Left overs!!

I'm becoming famous for what I do with my left overs. See we always have left overs because other wise there might not be enough and then some one will end up still hungry and that wouldn't be good. So we keep making too much but then we end up with a refrigerator full of tupperware and plastic baggies full of left overs that you can't throw away because some one will eat them but nobody ever does and then eventually you buy food one day and realize it wont fit in the fridge because of all the left overs which don't look much like left overs anymore. Most of them have fuzzy green stuff on them or black spots. Some have just turned into an unrecognizable blob with juice surrounding it. I always keep the plastic containers from everything this way when I clean out the refrigerator and throw out the left overs I don't feel so bad about also throwing out the container because most of the time I'm afraid to open them because who knows what kind of spores will be released into my home causing me untold misery from my mold allergies. And my mother would kill me if she knew I threw away tupperware with out at least attempting to clean it and bleach it. Sorry Mom that stuff is just to scary so it goes in the garbage bag. I know more plastic. I have night mares about a growing pile of these plastic containers some where. Where ever they take the trash. And in the future when the land is unusable because it's full of plastic the blame falls on me. So any way......

I try to use up those left overs creatively so that my family will eat them and they wont pile up. So that leads me to my latest creation I call it Beef Pot Pie!!
We made stew and yum it was good but we had a ton left over. So I bought some crescent roles, the kind in a tube. Buttered these individual serving dishes that are made to go in the oven. Then lined them with the dough then filled them with the stew, not all the way I left some bubble room. Covered them with more dough. I poked a whole in the middle. Then covered that in aluminum foil and baked them on a cookie sheet on 350 degree oven for about an hour. Actually until I stuck a knife in the whole and it came out warm. I took off the foil and let the crust get brown. They were delicious and everyone liked it. I guess you could use canned stew if you don't have left overs. And you definitely have to remember to butter the outside of the dish where the crust stuck. But it was super easy and good.
We had more crescent role dough than we needed so I went ahead and cooked it up and ta da left over crescent rolls for breakfast this morning.

What's cooking?

Hi! Here's what's cooking... as little as possible, it's too hot!

This time of year we are always buying melons, watermelon,cantaloupe,honeydew, and they only get half eaten. So the other day I finally broke down and bought a melon baller. I sliced the cantaloupe in half and the other half sat in the frig as usual so I balled it up. And it was eaten by the end of the day. I froze the balls so they weren't just a fun shape they were a cold treat as well. It's easy to do. 

After you scoop the melon to nothing, you take the little balls and spread them out, on a cookie sheet or a flat tray, so they don't touch. Then freeze. Once frozen you can put the balls into a Tupperware dish and you've got frozen balls instead of a melon rotting in the frig.

Here's another good recipe I made up. There is heat involved so some of you may not be interested at this time.But the rest of you... I had some fresh broccoli left over from putting it in summer salads and dipping it for a snack. Mmm.... fresh broccoli. I also had half a bag of egg noodles and some mozzarella left over from pizza topping but not enough to do anything with. So... I combined them! Here is the recipe give or take on the measurements

Creamy Broccoli Noodles.

Fresh broccoli-chopped small

1/2 bag of egg noodles

1/2 cup mozzarella

1/2 stick of butter

1/2cup of parmasan

1/2 cup of milk

Garlic powder 

smidgen of oregano

Put broccoli in water bring to boil. Add egg noodles cook till desired doneness of the noodles. Do not over cook the broccoli.(broccoli should be mushy but doesn't have to be you could add it later.) Drain.  Then add butter and mozzarella stir till melted. Then add Parmesan, garlic (to taste) and oregano stir. Add milk till desired creaminess. Stirring well.

Serve as a hearty side dish.

For those of you who eat chicken I bet you could stir some cooked chicken in and call it dinner!

The Ice Patch

The Ice Patch

We survived the cold so far. Saturday we woke up early in hopes of seeing snow. But sadly there was just a bit of sleet on the car. But according to the TV the snow was just down the road. So... road trip! We drove all over looking for snow. We finally found snow on the roof tops in Ocala. And on our way back we did get to see some falling out of the sky in Ocklawaha. I didn't get any good pictures of it though, so Chris left the sprinkler on last night and made a great circular patch of ice in the front yard. All the neighbors drove by and looked at it and the kids had fun running through it and the dog tried to eat it.
Up Date on Chris

Chris's hand is healing pretty good from falling in the fire on New Years Eve. I took a picture of it cause it's so gross. It looks like leprosy. Hopefully it will be gone soon.

Pork Fajitas

And on that note... We figured out some thing really good to do with left over pork. We made fajitas. All we did was cut up some onions and a red and green pepper. Than we sauteed them and set them aside. Heated the pork in the same pan then added the onions and peppers back to the pan. We put some fajita seasoning in it and added some water then put it on tortillas. It was really good. We could taste the lime in the seasoning. It was very diffrent and good. You could probably do this with any left over pork. We used left over smoked pork butt.