Leftover Turkey Pot Pie

My mom made us take home so many left overs for Thanksgiving. I was trying to think of something comforting to make with them. I love Thanksgiving food afterall, but I've had my fill. I thought about making a pot pie because I had frozen veggies, left over turkey and a can of cream of chicken at home. The only thing I needed from the grocery store yesterday was a pie crust and an onion. I don't know about you but I love potatoes, the more potatoes the better.

2 pie crusts ( I used a regular 9 inch from Pillsbury, next time I may get a deep dish)
1 1/2 cups (approximately) of left over turkey or chicken
1 can cream of chicken
1 medium onion diced
1/2 cup diced potato
1 1/2 cups frozen veggies ( I used lima beans, green beans, corn, carrots, and peas)
1 tablespoon of butter
1 teaspoon of rosemary
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 cup of milk
1 egg
chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Lightly poke holes with a fork in the bottom and sides of one pie crust and bake for about 9 minutes or until lightly golden. set aside.

Saute onions in butter and rosemary until just translucent, add diced potatoes and cover with chicken broth. This was probably about 2/3 of a cup for me. Use enough just to cover the potatoes. One potatoes are fork tender add frozen vegetables and cover with chicken broth. Once veggies are heated, add chicken or turkey and cream of chicken soup. Add 1/4 of milk to the empty can of soup and whisk with a fork and add to the pot. At this point if you may need to add a little more chicken broth to even out the mixture but you don't want it to be too runny. Season with salt and pepper to taste and fill the pie crust.

Top with the second pie crust cutting off any excess. Whisk the egg in a separate bowl and brush on to the crust. Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until golden brown. Voila! Easy left over chicken or turkey pot pie.

Melba's Chicken and Dressin'

'Round here we don't call it "stuffing" we call it "dressin". Always have and probably always will. My fondest memories of my grandma are of us in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day making her famous Chicken and Dressin'. I helped her with it one last time in 2007. I've been wanting to try to recreate this dish for a few years, but was always afraid that I wouldn't remember how and that I would somehow be disappointing her if it wasn't correct. This year I threw caution to the wind, and once I got started everything started coming back to me. It's actually a really simple recipe.

2 pans cornbread crumbled
6 slices day old bread cubed
1 white onion diced
3 stalks celery diced
3-4 hard boiled eggs diced (optional)
6 cups of chicken broth
1 tablespoon sage (approximate)
1 tablespoon poultry seasoning (approximate)
1/4 cup of butter
1 tablespoon of butter
1 pound of shredded chicken, white and dark meat
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425.

Saute celery and onion in one tablespoon of butter until translucent, set aside. Make 2 pans of cornbread according to the instructions, once cooled crumble into a large bowl. Add cubed bread, onion, celery, eggs, sage, poultry seasoning, salt. pepper and shredded chicken reserving some pieces for the top. Stir in chicken broth a cup or two at a time until you reach your desired consistency. I like my dressin' sticky so I use all 6 cups, but feel free to play around with it and use what you like. I left the eggs out of mine because I don't really use eggs unless absolutely necessary ha ha. They're gross. You can also add more or less sage/poultry seasoning, taste as you go.

Melt 1/4 cup of butter and grease the bottom and sides of a 9x13 baking dish, if you have butter left over stir it in to the dressin'. Pour the mixture in the pan and top with remaining pieces of chicken. Bake covered for 45 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for an additional 30 minutes or until the top is browned.

Voila! Melba's dressing can be yours. It's pretty simple but extremely delicious. My family loved it this year and it looks like I get to make it every year from now on. I should have taken a picture of the finished product but I didn't, so here are some pictures of my lovely granny instead.

Easy Corn and Potato Chowder

A few weeks ago I came upon this recipe for corn and potato chowder made in a crock pot. I made it and it was amazing. I'm always up for easy crock pot recipes. I love coming home to the smells of something simmering and delicious all ready to be ladled out into a big bowl. Yesterday I had completely forgotten that I planned on making this recipe for supper. So I got home after a flat tire fiasco, to find my crock pot empty.  I figured I could still make the chowder but instead, I would just make it on the stove. Easy peasy right? Right. I hate to brag on myself but what I made was much more flavorful than what spent all day the crock pot last week. For reals.

Also, I learned a new trick to cooking bacon. I've always made bacon on the stove and as is in my nature, I cook it up way too hot and end up burning myself on bacon grease. ha ha. shut up. Thanks to the wonderful place of Pinterest, I learned you can just bake bacon in the oven, it's the same thing! I laid my bacon out on a cookie sheet lined with foil, put it in the oven and turn the oven on to 400 degrees for about 22 minutes. You don't have to preheat the oven. Boom. Easy. I baked up my bacon and then set it aside for later. I don't know if anyone else does this, but I pepper my bacon, I always have. I love bacon. While adding the broth to this recipe, I added just a bit of the bacon grease. I couldn't help myself.

Let's get down to bidness. This recipe is enough for about 4 servings or so.

1 tablespoon butter

1 onion diced

2 cloves of garlic minced

3 large red potatoes cubed (any kind of potato would work probably this is just what I had on hand)

3 cups of frozen corn

3 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream

6-8 slices of cooked crispy bacon crumbled

salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter over medium high heat in a stew pot. Add minced garlic. Once garlic begins to sweat add onions and sautee until translucent. Add chicken broth, potatoes and corn and bring to a slow boil. Once potatoes are fork tender, approximately 15 minutes, add bacon (reserve 2 slices for topping) and cream. Remove pot from heat. With an immersion blender, blend about half of the mixture until you reach a desired texture. Salt and pepper to taste.

Then basically what you're gonna wanna do it spoon it up and top each bowl with the remaining bacon and eat the hell out of it. You can thank me later. I accept cash and Sephora gift cards. Thanks.

This picture really doesn't do this dish justice. I promise to take better pictures soon.

New Jacket from eloquii by The Limited

Remember when I said since it's cold outside I want to buy everything? Well I bought something. I've been looking for a leather type jacket for SO LONG. I ordered one last year from Torrid that I hated, but I got it on sale and couldn't return it so it's been hanging up in my closet brand new with the tags still on it. Maybe I should sell it on Ebay or something. Mama needs a new pair of shoes.

Anyway.

I found out about eloquii from Gabi of GabiFresh.Com. I was SO EXCITED when I caught a preview of some of the pieces and when it finally launched I knew I had to have this jacket. It came last week and I was so pleased with the packaging. If you order clothes online, the packaging is always a crap shoot but my jacket was packaged BEAUTIFULLY. I think Santa's elves packed my jacket and the other goodies that came with it. It was folded and sealed in a plastic bag, which is pretty standard, but was also wrapped in pretty green wrapping paper! See?

Underneath the pretty green wrapping, under the jacket was the free, reversible tote! I love totes.I also really dig free shit. I totes love totes. I always need them on our weekends away. This one is beautiful and really well made. I know I'll be using it often. I didn't take a picture of it but the inside of this tote is a blue canvas type material. I love it! I'm sure I'll be rocking it, shiny side out. Also I love how big it is, it's huge! My husband will have something interesting to say about that I'm sure, but whatever. Guys don't understand big purses/totes. 

I was really impressed to find a garment bag for my jacket to keep it all fresh and clean and beautiful. If I can only remember to use it instead of hanging my jacket over the back of one of the chairs in my kitchen. Must remember.

Ok, now for the jacket. I'm always concerned when buying jackets or coats because the sleeves never seem to be long enough. Not this case with this jacket! For me, the length is perfection. I've been wearing this jacket almost everyday since I got it. What I love most about it is that it is not banded at the bottom, so it doesn't rise up and get all awkward on my muffin top. I've been wearing it with my white tshirts (yep in my white tee), long sleeve tshirts and converse. Once I get my act together and find some really bitchin' boots, I'll be wearing this jacket with said boots and some baller skinny jeans. Be patient with me, I'm a work in progress. 

So there it is. I'm pleased as punch with this purchase. I'm well on my way on my quest to really find quality staples for my wardrobe. If you're a big gal, check out eloquii , I'm sure you'll find something you'll like! I know I've found about a million things that I will be procuring slowly and one at a time. 

While you're at it follow eloqui on twitter @eloquii and Gabi @GabiFresh. Gabi's style is unparalleled. I've been following her blog for the longest time and I love her style.

Get your big ass out there and dress it up.

Novembre.

Dudes. It's cold, and I want to buy everything. I've gotten a head start this year with this cable knit skirt thingy from ASOS. I kind of love it, kind of hate it but I'm gonna wear the shit out of it as soon as I get some appropriate shoes. Fuck the booties I have now, those mothers hurt my feet.

My favorite part of being an adult is having to buy a baller dress for the Christmas parties I have to attend. The Christmas party for my job usually only consists of dinner at a fancy type place where the only coworker I really get along with and I drink all of the wine and laugh louder than anyone else on the planet. I'm quite looking forward to it. My husband's company is a crap shoot every year, sometimes it's dinner, sometimes it's dinner and dancing, but there's always drinks and that's what the holidays are really all about right? right bro. So this year I have a few dresses picked out but I need direction on my stupid hair and shoes, as always, shoes lose me. I hope someday I can be a real girl. 

First there's ASOS, who never ever fails to disappoint me. I love this brand. 

Next up The Limited has a new line for big bitches called "eloquii", and I first saw this dress on the beautiful Gabi of www.gabifresh.com and I kind of want it. Yellow looks weird on me though.

I'm pretty much leaning toward the black tutu from ASOS. 

So basically, that's what I'm twerkin' with this holiday season. However, I may not be able to get any of these dresses if I don't slow my roll on eating everything in sight. I got all emo on the planet last week and basically gave up on everything. Things really came to light for me yesterday when I spent almost $30 at Sonic for lunch for myself and Matt. It was pretty bad. I won't get into details but I ate a lot.  ha ha. 

Hope y'all like the new layout :) Holler.

Roasted Vegetable Beef Stew or That Stuff with the Yummy Beef Water

Hello. I have a recipe for you. This might be one of my favorite dishes ever. I use chunky veggies and big pieces of beef, all cooked together with beef broth and red wine. Yeah that's right, go 'head and have a sip. My favorite vegetables are roasted ones. They get all caramelized and delicious, I always pick a few out before I add them to the stew. What? It's my shit, I'm allowed to do that.

Matt calls this stew 'That stuff with the beef water", because the broth is heavenly. I am really bad at measuring when I make my own recipes but I'll try my best with this one.

Ingredients:

4 Cups chunky vegetables. (I use red potatoes, little carrots, and white onion chopped. Feel free to use whatever you like, mushrooms would be tasty. Mmmmm mushrooms)
sea salt
pepper
3 Tbsp. olive oil (approximately)
3 Garlic cloves crushed
2 lbs. sirloin steak (or any other kind of steak you want)
2 Tbsp. Thyme
1 Garlic clove minced
32 oz. Beef broth
1 Cup Red wine
3 Bay leaves

Preheat oven to 425.

In a large bowl, stir vegetables with olive oil, sea salt, pepper, 2 of the crushed garlic cloves and 1Tablespoon of thyme. Once the vegetables are coated, spread them out on a non stick cookie sheet. My cookie sheets suck so I use parchment paper. see?

Roast vegetables for about 30 minutes or until tender.

While your veggies are getting delicious, season your steak with salt and pepper and cut it up into chunks. Drizzle olive oil in a stew pot and add the remaining garlic and thyme on medium heat. Don't brown the garlic, we just want it to sweat a bit and flavor the olive oil for the meat. Add meat just long enough to brown the outside a bit. Once meat has browned, take it out of the pan and set it aside in a little bowl, you'll deal with it again later. In your stew pot, add your red wine and cook it down a bit. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes, then add the beef broth and bay leaves and let it simmer on low until your vegetables are ready.  Once your vegetables are done, add them to your pot along with your meat. Simmer on medium for about 15 minutes. Take your bay leaves out, I don't know why you're not supposed to leave them in with stuff but you're not. I think they make your head explode or something if you leave them in. So. Take them out, save yourself a mess.

Then what you're gonna wanna do is spoon it up into some bowls and eat it. The broth is amazing, bay leaves are the jam, the wine doesn't hurt either. This would probably be holy with some cornbread or biscuits but I'm trying not to eat bread so I can't help you with that part.  Hope you like!

xo

Apple Crisp thuggin'

Today's high was 74 so that means I can finally make something that's worthy of chilly weather. Yes, 74 means it's chilly in Texas, get out of here. I wanted to make an apple pie initially but I'm such a bethos when it comes to making pie crust I opted for a crisp or a crumble. I spent all day looking at recipes and finally just winged one that I felt would work for me. I made notes on post its. That's what I do.


Alright here's the business.


For the filling:
4 granny smith apples peeled and sliced
1/4 cup brown sugar (I used the splenda blend)
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 box raisins (optional. I didn't use them)


For the topping:
3/4 cup quick oats
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar (or splenda blend)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup (half a stick of butter) melted

Cooking Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine apples, raisins, cinnamon, brown sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl. Sprinkle in cornstarch. Mix fruit until well coated, pour into a baking dish.

In a clean separate bowl mix ingredients for topping. Spread over fruit. Bake about 30 minutes or until topping has browned.

Then basically eat that shit up with some ice cream or another frozen dairy treat. Whateva you like.