Food For Thought: TPP

Turkey Leftovers? This seems to be a usual problem around Christmas. At least for me it is...and there are just so many turkey sandwiches a girl can eat. So this year, I tried my hand at making some turkey pot pie. The results? Delish (at least the boy thought so)

TeePee's TPP (turkey pot pie)         

Will make 2 delicious pies

What you'll need:

- 2 small or 1 medium onion

- assorted peppers (I used 1 red and 1 green)

- 4-5 medium carrots

- 3-4 medium sized taters

- 1 1/2 cups frozen veg

- 1 can cream soup (I used broccoli, but chicken or mushroom would be equally as rad)

- 2 cups chicken stock

- 2 cups milk

- 1 tbsp butter

- various spices (I used thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper)

- 4 frozen pie crusts

- oh, and don't forget the turkey :)

First off, cut all your veggies into small, bite-sized pieces. I used our new crock pot to cook all the ingredients so they would get all delicious and stewy together. I'm glad I did because I got to run around and do other stuff instead of standing in front of the stove all day.

After cutting up your veggies, throw everything into the crock pot (minus the pie shell of course). I cooked everything on high for 4 hours - but this could vary depending on your crock pot.

Once you're done cooking your innards, pull your pie shells out of the freezer and thaw for about 10 minutes. Fill two pie shells. With the two remaining shells, remove them from their lining and attach to the top of your filled pies. Just a little water and they should stick together like glue. Poke some sort of sweet design such as a heart, or a pony into the pie shell to let all that steam out.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and cook those babies for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown, flaky and delicious.

*Note: If things are still looking a little runny once you're done cooking, whisk some water and flour together and pour into your stew and cook for a few more minutes. This should thicken things up and get it to the consistency you're looking for.

Also *note: these are rough estimates of how much I used for ingredients. I am really a grab this, try this sort of cook, so nothing is ever really accurate.

Let me know if you try it out. Any variations you can think of? I am always willing to hear some new ideas.

Tata for now. xoxo

I'm ba-ack!

Well hello there. It seems that it's been awhile since Fawn and I did any posting. I apologize for the hiatus. We have both been very busy.

I went home for the week to spend the holidays with my family and was having waaay to much fun to stop and sit down at a computer. Again, sorry.

Anyways.... I wanted to tell you how my "Year in a Night" party went. It.was.awesome! Seriously! Everyone had a blast and everything worked out perfectly. Some of the holidays were blended together, but no one seemed to mind that.

Our Easter egg creations

We started off the night celebrating our birthdays and Valentine's Day. I made some rainbow chip cupcakes and put a candle in each one, and then everyone made a wish and blew out their own candle. Everyone also got to open a small $10 present - Everyone brought two $10 presents so we could all open a present on our birthday and at Christmas. I just randomly handed out the presents, not knowing who they were from.
I made little heart mailboxes out of construction paper (sorry no photos of those, but just imagine what you made in grade four) and stocked them with Valentine's day goodies. Heart suckers, cinnamon hearts and these awesomely superb Valentine's.



A little green beer tasting on St Patty's day

 Next up was St Patty's day, so we all went upstairs and donned some green gear to really bring out the Irish spirit. And then we drank plenty of green beer. We actually had a little tasting, most beers were NOT Irish (whoops!) but no one seemed to mind. St. Patty's kind of rolled into Easter where we decorated some hard boiled eggs.


Christmas Photo booth props. I found them here

Easter and Thanksgiving also ran into one another. We had a delicious feast of turkey, stuffing, mashed taters, green beans, carrots, and buns. There was also plenty of dessert to go around when Christmas arrived. For the celebration of Christmas, I picked up some Gingerbread houses on sale at Michaels for $3.99 each. With those, we split into teams and had a gingerbread making contest. Both teams put in a valiant effort, but one team was clearly more skilled at Gingerbread houses than the other (that might have been because that was the "Engineering Team") It was good fun all around. We also exchanged presents at Christmas (as explained above).


Ending the night with a bang, sparklers count as fireworks right?

And when the fake New Year rolled around at midnight, we tried to do a champagne fountain but that failed horribly. We bought some plastic glasses from Dollarama which did not hold up to the weight of the champagne as it poured in. So it turned into a champagne explosion. We all got a glass to drink though so we cheersed to the New Year and then headed outside to play with some sparklers.

So, what to you like to do around the holidays? Host or attend parties? Relax and relish in the spirit of the season at home? Let's hear it.

Tata for now. xoxo



A Few of My Favourite Things

Hi Everyone,

I'm sorry it has been so long since I have written! Time just goes too fast for me, and I can never seem to keep up... 

There are always so many things that I like and would love to tell people about, so I too thought I would write a little list of my favourite things. Since it is so close to Christmas and Christmas is my most favourite time of the year, there may be a little bit of a Christmas theme to my list - just a little warning. ; )

1.  The Adelphie Dress from Club Monaco

I tried to find a picture of this dress that would do it justice with no avail. This silk georgette dress first caught my attention because it was navy - a difficult colour to find in cocktail dresses sometimes - and one that is currently absent from my collection. I have been looking for a navy dress. It is similar, but a nice alternative, to a little black dress.  : ) Another feature of this dress I really liked (which unfortunately isn't shown in this picture) is that it has a piece of the fabric coming up the one shoulder, narrow at the base where it attaches to the dress and gradually widening until it reaches its widest point at the top of your shoulder. It is distinctive without being obvious.  Lastly, it has a little grosgrain ribbon of the same colour at the waist, which I think is a sweet touch. 

Adelphie Dress, Club Monaco

2. Christmas Wreaths

Although I would love to have a beautiful real Christmas tree, living in an apartment, it isn't so easy... : ) Instead, I rely on pretty wreaths. I have a large window in my living room, and every year, I hang three wreaths on the windows, a large one in the centre and two smaller ones on either side. I also always put one on the front door. 

3. Ivory Poinsettias

Along with wreaths, poinsettias are another one of my favourite Christmas decorations. I like poinsettias in red too, but white is my favourite colour and the large majority of my decorations are white or ivory, so that's why I chose ivory ones. I place one outside my front door on each side, and  then multiple ones all throughout the inside of the apartment. I think they look warm and inviting at Christmastime. : )

4. Christmas Ornaments

Although as mentioned above, I don't have a Christmas tree, I do still collect Christmas ornaments whenever I see one I like, whether it be from a nice store or from Wal-Mart. : ) My intention is that when I have a Christmas tree, I wanted it to have a collection of ornaments from different times. Plus, usually they are just too pretty to resist. : ) Sometime I will show you some of my favourites, but that is for another day. 

I probably should be going to sleep now, for a day of baking to Christmas music tomorrow. : )

I hope you have the most wonderful holiday and receive all of your favourite things and more.

Merry, Merry Christmas,

xoxo

P.s. I forgot one of my favourite things! Silver Bells. As pretty as real silver bells are, what I mean is the Christmas song, it is my favourite one. : )

Christmas To Do List

So every year around the holidays I like the make a little list to breakdown everything that I want/need to do. This is really just so I don't get overwhelmed - which would lead to me eating cookie dough out of the tube while holding myself and crying....haha, no. but really.

Here's the ol' list and the progress I've made so far. Everything in red is still a TO DO item that has yet to be crossed off. With less than a week away from Christmas, I think I'm doing pretty well though, right? right?

1. Decorate house for Christmas. Put up Christmas tree, hang stockings, put up garland on stair railing, hang wreath on door - DONE-ZO, woo to the hoo

2. Make Christmas Cookies - This was done, but the boy ate them all, haha. I guess I'll need to make another batch. I think I'll just do the peanut butter kiss blossoms because I bought an extra pack of Hershey's Kisses last time. Also, they're the easiest and yummiest :)

Sorry for the crappy cellphone pic. Promise I'll get a real camera soon :)

3. Christmas shopping.....still not done, just need to get three more gifts and then it's on like donkey kong. That will happen tonight, so I will soon be able to cross this off the list - HOUZA!

4. Present Wrapping - half way done this one. I think I might need to pull a 5 hour session outta my hat tonight to get this finished. At least all the homemade gift tags are done...sort of ;)

5. Make a pseudo holiday dinner for the boy and I on Wednesday. Why Wednesday? It's the only free day we have this week...eek! I've got all the groceries for this and plan on making chicken breast stuffed with stuffing (possibly wrapped in bacon?), mashed potatoes, carrots,  and broccoli. Sounds pretty good to me :) This will happen on Wednesday so I can't cross it off the list just yet :)

6. Plan breakfast for Christmas morning - One more thing I'm done. YAY. I'm making this lovely looking thing from Bacon Time with The Hungry Hungry Hypo. She suggests to top it with some salsa which I love, but I think I might make some hollandaise to go over the top.

Yummmmy...how awesome does this look?

And that's it....I think. Looking at this list makes me think that I'm missing something. Any ideas as to what I'm forgetting?

Tata for now. xoxo.

Be back soon