November 2010 – Lemon Drop Pie

Yay! I’ve completed NaBloPoMo for a second year without my husband divorcing me or my children disowning me!

Writing a post every day for a month has just reinforced something I already knew. If I can’t think of anything to write, just sit down and start writing. What happens next may not be pretty, but something will get written.

Not only have I completed 30 days of writing, I just finished baking my four dozen Christmas cookies for my MOPS cookie exchange tomorrow. As I was baking, I had a great idea for this post. I do not remember what I was going to write, but it was going to be good.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am off in search of a neato “I completed NaBloPoMo 2010” button to display somewhere on this blog. See, I told you something would get written…and it ain’t pretty. While I still kinda have your attention, pop on over to Chris at a CRAZY kind of FAITH to give her a virtual high 5 for finishing NaBloPoMo, too! Way to go, Chris!

Off to find that button….

Even though I’ve never made a single crabcake, I’m positive my crabcakes would never measure up to Gordon Ramsay’s standards. Actually, I’m not even sure I’ve ever eaten a crabcake, so I wouldn’t know what a good crabcake tastes like. But that’s what Chef Ramsay seems to order first on the Kitchen Nightmares episodes I’ve seen. He never likes the crabcakes he orders. The show is named “Kitchen Nightmares” after all.

I don’t consider myself a great cook. I do my best. My husband loves my cooking, but my best dish is throwing ground beef, chili beans and diced tomatoes in the crock pot.

Tonight, I decided to make a new entree for dinner. I wanted to use our leftover turkey, and so I found a great turkey tetrazzini recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks. As usual, the recipe sounded easier than it was. Through experience, I started cooking by 4:00, since we try to eat dinner by 5:30. For some reason, prep work always takes me longer than the cookbook says. If the recipe says the prep is 15 minutes, count on me taking at least 45 minutes.

While the spaghetti was boiling on the stove, I was supposed to combine the turkey, ham and vegetables and then make the cream sauce. That’s right, I made a cream sauce without opening a can! However, I only had eleven minutes to get it all together. Not very much time for a slowpoke like me, especially since I needed to add the chicken broth and half and half to the sauce gradually.

My sauce wasn’t finished by the time the spaghetti was done; however, the recipe didn’t suffer. I managed to get my tetrazzini in the oven by quarter to five; perfect timing! And it also turned out to be a perfect turkey tetrazzini, if I do say so myself. I even managed to serve a nice, leafy green salad with dinner.

My daughters treated my delicious, made-from-scratch tetrazzini the way Chef Ramsay treats those crabcakes I’ve seen him eat…they ate one bite, and turned up their noses. *sigh*

So, what am I making for dinner tomorrow night, you ask? {insert evil cackle here} Leftovers!