Happy Thanksgiving- belated

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving and enjoyed some family time.

Ahhh I have had no time to post- well some but I have been busy first we went to Antigua for a week. That was amazing. It was sad to come back. We got back the Saturday before Thanksgiving and then I went into crazy prep mode from there.

Chris's parents and sister Ashley joined us as well as his Aunt Mary, Uncle Tony and cousin Holly. My Nannie was supposed to come but she was feeling under the weather that morning. I should have went and got her kicking and screaming but some how I was behind when that time came. Overall it was an excellent Thanksgiving. We had turkey, ham, three cheese macaroni and cheese, dressing, sweet potato casserole, green beans, field peas, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and and awesome chocolate cake. This year the award went to the mashed potatoes and gravy- everyone said the gravy was to die for.

Here's a picture of the turkey. Notice the sleeping terror in the back ground. He wore himself out watching all of the cooking. As usual he sat at the breakfast table the entire time we were cooking... then he went around begging to everyone once we sat down. Bad kitty.

Shepherd's Pie

While looking for recipes using sweet potatoes (they are still coming in from the CSA) and wanting to do something a little different than our normal uses, I stumbled across a recipe for sausage shepherd's pie on Epicurious. Chris loves shepherd's pie and although this is a completely different take since sausage replaces the beef and the potatoes become a perfect trifecta of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and a russet I thought I would give this a try. The nice thing about this is you can do everything in advance, put it in the fridge, and then pull it out to bake when you are ready. If you are willing to do the prep work on the weekend that makes this an amazing weeknight meal. This was excellent and Chris devoured his portion before I was even half way done with mine. The leftovers were also delicious. Needless to say this will be making a repeat performance at some point in time.

Pork and Broccoli

We had some broccoli that still needed to be used from the CSA. I was in the mood for some beef and broccoli, but decided I would make pork and broccoli since we had half a pork roast in the freezer from the noodle bowl we had a couple weeks ago. I did some research and found a good recipe at chinesefood.about.com. It turned out delicious. The only change I made besides substituting pork for beef was it called for cooking the "beef" in 1 cup of oil which seemed excessive so I just eyeballed what looked decent in the bottom of the pan. Then it also said to use new oil for the broccoli and then new oil when you put the pork and broccoli together- which seemed wasteful. I dumped the oil from the first time into a ramekin and then reused it in less quantities for the next two steps. Chris also made up a quick and easy fried rice.