Whew!  Our family made it-how about yours?  Through with any leftovers?  Did anyone get to use any of the handy and creative ideas-as few as there were?

For us, there weren’t many leftovers-we did go to my sister’s home, so packets were dispersed amongst the 4 families that wanted something to take home.  My parents and my sister’s mother-in-law declined to partake of the huge amount of food.  Our brother-in-law’s brother and wife only wanted to take home what was left of their salad and some pie.  So, that left my sister’s family, us and our daughter’s home.

Since my daughter and son-in-law are on the tightest budget of all of us, we sent the bulk of it home with her-turkey, ham, 2 types of stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and some dessert.

We took home some of the stuffings, sweet potato casserole and my mashed potatoes, my son asked for enough ham to carry him through the next 4 days of work lunches.

I had hoped to not have to cook the next night, but alas, I had to make 2/3’s of a meal.  

Now I guess I’ll have to start thinking about making potato latkes and applesauce before we leave for Phoenix next month.

Cheers!

Okay ladies, this didn’t go as well as I had thought it would in my mind.  There were more people reading and commenting on Sunday’s column that ever before, all agreeing this is a great idea.

Except something happened between the reading, the commenting and the sharing-THERE HASN‘T BEEN ANY!!!

Here are some of my favorite ideas for leftovers though:

Turkey-saute some with any leftover onions, bell peppers and roasted potatoes and serve it as a hash under eggs for a really special breakfast.

Get some wrap-size tortillas and put in the turkey, some cranberry sauce, some leftover veggies and make a Thanksgiving wrap.

Use any leftover green beans (or other veggies), turkey and gravy and then use the leftover mashed potatoes over the top-bake and serve a “Turkey Shepherd’s Pie“.

The Veggies-If they are just steamed, mix with a vinegarette and just serve over lettuce as a salad.  Again, use some of the leftover turkey or ham and it makes a very nice, light dinner.

Potatoes-besides topping the shepherd’s pie, you can mix in some egg and make some potato “puffs“.  These can either be baked or fried, your choice.

Butternut squash?  I love to puree with roasted pears, honey, cinnamon, salt and pepper and serve.  The leftovers of this are delish thinned with some turkey/chicken stock and a touch of milk and add some of the leftover turkey for a very elegant different soup.

Leftover cranberry relish?  The whole works best here.  Add chopped apples, celery, toasted nuts and mix with some fat-free cool whip and an equal amount of mini-marshmallows.  

Or mix it with some apples and pears and top with your favorite oatmeal crumble topping and serve as a cobbler.

These are just a few-but I’d still really love for everyone to share some of your favorite recycling dishes for Sunday’s column!

We are 5 days (including today) away from Thanksgiving!  We’ve talked about side dishes, coffee bars, sharing recipes and some other things-but we haven’t talked about the bird that is probably defrosting in your fridge right now.

Yes, the monstrous thing taking up an entire shelf, just sitting there.

Honestly, I have always gone one of two ways-get the old butterball and let it do it’s thing.  I simply add quite a bit of rosemary from the yard, toss in a whole onion and some garlic and let my oven do the rest.

OR, I put the bird into a roasting bag with celery, onion, rosemary (I have quite a hedge in that yard of mine), garlic and the juice from an orange, a lemon and a grapefruit and let it hang out until my Polder thermometer hits the 180 and screams at me.

You see, I’m figuring with all the heavy sides and desserts, the turkey just needs to be left alone and shine on it’s own.  

My only tip is this-use two smaller birds, they cook in half the time of the big one and therefore stay juicier.
Also, I always by a spiral ham and bake it with some marmalade.  Not everyone wants turkey!  

Wednesday, let’s talk about what we can do with all the leftovers!

We all have our favorite soups-so let’s not go there.  What I would love is this-do you have a secret hash recipe?  A favorite salad?  Okay, I love to do soups-but try sharing one that is out of the ordinary!  Do you make a sweet potato bisque?  Butternut and turkey?  A great sweet potato breakfast bread?

This Wednesday-I want to be able to share more of your recipes.  So send me a comment, message or post it here and I will copy and paste it for everyone then.

Coffee, Tea or Me?

I promised that today would be about setting up a coffee bar for the holidays-but it also works for a party or get-together of any kind-so here we go!

First off, make sure you have several thermoses!  I like to have one for regular, one for decaf and another for a special flavor.  The flavored always goes the fastest in our home.  

When picking out a flavored brew-think about the rest of your meal.  Since we‘re talking about Thanksgiving, remember that you‘re going to be serving things with some fairly bold flavors, so try a kahlua or amaretto.  It is easy to accessorize with all the toppings.

For tea lovers, it’s also nice to have a teapot or a 4th thermos with hot water and some spiced teas or chai tea available.

Set up an area with mugs (cups and saucers are a bit small and cumbersome, unless you‘re using your china for the entire meal-we go with the finest in paper for a crowd our size!).  

Here’s an array better than any coffeehouse would have ready for your family and friends to create their java masterpieces with:

half and half or flavored creamer
sugar, raw sugar, a low calorie sweetener
cinnamon sticks, nutmeg and a grater
shaved chocolate, powdered chocolate, vanilla powder
whipped cream-with or without flavoring
peppermint sticks
IF your crowd is into liquors-kahlua, amaretto, bourbon, whisky, cointreau and chambourd (orange and raspberry).
another nice touch is to have candied orange peel.

As for coffee preparation-we have two, one that is a grind and brew so I can make a freshly ground pot of coffee and one that brews up individual cups.  For the grind and brew, I always figure about a tablespoon of beans for every 6 ounces of water.  However, many people have told me they like to use twice that-let the buyer beware.

We‘re almost up to Thanksgiving-if you have any additions you think would be a great addition to this coffee bar, please share!

Before I begin-THANK YOU ALL FOR THE WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY WISHES!!!

I would have loved to have written you each a private message, but alas-I wouldn’t have been able to send so many and been able to write this week’s columns!

Turning 51 does have it’s blessings.  Give me a while and I’m sure I’ll think of more than the obvious of having such a wonderful world of fabulous women friends here on fab40 and a terrific family to boot!

This week I wasn’t particularly on the top of my game, but I did decide on a subject-COFFEE.

Coffee has always been my beverage of choice.  My mom got me hooked.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned my allergy to dairy products-so milk was out of the question.  There were no such products as soy, almond or rice milks to substitute in my developing years.  

Mom is also a coffee fiend, so at the time-giving me a hot drink of coffee in the mornings made sense.  And there was no pediatrician to refute the subject or make more healthful choices available.  

She made Sanka.  Can you imagine????

The reason I’m bringing up Coffee-well, I couldn’t drink any for a good portion this week.  Seems my stomach in conjunction with 3 darvocets in 24 hours and a truck load of pain, simply do not agree with each other.  I spent an entire day doing something that would just be too much information to share with you all.  

My diet-diet caffeine free cola and chicken noodle soup.  Oh and tummy tamer tea.

But I figured with Thanksgiving dinner coming up-talking about coffee with desssert would probably be a good topic.  

So tune in Wednesday-we‘re talking “how to put together a coffee bar“-perfect with all that pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies!

Happy Wednesday!  I have a couple of recipes and ideas today so I’m just going to plunge right in!

The first recipe is a favorite of my daughter’s.  It’s sweet, savory, low in fat and calories and addictive.  It’s a Butternut Squash Puree.

Preheat the oven to 375.  Line baking sheets with foil and spray with something like Pam.  It provides easy clean-up!

Ingredients:

about 2 lbs of butternut squash
2 tbsps each honey and butter
1 to 1–1/2 tsps each (depends on how spicy you like the dish) chili powder and cinnamon
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
olive oil spray

poke several holes into the squash and microwave for about 5 minutes. This will make the rind soft enough to be able to cut the vegetable in half and scoop out the seeds and pulp.

Place cut side up onto the prepared sheets.  Spray with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast for about 40 minutes or until very tender.  

Halve the rest of the ingredients.  Place half of the squash pulp into a blender with one of the reserved halves of saved ingredients.  Puree and repeat with second batch of food.

Mix together and place in microwave safe casserole.  Reheat if necessary.  Serve!

Save the seeds for roasting!  They taste just like pumpkin seeds.

Now my son loves all things pumpkin, but his favorite is this spicy quick bread.  It’s delicious toasted with marmalade and butter.

Preheat oven to 350 and prepare two loaf pans.  Put some wax paper on the bottom so that it won’t stick when they‘re removed after cooling for 10 minutes.

Ingredients:

In a large bowl mix:

3–1/2 C flour
1/4 tsp powder
2 tsp soda
1–1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp each cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger

In a large mixing bowl blend together:
1 C vegetable oil
2 C roasted and mashed pumpkin
1–1/2 C each brown and white sugar (I like the dark brown)
4 eggs

Once the wet ingredients are combined, stir in dry ingredients.

If you’d like, this is a great time to add 1 C of toasted walnuts or pecans!

Divide batter and pour into prepared pans.  Bake 50–60 minutes-depending on how your oven “runs”

Cool 10 minutes on a rack before removing from pan.

I have a great quick bread recipe for all the leftover yams and sweet potatoes, but I’ll save the recipes for this tasty tuber for next week!