Thanksgiving: Leftovers Edition Part 2

As a follow up to the previous post, I did end up making Turkey Pot Pie. Actually, we had so much Turkey left, that we made two pot pies. However, in traditional mishap fashion, I forgot to mix the rest of the leftover sweet potatoes in the dish with all the cream sauce. So, I ended up just poking them individually in the top. We'll see how it turns out!

The recipe I used is here at Cooking for Engineers, a great site for precise measurements and instructions.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas

This recipe came from the Whole Foods website/contest for best cheap meal. (Check it out, all you have to do is comment on a recipe to be entered into a sweepstakes for whole foods gift cards.) Anyways, it was a pretty yummy recipe.

The thing that really made the enchiladas great was roasting the peppers which I had never done before. It's super easy, just turn on the gas burner (if you have one) and put the pepper over it!

Squash Risotto

We love risotto - it's creamy, cheesy, ricy - what's not to like!? I've posted a risotto before and tried other kinds but they were not so great. This is the one I have made a bunch of times. I'm no risotto connoisseur but I just love it with butternut squash in it. This time I added dried cranberries to it too which was a great idea if I do say so myself. Risotto does take a while because you have to wait for the rice to absorb the liquid, but it's actually not that hard to do. And you can drink the rest of the wine while you wait. Yet another unappetizing photo here, but that's why I made it nice and small. Trust me, I highly recommend it!

Linguine Avgolemono

I'm folding under the intense pressure from this past weekend and finally posting to the Gastrofabulous blog. I am honored to be a guest contributor on such an illustrious endeavor.

It is my regular custom to make one decent meal each week and to make enough to last for 3 or 4 meals throughout the week. This takes some skill, because I am forced to make a meal that not only tastes good enough for me to want to eat all week, but that reheats well. On the plus side, because I am only cooking once a week, I don't really mind spending a significant amount of time making it (actually, truthfully I don't ever mind spending a lot of time in the kitchen).

I wish I could say that my first post would describe a great dinner, but alas the Linguine Avgolemono just wasn't that great. It was cheap, which is what I was going for and I think that with a few additions, this dish would have been much better - more lemon juice, perhaps some grape tomatoes, more parmesan, and some chili powder or crushed red pepper would have given it some more zing. As per the exact recipe, it was kind of bland. If anyone does give it a chance, add some of the suggested items and for the record I used 1% milk rather than whipping cream (which can be pricey and I wouldn't have been able to use it for anything else).

I promised a post with some other recipes that I have made that have been relatively cheap meals, but I'll put that in a future post. I gotta spread things out a little...

Purple Risotto

Purple foods are the best. So I was excited to read that you can actually make risotto with red wine, not just white like usual. I can't say the taste came out that different, but it's so pretty. Purple and green are my favorite colors, after all. The recipe came from Giada and we had shrimp to go with it. Risotto takes a while to make because the liquid all has to soak in, but it's actually not hard, even I can do it. And it's one of those magic moments of cooking when you see one little cup of rice turn into enough for a whole meal!

En-chili-das

We had some extra chili left over from dinner on Wednesday, so when we were deciding how to eat it (Nachos!) I flippantly suggested that we make enchiladas. So, John filled the tortillas with our vegetable-and-spice turkey chili, and covered with cheese. Baked for about 10 minutes

Now it has a new name. En-chili-das. John says that "enchilada" means "smothered in chiles." So, our "enchilida" is smothered in chili. And cheese. And guacamole.

Rockin' Stew

This is one rockin' stew! Okay it's actually Moroccan but I misheard Sarah over the phone and I think it's a better name anyways. No offense to the Moroccans. It has all kinds of things in it: squash, chick peas, non-chick peas, tomato, chicken, you name it. I did kind of a mish mosh of a bunch of different recipes for it and it was really a success! This is something that could become a household staple I think. The best part about learning to cook by myself: guaranteed NO raisins and NO hot pepper. We had it with couscous which was exciting. One great thing about stews is that it doesn't seem to matter how long you simmer it for. If you're not sure it's done, just simmer a little longer. And bite size chunks seem more reliable anyways, I don't have to worry about peeking in the middle or the juices running clear or any of that. The other cool thing about this dish is that I got to use spices! I'm starting to build a spice collection (I think I might even need a spice rack), and though I don't even know what most spices taste like, they definitely make things taste good. So, yay for (Mo)rockin' stew! The perfect dinner on a horribly slushy winter day.