HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Feast! Enjoy eating your leftovers and getting creative for ways to reuse turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and those leftover veggies. I am thinking of concocting some sort of Turkey BBQ with shredded turkey heated up in a slathering of barbecue sauce served over mashed potatoes... mmmm....

I made this Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe from Martha Stewart for dessert-- it was a big hit! Try it for yourself: Pumpkin Cheesecake

I also made Colicchio & Sons version of the Parker House Roll which after a bit of stress over non-foaming yeast which took three tries to get right-- the rolls ended up coming out so delicious even my picky sister loved them! The recipe is very easy and requires very few ingredients BUT allow plenty of time for the dough to rise, about 4 total hours. 

"Fly By The Seat of Your Pants" Chili - a Chili Recipe for a Chilly Evening

This morning I walked out of my apartment and into some bits of hail spitting down on my purple leaf patterned umbrella. From the response on Facebook I learned that there had been snow in Manhattan and snow on and off all day in Albany. With this harbinger in mind and a post from Bethenny about tailgating tips I got hungry for some warm, seasoned comfort food: chili! I had a busy day at work which didn't leave much time for poking around to find a quick recipe that wouldn't yield too much food for one. After some pondering and chatting with my friend Ann about her chili cooking tips I headed to the store with an idea of what I would do to satisfy my craving. 

Salsa is one of the ingredients I think has great unrealized potential. Walking about the very poorly laid out Food Emporium with a can of crushed tomatoes in my hand I meandered back to the Mexican food section to switch it out for a jar of Frontera (read: Chef Rick Bayless) Jalepeño Cilantro salsa. Some Stew Leonard's sliders were in my freezer, tomato paste in the pantry, onions I always have on hand, and the spices were all set too; just needed some cheese, black beans, the salsa, and some flour tortillas. 

The chili came together quickly and with ease- the pay off was hot, spicy, thick, cheesy and just what I was thinking.