Thanksgiving: Leftover Spinach Recipe

Spinach Shells by Laura Bray

I cooked a lot of food for Thanksgiving and have a fridge full of leftovers.  We ate mini-Thanksgiving meals for a few days, but got bored quickly and I'm now trying to get creative with the remains of the day.  I made some delicious turkey soup, which was perfect because my entire family now has terrible colds.  I also made some pumpkin bread to go with it using leftover canned pumpkin.

But here's my favorite recipe so far.  I created it in order to use up the last of the spinach gratin.  The spinach in it's original form was The Barefoot Contessa's Spinach Gratin recipe, but I think any creamy, cheesy spinach cassarole leftovers would do.  Here's my recipe:

Ingredients:

3 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 box large shell pasta
Leftover spinach casserole
Mozzeralla cheese

Directions:
To make the sauce:

1. Heat olive oil in a saucepan.  Add garlic and saute until soft.  Don't brown it.  Just stir it around until you can smell the garlic. 
2. Add diced tomatoes and tomato paste.  Stir and bring back to a boil.  Lower heat and allow to simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Your sauce is done.  It's a great recipe for just general pasta sauce.  I never buy the jarred stuff anymore as this is so easy and so good.

While your sauce is simmering, cook your pasta shells according to the directions on the box.  Drain, and allow to cool. 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.



Tasty Shells using Leftover Spinach

 To assemble:

1. Pour half the sauce into the bottom of a 9 x 12 baking dish.  Stuff pasta shells with spinach and lay on top of the sauce. 
2. Cut mozerrella into small cubes and tuck one cube into the spinach of each shell.  (Note:  My leftover spinach didn't fill all the shells, so I made a few with just mozerella.)
3. Once the pan is filled with shells, pour remaining sauce over the top and sprinkle with shredded mozarella cheese.
4. Bake in a over at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until cheese is melted, bubbly, and slightly browned.

It's really good!  And so not your typical Thanksgiving leftover recipe.  I like so much that I'm thinking about making the spinach gratin for Christmas dinner, just so I can use the leftovers again!  How have you been repurposing Thanksgiving leftovers this week?  Next on our list is waffles made from our Maple Sweet Potato Casserole.  Yum!

Thanksgiving Recap

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  It's my absolute favorite holiday.  For me it's a moment in time, just before the flurry of the Christmas season begins, to enjoy traditions that have nothing to do with material gifts and everything to do with creating the moments that a family is built on.


Everyone helps out by bringing dishes to contribute to the meal.  (Thanks for the delicious appetizers James & Reina!)

The Thanksgiving table wouldn't look right without my John & Priscilla decor.

The competition gets tougher every year for our Turkey Coloring Contest.  And we had the happiest winner of all this year, my sister-in-law.

Dessert isn't complete until Uncle James lines up the little ones and sprays a dose of whipped cream directly into every one's mouth.  A tradition in memory of Grandpa Miller.

A good day in indeed.  One that I will always be thankful for.



Felt Bird Ornaments

Felt Bird Ornament

Every year, I make ornaments for my niece, nephew and daughter.  I give them the ornaments on Thanksgiving.  It's a little treat they can always find on their place setting and, by giving it early, they can enjoy it right away.  You can read the story of how I decided to create this tradition by reading my article in When Creativity Knocks' Newsletter.

Bird Ornaments

This is my third year making ornaments, and I was afraid it wasn't going to happen.  I've had a terrible sinus infection this past week and could barely get anything done.  But I was feeling a bit better one day, so I dragged myself out of bed, found my felt, downloaded Skip To My Lou's felt bird pattern, and went to back to bed and got sewing.  I'm so happy I did.  The little birds cheered me up! 

And, in case you are interested, here are links to my previous year's ornaments:

2009-Half Eaten Gingerbread Man Ornament  This may be my all-time favorite so far!
2010 Syko's House Ornaments I used the tutorial from her book, Scandinavian Stitches.

Romantic Snowballs

Button Snowball by Laura Bray

In Southern California, we have to make our own snow.  If I want to see real snow, I have to drive into the mountains, so I have a bit of a romantic notion of the fluffy white stuff.  (However I did live in Ohio the first twelve years of my life, and shoveled some snow in my day, and do remember some of the un-romantic elements of it, so no hate mail!)

In order to bring a little snow into our holiday lives, I created some button (YES!  Buttons again!) and glittered encrusted snowballs.  To get the full tutorial, visit the Buttons Galore and More blog for Button Snowball tutorial.

Plaid Paint Giveaway

Advent House by Laura Bray

I have a little giveaway for you, courtesy of the folks at Plaid. It's a good one too: It has a retail value of $40. The giveaway prize includes the following: 4 FolkArt holiday colors, 4 FolkArt Extreme Glitter holiday colors, Sparkle Mod Podge, and a Value Pack of 25 brushes!  Think of all the cool things you could make for the holidays.  I used Plaid paints last year to decorate a 3D Advent Calendar House.  And I wrote a tutorial to make a cute, personalized wall plaque on their blog at Paint Me Plaid. 


Plaque by Laura Bray

 For a chance to win, tell me what you are creating for holiday gifts this year.  I'll pick a winner on November 23rd.


Prize Package


And one more thing!  Plaid asked me to let you know they are having a Crafty Christmas Contest.  Share a favorite holiday creation, using some of the Plaid products, and you could win some really nice cash and prizes.  Go here for more details.

Update 11/23/11

Giveaway Closed!  The winner is Teresa Godines, Fiskateer #6857! 

Thanks for joining in the fun!

Holiday Cards and Tags



Holiday Button Card by Laura Bray

In case you didn't notice, I'm in a bit of a button kick lately. I made up some holiday cards this weekend, using buttons, ribbon and fabric scraps. The cute Christmas tree buttons are from Buttons Galore and More.

Holiday Cards using Buttons by Laura Bray

I can't believe I'm talking about making holiday cards already! Seriously-it's just crazy how fast the year has gone by. If you are inspired to make a holiday card, Buttons Galore and More is having a linky party. You can share any holiday tags or cards you make. They don't even have to include buttons! You can even win some nice prize packages too, so hurry over to the Buttons Galore and More blog and add your projects and/or just poke around and get some good ideas.

Christmas Card by Laura Bray



Button Decor

Button Art by Laura Bray

I just created some cute button art for my home and had to share my idea with you.  This is a simple project, that completely transforms it's materials.

Button Art by Laura Bray

Here's what I started with:

• Button Galore & More's Gold & Silver Grab Bag of buttons



Buttons Before

• Some "gold" craft frames I inherited from a dear friend



Frames Before

• Krylon Fusion for Plastic in Red Pepper

Here's what I did:

Spray painted the buttons and the frames.  That's it.  Then I combined the two items with a little fabric and I have some super cute, modern decor for my house.  I'm thinking there are lots of other crafty uses for my new red buttons too.  (Although I'm guessing that spray painted buttons aren't going to work on anything that you want to machine wash!)

There's nothing a little spray paint won't transform is there? 

Spray Painted Buttons by Laura Bray

A Perfect Day

Sunday was one of the most relaxing days I've had in a very long time.  The weather in Southern California was unusually wet and cold for this time of year, which was the perfect excuse for staying in sweats all day and cuddling up with my little family.

First on the agenda, was breakfast in front of the fireplace.  I love having a fire in the morning.  Most people usually do a fire in the evening, which somehow makes a morning fire that much more cozy.  If you haven't tried it, you really should. 

After breakfast, we dragged all our quilts into the living room so we could watch Howl's Moving Castle.  It was a fantastic movie that I can't recommend enough.  We all LOVED it.  Of course, all that movie watching and snuggling under the quilts made us hungry.  So I whipped up a batch of the Barefoot Contessa's Sticky Buns.  So easy and so delicious.  While I baked the buns, my husband made some Mexican hot cocoa.  (Hey, I didn't say it was a day for dieting.  It was cold out, we needed to build a layer of fat to keep us warm...)

The rest of the day was spent reading, stitching and bread making.  Yep-more baking.  I decided to do a trial run of homemade rolls.  I'm planning on making them fresh for Thanksgiving, so I had to try out a recipe. Is there anything better than looking out your window and watching the rain fall, as the smell of baking bread comes from your oven?  I'm thinking not. Unless, you split those fresh baked rolls in half and stuff them BBQ chicken.

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

I host Thanksgiving every year.  I have a large family, so that means I have about 14 people sit down at the table.  It sounds daunting, but it really isn't.  In case you haven't noticed, I'm freakishly organized.  People make fun of me for it, but those are the same people who ask me how I get so much done in a day.  In my mind, a little organization, properly applied, can make anyone look like a superwoman.

And Thanksgiving is a great time to start being organized.  My family is really big on tradition and they really don't like any changes to the Thanksgiving menu, which makes my job easy.  A long time ago, I typed up the menu, made copies of all the recipes, and created shopping lists for the meal.  Every year, I just grab it all and getting dinner ready is a no brainer. 

This year, I'm taking things a step further.  I'm determined to use these early days of November to get ready for the holidays in general.  I'm looking over my stockpiles of spices, candles, holiday napkins, and the like, and seeing what I need to buy.  Then I'm shopping early so that I have everything in my house when I need it.  (By the way, my absolutely favorite place to buy spices is Penzey's.  They have the freshest, best spices and are so reasonably priced!)

How do you prepare for the holidays?

I had to share one more thing with you today.  I just found this game, Family Dinner Box Of Questions.  My daughter loves it when I ask questions that we all have to answer, and I was running out of original questions.  Now I have a whole box of questions to ask.  I'm thinking we're going to play it during our Thanksgiving meal.

Don't forget about some of my other Thanksgiving ideas too!

Turkey Coloring Contest (A very popular, yearly tradition at our house!)
Turkey Love Pilgrim Free Embroidery Pattern (Scroll down to my Embroidery Story on We Love French Knots' blog to get yours.)

Little Girl Holiday Embroidery Pattern

When I was a little girl, my godmother gave me an ornament of a little girl, holding a tree.  Ever since I got it, it's been my favorite ornament.  Every year I put her on the tree.  I have a little felt house ornament and I always put her by that ornament because, at some point during my childhood, I created a story in my mind about how the little girl was off in the woods, looking for her Christmas tree and would be returning home with it soon.

I'm so inspired by it, that I created an embroidery pattern depicting the girl.  I stitched her up last year and she sat in my drawer for almost a year.  I didn't know what to do with the pattern.  This summer, a good friend, suggested I made an ornament from the embroidered piece.  So stitched some fabric onto the back of the pattern, cut it out, and stuffed it.  I was about to add a ribbon to hang it from my tree, when my daughter saw the little doll laying on my quilt blocks.  After much discussion, it was decided she was far too cute to be an ornament and must come to live in my daughter's room as her newest doll.  I have to admit, that I think my daughter's call was right on the money.

If you want the pattern, you can purchase it in my Etsy shop for the bargain price of only $2.00!  I didn't include a stitch guide, it's just the pattern, but I do give instructions for transferring it.  I hope it inspires you to make an ornament or doll.  Wouldn't she be so cute peeking out of a stocking on Christmas morning?

We Love French Knots

Thanksgiving Embroidery Pattern by Laura Bray

Do you know how old I was when I started to embroider?  If not, pop over to Bari J's We Love French Knots blog today.  I'm telling my embroidery story and I'm sharing a free Thanksgiving pattern you can download.  The pattern tells the tragic story of a turkey in love with a little pilgrim girl.  I think we all know how the story will end.  I stitched it onto a napkin and will be using it in the roll basket at Thanksgiving.  I'm thinking I might have all my guest sign the napkin after dinner and then I'll embroider their signatures.  I think it would make a nice a little heirloom. 

Gnome Embroidery Pattern by Laura Bray

Speaking of stitching for the holidays, my Gnome pattern would be great for a holiday project.  Guest towels, stockings, fabric gift cards.  Or use my napkin tutorial and decorate your holiday table.  Since I'm feeling joyful about being featured on We Love French Knots, I'm offering a discount on the pattern.  Use discount code WLFKS and you'll get 25% off the pattern!  Go to my Etsy shop, katydiddys and take advantage of the offer now.  The discount offer only lasts until November 4th. 

Come back and visit soon too!  There's a new pattern and super cute project coming very soon. 

Happy Stitching!