Family Chow Hall

This is the last of my “Thanksgiving Leftovers” posts…

I’d asked my friend Tricia brought sweet potatoes (among other things) on Thanksgiving, and boy did she take her job seriously! There was no way we were going to run out of sweet potatoes. She brought a casserole and also whole sweet potatoes, which we boiled. There were so many leftovers, we debated about throwing them out right away.

I couldn’t do it. I just HATE throwing food away. Tricia, I hope you’re reading this, because I want you to know what I did with all those sweet potatoes…

First, I boiled the ones that we hadn’t even cooked, then I mashed all of them up with a fork. It turned out that I had 12 cups of mashed sweet potatoes to deal with. Well, I froze 10 cups and put the other 2 cups in sweet potato bread. We ate it for breakfast the next day. My two-year-old thinks it’s a cookie! The frozen portions will most likely meet the same fate.

Here’s the recipe:

Sweet Potato Bread
makes 2 loaves / prep. time: 15 minutes / baking time: 1 hour

2 2/3 c. sugar
2/3 c. shortening
2 c. blended sweet potato
2/3 c. water
4 eggs
3 1/3 flour
2 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. ground cloves
1/2 t. baking powder

Soften the shortening and add the sugar. Put the sweet potato and water in your blender and blend away! Add the eggs and blend a little longer until they are incorporated. Add this to the sugar mixture. Now add the dry ingredients and fold it all together. Pour into greased loaf pans — about halfway. I filled one large and two small pans. Bake at 350 an hour or longer, you can tell if it’s done by inserting a knife or toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, it’s finished. If the toothpick comes out with gooey batter on it, bake it a little longer.

When cooling quick breads, they often don’t want to come out of the pan. Lay the pan on first one side, then the other side to cool. Then gently turn upside down and tap on the bottom. If that doesn’t work, slide a knife around the edges and carefully pry it out.

The kids love all quick breads toasted and with butter.

Today’s post doesn’t really include a recipe so much as just something that’s going on in my kitchen today. Hey, it’s my blog and I can do this however I want to, right?

A lot of people who know me are impressed that I pack my husband’s lunch every day. I think they picture me, at 3:00 a.m., kneading bread dough for his sandwiches that day.

Not true.

But, being his devoted and loving wifey, I am interested in his health and his happiness, so on this particular morning, I am in the kitchen — not at 3 o’clock, but at six-thirty, boiling some pasta which will be in his lunch today. (For you non-morning people, I could have done this last night, but I usually get bit by the lazy bug around 8 or 9 p.m.)

The reason I am even posting about this is that his lunch today would make a nice dinner, also. Most of the food I serve my family is made in my kitchen from scratch. In other words, if I want to serve chili, I buy the ingredients for chili and make it, I don’t buy a can of chili and open it.

Tortellini is different. I don’t know what kind of complicated machinery is required to make tortellini and I don’t want to know. I’ll just buy it, thank you very much. There are four ways that I know of to buy tortellini:

Frozen — This is pretty good and you can add whatever kind of sauce you like.

Dried – (You can find this with the other dry pastas, like elbow macaroni) I don’t like the dried tortellini at all — it has a funny flavor.

Canned — this would be your Chef-Boy-Ardee type of tortellini/ravioli/spaghettios. I’ll pass on this, too.

Fresh — This is my favorite. Look for it near the deli section, with the extra-good cheeses and pre-packaged deli meats. It will last a long time in your refrigerator, you still have to boil it, but it has a good, fresh taste.

This morning I am boiling some fresh three-cheese tortellini. I am going to add some purchased Pesto and some roasted red peppers from the jar. Pat is going to love it. The Pesto is found right next to the tortellini. Making this probably wouldn’t be much of a trick, but there are a lot of ingredients to gather in order to do so. That might be the subject of yet another wonderful post here at FamilyChowHall.

Consider trying tortellini and pesto for a change of routine.

Have a great day!

P.S. More holiday leftovers still to come….

Some leftover turkey.

A box of wild rice mix.

A can of mushroom soup.

You really need nothing more than these three things to serve a brand-new supper to your family and put that leftover turkey to use at the same time. And since I am such a practical person, — I actually have a friend who calls me her practical friend — I always enjoy killing two birds with one stone.

To tell the truth, I don’t have too many turkey leftovers remaining in my fridge. I will be able to make soup and that might be all. I haven’t cooked a thing since Thursday and they have been steadily munching on that turkey.

But a lot of my faithful readers out there might still be trying to think of ways to use up their leftover turkey, and so I will post another recipe or two for all of you…

This casserole can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be. You can add some veggies, cheese, crunchy toppings. You can switch the rice for stove top or noodles or spaghetti. You can use celery soup instead of mushroom soup. Have it your way!

Turkey and Wild Rice Casserole

1 - 2 c. chopped leftover turkey
1 box of wild rice mix (Uncle Ben’s or Zattaran’s is good)
1 can of some kind of cream soup - mushroom, celery or chicken
water
options:
chopped mushrooms, celery, onion, carrots, red or green pepper
peas
sliced water chestnuts
shredded Swiss cheese or parmesan cheese

Start by reading the directions on the box of rice. It will tell you how much water you need to cook the rice on the stove. This is important because that is the exact amount you will need to add to make a casserole. Armed with this valuable knowledge, combine all of the ingredients. (If you are adding fresh vegetables, you will want to saute them first to soften them up.) Once mixed, pour this into a greased casserole or 9 x 13 pan. Bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Enjoy!