Tequila Turkey

Back in the day, I made just about everything posted by Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman. It's all completely non-compliant for me, but if you feel the need for a cheat day, make her steak with blue cheese cream sauce. I made it for myself on my birthday, and it was amazing.

I used to make this dish regularly in its original form with chicken. Now, I substitute turkey and omit the hot peppers, but it still tastes great.

Tequila Lime Turkey (adapted from Tasty Kitchen)

Ingredients

• 3 whole limes, juiced 
• 5 cloves garlic, chopped 
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt 
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped 
• 1/2 cup tequila (I used Jose Cuervo)
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil 
• 4-6 boneless, skinless turkey breast fillets

Directions

1. Mix the first 6 ingredients together in a food processor (or chop what needs chopping by hand) and marinade the turkey breasts overnight.
2. When you're ready to cook, fire up your grill and let em rip. And by that, I mean cook for 10 minutes per side.
3. Serve with salsa, pico de gallo, and/or mixed salad. 

Turkey Burgers with Pear Salad

Are you ready for... the Umami Burger?!

It's a meat burger with beautiful Vietnamese flavours. The original recipe can be found here, and I've modified it o make it more BTD friendly. This is not a 100% compliant burger because of the fish sauce (anchovies), but it just tastes so darn good that I can overlook the small deviation from the diet.

As for the original recipe from Bodyrock.tv, I'm not keen on sauces with meat, so I made a pear fruit salad, which really involved grilling pears and pineapple and adding them to a salad of tossed greens and some walnuts.

Ingredients - Burger

• 2 lbs ground turkey (mixed breast and thigh)
• 1-1/2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp honey or agave
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Directions - Burger

1. Mix all ingredients together and let sit for at least 20 mins. The longer, the better.
2. Form into patties and grill. I grill mine for about 10 mins per side.
3. Serve with salad. What salad? This salad!

Ingredients - Salad

•  2 pears, chopped into large chunks
• 1/2 a pineapple, chopped into large chunks
• small handful of basil and parsley, minced
• drizzle of olive oil
• skewers for grilling

Directions - salad

1.  Combine all ingredients together (except skewers) and let sit for a few minutes.
2. Thread the fruit onto skewers and cook on the grill with your burgers.
3. Combine the grilled fruit with mixed greens, lemon juice and olive oil. Top with walnuts for some crunch. 

Whiskey Grilled Salmon

This recipe started life as Whiskey Grilled Pork with Couscous from Bodyrock.tv. Since I can't eat pork, I substituted salmon because of its robust flavour. Now, hard liquor is also forbidden, but since we have a bunch of it that we can't drink, I use it in marinades. All the alcohol burns off when you cook it, anyway.

This tastes kind of like whiskey BBQ sauce, even though it doesn't have tomatoes or vinegar. Somehow, whiskey just lends itself to grilled meats. It's tough for me to describe, but suffice it to say this is delicious.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp whiskey (I used Rye, being Canadian and all)
2 Tbsp honey
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Splash of soy sauce
2-4 salmon filets

Directions

Combine the first four ingredients and let the salmon marinade in the yummy mixture for at least two hours, if not overnight.

Fire up your BBQ and grill for about 4 minutes per side.

I served this with a plain tossed salad, but it would work beautifully with rice, couscous, or quinoa as well.