Turkey Soup & Shepard's Pie

Christmas has officially come to an end.  It was a long haul but we had a blast visiting with family and friends and hosting a few of our own get togethers.  We were certainly spoiled this year thanks to some extremely generous people. THANK YOU ALL!! The only thing on the agenda today is to reorganize the fridge and make some food out of all the leftovers and maybe hit the grocery store.  On the menu; turkey and rice soup, and Shepard's pie.  Both are makeshift recipes using crap I have in the kitchen so feel free to substitute as needed.  The Shepard's pie is in the freezer now so I'm not entirely sure how it turned out but it looked and smelled very good.  I've made a different Shepard's pie (here) if you want to check it out too.  Enjoy!

Turkey Soup Ingredients
8 cups stock (I made my own from turkey bones -- check out my recipe here)
1 1/2 cups cubed cooked turkey
3/4 cup long grain rice (or you can use barley)
2 carrots, diced
2 stocks celery, diced
1 onion, chopped
1/2 - 3/4 cup frozen chopped spinach
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Method
Toss everything into a large pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered for 30 minutes or until carrots are tender.

Shepard's Pie Ingredients
3 cups garlic mashed potatoes (recipe here)
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
1 lb ground beef or chicken
3/4 cup of BBQ (I used PC gourmet BBQ sauce)
1/4 onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon paprika
Parmesan cheese (to sprinkle of the top)

Method
In a frying pan over medium heat cook ground beef until browned all the way through.  Drain fat. Add onion and BBQ sauce and cook for 5 additional minutes.  Remove from heat and spread in the bottom of a rectangular oven safe dish.  Either on the stove top of in the microwave warm corn through. Sprinkle thawed corn over top of beef mixture.  Spread potatoes on top and sprinkle top with parm and paprika. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.  Enjoy!

Gluten Free Appetizer - Artichoke Dip & Tostitos

Picture borrowed from here

I hope that you all had a lovely week of celebrating and spending time with family.  My husband and I have had intensely busy days and laaaaazy days --- it's all about balance, right?!  Tomorrow we are off to our last of four Christmas celebrations.  We've been binging since last Saturday and are looking forward to getting back to our regular eating routine that doesn't include turkey! I foresee a lot of spinach smoothies in the coming weeks.  My brother and his wife have generously offered to host tomorrows gathering and have taken on all of the cooking duties. CHA-CHING.  I have offered to bring an appetizer and decided on using items I have around the house out of pure laziness.  My brothers family is gluten free and I decided on a artichoke dip with tostitos (don't get the whole wheat ones if you want to do a gluten free app). I've made an artichoke dip before (here), but decided to mix it up a bit.

Ingredients
1 can artichoke hearts, drained and minced1/2 cup mayo
3/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 cup cheese, grated (whatever you have laying around - I used Havarti)
1/4 cup frozen spinach, thawed, drained and minced
1/4 of an onion, minced (I used a mild Spanish onion)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
salt & pepper

Method
Mix it all together in a stand mixer and transfer to an oven safe dish.  bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or until the top is slightly browned. Remove and serve hot :)




Turkey, Mashed Potatoes & Squash

It has finally arrived!  Christmas Eve --- my favourite day of the entire year.  I'm sitting here in front of my lit Christmas tree, in my new beautiful home with a napping puppy by my side, a warm tea in hand and a heart that is so grateful that it's about to explode. As I reflect on 2012 I'm realizing that this was one of the best yet! While we did experience some difficult times including the loss of my Nana, we had many high moments including attending many weddings of loved ones, the purchase of our new home, escaping to Jamaica, celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary in Chicago, and learning that a very dear friend won her fight against cancer. Grateful indeed.

On Saturday the hubster and I hosted our very first holiday in our new place --- Christmas dinner for 47 people and 2 dogs!  It was loud, busy, hot and oh so freakin' awesome.  It was beyond heart warming to look around our home and see so much love and celebrating in one space.  We are so lucky to have so much love and support from so many people.

Today my family starts to arrive to begin the next phase of Christmas celebrating. Over the next few days I will be making turkey, mashed potatoes and squash.  Below you will find the recipes I will be using; all of which I have used previously and have been happy with). The mashed potatoes recipe can be found here, however I will be using a slightly adapted recipe today by adding some additional herbs. Here are the turkey and squash recipes. Enjoy xo

Gluten Free Turkey Ingredients (no stuffing in this bad boy!)
1 Turkey (ours is about 14 lbs -- this will feed 10 -12 people)

Juice of a lemon

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons Olive oil

1/2 onion, peeled and quartered

1 entire thing of celery (is it called a bunch, head, bundle...hmm) Use the entire thing; leaves and all)

2 carrots, cut into 4 big chunks

1 tablespoon dried parsley

1 teaspoon rosemary

1 teaspoon thyme

Method
Thaw your bird -- about 5 hour for every pound in the fridge. Grab your rubber gloves because shit is going to get real. Remove all the gross random body parts from the inside and toss in the garbage --- please, for the love of god do not keep them for soup.  I have been scared for life from seeing my mom make `esophagus soup`. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Don`t forget to remove on rack. Rinse turkey in cold water and pat dry with paper towel.  Bleach the crap out of your sink because all those nasty germs can make you sick.  Using the juice from one lemon coat the inside of the bird then coat with a palm full of salt. Now the stuff that goes in the bird is for flavour only --- put half a onion, parsley, carrots, and celery. Close up the turkey cavity with either string or metal skewers. Make sure that the turkey's legs are tied together and tie a string around the turkey body to hold the wings in close. Paint bird with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme. Place in a roasting pan breast side down and cook at 325 degrees for about 3.5 hours or until a meat thermometer reads 175 degrees for dark meat and 165 degrees for the breasts.  Baste every 30 minutes. I have a needle type injector thing that I will use to inject the juices as well (That's what she said!). Juices should run clear. Remove from oven and let rest for 15 minutes before carving. ENJOY!

Yield: About 12 servings
Baked Squash Ingredients

2 butternut squash

4 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup brown sugar

 

Method

Cut squash in half lengthwise and get rid of the seeds. Brush squash halves with butter. In a small bowl, combine the salt, cinnamon, nutmeg pepper and brown sugar and sprinkle over squash halves.
Place in a greased baking dish. Cover with foil and bake at 350° for 60 minutes. Uncover and bake 20 additional minutes (or until squash is tender). Scoop out of skin and mash in a bowl.

 

Merry Christmas to you and your families --- enjoy every heart warming memory making moment

 

 

Gin & Tonic Jello Shots

To celebrate the start of the holidays over 25 of our staff participate in the almost annual pub crawl on Friday night.  It was a 10 hour long beverage sipping event after a day of work and it was SO.MUCH.FUN. I took it back old school and contributed 100 different flavoured jello shots and they were a hit.  The fan favourite were the Gin and Tonic shooters. Here is the recipe I used. Enjoy!

Yield: About 15 shooters

Ingredients
1 box lime jello
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup boiling tonic water
2/3 cup gin
1/3 cup cold tonic water

Method
Measure out 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of Tonic. Pour the mixture into your pot and bring it to a boil. While the Water/Tonic mixture is heating up measure out 2/3 cup of gin and 1/3 cup cold tonic and set them aside. Once the tonic and water comes to a boil quickly pour it into a bowl and mix in the powdered jello. Once the powder is completely dissolved add the cold gin/tonic and stir again. Pour into disposable shot glasses (I use the large ketchup cups). CHEERS!

Hot Chocolate & Bailey's

It's hard to believe that Christmas has arrived.  I just ended school on Friday and I am so thrilled to have two weeks to regroup. The last day of school leading into the winter break is one of my favs.  The students are all so excited and there is such a strong sense of holiday spirit in the school. It also makes it socially acceptable to eat cake for breakfast and timbits for lunch which, for the record I did. On the last day of school I always like to give my work buddies a little treat so this is what I came up with.

• Disposable coffee cup with lid (Dollar store)
• Flavoured hot chocolate (Costco)
• Mini bottle of Bailey's
• Cellophane bags (Michael's)
• I wish I included red spoons --- shoot!

 

 

*I scored the template for these cute naughty or nice gift tags here)

Julia Child

Picture borrowed from here.



4th Annual Cookie Exchange

Last night was our 4th annual cookie exchange with some amazing friends.  We scored a lot of awesome treats! I'll admit that I always regret being apart of this cookie exchange while I'm making my 7 batches of cookies but when it's all said and done and we swap everything it is completely worth it!  The 6 of us ladies always touch base ahead of time to ensure we'll have a good variety of treats. This year we had short bread, chocolate candy cane cookies, chocolate coconut macaroons, sugar cookies, truffles and peanut butter cups. CHA-CHING! I haven't yet sampled everything but it all looks delicious! My husband and I are hosting 2 Christmases this year (one will be 50+ people!!!) so I'll need to bake a few more batches of various cookies to make our stash last through the holidays.  I ended up making sugar cookies with a Hersey's kiss on top.  They turned out well for the most part but next time I will make them a tad smaller, add some nutmeg, and perhaps mix up the types of kisses I put on the top. Below is the adapted recipe. Hope you like 'em. Check out our 2nd and 3rd annual cookie exchanges here and here.

Yield: 24 cookies
Ingredients
Various Hersey's Kisses (hugs, milk chocolate, candy cane, etc)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 egg

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons milk

Red coloured sugar (put regular sugar in a Ziploc, add 5-10 drops of food colouring and shake)

 

Method
Preheat over to 350 degrees. Remove wrappers from the kisses (sample each one!). In a stand mixer, beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and egg in large bowl until well blended. In a separate bowl stir together flour, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture alternatively with the milk to butter mixture, beating until well blended. Shape dough into 1 inch balls and colored sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes (I did 8 -- I like my cookies chewy!)  Remove from oven and press a kiss into center of each cookie. Immediately place in the freezer and don't touch for 10 minutes. As soon as you move the tray the kisses collapse. Enjoy!

It was mighty cold outside the night I made mine so I lined them up on my deck railing to cool.

Rushed Ribs

Over the last couple of years I have learned more about myself than I have it the 10 years prior to that.  Do I dare say that I'm maturing!? Hmm, maybe that's what happens when you turn 30. Doubtful. Whatever the reason, I'll take it.  This new self awareness has helped me realized what makes me 'tick' and why I act, think and feel the way I do.  I'm not going to sit here in list all of my idiosyncrasies but I will tell you that I have learned that although I get an huge satisfaction from being organized, I HATE routine.  I've mentioned before that the very thought of meal planning gives me heart palpitations. This hangup I have can be problematic when I want to use a recipe that requires planning ahead.  I scored back ribs on sale from Foodland and had intended on dropping them in the slow cooker before running out the door for work but completely forgot. Dammit. When I got home from work at 5pm I decided to try a quick approach to making ribs.  I have to say they turned out WAY better then I thought but obviously not as fall-off-the-bone as they would have been if I'd done a slow cooking method.

Ingredients
Pork back ribs
1/2 cup ketchup
 3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup honey
4 tablespoons brown sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place ribs, fat side down in an oven proof dish.  Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and pour over top of the ribs.  Cover dish loosely with foil, allowing steam to escape and cook for 45 minutes.  Remove foil and cook for an additional 15 minutes. Serve with baked beans and corn. Yum!