The Day After Christmas

*information for this post was in part supplied by Hormel Foods through their Hormel Extended Family Blogger program. No compensation was received for this post.

I hope everyone has been enjoying the holidays with their family. For us, we got to celebrate with my extended family over the weekend and have been able to enjoy some quiet time at home this week. It used to be that I had to work the entire holiday period with just Christmas and New Year's Day off, so I am definitely thankful to be at a point where I get to spend an extended period of time at home just hanging out with my kids. It is very relaxing and we have watched movies, played games and simply hung out together.

We enjoyed our big meal for Christmas at lunch time. Since it was just the four of us celebrating, I once again went with a turkey breast. At Thanksgiving, we had a Jennie-O Oven Ready Bone-In Turkey Breast and it was so easy that I decided to do the same for Christmas. When I got to the store, they only had the Oven Ready Boneless, Skinless Turkey Breast, so that is what we went with. Just like the bone-in product, it was very easy to prepare - going right from my freezer to my oven. I definitely appreciate not having to thaw it for a few days in advance, like when I make a traditional whole turkey. I also really like that the turkey breast gives us just enough meat for the main meal and one or two leftover meals.

When it comes to leftovers, the family doesn't seem to enjoy having the same meal again, so we always mix it up. My husband enjoyed an open face turkey sandwich - white bread, piled high with turkey and mashed potatoes and covered with gravy. My kids wanted paninis, which we make on our waffle maker most of the time, and a side of sweet potatoes.

I had some bacon in the fridge that I needed to use up, so I fried up the Hormel Black Label Thick Cut Brown Sugar bacon. I prefer to buy traditional bacon and fry up the whole package, putting the balance of what was not needed in the freezer for future sandwich making. I know that I could always use a ready-bacon, but I like having some bacon fat on hand for making eggs and my kids can use it straight from the freezer for their sandwiches. The brown sugar on this bacon provided a wonderful aroma while frying and a great touch of sweet to the bacon.

Today, we used the turkey and the bacon to create Turkey Bacon Ranch Paninis (or Wafflewiches perhaps is a better name).

Simply place your slice of bread on the waffle maker, add turkey, bacon, ranch and a bit of cheese, top with another slice of bread and close the cover. Once the bread is toasted and the cheese melted, the sandwich is ready to go.

How do you use up leftovers?

No compensation was received for this post. Product samples and thought starters are provided by Hormel through the Hormel Extended Family Blogger program, in which I participate. All opinions are my own or that of my family.

Planning for Thanksgiving

*information for this post was in part supplied by Hormel Foods through their Hormel Extended Family Blogger program. No compensation was received for this post.

Are you the host for Thanksgiving? When I am planning for an event, I love to be able to get as much done ahead of time as possible.

For the past 8 years, I have done a traditional turkey dinner for my daughter's birthday and the realization quickly set in that with only one oven, the only way to pull it off is to work ahead. For me, this starts with roasting my turkey the night before the event. Once roasted, I can let it cool before carving. This is great because it reabsorbs much of the cooking broth in the process, resulting in moist turkey. Plus, I can get the turkey cleaned and the carcass thrown out and get the kitchen cleaned up. I place the turkey into a 9x13 (or a little larger) glass pan, add a small amount of broth, cover tightly with aluminum in set in my refrigerator. The next day, I put it in the oven with my other dishes and cook it for about 30 - 45 minutes to cook it through. I also gather the remaining broth and set in the refrigerator to use to make gravy the next day.

I also like to prep my side dishes. The first I always do is next day mashed potatoes. I boil the potatoes and mash them with some added ingredients, like cream cheese, and put in another glass pan. The potatoes take about 45 - 60 minutes to cook the next day. I also do my sweet potatoes, because I do a mashed sweet potato casserole. They take about 45 minutes to cook the next day. I also prepare my stuffing, although I suppose since it never sees the turkey it is technically dressing. I usually use a few pieces of the carved turkey and a little of the cooking broth in the preparation of my stuffing...which I can only do if I prepare the turkey the day ahead.

I also do all of my cutting and chopping for my fruit salad and vegetable tray. Then, the day of, I can quickly set out the vegetables and have plenty at the ready for refilling the tray. I assemble the fruit salad day of, in order to keep things fresh.

I typically prepare my vegetable dishes the day of the event and put them in the oven along side the other dishes that are cooking. I like to do a broccoli and cauliflower dish, but this year I think I am going to try the Bacon and Green Bean Casserole Deluxe featured on the Hormel site.

It is much like the traditional one, with a kick of bacon bits - after all, everything is better with bacon. We don't do mushroom soup, so I will swap in cream of celery or onion to give it a good creamy texture. Best thing is, you can make this one the day ahead and then simply warm and serve.

This year our celebration will just be the immediate family, so we are trying out the Jennie-O Oven Ready Turkey Breast. I must say, I am intrigued by this one, it "goes straight from your freezer to your oven". I am so used to thawing. It comes in an oven ready back and you simply pull out of your freezer, remove from the outer bag and put it in your oven in a roasting pan. I will have to let you know how it goes. I also will not be prepping the sides, because I will not need a full casserole of mashed potatoes and can just make up a small pan day of.

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed are mine or those of my family. I am completing this post as a participant in the Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger program. Hormel Foods provided some product and some of the information and images for this post.

Post Holiday Leftovers

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own or that of my family. As a Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger, I received information from Hormel for this post, as well as product samples.
I'm not sure how it works at your house, but at my house, we can usually get one or two leftover meals in enjoying the food as originally prepared before it gets to be ho hum or plain old undesirable. As such, over the years, I have come up with several ways to enjoy our leftovers as new meals and the family is less likely to get tired of them. Plus, if I have a good amount, I will sometimes freeze them for those other meals.

Here are some of our family favorites:
For turkey, we use it like we would chicken:
Buffalo Turkey Cheesesteak
Pulled Barbecue Turkey Sandwiches - make your own sauce or use a bottle of barbecue sauce. Let it all sit in the crock pot for a few hours and it will be tender and yummy.
Turkey Enchiladas
Loaded Turkey Nachos - Layer tortilla chips with shredded turkey, shredded cheese, diced tomatoes and all of your favorite toppings. Put in the oven for about 15 minutes, so that everything warms through and the cheese melts. Serve with sour cream, salsa and/or guacamole.
Turkey Pot Pie
Turkey Shepard's Pie - substitute cubed or shredded turkey for the ground meat and use up your turkey gravy, vegetables and mashed potato leftovers too.
Turkey Noodle Soup - if we have gravy, we thin that for the base, or just use chicken or vegetable broth

For ham, we use it to make some family favorites:
Grilled Ham and Cheese sandwiches
Quiche - I add it to my broccoli cheese quiche
Omelets
Scrambled Eggs and Ham
Green Eggs and Ham - the kids find the color to be fun

For Mashed Potatoes, we have a new favorite recipe (if we don't use them up in a Shepard's Pie:
Fried Mashed Potato Balls

Hormel has also shared with me some Holiday Leftover Ideas:

Leave it to leftovers to keep you in the holiday spirit even after your big meals are over and done with. To help expand your post-feast repertoire, Hormel Foods has compiled a list of new ways to enjoy leftovers this holiday season. Impress your family and friends with these creative and tasty options:
* Looking for a new approach for all that leftover Thanksgiving turkey? Create Greek Turkey Kabobs by cutting Jennie-O® Turkey Store® oven roasted turkey breast into cubes and alternately threading them onto skewers with cucumbers, tomatoes and Peloponnese® kalamata pitted olives. This Mediterranean twist might just convert reluctant turkey eaters!

* Use extra holiday ham and pie crusts to bake a delicious quiche! Mix in your favorite vegetables and seasonings with Hormel® Cure 81® sliced ham to create a wonderful meal that can feed the whole family.

* If you’re craving the standard leftover turkey sandwich, take it up a notch with corn tortillas! They make a great stand-in for bread and give your sandwich an extra special crunch.

* Make a lunchtime salad by tossing pasta with leftover turkey or ham, vegetables, and your favorite dressing.

How do you use up your leftovers?

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own or that of my family. As a Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger, I received information from Hormel for this post, as well as product samples.

Thanksgiving Tips from the Hormel Test Kitchen

Preparing a feast to share with family on Thanksgiving can be a daunting task. I know that the first time that we hosted Thanksgiving at our house, the planning and preparation was shared with my cousin, who came to town to celebrate with us. From making a turkey to timing the food to all be ready at the same time, there is a lot that goes into the holiday meal.

Recently, Hormel invited their Hormel Extended Family Bloggers to submit their questions about holiday food preparation to their test kitchen director. Then, they compiled the responses into a short video.

HORMEL Thanksgiving Tips from Hormel Test Kitchen Director, Joan Hanson:


For me, Thanksgiving is actually a small event with just my family. I make my "Thanksgiving" meal each year for my daughter's birthday weekend at the beginning of November and we celebrated Thanksgiving with extended family this past weekend. We will still roast up a turkey breast and make a few traditional sides - it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it!

What are your Thanksgiving plans? Do you host or just bring a dish to share?

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed are mine or those of my family. I am completing this post as a participant in the Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger program. Hormel Foods provided a thought starter and some of the information for this post.

a Thanksgiving Dinner

When it comes to planning and prepping for a Thanksgiving dinner with all of the fixings, I get an almost three week head start on most people. My daughter was fortunate enough to be born in November and since when Thanksgiving rolls around, it is generally just the four of us, so every year for her birthday party, I make a full Thanksgiving spread.

Planning the meal is an important aspect of a successful meal. I start by looking at my menu a couple of weeks ahead of time. The menu is mostly the same from year to year, but I like to try new things from time to time. The attendees are similar from year to year, but there is slight fluctuation in the numbers - fewer people generally just equates to more leftovers for me!

Here is what we had this year:
Oven Roasted Turkey
Dressing (not stuffing, because it doesn't go in the bird)
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli and Cauliflower Casserole
Spinach or Romaine Salad with homemade dressing
Brown and Serve Rolls
Vegetables and Dip
Fruit Salad

Of course, since it is a birthday party, we skip the pies in favor of birthday cake:

As you can see, Hello Kitty was our theme this year. The cake was modeled off one of my daughter's dresses. It's hard to see, but the cupcake "skirt" is covered in tulle. As you might have guessed, I start planning the cake a few weeks ahead of time too.

As we get closer to the party, I start to watch the ads and pick up the items I will need when they are on sale. I then do a shopping trip the week of the party to pick up the fresh produce and the other items that I hadn't yet purchased.

I generally am using a frozen turkey, so I pull that out of the freezer about 3 - 4 days before cooking and allow it to thaw in the refrigerator. Be sure to check your turkey's weight and recommended thaw time - the two are very related.

Using some tricks that my Grandma used and my family still uses today, I prep a lot of my items the day before the party. It makes the day of less hectic and less messy.

The turkey is one of those items. Grandma always roasted her turkey the day before the big event. This does a couple of things - it allows the turkey to set long enough after cooking to reabsorb all of the juices and it frees up a lot of space in the oven the day of the event. I prep my turkey for roasting by removing the bag and neck from the turkey and then rinsing it inside and out. I core an apple and place it in the body cavity along with a couple of bay leaves, some thyme, sage and rosemary. I cut up a stick of butter and tuck it between the skin and meat where possible and between the wings/legs and body. I prep my turkey bag and place the turkey inside. Then, it cooks. I used to not use a bag for cooking my turkey and that was just a mess! First, without the bag, you have to baste the turkey. This wasn't that big of a deal, except have you ever noticed how the hot fluid sort of drips out of the baster even when you are not squeezing? Second, I managed to make a big mess in my oven as a result. Now, I put it in the oven, set the timer and go about my other preparation tasks. Once it is done, I let it set until it has cooled slightly. This allows times for the juices to be reabsorbed and keeps me from burning my fingers while I am trying to carve. Using my baster, I pull out the drippings and set them in a container for making gravy the next day. Then, I carve the bird, saving the carcass and the hard to get pieces of turkey for making delicious turkey soup (recipe here). The meat all goes into a 9x13 covered dish (including the wings for my mom) and I add a little bit of the drippings over top. I cover it with foil and then the pans lid and place it in the refrigerator.

I make my mashed potatoes ahead of time too and oddly the recipe is called Next Day Mashed Potatoes. I boil the potatoes and mash them with cream cheese and milk and put them in 9x13 covered dish and they go in the refrigerator. I also make my sweet potatoes in a casserole (recipe here) the day before, but I wait to add the crumb top until I am ready to put it in the oven. For my stuffing (again, not actually stuffed) I use the neck and giblets from the turkey to make a broth and include a little bit of the meat as well. This recipe was from Dad's Mom and makes what I consider to be yummy stuffing. I prep this the day before and set it in the refrigerator.

The last thing I make the day ahead is the dip for my vegetables. I make a Dill Weed Dip, which seems to improve on flavor with time. I usually cut up all of my vegetables the day ahead too. It helps that I am already pulling out the celery to be in the stuffing and once I have the cutting board out, I have momentum and keep on chopping. I bake my cake the night before the party, but wait to frost.

The day of the party, I prep the broccoli and cauliflower casserole, make the vinaigrette for the salad and cut up all of the fruit for the fruit salad (don't want the bananas or apples going brown!). I also decorate my cake the morning of the party.

Having everything ready ahead of time, allows me to simply turn on the oven and put everything in about 1 - 1 1/2 hours before we want to eat. This way, I can focus on visiting with my guests (okay, my guests may tell you this isn't entirely true - I tend to visit with them while I worry about what else needs to be done.)

Then, we all sit down together, as together as we can be sitting in three or four rooms, and enjoy an early Thanksgiving meal. Makes Thanksgiving itself a rather quiet day by comparison, but it is certainly an easy meal for me. I typically make a Jennie-O Turkey Roast, some mashed potatoes, some sweet potatoes, corn and rolls. I will make either a pie or a cheesecake for dessert.

How do you prepare for your holiday meal? If you have turkey questions as you prepare, you can always head over to Jennie-O for answers to your turkey questions.

You can also find place setting and centerpiece ideas for the holiday from their test kitchen editor on Hormel Foods Recipe site.

My kids made the turkeys pictured at the top at a family night at my son's school. We used some round votive cup holders, some Mod Podge and torn pieces of tissue paper to decorate the body and then folded tissue paper for the tail feathers and for the beak. The head is a small craft ball (flat on one side), which we attached with a hot glue gun. Add a little black paint for the eyes and a turkey you have. There are tea lights inside, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to light those with all of that tissue paper - maybe I can find the little electric flicker candles instead. We also made a placemat at the same event. Using fabric paint and stencils, they decorated a plain beige placemat turning it into a Thanksgiving placemat.

And, remember don't stress yourself out, your guests will understand if you pick up some already prepped food and add your own touch. Hormel Country Crock side dishes like Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Cinnamon Apples and Homestyle stuffing can help you save some time and energy. Or, if your house is like mine, I run out of sides first, so you could use already prepped product to be the sides on the second serving of Thanksgiving.

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed are mine or those of my family. I am completing this post as a participant in the Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger program. Hormel Foods provided some of the information for this post.

Turkey Deals!!!

Okay, so many, many months ago, I won a year's supply of Jennie-O Turkey. What a wonderful prize. They sent me a bunch of coupons for Jennie-O Turkey. It was a great prize and allowed us to save quite a bit on our grocery bill. At the time there were a few stores in the area that carried different items, but then slowly it became harder and harder to find the product locally. A few weeks ago, when I was at the grocery store, I stopped by the meat department and asked the manager about ordering it. He checked to see what his vendor could offer him, even though his store didn't carry it standard. There weren't many options, mostly just variations on a theme, ground turkey and turkey sausage.

I placed an order for a case of 93/7 Lean Ground Turkey and 90/10 Lean Sausage Links yesterday. When I called, he told me he would order it on Monday and it would be in about a week later. I thought that would be perfect - just enough time to eat some of the stuff in the freezer and make room for the 28 packages of turkey I had ordered.

Imagine my surprise when I got a call from the store today, telling me the turkey I had ordered was in. I went this evening to pick it up and my freezers are both officially stuffed to the gills!

16 - 20 oz 93/7 Lean Ground Turkey
12 - 90/10 Lean Sausage Links

-$84 "Free" $3 off Jennie-O Turkey coupons

Total $1.72 OOP.

Works for me, about 6 cents a pack.

Since it has been a few months since I could buy the product locally, I have a good number of coupons left. We will be eating a lot of turkey! My original plan had us using it 3 - 4 days a week (including lunches, because I could get Jennie-O deli meat), but with the months of no usage, in order to use up the coupons before expiration, it will need to be more like 5 - 6 days a week.

Anyone have any suggestions on preparations to try with ground turkey?

Do you make "hamburger" patties and freeze them? Do you season them? Do you lay them on a cookie sheet to freeze individually before packing them up? How long do you/can you keep homemade patties in your freezer?

The uses that are familiar and part of our standard dining plan:
I figure I will make up a few types of chili. I can do Spaghetti and Meatballs, and assorted other pasta type dishes. I can do tacos. I can do Sloppy Joes. I can do Sheppard's Pie. I might do some Cheeseburger Pasta, Cheeseburger Rice and/or Cheeseburger Pizza. I can make Nacho Mac'n Cheese.

I'm thinking I might try to find a Swedish Meatball recipe. Isn't Salisbury Steak made with ground meat? I just know that we need to keep it mixed up, so as not to get tired.

Have any other recipes that use ground meat?

The sausage links I figure that I can use for breakfast for dinner, actual breakfast, Sunday brunch and maybe even on a regular pizza.

This post shared at Frugal Friday and Super Savings Saturday.

Philly Cheese Steak

Last weekend, we roasted a turkey to celebrate my daughter's birthday. Even with a crowd, there are always leftovers. We enjoy eating it for a couple of meals, but then you just don't think you can eat turkey again. Typically, I portion out the meat and freeze it for use later. Some was frozen with broth to make Turkey Soup in the future and some was frozen "dry" to use it in future meals - like Leftover Pot Pie.

This weekend we made Philly Cheese Steaks with leftover turkey. They were a great way to use up some turkey without feeling like we were eating turkey again. I stuck with breast meat, but it could work with any part of the turkey.

I sliced up red and green bell peppers and onions. I sauteed them in my skillet with a little bit of olive oil. Then I added the turkey, which I had sliced into long narrow strips. Once it was all warm, I portioned off enough for a sandwich and melted provolone over the top. Placed my hoagie roll over the melted cheese and then using my spatula, flipped it over and out. For my husband, I doused it all in Frank's Red Hot before adding the cheese for a Buffalo-style cheese steak.

It was really good and felt a lot less like re-purposed turkey than some other uses might have. We made enough for 5 hoagies, and my husband is having what remains of the filling for lunch today - he will just warm it in the skillet, add hot sauce, melt cheese, top with a hoagie, flip and serve. Making for a quick, tasty leftover lunch with flavor!

Of course, if you don't have leftover turkey, I also use this same recipe with some deli sliced Chicken to create Chicken Cheese Steaks or with sandwich steak from the meat department to make traditional Philly Cheese Steaks.