Roasted Butternut Spinach Soup

Most of Thanksgiving leftovers are gone or frozen except for the roasted butternut squash and it's soup weather....no brainer here. I had a small bunch of fresh spinach that I sautéed with a little garlic the other day and it sounded good with the squash, it was a good call.

Here's what you need:

3-4 cups roasted butternut squash

1/2-1 C cooked spinach or 3 C fresh

Carrots, onion, celery diced

8 cups chicken or veg stock/broth 

Fresh herbs- I used sage and parsley

Season with salt, pepper, and dried rosemary 

Sautee mire poix until wilted, season, add squash and spinach for a few minutes. Add broth and bring to a boil. 

Lower heat and simmer for 40 minutes until it looks like this

At this point you can purée some or all if you'd like, I like it as is so I just added herbs and served with homemade croutons. So good!

Tired of leftovers?

This popped up in my time hop today, I had forgotten all about it. There isn't much I won't cook in a waffle iron. This is more of a tip than a recipe. 

Stuffing Waffles and Gravy

Heat the iron to the highest setting, spray  with vegetable spray and spoon stuffing in each section. Heat some gravy while you wait. You may need to keep it in a bit longer than regular waffles, you want it nice and crispy on the outside.  That's it, you're done. Enjoy. 

Thanksgiving Pie

My sister Debbie  is a few years older than me (8) so we didn't really "grow up" together, she was always a few stages ahead of me. I had always admired her strength, creativity and ability to get s**t done but it wasn't until thanksgiving 15-20 years ago that I found out she was basically a genius at life. Instead of showing up at our mother's with Tupperware for leftovers she came bearing a half dozen frozen pie crusts. She probably said "f*** Tupperware" ( she swore a lot, she had 4 kids) "I'm  making thanksgiving pies and freezing them, Nobody wants to haul all that food out every time you make a plate!" Genius. There was no Pinterest back then kids. 

It's super easy and self explanatory but here's how I do it. 

I had two extra pie crusts and put them in 8" cake pans (my pie plates were busy)

Next, l layered stuffing and then turkey

Then a good amount of gravy and the chunkier veggies I had, roasted butternut and Brussel sprouts. 

On top of that I dropped spoonfuls of turnip and sweet potato. Pressing down with the back of the spoon. 

Lastly, I topped with mashed potatoes, again smoothing down with the spoon. 

Wrap them nice and tight in plastic wrap and then foil and stick them in gallon size ziplock bags and freeze

We will enjoy one of these in December and the other in January. I usually take it out to thaw for a day and then bake at 375 until however long it takes to get hot. 

Black Friday, Sewing in my sleep,& The McDreamy trifecta

Huh, You say?
Let's start with Black Friday. I have not ventured out with the crazies in YEARS. I'm not sure what came over me this year but I decided that me, the Bumble, and my neice Katie should go shopping at 5:30 am and leave the kids with my mom. For some reason we decided that we would speak with french accents and end every sentence with the word "no". Like this:
"We should go to...how you say...Deeek's Sporting Goods next, no?"
We laughed so hard all morning that our sides hurt more than our feet.
I was also testing good Karma buy donating a dollar here and there and directing people to shorter lines and it paid off big time, I scored the very last of a certain kid's game thing that we waited in line for. Karma, she works, no? OK, I need to stop.
The last store we stopped in was Joann Fabric. They had flannel for 99 cents a yard, I was late getting there but they still had some:

This brings us to sewing in my sleep, which I will get to after I explain The McDreamy Trifecta. I had mommy guilt after shopping half the day so I thought a matinee was in order. "Enchanted" it was!

It was a cute movie, I recommend it. We came home and I hit the couch with the Tivo remote and watched a recorded Martha Stewart...with Patrick Dempsey and after the kids went to bed we watched Tivo'd Grey's Anatomy from the night before...with Patrick Dempsey...hence the McDreamy Trifecta!
After all that McDreamy I go to sleep and start sewing flannel in my dreams. I have problems, no? I had flannel blankets in mind when I purchased it but I couldn't get the thought of this one and how it would match with Julia's coat out of my head.

I was right, It matches perfectly.

I whipped up a set including a scarf, mittens and earwarmer headband yesterday morning.

They are all fleece lined and reversible!