I need to lower the chicken stock amount again, or maybe add a touch more bread crumbs. Or even better, try it with real crusty bread chunks. I didn’t have mushrooms this time, so I used zucchini, and I am sure that added a bit to the liquid content of the meatloaf.

It’s been really fun experimenting with this recipe!

Second Try Turkey Meatloaf

I tried a pretty good recipe for turkey meatloaf about a month ago, and I wanted to try it again last night with some revisions.

Well, it was edible, but I still made mistakes and I think 3 times will be the charm next time!

First, I only had 1 lb ground turkey, which was half what the recipe called for. I forgot to divide the ingredients in half before I poured the full cup of chicken stock. I figured eh, the mushrooms would absorb it! Big mistake. I shouldn’t have put in so much stock. It made the meat way too liquidy, and it ended up steaming/boiling the turkey, so it had a gray tinge. Didn’t look extremely pleasing to the eye, but did still taste fine, just a little soupy.

I reduced the panko bread crumbs to 1/2 cup, and this time added the mushrooms and shallots. Diced up those mushrooms as small as I could to make sure my picky hubby wouldn’t notice them. It worked for the first piece of meatloaf, but when he went back for seconds, he asked me what this little piece of “something” was. LOL.

The good news is, he only picked out that one piece of ‘shroom and didn’t even bat an eye when eating the rest of the 2nd piece!

So, we have leftovers for lunch today, along with beets, butternut squash and brown rice. I like making extra so we have lunch portions too!

Next time, I think I will definitely watch the amount of chicken stock, and I think it will be perfect. In the future, I might experiment with whole grains, like oatmeal or whole wheat bread instead of the panko crumbs.