Girls Night

I'm hosting a "Girls' Night" at my house next Friday. I'm kinda intimidated. (Not by my friends..by my weak/clueless hostess skills)

Shepherd's Pie

So, a friend gave me another Shepherd's Pie recipe....and it's fantastic! I made it last night. Much better than this one, though that one is less prep.

Here's the BEST recipe:

Bill's Shepherd's Pie
-3 cups of leftover mashed potatoes
-1 lb ground beef, cooked
-1 can corn or other vegetable, drained
-1 onion, diced
-1 can tomato soup
-1/2 cup warmed milk (or room temp.)
-1 egg, beaten
-1 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp pepper
-paprika

Directions:
-Brown ground beef on stove on medium high, add onion and salt/pepper and cook through.
-While beef is browning, take out a 13x9 pan and spray with olive oil. Pour tomato soup and canned vegetable in pan, stir together.
-Mix together, in separate bowl, egg and milk. Combine with the mashed potatoes.
-Mix ground beef mixture into the pan with the tomato sauce and canned vegetable.
-Spread mashed potato mixture on top of beef mixture.
-Sprinkle paprika on top. Bake at 350 for 30 min.

So yummy!! It's even better as leftovers.

Holiday Recap

Can I just say that my Turkey cooked in a crockpot was amazing??? I highly recommend it. I have to pat myself on the back and say that my entire meal turned out so good!! Well, except the sweet potatoes. They were runny. I will not be buying canned, pureed sweet potatoes again. But, live and learn. They were the only thing that didn't turn out like I'd hoped.

I am proud to say that I took care of the entire meal and didn't get stressed out! Barb and Buddy cleaned it all up and for that I am so grateful. We had some leftovers, which I wrapped up in tortillas the next day for lunch but I think we're pretty well through most of them now. Time to start meal planning for this pay period. I think we'll be having a hashbrown stirfry tonight. Oh, and there are some pictures of us putting up the tree. Yes, we put it up Thanksgiving Day because we just couldn't wait anymore :) I talked Blake out of the 1200 lights he wanted to buy at GardenRidge, so he got 800. It looks really pretty, but also looks like it's about to take flight into space... who needs indoor lighting when you have a Bolerjack Christmas Tree?

Thanksgiving 09

Hmm

Thanksgiving Menu

Because I'm so excited and can't think about anything else, I'm going to post my Thanksgiving Day menu.

Jenna's Thanksgiving Menu
Crockpot Turkey and Cranberry Compote
Crockpot Sweet Potatoes
Mashed Potatoes
Corn Pudding
Spinach Salad
Roasted Veggies
Deviled Eggs
Rolls

Desserts:
Ice Cream
Pumpkin Pie (by Barb)
Pecan Pie (by Barb)
Poop Cookies (the no-bake cookies, that's just what my family calls them!)

I'm kinda concerned about the timing of everything. I have to make a dish for work on Wednesday, but I'm going to make Autumn Fried Rice so I can make that Tuesday night no problem. The deviled eggs, and spinach salad can be made at the last minute, so really I'm just coordinating the corn pudding and rolls in the oven. The turkey and sweet potatoes will be made in crockpots, and the rest will be on the stove. I think I can do this. I do have a lot of options, so I may even cut the recipe amounts in half since it will just be me and Blake and his parents so I'm not eating leftovers for weeks. I hate leftovers. It really takes a lot of effort for me to eat leftovers. Unless it's fried rice. :) Yum. I am also saving my sanity and using a jar of premade gravy. I burn gravy on the stove. Every time. I also forsee a problem with the deviled eggs...Blake makes fun of me that I can't boil an egg and he's pretty right. I need an official egg-boiler. Maybe I'll make him do it. I also need to make sure the turkey breast actually fits in my crockpot. That could be a problem if it doesn't...

The secret of fried rice

I was going to make rice and beans last night but looked in the pantry and didn't have any plain rice. So I had to improvise.

I have discovered the secret to good fried rice. Or, rather, "fried rice that is surprisingly pretty tasty even though it still doesn't taste like my favorite take-out." Ready for it? Soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. If you put some of that in whatever you have...it will taste just fine. I'm not talking "douse" everything in it, but add enough so all the rice is tinted with a little sauce.

This is my favorite fried rice recipe that I make at home. It's from a crockpot blog...but I don't use the crockpot for fried rice. I mean, come-on...it takes 5 minutes on the stove, especially if you cheat and use dried onion flakes instead of cutting up real ones.

Favorite Home Fried Rice

--2 cups rice (leftover or newly cooked)
--leftover meat

--1 T butter (optional)

--2 T soy sauce

--2 tsp. worcestershire sauce

--1/2 tsp. black pepper

--1/4 tsp. kosher salt

--1/2 diced yellow onion (or use dried onion flakes)

--1 cup of whatever frozen or fresh vegetables you have on hand (I like the frozen bag of mixed veggies)

--1 egg

--sesame seeds for garnish (optional)
--pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

Mix it all together in a wok or huge skillet: voila.

This, however is not the recipe I used last night. Last night all I had was uncooked saffron rice that I've never tried before (it's that yellow kind with seasoning powder mixed in), leftover carrots and broccoli from a veggie tray I bought for a wedding a month ago (I know, but they were still usable), one half of a chicken breast, and salt and pepper. So I just cooked the rice in my handy rice cooker (you can find these for $15 at Target on sale...and SOOO worth it!), and slung some soy sauce and worcestershire sauce on it and it was a very worthy meal! The trick with rice is to make it in chicken broth. The broth adds SO much flavor with no extra work. I thought I'd have leftovers for lunch today but we ate it all.

The other weekend I made a new recipe filing system. I had been just saving recipes I copied from the Internet by type on Word and I'd print out entire pages to put in a binder. But...I decided to cut them all up and paste them t0 4x6 index cards. I'm really happy with it now and it's easier to add new recipes and save paper and space.

I'm not really a cooking-appliance-person, but the rice cooker and my crockpot I use at least 2-3 times a week. I don't know how to cook rice any other way, I have to admit. If I'm not using the crockpot or rice cooker then I'm probably eating Spaghettios.

Christmas Tree

Last night we got our first Christmas Tree. :) Garden Ridge is having a big sale. It took us forever to pick on out, but we're so excited to put it up Thanksgiving Friday. After much debate on pre-lit versus unlit...we decided unlit. So Blake could change out the color of the lights anytime he wants. He is so excited.