Right before Thanksgiving, Matt and I had some extra pie crust on hand, so we indulged ourselves and had some shepherd’s pie. Baby Baby Shepherd’s Pie, in fact. You could also call it Double Baby Shepherd’s pie. Baby Squared Shepherd’s pie….etc. Why are we calling it this? It is deliciously filled with both lamb and veal! So so delicious. Whole Foods had gorgeous looking ground lamb and veal, so we bypassed the ground chuck and used 1/4 pound of each. Along with some frozen and fresh veggies, tomatoes, some yummy seasoning, it all came together for a really tasty meal that we got a lot of comfort out of. Don’t forget the mashed potatoes on top. Pretty, huh?? To get it all nice and brown, I used our spray butter (when did we get this???) that was in the back of the fridge. Love it.
Shepherd’s pie is one of my favorites. One of the first real dishes I made from a recipe and figured out how to just make it work on my own. So this was just a hodge podge of what we had and a sauce made around that, and thus I have no actual recipe to give you. It’s pretty easy…some semblance of a meaty, vegetable-filled stew type deliciousness, in a crust (or not), topped with mashed potatoes. If you don’t have the patience to pipe steaming hot potatoes on top (I was impatient, and really wanting browned peaks and thus burnt my hands in the process of this whole thing), you can just spread them on in a flat layer. It will still be tasty. Really, when you call something “Baby Baby Shepherd’s Pie,†people aren’t so concerned with whether you have browned peaks of potato on top.
Yes, we are absurd. Yes, if you love adorable baby animals and don’t appreciate the meat-eating-ness of some people, it might be slightly offensive to reference the babies in the title of the meal. I apologize. For real.
Also, we served it with a salad….that makes up for some of the absurdity, right?
First up, I have to point out that Santana is loving her new comforter (passed down from our bed after we upgrade for my birthday) now that the cold weather is settling in. She leads a rough life, as you can tell…
Second, a quick look at what happened to some of our Thanksgiving leftovers last week…
Our mini turkey cutlets on a warm roll, with a smear of cranberry sauce on either side. YUM! These turkey cutlets were really delicious and actually pretty easy…I may start doing this kind of thing on a more regular basis. 2 turkey tenderloins made a huge amount of turkey bites…spectacular 🙂
This slightly strange picture is a view of the inside of a sweet potato ravioli that was pretty tasty and a big step outside of the box. We took our leftover sweet potato casserole (minus pecans), seasoned it up a bit, and turned some gyoza wrappers into ravioli. Boiled them and then tossed in a pan of cranberry glaze made with a bit of leftover cranberry sauce all spiced up. Strange? Yes, very. But the tangy sweetness of the cranberry sauce went really well with the smooth creamy flavor of the sweet potato. And it used up our leftovers pretty wonderfully.
We also whipped up an apple pie at the end of Thanksgiving weekend. I think we loved it so much I failed to get a picture. It was huge. I used my grandma’s recipe, substituting the Pillsbury dough I had in the fridge for her homemade crust and crumb topping, but the filling was all her. yummm….we ate this with vanilla ice cream for a few days and now we are pie-less. It was a good couple of weeks full of pie and it will be missed.
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A couple weeks ago we tried two different types of halibut. There was a buy-one-get-one-free sale on the frozen packs of halibut at our grocery. They’re pretty decent quality, frozen pretty quickly after being caught, and simple to prepare.
The first preparation was a spicy seasoning on a simply grilled filet, served with my carrot perfection (a little too much honey on this batch) and some creamy parmesan risotto. 
Because we didn’t give the fish enough time to defrost in the fridge (8 hours, as noted on the package, was NOT enough), the fish stuck a little to the grill. Also, because the fish was thick on one edge and thin along the other, not all was as moist as it should have been. However, pretty tasty, and ridiculously easy on our stovetop grill pan.
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The second was an almost-easier foil packet of halibut, zucchini, yellow pepper, onion, leftover kale pesto that had been hanging out in the freezer, seasoning and white wine baked in the oven. Served with a boxed mix of lentil something or other that made a pretty tasty side. Again the first fell apart a little bit, but it was SO moist and the sauce formed by the wine, veggies and pesto was unbelievable. I can’t remember if we had bread to soak up this sauce, but if I made this again I would be sure to include it. 
I would definitely recommend these frozen fish packs. These particular packages were each individually vacuum-sealed, with two coming to a pack. They’re really easy to work with and relatively affordable. With just a little seasoning and some veggies, they make for a light and filling meal.
As November wraps up, I’m realizing that amid some craziness, stress and worry, there has been a lot to be thankful for. Matthew and I have had a really great month. We got our holiday flight for Christmas nailed down, watched the Yankees win the World Series and got a brand new comforter for our bed…we are easily impressed 🙂
Mid-month, around my birthday, we flew to Hawaii (a partial work trip) and took full advantage of the sun, relaxing atmosphere, tourist-y goodness, and amazing food. Here are some pictures to share:
Love 🙂
Some of the food….
Sampler (for lunch) at the Kona Brewing Restaurant.
Lots of pineapple at the Dole Plantation…where we tried to refrain from chomping them right of the stems :)
Fancy dinner at Roy’s, where we had an AMAZING meal:
Free spicy edamame appetizer. 
Pineapple martini (that piece of fruit had been soaking in vodka for days). 
Macadamia-crusted Mahi Mahi w/ lobster butter sauce.
Caramelized scallops with a blueberry vinaigrette and some bacon-wrapped sweet potatoes I think. The scallops were cooked to perfection.
Finally, pineapple upside down cake, which you give them 30 minutes to prepare because they make each one fresh. They sliced the pineapples thinly so there were juicy amazing layers of pineapple on top of the cake. On the side: vanilla bean ice cream in a burnt sugar cup. All in a caramel sauce. Unbelievable. 
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To wrap up our wonderful November, we are in the middle of a spectacularly relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. We’ve been together almost 3 years and this is the first time we’ve spent Thanksgiving together. It was wonderful. We went with turkey tenderloins, sliced into medallions, marinated in Annie’s Natural Tuscany Italian dressing, breaded with Panko breadcrumbs and pan fried. Really yummy. With some comforting sides and homemade stuffing/dressing….yum! We went with a nice mix of new/more-involved things and easy standbys. Matt was in charge of the traditional green bean casserole and did a great job! I made some dinner rolls from a Cooking Light recipe, and my favorite was the turkey knot…
Here are the rest of our pictures, including pumpkin pie that we were so excited about we made 4 days earlier, and some gorgeous orange flowers we got for $5 on sale!
Thankfulness all around! Happy Thanksgiving! Let’s cross our fingers for a December that is full of pleasant surprises, healthy families, lots of love and new adventures.
Since it is nearly the end of November, I figure it’s about time to get my Halloween post up. We were very un-halloween-y this year. The wonderful Dori was in town, and we didn’t eat any Halloween candy at all! We didn’t dress up and we didn’t trick-or-treat (and since we’re in a secure building, no kiddies stopped by for our non-existent candy). However, we kept the spirit of the holiday alive with lots of pumpkin! 
So that is actually a picture from last year’s pumpkin t-shirt. It is one of the most adorable Santana pictures ever. But she did wear it this week to celebrate! This year she was actually a scary scary green monster… 
Last year she also attempted to be a bat….this got mixed reviews. 
Instead of eating out for Dori’s whole visit, we made a fun asian-inspired dinner one night. It included peanut butter pumpkin curry noodle. It was…strange. But mostly good. At first, the flavor of the sauce was very off-putting, but once we thinned it out and added a bit more peanut butter, it was pretty tasty and made a nice side to the coconut shrimp soup we made. This was a really light, pretty soup that I enjoyed quite a bit and had for leftovers the next day. In the original version of the soup, the shrimp was cooked perfectly, nice and soft, but of course when reheated it got a tiny bit rubbery. Bleh.
We also tried these fancy juices called “First Blushâ€. They’re basically grape juices from wine grapes…chardonnay, merlot, etc. We did a group taste test. Including one that was a juice-tea blend. I think we all agreed on which one we liked best…but I can’t remember which it was at this point. Dori, do you remember???
To round out the pumpkin-y-ness of the weekend, Dori had french toast stuffed inside of a pumpkin for breakfast one day. Insanity!
Bacon was on sale…good, center cut bacon. What can I say…I had to take advantage. Instead of having an insane amount of bacon in one meal, we broke it up into a couple co-starring roles. The first was an accompaniment to a really interesting concoction.
We had (still have) a ton of lentil tomato soup in the freezer. A really hearty, yummy soup that we happened to make four thousand gallons of the first time around. Instead of just eating as soup again, I rubbed down a couple chicken thighs with a spice rub and let it sit while we were at work, then tossed it in a casserole with the soup. It looked like a big dish full of…well…nothing good.
I baked it at 350 or 400 degrees along with some roasting root vegetables, using my wonderful meat thermometer to know when to pull the chicken for maximum moistness. When it came out of the oven, it looked…well…like a big dish full of baked nothing good.
Where’s the bacon!?! That is what you may be asking. Well…here it comes!
Chop up some bacon, crisp it up and drain almost all of the fat. I had that amazing center cut bacon, so there wasn’t all that much fat in the pan anyway. 
Chopped onion gets sautéed in a thin layer of bacon grease, and then frozen peas (a little too frozen apparently) get added with a little chicken broth and cooked down. I usually make this dish with a little bit of cream or half and half at the end (and usually with Brussels Sprouts), but I had some plain yogurt on hand, so that went in. Not quite as creamy, but added a little tang and a lighter feel to the side dish.
Add the bacon back in at the end and serve with the meal. Bacon in side dishes! Hooray!
Bacon made another appearance at breakfast. This was a huge success. Take note.
Repeat the bacon cooking and onion sautéing above. Fry some tiny diced potatoes in with the onions and toss in a chopped tomato. Take this all out of the pan and lightly scramble eggs to your preference. For a soft scramble, just before the eggs are completely cooked, fold in the veggies and some shredded cheddar cheese. AMAZING breakfast. Thinking about it to write this post makes me want it again!
