Turkey with Raspberry Chipotle Sauce CrockPot Recipe

Day 213.

I had an abundance of raspberries in the refrigerator left from making sorbet and smoothies in the VitaMix. Since it was buy-one, get-one-free at Safeway, I had to bring home more than I needed, which meant that if I didn't hurry up and use them they'd grow hair. And beards. And then would be deemed "living things" by my kids who all of a sudden have decided that all living things need to be saved.

even house flies.

ugh.

Bobby Flay was on Food Network yesterday doing something (again) with chipotle chili peppers (smoked jalapenos) and said that chipotles (usually) need to be paired with something sweet.

And that's when the light bulb hit. Or turned on. Or something.

The Ingredients.

--1-2 pounds turkey breast cutlets, or a piece of turkey breast (I used 1 lb turkey breast cutlets, but this makes a lot of sauce and can handle much more meat than I used)

--2 cups fresh raspberries
--juice from 1 lemon (yes, that green shrivelly thing is a lemon)
--2 T water
--1 t chipotle chili powder
--1/2 t kosher salt
--1/2 to 1 T sugar, to taste (this isn't pictured because I didn't put it in. It was a mistake. You should add it.)
--1 T olive oil

The Directions.

Put the tablespoon of olive oil in the bottom of your crockpot stoneware, and push it around so it coats the bottom nicely. Add your turkey. My turkey was fresh and thawed, but frozen should work okay, too.

In a blender, combine the raspberries, water, salt, chipotle chili powder, lemon juice, and sugar.

Pour over the top of the turkey.

Cover and cook on low for 6-10 hours---the range is huge because if you use a frozen turkey breast, it will obviously take longer than 1 pound of thawed cutlets. I cooked our cutlets on low for 6 hours. Turkey can get tough when it's cooked on high, so I prefer to cook on low.

The Verdict.

We ate this. It was edible. The kids dipped their turkey (with most of the sauce wiped off) into ketchup.

Adam and I ate it and couldn't decide what we thought. I think the consensus was that it was okay, but kind of weird.

The raspberries lose a lot of their color when cooked this long, and the seeds sometimes snuck up on me and surprised me. I probably should have strained the sauce in a mesh thingy before cooking it.

I think adding sugar will really help, but I don't think we'll make this again to test that theory out for reals.