So Many Christmas Cookies!

The Christmas whirlwind has come and gone and we were left with lots of food...especially Christmas cookies!  It was just me and my husband left at the house now.  No way could we eat all these cookies.  I hate to see food go to waste so I was trying to figure out how to prolong their lifespan or use them up.

Then it hit me...leftover vanilla ice cream and these delicious sugar cookies??  ICE CREAM SANDWICHES!

A side note, I did take some help from the grocery store in order to pull off back to back days/nights of feeding 14 people.  Enter the ice cream and store bought sugar cookies.  To be fair, anyone who knows Publix, knows these sugar cookies and knows they are AMAZING!  

This was so easy...ice cream + cookies = ice cream sandwiches.

Let the ice cream sit on the counter for a few minutes to soften a bit.  Then take one small scoop, put it on one side of the cookie, then press down with another cookie.  I cleaned up the edges with my fingers.  Set them on a small baking sheet with wax paper and put back into freezer to set up.  When you're ready to eat them, let them sit for a couple minutes. That cookie gets pretty hard from the freezer!

Turkey Burgers

Late last week I was trying to figure out what to make with the ground turkey in our fridge.  I had everything on hand for a burger so I decided on a burger night for dinner.  The burgers went well with our at home movie night....the 6th episode of the Star Wars movies.  I hadn't seen any of them and my husband was determined to get me through all six movies so I could go with him to the new one.

Now, fun fact about me, I do not eat red meat or pork.  My husband is from the Midwest so you know he grew up on meat and potatoes!  He's tried my turkey burgers before but his heart belongs to beef burgers.  This time I was determined to season the ground turkey in just the right way to get his honest seal of approval.  I believe my mission was accomplished!

Secret ingredient that made it come together?  Worcestershire sauce!  Anyone else think that's one of the hardest words to say?

I topped my burger with caramelized onions, swiss and cheddar cheese, ketchup, mustard and some dill pickle slices for good measure.  Let me just say, these burgers were big, juicy and delicious!  Even my beef eating husband agreed and enjoyed eating TWO burgers.

Ingredients:

• EVOO
• 1 pound ground turkey (for this I used a 85% lean mix)
• S&P
• 1 T. garlic powder
• 1 T. onion powder
• 3 T. Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 T. paprika
• Cheese (any kind you like)
• Onions - optional
• Whatever other burger toppings you like
• Burger buns (again, whatever kind you like or have on hand)

Instructions:

• Heat large pan over medium high heat.  Add enough EVOO to the pan to just coat the bottom.
• Mix ground turkey with seasonings.  
• TIP: Once turkey is mixed with seasonings, I break off a quarter size and make a tiny burger and cook it to test my seasonings.  It takes less than 5 minutes and allows you to adjust your burger mixture before cooking all the patties.
• Adjust seasonings as needed.
• Form into 4 burger patties and set in pan.  Don't crowd the pan though!  I did mine in batches of two.  You should hear a nice sizzle here (a good sign your pan is the right temperature).
• Let cook about 5-7 minutes on one side before flipping.
• Meanwhile, heat another pan over medium-low heat with a tablespoon of EVOO. 
• Slice an onion into thin slices and caramelize over medium-low heat until golden brown.  Season onion slices with S&P.
• Flip burgers and let cook another 5 minutes or so on the other side.  You need to cook turkey burgers all the way through.  There is no medium rare when you're cooking poultry.  That stuff has got to be cooked to the right temp!  You're looking for 165 degrees.
• Add slices of cheese to the tops of your burgers, cover with foil to melt.
• Serve your burgers up with whatever toppings and sides you choose.

I have cans of green beans leftover from Thanksgiving.  (Gotta love that green bean casserole!)  There is no shame here in canned veggies people.  They're picked at the peak of their freshness and canned.  I buy the low sodium or no salt added kind and add my own seasonings.  I always do canned green beans very simply with a little butter, salt and pepper...done!  Now you have some green on your plate next to that big ol' burger.

Grab a napkin, things are about to get messy....enjoy!

Hosting Christmas....

• For the first time....
• With 8 people, 1 dog and 1 cat staying at our house....
• To feed 14 people on Christmas Eve....
• 12 people on Christmas Day....

I'm a little anxious about the whole thing but I'm trying to remain calm...ha!

Sometimes I think the planner in me is both a blessing and a curse.  I usually have a good game plan on how to accomplish everything, but at the same time, drive myself a little crazy with trying to do too much or trying to make everything "perfect."

Thankfully my parents are coming into town on the 22nd and my mom is great in the kitchen so she will be a BIG help to me.  

Growing up, we didn't do the "traditional" turkey dinner for Thanksgiving.  My mom's thought was, "We just ate all that a month ago for Thanksgiving.  Let's do something different!"  I always loved this idea and it was fun each year to see what theme she thought up.  Mexican, Chinese, Caribbean, Italian, etc.

This year, since we're hosting at our house, I decided on the Italian theme.  I figure it's a crowd pleaser, it's a cuisine I'm comfortable with, and you can usually feed a large group for not a large amount of cash (pasta is cheap!) 

I'm in the midst of finalizing my menu and creating my shopping list. I'm going to brave the grocery store early this weekend to get the main shopping haul done.

Stay tuned for more details!

Thanksgiving Leftovers - Round 2....Stuffin' Muffins!

A week or so after Thanksgiving I was checking out my pantry and fridge and discovered I had a whole bag of stuffing cubes leftover, along with various herbs and veggies.  Stuffing has always been one of my favorite Thanksgiving foods so I figured why not make another batch?  And then I remembered seeing Rachael Ray make muffin versions of stuffing and I knew I had to try it.  It sounded easy and fun....and really, anything in muffin or smaller size is just cute and fun to eat!

Rach's recipe here.

You basically just make stuffing again but put it into muffin tins to bake off in the oven.

My version was super simple and I had everything in the house already.

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of stuffing cubes
• 1 stalk of celery, including leafy tops
• 1 onion
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp. thyme
• 1 tsp. rosemary
• S&P
• EVOO
• Chicken stock
• Cooking spray

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• A couple turns of a large pot with EVOO or butter, over medium-high heat.
• Dice onion and celery into small pieces and sautee in pot with bay leaf.
• Season with S&P.  Add herbs.
• Sautee until soft, about 6 minutes.
• Add bag of stuffing cubes to pot and stir to combine.
• Add enough chicken stock to moisten and soften the mixture but not make it too wet.
• Remove bay leaf.
• Use cooking spray to liberally coat a muffin tin.
• Scoop stuffing mixture into muffin tin....big mounds of your delicious mixture!
• Bake in oven until brown and crispy on top, about 15 minutes.

I ate mine with a bowl of leftover mashed potatoes, gravy and caramelized onions.

Thanksgiving Leftovers - Round 1....Noodles!

Chicken Noodle Soup

Cozy, cheerful, inexpensive, simple and yummy.  All words I would use to describe chicken noodle soup.  It was only earlier this year that I tried to make this on my own from scratch.  Well....with the help of a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and stock in a box, but mostly from scratch for this first timer.  It was delicious and lasted for several meals.

A week or so after Thanksgiving, I was staring into my almost bare vegetable drawer and was inspired by the couple stalks of celery and two lone carrots hanging out in there together.  Who knew inspiration would hit from celery and carrots?  I had onions leftover along with some thyme, rosemary, a lemon and chicken stock.  I also had some chicken breasts that needed to be used.  One quick trip to the grocery store (which is thankfully less than a mile from my house) for some egg noodles and I was ready to cook!

This time I decided to make the chicken myself instead of using a rotisserie from the store.  A quick online search of boiled chicken provided me with the basic idea of how to do it.  I had never boiled my chicken before.  Honestly it sounded a little unappealing to me.

Turns out, if you use seasonings, herbs and vegetables, it makes for a very juicy, quick and easy way to prepare chicken breasts!

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• S&P
• EVOO
• 1/2 lemon
• Sprig of rosemary
• Couple of sprigs of thyme
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot, peeled
• 1 stalk of celery, with their leafy tops
• Chicken stock in a box (I use low sodium or no salt added kind)
• 1 bay leaf
• Egg noodles (I found whole wheat egg noodles at the grocery store and got very excited but feel free to use white noodles if you prefer)

Instructions:

• Season chicken breasts with S&P.  Put in a medium size pot along with lemon slices, rosemary, thyme and the scraps of the carrot, celery and onion.  
• Cover with water and bring to a boil.  
• Once boiling, knock it back to a simmer and cover until cooked through.  Cook times depend on the size of the chicken breasts but mine took roughly 10 minutes.  Check with digital meat thermometer to get to 160 degrees.
• Take chicken out and set aside to cool.
• Drain the liquid the chicken was cooked in.  Save the liquid and discard the scrap veggie pieces.
• While chicken is cooking, dice onion, carrot and celery into small pieces. 
• After chicken is cool to handle, shred with two forks or your hands.
• Sautee the veggies with some EVOO in a big pot until the veggies are soft, about 5 minutes.  
• Add bay leaf and shredded chicken.
• Add reserved liquid you cooked the chicken in.
• Add one box of chicken stock.  If you want to stretch a buck, you can add less stock and some more water.
• Add egg noodles (I used half the bag).  Bring whole pot to a soft boil and cook until noodles are tender, about 8 minutes (check for desired done-ness).
• I like to add a fresh squeeze of lemon at the end to brighten it up along with some additional thyme before I serve.  If I had parsley around I would add that as well.
• Serve yourself a big bowl of comfort alongside some saltines and enjoy!

You're not getting that out of any can!  Big pieces of all white meat chicken, not the weird little bits of mystery chicken that comes out of a can.  Easy way to use up leftover veggies and other Thanksgiving ingredients.  Also wonderful for a quick lunch or weeknight meal.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving day was upon us!  Thankfully my mom and dad got into town a couple days early and helped with last minute grocery shopping while I was at work.  Mom prepared the stuffing and green bean casserole in advance.  All we had to do was heat it back up on the big day.  The day before Thanksgiving I was up at 7:00am to get my apple pie baked before work (more on that delicious recipe below).  That night my husband made the pumpkin pie so desserts were also checked off the list before Thursday.

That morning was relatively simple since it was just the four of us and the side dishes and desserts were already done.  Dad oversaw my turkey prep around 11:00am.  I had never been involved in the turkey prep before but it turned out to be quite easy.  A few days before, get that bird into the fridge to defrost.  Take him out the morning of to come to room temperature.  Then you slather him up with butter, S&P, herbs (we used rosemary and thyme), onions and carrots.  Into the 325 degree oven for 15 minutes per pound and you're done.

In the excitement of the day I forgot to get many food photos, but it was all delicious!

I had set out some really easy appetizers.  I didn't want to go too heavy since we weren't a big group and we had SO much food for the meal.  I did try one new recipe, courtesy of Rachael Ray.  Rachael's recipe here.

This was a butternut squash crostini.  I love butternut squash and I love the color for Thanksgiving.  It's super simple and was a crowd pleaser....even for my mom who doesn't particularly like butternut squash.

Ryan and I by our slightly wrinkled table....oooops!

A funny thing happens each Thanksgiving.....somehow this guy always winds up in the mashed potatoes!  If you're a fan of Publix and their Pilgrim People I know you get this. :)

Let's talk dessert!  Ryan was in charge of the pumpkin pie.  Classic and my favorite.  I was never a huge fan of apple (that is my brother's favorite) until I found this version:

That my friends is a cinnamon bun apple pie hybrid!  I found this recipe in a Food Network magazine a few years ago and just had to try it.  Recipe here.

After my first try making this, it's been a staple for holidays ever since.  It's easy and so yummy!  That is the cinnamon roll drizzle on top of the cinnamon roll crust.

After a day full of food, we spent some time in the backyard digesting and relaxing.  All in all, a wonderful day spent with family and a great 1st Thanksgiving in our new home.

Me and my beautiful mom enjoying some post-dinner wine in the yard.

Next up, Christmas....with 12 people at my house....yikes!  Stay tuned...

Thanksgiving Prep

This year is the first Thanksgiving in our new house.  I was so excited to prepare Thanksgiving dinner in our home for the first time.  Problem was, I wasn't sure how to do it.  Yes, all 29 Thanksgivings before these were celebrated at my home growing up or visiting either my parent's or my in laws.  They did the cooking so therefore I had yet to learn how to tackle the turkey myself.

This year we planned on a small Thanksgiving.  It was just me, my husband and my parents.  Whew, OK, I don't need to cook for 20 people, I can manage this.  

In preparation, I of course made labels (it's the event planner in me).

Since we moved in mid-May I had no idea where my holiday stuff was, let alone any kind of large serving dishes for Thanksgiving.  A few days in advance I pulled out everything that I thought might work and labeled the dishes so I knew I had everything I would need on Turkey Day.  This is a practice that has served me well in the past.  It is something so small and easy to do but will save you the stress of trying to find a dish that the pounds of mashed potatoes will fit into.

I also did some thinking about what kind of appetizers I wanted to serve and what our main meal would consist of.  After a couple phone calls back and forth with mom we were good to go....bring on the turkey!

Banana Blueberry Oatmeal

I woke up this morning craving something hearty to start my day.  I saw a lone banana sitting on the kitchen counter about to go bad and decided I would do some banana oatmeal for breakfast.  This is one of my go to breakfast options, especially when it's feeling cooler this time of year (although here in central Florida, we're still waiting for the cool weather to take hold and stick around for more than a day!)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 1 cup fat free milk - Feel free to use whatever milk you prefer here
• 1 oz. walnuts
• TIP: Nuts have oil and oil spoils.  Keep you nuts in the freezer to make them last longer
• Dash of cinnamon
• Dash of vanilla extract
• 1 banana, sliced
• 1/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1 tbsp. chocolate Shakeology

Preparation:

• Mix oats and cinnamon together in a bowl, then add the milk and stir.  Microwave according to how you like your oatmeal.  I like mine to come out slightly runny with a little milk left in the bowl.  About 1 minute and 15 seconds on my microwave.
• Meanwhile, toast the walnuts in a dry pan over medium heat.  Stir them around and keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn.  I toasted mine for about 5 minutes.
• When the oatmeal comes out of the microwave, stir in a dash of vanilla
• Chop the toasted walnuts
• Top your oatmeal with the banana slices, chopped walnuts and blueberries.  I used frozen ones today since we're done with fresh blueberry season.  
• TIP: My frozen blueberries are actually fresh ones I bought during the summer when they were bountiful and on sale.  I froze them and use them throughout the fall and winter months when blueberries are not available fresh.
• Just for fun and for some chocolate taste, I added about a tbsp. of Shakeology to my toppings this morning.

This is a great start to my morning and gives me the energy I need to tackle a Monday.  

Have a great week!

Butternut Baked Pasta

I saw this recipe on the Rachael Ray Show recently and knew I had to make it!  It has several delicious components to it....

• Brown butter
• Pasta
• Ricotta cheese
• Butternut squash
• Garlic

I am IN!  Also, the recipe was so easy to follow when I watched Rachael do it that it was easy enough for me to remember the ingredients and steps without having to actually follow the recipe.  I love meals like that.  For those of you that want to see how Rachael did it, click here.

I loosely followed the same process but used hot turkey sausage instead of the sweet pork sausage.  I also omitted the fennel seeds/pollen because I didn't have any and couldn't imagine a time I would use it again in the near future.  Saved myself some bucks at the grocery store!  I did use a whole wheat penne pasta instead of white pasta as well.  

This is a perfect fall meal since butternut squash is in season and is one of my favorite squash varieties.  I've gotten away from eating much pasta these days but I had to indulge myself for this one.

Doesn't this look delicious????

My ingredients:

• 1 small or medium butternut squash, halved lengthwise 
• Olive oil, for drizzling plus about 1 tablespoon  
• Salt and pepper
• Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste (I didn't have/want to buy fresh so I used the ground nutmeg I had in my spice cabinet.)
• 1 pound ricotta
• 1 pound whole wheat penne
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 20 leaves fresh sage 
• 1 pound hot Italian turkey sausage
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, chopped 
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups chicken stock 
• 1 1/2 cups grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Preparation:

I followed the same preparation as Rachael

So this photo from my phone doesn't quite do it justice but let me tell you, this was delicious!  My husband wasn't as big a fan as I was but that's OK....more for me!  

Confession: I had this for breakfast the next morning.

Green + Orange + Yellow = Lunch

  Today's lunch was inspired by the what-do-I-need-to-use-up game.  I had brussels sprouts in the fridge that were about to go bad so I started there.  I added a lonely sweet potato that was hanging out on the kitchen counter by himself.  Then I wanted more color so I decided a can of corn would go well with the mix.  It turned into this lovely plate of vegetables for a easy weekday lunch.

• Chop brussels sprouts and sweet potato into roughly equal sizes.  
• Toss with EVOO, S&P, onion powder and garlic salt.  
• Roast in a 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes.  
• Then turn broiler to high for about 3 minutes to crisp up the edges and get that yummy brown color.

Meanwhile....

• A drizzle of EVOO into a pan on the stove top.  
• Add one can of corn, season with S&P.
• I added one clove of garlic.
• Warm through and add a bit of fresh basil at the end.

You can serve it just like this but on this day I happened to have some leftover honey Dijon sauce I had made a couple nights before so I added that to the plate as well.

Farmer's Market Inspiration - Fall Edition

Today's Lunch....

I went to a local farmer's market this past Sunday and was inspired by one of my favorite fall finds....butternut squash.  I made this meat free meal for lunch today and even my husband who was a bit wary of the butternut squash loved the meal (he had seconds!)

There is barely a recipe to this one it was so easy!  

• Preheat oven to 400.  Chop up potatoes and squash in similar sizes, toass with some EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), salt, pepper and garlic salt.  Roast under tender, about 25 minutes.  Then I turn the broiler on and let them go another 5 minutes or so until they get those yummy brown edges.
• Meanwhile, in a pan on the stove over medium heat, caramelize one large onion, seasoned with S&P
• After I finished the onions, I remove them from the pan and put the black beans (one can, rinsed) into the same pan I cooked the onions in.  Season with S&P and warm through....just a few minutes.
• Serve all together and top with some fresh parm cheese if you like.
• This was delicious the next day as a breakfast "hash" with a fried egg on top!