Turkey Enchiladas with Chipotle Cranberry sauce

After a family party Saturday, we had a lot of leftover turkey.  We also had some spare cranberries from a failed experiment earlier this week.  I decided to make some turkey enchiladas with chipotle cranberry sauce. The picture above is of two enchiladas (one with red sauce, one with green sauce) on a bed of lime-cilantro rice, topped with sour cream and carrot habanero puree.

For the cranberry chipotle sauce:
Combine 6 oz (half of a bag) of cranberries, two chipotle peppers (I used canned chipotles in adobo with the seeds removed), 1/4 cup water, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp cumin.  Cook in a saucepan until the cranberries pop and begin to break down, about 5 to 10 minutes.  Cool the sauce before putting it into the enchiladas.  If there is extra sauce, it will keep for a few days in the refrigerator.

For the habanero carrot puree:
Boil two large carrots with two habanero peppers (again seeded) for 10 minutes, until carrots are soft.  After the carrots and habaneros are soft, place them in a blender with 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp salt, and 2 tsp lemon juice.

Assembling the enchiladas:
Heat a little oil in a frying pan over medium heat.  Flash fry each side of each tortilla (1-2 seconds on each side) and remove from the pan, allowing the excess oil to drip off.  Place 1-2 TBSP chopped turkey and a small spoonful of the chipotle cranberry sauce in the tortilla.  Cover the turkey and sauce with cheese and roll the tortilla.  Place the enchiladas in a pan and cover with enchilada sauce and cheese.  If the turkey was cold when the enchilada was assembled, cover the pan with foil and cook at 350 for 10 minutes before removing foil and cooking for another 10 minutes.  If the turkey was warm when the enchilada was assembled, cook at 350 for 10 minutes.

Top the enchiladas with sour cream and/or the carrot habanero puree.

Cilantro lime rice will be included in another post.  We couldn't stop eating the enchiladas with that sauce in them.  The smokey, tangy, sweet flavor that it added was just what the enchiladas needed.

Turkey Sliders

Ground turkey was on sale this week, soo....  Turkey sliders.  The slider show on the left at the front is a steakhouse slider with fried onion straws,  Muenster cheese, and Ring of Fire steak sauce.  The front left slider is a bacon barbecue slider, with JR's Original Barbecue sauce (http://www.jrsbarbq.com/), tomato, and crispy bacon.  The slider in the back is a California jack slider, with Avocado relish (avocado, tomato, garlic, and onion), and pepper jack cheese.  The slider preparation is mostly the same for each of these sliders.

Slider meat:
Using a slider press, make patties from about 1.5 oz of ground turkey.  Salt and pepper both sides.  Grill the patties (best over fire, but a Foreman Grill will work just the same).  Using a thermometer, ensure that the turkey is at an internal temperature of 165 degrees (unless you want to die).

Avocado relish:
Dice 1 small onion, 2 or 3 Roma tomatoes, 1 clove of garlic, and 1 avocado.  Combine the diced vegetables with 1 TBSP chopped fresh cilantro.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Finally, mix in the juice of one lime.

Everything else was either store-bought or easy enough to make that I will not detail it here (i.e. onion straws).    We enjoyed them immensely, and we hope you will too!