Week 52 - Fancy Ingredients

The last weekly challenge for this year had a theme of "fancy" ingredients. I wasn't really sure what to pick. Lobster? King crab? (Definitely cannot afford the king crab legs we saw at Costco recently which were running $165 a box!) I didn't really want to make anything like that. A suggested saffron, which was perfect. Saffron is on the expensive side so quite a bit "fancier" than what I would normally use (other than a thread or 2 here or there), and we already had some in the pantry. Perfect!

In the back of my mind, I remembered that I had recently seen a recipe that used saffron with rice, so I set off to look for it. It was this recipe for smoky turkey and saffron red rice from Picky Palate and it sounded perfect for the challenge.

The ingredients for the recipe, as I adapted it, were:

- 2 cups uncooked basmati rice (free, only because it was the last of the rice I won at the health fair)

- olive oil for sauteing ($0.40)

- 1 yellow onion, finely chopped ($0.60)

- 1/2 head of garlic, minced ($0.10)

- 1 lb ground turkey breast ($4.20)

- salt and black pepper ($0.10)

- 2 15-oz cans of green beans, drained ($1.32)

- 8 oz can of tomato sauce ($0.59)

- cumin ($0.05)

- smoked Spanish paprika ($0.10)

- garlic powder ($0.05)

- saffron threads ($2.75)

A lot of these are estimated costs, like the saffron, since I actually bought it some time ago, but the total came out to around $10-11. If I had to pay for the basmati rice, it would probably be another dollar. $12 doesn't sound like a great deal for dinner, except it was for 2 of us, and there were also enough leftovers for me to eat it for lunch for 3-4 days. It was actually a fairly economical dish because it made a lot of food.

I was so wrapped up with cooking (and running back and forth to the living room since we were watching the Restaurant Wars episode of Top Chef) that I forgot to take more prep pics. Oh well. I usually do them so I can remember what I need to do when making a dish in the future, but it's pretty straightforward here.

You make the basmati rice in one pot and in another, add the onions, then garlic, then turkey + salt + pepper, and then everything else. I don't really measure spices so I just tossed in what looked reasonable, and ended up adding more seasoning later once I tried everything together. The original recipe used a tbsp of saffron, but I probably used half of that. I've barely cooked with saffron before, so I didn't want to overdo it. The final product also ended up with a little less rice than the original recipe since the basmati rice was so good, we kept eating it plain while everything else was cooking. The parts that stuck to the pot were delicious.

Overall, this was a very good recipe. I probably could have added more saffron and smoked paprika, but now I know for next time - and there will be a next time. This was really comforting and cozy and perfect for winter, and also pretty easy to make for a weeknight meal (unlike the latkes from the previous weekly challenge). What a great dish to end the 52 week challenge!