Shepherd's Pie with Thanksgiving Leftovers

Another easy-to-make dish composed of Thanksgiving leftovers is a modified Shepherd's pie. Pretty good!

Loosely based on this Rachel Ray recipe, I heated up leftover gravy, threw in shredded turkey, sauteed carrots and baby spinach in a little olive oil and garlic, and zapped the mashed potatoes in the microwave briefly with a splash of chicken stock to loosen it up. Then I layered it all (in that order) in individual casseroles. I sprinkled some grated Parmesan cheese on top of the potatoes and baked them at 375 degrees for about 15-20 minutes (until it was bubbly).

Hot Cheesy Broccoli Dip

This hot, cheesy broccoli dip recipe was super easy- thrown together with randoms odds and ends from my fridge. I microwaved the dip, as instructed, but then threw it under the broiler for a few minutes at the end to get a crusty top. Pretty good! Basically a cheddar broccoli soup in dip form. Fine by me!

Turkey, Cranberry and Fontina Panini

I made this great turkey, fontina and cranberry sauce panini/grilled cheese using Thanksgiving leftovers, inspired by (but not exactly following) this recipe. I also saw some other turkey panini recipes on the internets that were really appealing!

In retrospect, I am thinking I would have liked to throw thinly sliced apple into the sandwich itself for some crunch, but it was pretty tasty nonetheless. Prior to composing the sandwich, I zapped the shredded turkey in the microwave with a splash of chicken stock to reconstitute it, as it got a little dry in the fridge overnight. Worked perfectly.

I would definitely recommend this sandwich for leftover turkey! Also, this avgolemono soup recipe that I made in the past works great with some shredded turkey thrown in at the end!

Braised Baby Artichokes with Garlic Lemon Mayo

For Thanksgiving, Madison brought a bunch of baby artichokes over, in case we needed another veggie, or got hungry while prepping the remainder of the meal. We didn't end up using them that day, so I cooked them the day after as an appetizer prior to digging into the turkey leftovers!

I halved them and braised them in chicken stock and white wine, a la this recipe from the other Martha. Then we ate them with a dipping sauce we threw together with some mayo, lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt and pepper. Delicious!

White Pizza with Kale and Pepperoni

I had some leftover pizza dough after making some broccoli and mozzarella stromboli the other night (which were good, but messy and difficult to roll up!), so we decided to make a white pizza with crispy kale. Tim insisted that we also put pepperoni on it, because he's a man and men apparently need meat. The pepperoni was good, so I shouldn't complain. We also added some red pepper flakes in with the garlic oil that was spread on the dough. The goat cheese was a tasty and unexpected addition... the tang complemented the earthy flavor of the kale and the salty pepperoni.

I broke my baking stone a while back, so I decided to try a different method for getting a crispy pizza crust: I placed the rolled out dough on an upside-down baking sheet covered in a layer of cornmeal. I think using the baking sheet upside down let the air circulate around the crust a little more- I'd definitely use this method again!

Recycled T-shirt Necklace

There's been a whole lotta crafting going on here over the past few weeks... unfortunately, because a lot of the crafting is for birthday and/or Christmas gift purposes, most of it can't be discussed or shown here for at least another month or so!

This necklace is purely selfish, though. I made it for myself on a whim, and I am really digging it. I envision wearing it with jeans and a t-shirt, or even a black dress to work.
Inspired by some tutorials and blog posts I saw on Ye Olde Internets, I cut an old t-shirt (R.I.P. Chuck Norris Experiment soccer t-shirt! You have served me well!) into strips, pulled them so they curled up, strung some silver beads on them, arranged them in graduated strands, then knotted them together in the back. For being made out of an old soccer jersey, I think it's pretty classy and dramatic!

Butternut Squash, Kale and Cheddar Bread Pudding

The flavor of this bread pudding was really great... very appropriate for fall! I liked this, as did Tim, although Chuck was not enamored. I've taken note of her dislikes over the past couple years and, by my calculations, it appears she doesn't like custards... oh well!I switched out the baguette for the heels of a couple loaves of whole grain sandwich bread, which I think gave the bread pudding some heft, and definitely some healthy. Also, for extra flavor, I threw a couple cloves of garlic in when I sauteed the kale.