Spaghetti with Turkey, Chorizo, and Vegetables

I had a more elaborate pasta dish in mind for today, to send to Dreska, but with timing constraints in effect, I had to settle for this simple dish created with whatever I could find in the refrigerator. Still, the end result was very tasty, even if the picture was not as eye-catching as the gnocchi with red pepper sauce I was planning to make. Well, the weekend is coming.

The story of this dish started sometime last week when I saw some beautiful turkey drumsticks on sale at the Loeb (now Metro) near my house. The drumsticks were big...must have been a huge bird. I like turkey dark meat. It is drier than chicken dark meat, but it is very inexpensive and lends itself to many excellent dishes.

Monday, I dumped 2 drumsticks in my slow-cooker, with carrots, onions, plenty of garlic, 2 bay leaves, salt, peppercorns, some fresh thyme and rosemary I had in the fridge, covered the whole thing with water and let it slow-cook away while I was at work. When I returned home the whole house smelled divine and I ended up with about 6 cups of excellent stock and about 4 cups of cooked turkey dark meat ready to use. Look at the size of those drumsticks. My slow-cooker is a 6-quart size.

So yesterday after realizing that it was too late to attempt gnocchi, I thought of making a quick dish of pasta and maybe chorizo and vegetables. Looking into the fridge I saw the turkey meat and voilá!

The picture of the finished dish shows little colour contrast because I used whole-wheat pasta (trying to get my roughage here!) Had I used regular paste the dish might look a little more photogenic.

Spaghetti with Turkey, Chorizo and Vegetables

• whole-wheat spaghetti enough for 2 servings
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 cups chopped cooked turkey dark meat
• about 5-inches chorizo, sliced fine and chopped
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Boil the pasta in enough water until "al dente". While the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a saucepan, add the chopped onions and garlic and fry in low heat for about 12 minutes. Onions will be well wilted and starting to caramelize a little. Add the turkey meat. Save some slices of chorizo for decoration, chop the remaining and add. Cook long enough just to warm the meats. Drain the pasta and mix in.
I served mine with steamed green beans, tomato and endive. The endive was a last minute addition. I was not sure if the flavour would mix well with the others, but it was looking forlorn in my fridge so it ended up in the plate. Would I recommend its use in this dish? Not particularly.