I'm not the only one in my family who thought Christmas break was too short. Strong son spent most of his holiday finishing a correspondence course and filling out graduate school applications. He enjoyed some fun moments, but didn't get to totally relax the way he usually does on holidays.

For his last night at home I tried a recipe for turkey cutlets that Vickie posted on the Forum a while back. It was unanimously declared a winner - and it's not often that all four in my family reach that kind of agreement on a new recipe.

I don't do much frying, so I browned the cutlets briefly in light olive oil, then baked them in the oven. When I processed 6 rice cakes, I had way more crumbs than I would need for the coating. So instead of mixing 2 pieces of compliant toast into the meat, I mixed about 1/3 cup of the rice cake crumbs. I was out of mushrooms, and I couldn't decide between parsley and cilantro, so I used both.

I served the cutlets with sweet potatoes, green beans, broccoli, and grapefruit.

Here is the original recipe:

6 rice cakes 1 pound ground turkey

2 pieces of compliant toast 1 tsp. parsley or cilantro

1/4 teaspoon ground clove 1 egg

1/2 teaspoon salt Ghee for frying

10 - 12 baby portabello mushrooms



Pulverize the rice cakes in a food processor. Place in a shallow bowl.

Process the toast in food processor, and put in medium sized bowl. Stir nutmeg or clove and salt into the bread crumbs. Wash and remove stems from the portabello mushrooms. Process the mushrooms in the food processor until fine. Add mushrooms, cilantro and ground turkey to the spiced bread crumb mixture. Form patties from well mixed meat mixture.

Beat egg in shallow bowl. Dip each patty in egg, then in rice cakes powder.

Place patties in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to set the coating.

Heat ghee over medium heat and fry patties about 5 minutes per side