Snow Day Turkey Stew

Okay, so it wasn't exactly a snow day. But it was close enough for my books. It put me in a very festive mood. Last year I made these on the first snowfall of the year:

Thanks again Jeannine for the utensil that makes these!

 In the past few months, I've noticed my Saturdays seem to follow a pattern. Leigh works Saturdays and I have the option of getting up at 6:30 to take him to work so I can use the car. I have never taken him up on this. I just can't do it. I sort of like my Saturdays this way, it keeps me away from the mall. Although, not the one across the street!

This morning, I was cleaning our house to get it ready for Christmas decorations. I haven't decided if they're going up today or not. We have a little apartment and a lot of non-Christmas decorations so I need to store those away to make room for festive stuff.

I also decided to make a nice clean dinner in the slow-cooker.  I have a ridiculously easy recipe that I love. See a pattern with the recipes I post? I realized I was missing several ingredients to make it, so rather than going to the store, I decided to change the recipe to use what I had. I'll post the original recipe here because it's really good like that as well. I love this recipe because it warms you up on a cold day, it's super healthy, and very filling due to all the protein in the beans and turkey.

  Three Bean Turkey Stew  

(adapted from Oxygen Magazine)

 Ingredients:

• 1 15oz can each red beans, garbanzo beans (chickpeas) and kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
• 2 28ox cans crushed, peeled Italian plum tomatoes
• 2 cups finely chopped onions
• 1 cup chopped escarole
• 5 minced garlic cloves
• 1 small diced jalapeno (take it from me, wear gloves, you will smell it on your hands for days afterward)
• 3 tbsp chopped curly parsley
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 pound 99% lean ground turkey 

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in a crock pot, stir until mixed. Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.

SO EASY!

So now for my adaptions: basically I didn't have any of the herbs or jalapenos to make this as the recipe called for. So I added basil, oregano, Italian seasoning and a dash of balsamic vinegar. This is sort of turned into an Italian Three Bean Turkey Stew, which is just right up my alley.

Here is a pic of how it turned out. I apologize for the crap quality of my own personal pictures lately, my camera is sort of on the fritz and I need to take it to get repaired, until then I have to use my Blackberry camera.

xoxo,
T