Shepherd's Pie--Thanksgiving Leftover Remake

I hate to throw out food, so I am grateful for a family who willingly eats leftovers for lunch or, when we've got enough, for Leftover Night.  When I can turn leftovers into something completely different, it's a bonus.  When I can use 3 different leftovers in one new dish, it's a hat trick.

Making this the other night I scored a Leftover Hat Trick.  I had leftover mashed potatoes, from this dish.  I had leftover green beans, simply sautéed with a bit of bacon.  And my kid wanted grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch so I had half a can (prepared) of tomato soup left.

I did what any self-respecting frugal home cook would do.  I combined them all to make Shepherd's pie!  This may not be the Shepherd's pie of your childhood, but it very nearly is the shepherd's pie of mine, so try it.  You may like it!

My kids are not fans of green beans, but will eat them in this dish and take the obligatory bite of the World's Best Green Bean Casserole (they are even more non-fans of mushrooms than they are of green beans).  For them, I chop the beans pretty small in my shepherd's pie.

If I were feeding green bean and mushroom lovers, I'd try to combine the entire leftover WBGBC with the ground beef and seasonings--without the soup--top it with leftover mashed potatoes, and call it Post-Thanksgiving Shepherd's Pie.  But for now, I'll stick with simply prepared beans and be happy when I hit the jackpot and the leftovers are as good as the original dishes they came from.

Try this if you happen to have 3 or 4 cups of leftover mashed potatoes, 1 1/2 to 2 cups of leftover green beans, and a can of tomato soup in the pantry.

What are your favorite ways to remake Thanksgiving leftovers into new meals?

Sweet Potato Pizza--2 ways--Thanksgiving Leftover Remake (Pizza Night!)

Sometimes the veggies you get from the farm share aren't . . . perfect looking.  Sometimes they are knobby, misshapen, tiny, weird (carrot pants!).  And that's ok.  They still taste fine.  I'd had an idea to try sweet potato fries with our meal, but these were the remaining sweet potatoes I'd gotten from the farm share.  Not really idea for cutting into fairly uniform slices so they'd bake evenly.  Instead, I cubed them up, added oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15-20 minutes.  Faster than I was expecting.

Then I went to pick up my farm share and got another batch of sweet potatoes.  These were fat and sassy and perfect for the fries I wanted to make.  So I had leftover roasted sweet potato cubes, and you know what that means:  PIZZA!

This is version 1.

I was inspired by the sweet potato and feta combination I saw here, but also dithering about feta vs goat cheese, what type of sauce, additional vegetables, yada yada.  So I opted to make 2 pizzas, like I did with the fresh pear and goat cheese combo.  But the sweet potato pizzas were similar enough, and not OMG FREAKING AMAZING like the tomato pesto pizza I'd made the week before (yes, the post will come up, but tomatoes are not seasonal to me now so it just feels wrong to titillate you when you may not be able to access fresh delicious tomatoes.  You'll thank me.  Maybe?).

So I've decided to post them both, and to invite you dear readers to try this at home, with your leftover Thanksgiving sweet potatoes, and see if you can come up with something with a little more oomph than my pizzas had.  Because while these pizzas were fine, and the entire family ate them, they needed some sisu.  Some chutzpah.  A certain je ne sais quoi.  Something was missing.  My spouse says bacon.  It's his answer to everything.  Unfortunately I used the last of the bacon in a Chicken Cider Stew and he'll have to wait until I remember to thaw and bake some.

That said, on to the pizzas.  **But please check out the update at the end!  There's hope!**

Silken Turnip and Potato Soup (and How To Make Chicken Stock)

Wrinkled old turnips?  Come on down! We love using you in soup!

I read this recipe in The Washington Post and first tried it when the farm share overwhelmed me with turnips provided us with an overabundance of turnips.  My whole family likes this.  I'm happy to make it earlier in the week and serve it the night before Thanksgiving, when I'm busy prepping and don't feel like cooking or eating a heavy meal.

Awaiting the sour cream garnish.

This soup tastes very rich, but it's made without any cream.  In fact, if you use vegetable broth and oil instead of the chicken stock and butter, it would make a vegan offering on your Thanksgiving table.
I don't usually have vegans at my table, so I make chicken stock for the base of this soup.  Whenever I roast a chicken, or pick up a rotisserie chicken at the store, I save the carcass for chicken stock.  Today I grabbed a soup pack and, armed with 1950 Betty Crocker's New Picture Cookbook, made up a batch.

Swiss Chard, Corn, and Feta Pizza (Pizza Night!)

This pizza was inspired by a flatbread at SmittenKitchen.  The combination of leeks, corn, and chard sounded just delicious.  I haven't gotten any leeks from my CSA farm share this year, though.  So I knew I'd need to sub in some onions.  I grew up eating the entire piece of Swiss chard, and I hate to waste edible food, so I adapted it based on what I had on hand.
I'd been experimenting making pizza sauce with fresh tomatoes, so I smeared half the pizza with the sauce that didn't get put up (I ran out before I finished).  Half of this pizza is <gasp> naked!  It's ok, though, I covered up the bare dough with stuff.  It's totally safe for kids.

You don't normally see fluorescent pink in nature.

Quick and Crunchy Multi Grain Pumpkin Muffins

The overnight soaked-oatmeal muffins only work if you remember to set them up overnight, or at least an hour before baking.  Somedays, though, you remember to thaw a cup of pumpkin puree but forget to soak the oats.  And forget to put a tea bag in your mug of hot water . . .

For those days, here's a quick and crunchy muffin with the same whole grain goodness in less time.

French Green Lentil Soup (and How to Make Brown Stock, Frugal Farm Fresh Feast Style)

You know how I keep yammering on about saving all the unused bits and pieces of your farm share veggies in a Soup Pack?  Today I'm going to show you how I use a soup pack to make a brown (beef) stock, then use some of that stock to make soup.

This soup got started with the cow taking up residence in my freezer.  I asked for all the odds and ends of the beast, from tongue to tail and odd bits in between.  We got several packages of "soup bones" and today I got one out, along with a soup pack.  Instead of randomly throwing ingredients and insufficient salt into the pot, like I usually do, I decided to <gasp!> follow a recipe.  Well, loosely.

I consulted my handy 1950 Betty Crocker's New Picture Cookbook.  I was interested to read "Store covered in jars in the refrigerator.  The layer of fat on top will help preserve the stock." I usually freeze soup stock, and at this time of year freezer space is at a premium, so I gave it a go.  I heated the jars as if I was going to can the stock, then poured the strained (ooh!  used my cheesecloth! bonus!) stock into the hot jars.  I used my plastic screw top lids since they work in the fridge or freezer.  When I was ready to make soup I scooped off the fat layer (reminded me of my mom's wax on top of jam) and poured out the stock.

A Pizza Primer

If you've never made pizza dough from water, flour, yeast, and salt--grab a cup of tea, coffee, or hey we all need to drink more water so grab some and read on.  If you make pizza already, you know what you're doing so just enjoy the photos or move along to your next blog if you're busy.

The other week I showed you how I turn a ball of pizza dough into a crust, ready for topping.  Today, thanks to the miracle of it's-still-football-marching-band-season-so-I'm-really-doing-this-on-Sunday-afternoon, I will show you how I make that ball of pizza dough.  It is so simple, you've got to try this at home!

I tend to float between crust recipes, getting stuck on one for a while before switching it up.  I think my current recipe came from Pioneer Woman.  I got sick of looking it up each time and just emailed myself the particulars in February of 2011.  Though looking up the email date referred me to a pizza dough email from King Arthur flour from Feb 2002 . . . good grief I've been making pizza for a long time.

Still love this white spinach pizza the most.

Sweet Potato (Leftover Halloween) Reese's Pieces Oatmeal Cookies

One of the nice things about seasonal eating is looking forward to the new produce that ripens with each season.  It must have been boring just buying whatever I had on the menu plan at the grocery store (who am I kidding? I think I've always shopped for what's on sale/marked down/cheap).  Lately, I have been busily roasting a bunch of the fall produce that's been popping up in my CSA farm share box.  I know that the greens need to be used up quicker than the winter squash and root veggies, but I've missed the root veggies, so I had to include them in my processing labors.

I am frugal by nature, and always looking for ways to save money.  I don't mind asking my kids for some of their Halloween candy, and they don't mind tolerate giving me some when I use it to make treats for all of us!  Today I was going to make a batch of cookies for the family using that candy, and my eye fell on a cup of baked sweet potato flesh that was left over from another recipe.  I'm happy adding veggies to my oatmeal muffins so why not cookies?  I love to make cookies because I bought into that 'let the dough sit' NYT article.  Since it only takes a few minutes to mix up a batch of dough, I'm happy to do it whenever I've got softened butter (yay, hockey season!). Then the dough can hang out in the fridge for a day until I'm ready to bake.  Win for everyone.

Don't try this at home!  See note below!

One technique I have for keeping our family from eating 3 dozen cookies in a day is to freeze scoops of cookie dough on a metal tray until hard, then transfer to a zip top bag.  That way I can bake as much as I want think we should eat for dessert.  And the side benefit is that I frequently have cookie dough in the freezer for unexpected cookie needs.  Long ago I'd promised dinner, ready to heat, to my son's Thursday after school music tutor when he and his wife became parents.  Except I'd gotten the date wrong!  Lucky for me, I had cookies in the freezer, so while the music lesson was happening in the dining room, I was in the kitchen baking cookies and throwing together a meal for the new parents.  A well-stocked pantry is a huge help to my wallet.

Fresh Pear, Fig Jam, and Goat Cheese Pizza (Pizza night!)

When I saw the pig-shaped pear (or is that a pear-shaped pig?) I wanted to put it on a pizza.
The pear, I mean.
And pears go great with goat cheese--so another layer of flavor was there.

What I couldn't decide was what else would go on the pizza.  I love goat cheese and fig jam, but I wanted to try something more savory like caramelized onions with the pear.  I was mulling this over when I went on my near-daily milk run, and asked the cheese monger at my local grocery store for advice.  She echoed my fig jam thoughts.

So I did what any good food blogger, even a very new food blogger, would do.  I made a bunch of pizzas and took separate photos of each so that I can pull multiple Farm Fresh Feasts Friday Night Pizza Night posts out of one meal!  Tonight's pizza is the fresh pear, fig jam, and goat cheese version.

I had help on this undertaking.  My kid decided to help out with photography so I didn't have to keep washing my hands in between steps.  She was taking "action" shots of the pizza.  Some of them I really really like.  I took the ones at the end that are less artistic but do let you see the entire pizza.

Action shot-pears, goat cheese, and jam.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Alfredo Sauce with Fried Sage

I am always looking to my fridge, to the leftover bits of this and that, for inspiration for the next meal.  This quick side dish is no exception.  I had leftover prepared Alfredo sauce from this pizza, and leftover roasted butternut squash from these enchiladas.  And I needed a side dish for this casserole.  I also had lovely fresh sage from the farm share, and have been reading about sage cooked in butter added to all sorts of butternut squash dishes.  It's not hard to see how inspiration struck. Easy cleanup-too!  I cooked this all in one pot, doing first the noodles, then the sage, then finally the sauce before combining it all back in the pot to heat through.

I've revamped my Visual Recipe Index! For more ideas on what to do with your butternut squash, click here.

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Enchilada Casserole

Could have called it enchilada-lasagna, or enchi-sanga, but in the end I went with a straightforward name. This dish takes all the ingredients of enchiladas, but instead of rolling each tortilla up individually, I stacked them in the dish and spread the stuffing over the whole mess.

I know, food porn, right?  This was a particularly photogenic dish, if you're into melty-cheesy goodness.  It ought to be-I made it twice before I was happy with it, so there are photos from each preparation.  My fault, not the recipe--my homemade salsa-not-quite-verde wasn't the right sauce. I repeated it with canned enchilada sauce and it was just right.

My first time trying real, homemade, enchiladas was at a baby shower of all places.  Our hostess made cheese and onion enchiladas and I was amazed how soft and flexible the corn tortilla became in the warm sauce.  Up until that point, I'd assumed that corn tortillas were good for tortilla chips and that's about it.  Not anymore!  I loved the combination of cheese and onion then, and it's still my favorite kind of enchiladas by far.

Because I eat seasonally, I've got butternut squash from my farm share.  The farmers at the weekly pick up said there'd been some insect damage to the squash, and to eat them up this week.  Normally I'd be holding off on the squash until later in the fall and focusing on the greens now, but needs must.  I decided to roast the squash because I've been roasting anything I haven't pickled lately (and pickling anything that hasn't moved). I've revamped my Visual Recipe Index! For more ideas on what to do with your butternut squash, click here.

The pig is very concerned he's going to get pickled too.

Red Russian Kale, Tomato, and Eggs Baked in Ham Cups

My mother, myself, most of her best buds from her first job (pre-marriage, pre-kids, when she was Just Herself), and most of the daughters of these women gathered for a weekend in St Louis.  A reunion for the moms, in some cases a first meeting for the daughters.


It is a gift, to hear all about your mom from her friends, when your mom is sitting right next to you.


Three of us daughters got that gift.  Our hostess, Alanna, did not.  Instead, she selflessly created the opportunity for her mother's friends to reminisce about the one member of their group who is no longer with us.  It was a very special weekend.

Alanna, of Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture, is a clever Foodie.  She arranged for our meals to be catered by Karen of Family Style Food.  So a bunch of women who all enjoy delicious food got to sit back, relax, visit, and be treated to fabulous dishes like the one I'm writing about today.

This dish was inspired by Karen's Individual Prosciutto, Spinach, and Egg Pies.  I loved it at that weekend, begged for the recipe, and have made it on many occasions since.  It's great for a weekend brunch, a weeknight dinner, even a PTA teacher appreciation breakfast!  Extra veggies without bread products are always appreciated on a breakfast spread.

I usually don't have baby spinach, the original veggie.  But many other greens from the farm share or the garden or the farmer's market will work--Swiss chard, Tat soi, or the Red Russian kale used here to name a few.

The original recipe uses prosciutto, but I had a fair amount of ham slices on hand so I decided to forgo a trip to the grocery store and use what I got.  Frugality!

If you happen to have 4 sizes of muffin tins like I do, let's start a support group use the second largest.  It's larger than a standard muffin tin (7/8 ounce vs 3/8 ounce). If you only have the standard muffin tin, just use a little bit less of everything but the egg.

Artichoke, Arugula Pesto, and Fontina pizza (Pizza Night!)

My dog apologizes for the poor quality of this photo.  No he doesn't, but it's his fault anyway.

I love artichokes on pizza.  Someday I'll put up my 'when my spouse is deployed and I make a pizza exactly the way I want it' pizza, but until then, this will suffice.  It hits almost all the notes I like in a pizza, and most everything for it is a pantry/freezer staple.  Including the arugula pesto!  I love how easy it is to grow arugula (rocket), but after a while I get sick of fresh arugula.  Thank goodness for Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables, where I picked up the arugula pesto recipe below.  If you don't have arugula pesto, any old pesto will do. Don't stress-it's Friday!

Thursday Quick Take-Sausage and Peppers

Life sometimes gets in the way of dinner, but that doesn't mean that you can't make a quick meal using your farm fresh ingredients.  I had peppers from the farm share, a good coupon for some smoked sausage, one for pierogies, and found brat & sausage rolls marked down when I stopped at the store.  Quick meal in under 20 minutes!

Rainbow Pizza (Pizza Night)

This pizza was more an exercise in How Many Colors Can I Put On The Blank Canvas of Alfredo Sauce & Dough than a real taste combination inspiration. It started because I saw Alfredo sauce marked down and thought that would be good on a pizza, and continued when the yellow Bright Lights Swiss chard was calling to me from the garden.  Then I started looking around and noticed the red tomatoes, the mushrooms . . . and finally a purple pepper.  Just be grateful I didn't grab the beets or blueberries.  This time.  While it made for a pretty pizza, and it tasted good, I don't usually prefer sliced tomatoes on my pizza so next time I'd leave them off.  If you love them, go for it.

And I can see red, and yellow, and green, and purple, and brown, and . . .

Beet & Goat Cheese Spread

New photo, same delicious recipe!

I love beets but my family doesn't.  I continually look for new ways to present beets so that everyone will discover how good they are.  One of my favorite ways to eat beets is this soup.  The family will eat it, especially if I puree it, but they don't love it like I do. That's why I was delighted to get this recipe from a friend.  She got it from her CSA farmer!  The inspiring recipe was for crostini, but I use it on crackers, on bread in a sandwich--good with radishes, cucumbers, sliced cheese and lettuce, and as a dip for sliced veggies.  This keeps for at least a week in the fridge.

For other recipes featuring beets, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index.

Try New Things-Radish Sandwich (Quick Take)

One of the neat things of being in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm share is the seasonal influx of new-to-me veggies.  I'd known that radishes existed of course.  I'd seen them on salad bars or on salads I'd order in restaurants. I assumed, based on that brief taste, that I didn't care for radishes.  The first year we got radishes in a farm share, I gave all of the radishes to my dad.  The second year, at the spring "welcome to our CSA" gathering when we picked up the first box of the season, I sampled a French Breakfast radish dipped in salt.

Hello!  That's good eating. After that I started sharing the radishes with my dad.

My favorite way to eat a radish remains the simple radish sandwich.  Take a slice of good bread (La Brea Bakery Whole Grain loaf from the store or Costco remains my favorite).  Spread with butter or buttery spread.  Top with sliced radishes.  Sprinkle kosher salt over top.  Delicious!

I'm currently fermenting some shredded radishes into relish on my countertop.  What are you doing with radishes?

Fried Potatoes--Farm Fresh Feast Style

Fall comfort food at its best--fried potatoes pumped up with farm fresh ingredients.  I learned how to make fried potatoes in Germany from a very patient social worker friend.  He would cook his potatoes low and slow, until they had a nice crust and were cooked through.  I don't have the patience, so I nuke or boil my potatoes first, and finish them in the skillet.  Try it!

Oops, forgot the seasonings and the garlic.

Red Russian Kale, Baby Bella, and Feta with Roasted Garlic Oil (Pizza Night)

Sautéed baby bella mushrooms and Red Russian kale on a roasted garlic oil-brushed pizza crust.

It's Pizza Night again!
This time I had a hankering for mushrooms, and conveniently found some baby bellas marked down at the grocery store.  There's frequently milk marked down there too, which is also convenient as my kids can drink a gallon in the time it takes me to dance around the kitchen Gangnam style.

Pay no attention to the bacon in the foreground.  Or do, your choice.

If you ever tried kale chips, you'll know that lovely frizzled kale melting on your tongue feeling that you can get eating some soon after they've come out of the oven.  This pizza tastes like that to me.  I also like the earthiness of the mushrooms combined with the garlic and kale.  Crazy good.

I posted about how I put up my garlic.  On the advice of my friend Heather, I used a clove of roasted garlic to flavor olive oil and tried that as the pizza sauce. Delicious!

For other ideas using Red Russian kale, please see my Kale Recipes Collection. For other recipes using mushrooms, please see my Mushroom Recipes Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other pizza ideas, please see the Visual Pizza Recipe Index and my Friday Night Pizza Night! Pinterest board. Would you like to learn How to Use This Blog? Click here.

Summer Squash = Fall Dessert

Pattypan squash in a crumble for dessert? Yes.

I love changing seasons.  As much as I don't want to turn on an oven in the heat of the summer, as soon as the weather starts to turn cool I look forward to baking, stewing, and roasting.
I also relish the opportunity to look at a familiar vegetable in a new way.  Like this patty pan squash.  I'd cut it up, prepared to sauté it with something-or-other, then took the kids to the dentist.  Lucky for us I also brought along a copy of Farmer John's Cookbook, because in that I discovered a new-to-me use for squash that I'd never make in the summer but is perfect for a cool fall evening.  This recipe will work with any summer squash, but since my CSA box had this pretty patty pan I've used it.