Friendsgiving – Oven Mitts and Enchiladas with Accuquilt

Welcome to those of you coming to visit me from Accuquilt’s Friendsgiving show! I’m Jen Strauser, and I am in charge of this beautiful disaster. I make an effort to be very environmentally conscious. Currently, that means I try not to let any food or fabric go into the garbage. I do not waste leftovers of anything, if I can help it. Today, in honor of Friendsgiving, I am sharing my recipe for Turkey Enchiladas and a scrappy oven mitt with Accuquilt.

A little bit about me

I have been quilting since 1999, when I decided that my toddler needed his own quilt. Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson used to come on in the afternoons on PBS after whatever children’s programming my son watched. After a morning of trying to keep my VERY active son alive, I was too tired to turn off the television when he finally collapsed into his nap. I was unintentionally indoctrinated into the quilting world. Alex was charming and fun, and the vast array of projects she shared really suited my curiosity-driven style of learning. I didn’t realize at the time that I was “supposed to” pick one technique and just do that, so I did them all, and I still do.

I have been quilting for 20+ years. Northern New Jersey is home, with my husband, youngest son and my Mom. (My oldest is now a full grown man with a career)! I run a longarm quilting business, and my true passion is designing quilts for my dachshund, Oscar. I spend most of my days avoiding housework and making art in my studio.

You can find my work here, on Dizzyquilter.com, in various quilt magazines, and sometimes scattered around on different quilting blogs. Writing a quilt pattern is way harder than making a quilt, so it frequently takes me a long time to get from finished quilt to published pattern. You can find all of my patterns in my Etsy Shop.

White Turkey Enchiladas

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and with it comes that magical time of having to use up the leftovers from the meal I worked all month to prepare before they all spoil. I hate having to throw out spoiled leftovers. I work hard to put that food on the table!

This is my recipe for White Turkey Enchiladas. Being able to make something that is tasty, and also more interesting than the typical open faced turkey sandwich with gravy on top is everything to me. (Also, I HATE gravy. Gravy is gross). It doesn’t hurt that my husband is a lover of all things Mexican, and he absolutely glows when I announce it is enchilada night. This recipe has evolved over the years. I started with one I found on the internet, but I have made adjustments to make it one that my entire family loves.

Ingredients
8 flour tortillas, soft taco size
2 cups turkey, shredded or chopped
1 can black beans, drained
1/2 cup salsa
2 cups Mexican cheese blend
1 teaspoon Tajin seasoning
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon turkey Better than Bullion
2 cups milk
1 cup sour cream
1 small can diced green chilis, drained
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Spray your 9″ x 13″ casserole dish with a non-stick cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour and whisk until incorporated. Cook, whisking constantly, until it turns a golden brown color. (Remember what Anne Burrell says – brown food tastes good)!
3. Stir in the Better than Bullion.
4. Add in the milk a little at a time, stirring to incorporate. Going slowly will prevent lumps from forming. Continue cooking for a few minutes, allowing the sauce to thicken until it will coat the back of a spoon.
5. Stir in sour cream and diced chilis.
6. Taste it. Really. Add salt and pepper to taste. This is your last chance to make sure it is yummy before you feed your family. Sometimes I add in chili powder and cumin, too. Not too much, because then you lose the white color of the sauce.
7. Spread about 1/2 cup of sauce into the bottom of your baking dish.
8. Mix turkey, 1 cup of cheese, beans, salsa and Tajin seasoning.
9. Fill each tortilla with a heaping 1/2 cup of filling. Roll tightly and place seam side down in prepared pan.
10. Pour sauce over enchiladas. Top with remaining cheese.
11. Bake about 25 minutes, or until sauce is bubbling. You can broil them for a few minutes to get a nice, brown top, but I usually set the kitchen on fire when I broil stuff, so I skip that step.
12. Let it cool a little before digging in, or you will burn your face off. It’s worth it, though.

Want a printable version? You can download a pdf here.  

Scrappy Oven Mitt

You know how I like to make bonus quilts, right? I try to make good use of leftover fabric scraps from each quilt project before I relegate them to a scrap bin. That is where some of my best baby quilts come from. Right now I’m still in the grip of Oven Mitt Fever. So, I’m going to show off my latest scrappy oven mitt.

While tidying up my studio this weekend, I came across this stack of scraps from my Plum Posies Quilt. The batik fabric I used in that quilt is so pretty, and looks so great together. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to what I cut, or perhaps the design morphed while I was making it. However it went down, there are a lot of cut out pieces here to play with. These pieces are all from the Basket of Lilies Block on Board die.

I sewed the scraps together somewhat randomly. I made a star out of the leftover diamonds, and I love it. Other than that, it was really just a matter of sewing pieces together if their sides matched up, then working in a few strips to even sizes out and make sure my piece would cover the entire oven mitt.

I used a paper template I cut with my Oven Mitt die to make sure my panel was large enough. Then I cut out a fabric lining, cotton batting and Insul-bright. I layered them together, pinned and quilted lightly. Be careful not to go too crazy with the quilting – each hole is a perforation that will allow heat to get at your hands.

Lay the quilted pieces onto the Oven Mitt die. Be really careful to make sure that the entire shape is covered with all four layers. Run it through the Accuquilt cutter, one piece at a time. Make sure you cut two that are mirror images.

Pin or clip the oven mitt sides together, right sides facing. Stitch using a 1/4″ seam allowance. I narrow the seam allowance at the slit near the thumb joint, and stitch to just inside of the clipped bit.

Once it is all sewn together, turn it right side out, pushing carefully to get everything nice and flat. Baste a little hanging loop to one edge, and bind it using a straight edge binding. Bias might be better, but I dislike making it.

This is my fourth oven mitt. They are getting easier and faster. I feel a session of oven mitt production coming on. I’m tempted to do a large scrappy panel and quilt it on my longarm, then just cut pieces out. I love the ideas that some other makers have shared where they fill the oven mitt with kitchen goodies and use them as gifts.

Huge thanks to Accuquilt for including me in their Friendsgiving celebration!

As a special treat for those of you who followed along all the way to the bitter end, here are some photos of my husband fooling around with the pan of enchiladas when I made them last night. He was very upset to hear that he couldn’t eat them when they came out of the oven. We discussed the feasibility of just showing a dirty empty pan of food as a joke, but I just can’t do that on someone else’s channel.

What is your favorite way to use up leftovers? In the kitchen or in the studio.