The Latest Recipes I've Tried

 Even though I've been very good and spending lots of time in my craft room, I do not have a card to show you today because I haven't given any of them to the recipients yet.  Yes, for once I'm ahead of schedule and not behind.  I'm pretty confident that very few people in my 'real' life read my blog, but I'm not 100% certain of that, so I do not want to post a card if there might be a chance that they will see it here before they get it.  So, I decided to share some meals I made recently and what my thoughts of them are.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Bacon Soup

Oh my goodness!  This was the best butternut squash soup I've ever had in my life!  Except, I have a confession to make:  I've only had butternut squash once before in my life.  And it came in a box. From Aldi.  It was so-so.  This is the first time I ever had it homemade and it was so, so, so good.  My husband, as always, wouldn't touch it.  He won't have anything to do with squash.  But I was actually giddy about that because then I had the whole pot to myself.  And I ate the whole thing....all six servings of it.  Not all at once of course, but in less than a week.  I cannot say enough about the flavor of this soup.  It was so delicious!  I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that there is bacon in the soup, plus garlic, onion, red pepper and olive oil all baked on the same sheet together with the squash.  The flavor is just permeated into the soup!  And the goat cheese sprinkled on top was just the icing on the cake for me.

You can find the recipe for this amazing soup HERE.

Roasted Acorn Squash with Swiss Chard and Wild Rice

Now, I hate to do it, but I have to follow my best newly discovered recipe with the worst one I made. I saw this acorn squash recipe on-line and I thought it was the prettiest little thing I ever saw.  I read the recipe, and with the exception of the swiss chard all the ingredients were foods I was familiar with and liked.  But when I ate it, I thought it was horrendous.  I always wonder if I should include what I think are bad recipes in my posts, because I don't want to hurt the feelings of the creators of these recipes.  But, I really don't think it has anything to do with the culinary talents of the person who created the recipe rather it has everything to do with the palette of the person eating it.  And, to give the author some credit, I did alter this recipe a bit.  I exchanged the swiss chard for spinach because I didn't have it in my fridge and I didn't want to buy something I wasn't sure I would even like.  I also switched out the pine nuts for walnuts, because they do not sell pine nuts where I live.  Trust me, I looked in every grocery store in town and couldn't find any.

 I really liked the finished look of my version of the acorn squash recipe, but it really tasted terrible.  My husband even thought just the smell of it was horrendous.  Every time I reheated it (yes, I ate every last drop of it, even though I didn't like it. It took me four or five days to consume it.  I just couldn't stomach throwing it away when I spend $5.00 on a bag of wild rice;  plus I knew it was good for me) he would scream "What is that smell?".  I believe he must have been smelling the balsamic vinegar.  The mix of flavors:  the dried cranberries with the balsamic vinegar plus the brown sugar with bacon and onion...was just not meant for my taste buds.  But hey, everyone is different and you might think that sounds great together!  If you do make it, I would suggest cooking the squash a little longer than suggested for mine wasn't as tender as I usually prefer.

You can find this recipe HERE.

 The next three recipes I made because I had so much turkey left over from the holidays I didn't know what to do!  I found two of these recipes on-line, and one I already had in my stash.

Turkey Stuffing Dumpling Soup

I had so much left over stuffing it was ridiculous, so when I saw a creative way to use up extra stuffing I was thrilled.  I really liked this recipe.  It was a bit salty for my taste (probably because of the stuffing), but I am very sensitive to salt and I usually omit it entirely from most recipes and just use salt at the table if needed.  My husband and I both had one large bowl for dinner, (yes, he ate it and liked it!), and then I froze all the rest into one cup glass food containers.

This recipe was originally in Taste of Home magazine, but I found it HERE.

Turkey Tetrazzini

Now this is a recipe I have been making ever since 2003.  My daughter discovered it in a Taste of Home magazine and asked me to make it.  I've made it once a year, with my turkey leftovers, every year, since.  It is a great recipe.  It is so delicious!  But, just look at the picture!  Of course it's delicious!  It's filled with nothing but fattening, flavorful ingredients!  Just one serving contains 441 calories and 21 grams of fat!  YIKES!  Don't make this if your watching your waistline, but if you want to eat something awesome, go for it!  Because trust me, it is yummy!

Mmm, I love the flavors of the mozzarella and freshly grated parmesan cheese mixed with the mushrooms sautéed in butter.  Why or why does everything so bad for you have to taste so good?

If you decide to throw your New Year's healthy eating resolutions out the window, you can find this recipe HERE.

My final recipe I made after I had exhausted every recipe I could find on what to do with leftover turkey.  I haven't even shown you all the turkey dishes I made:  I also made Turkey Pot Pie with Drop Biscuits (an old recipe from my friend's mother.  Email me if you'd like that recipe.) and I made THIS  "Leftover Turkey Bake" RECIPE too.  But as always, I ate it before I photographed it so I never got a picture.  It was pretty good!  My husband and I both liked that one.

Easy Leftover Turkey Stroganoff

When I was down to the last bit of leftover turkey, I pulled up three recipes on Pinterest, showed them to my husband, and asked which one he wanted to try.  He pointed to this one, but requested rice instead of noodles.  Now, this was another recipe I altered.  I left out the savory (didn't have it) and the sour cream.  Why the sour cream you ask?  Because I didn't see the point of adding any more expense, calories, or fat to the recipe when the gravy tasted just fine to me.  I used a dry gravy from Walmart that came in a package and you mix with water.

If your husband is a meat and potatoes man, he will love this recipe.  I liked it, but it's not something I would choose to eat, and definitely not on a regular basis.  It tasted very good,  I just prefer foods with more vegetables, and/or a mediterranean flavor.  This is Hungry Man dinner food.  Which is probably why my husband loved it and gobbled it all up....even the leftovers.  I think it would be great served over a thick, chunky toast too!

You can find this recipe HERE.

I am happy to report, that all the holiday leftovers have officially been eaten, or made into other new dishes and now frozen for future use.  Now to get back to my regular diet.  I did not gain any weight over the holidays, but both me and my husband both have some excess weight we'd like to lose before our next vacation to Las Vegas in the spring.  Wish me luck!  I'm very faithful to exercising, but food is another story.  I love to eat!

Have a great day!  Amy