Turkey: Two Ways

When Ott, A from a Latte with Ott,A announced turkey was the secret ingredient for her November Iron Chef Challenge, I immediately thought of two different recipes that could work.  These recipes both came to mind as they can be made in less than 10 minutes each and always receive rave reviews from the pigpen.  Additionally, they can be made with turkey breast from the deli case or with leftover turkey from Thanksgiving or anytime you make a whole turkey or turkey breast.

So I decided I would go ahead and share both recipes with you as we all know we will be looking for many different ways to serve up the leftovers from Thanksgiving come Friday.

First up is my semi-homemade Turkey Manhattans.  Now, you can make this recipe as homemade as you want or as semi-homemade as you want.  At this pigpen, we usually go the semi-homemade route as it is hard to beat a delicious comfort food that can be made in less than 10 minutes.

Semi-homemade Turkey Manhattans
Ingredients
White Bread
Turkey Breast
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy

When making semi-homemade turkey manhattans, we use turkey breast from the deli case, Bob Evans Original Mashed Potatoes from the refrigerator case, and Heinz's Home Style Roasted Turkey gravy in the jar.  

Directions
Prepare your mashed potatoes in the microwave as instructed.  (This takes approximately 6-7 minutes.)

Heat your gravy on the stove top.

Place one piece of white bread in the middle of your dinner plate.

Add the desired amount of turkey breast.  Then heat the bread and turkey up in the microwave oven for about 30 seconds.

Add the desired amount of mashed potatoes and then drizzle with the desired amount of gravy.

And you are ready to eat one yummy meal.

The second recipe I'd like to share is for a Cranwich.  My mother-in-law made these when she used to work at a local tea room as their chef and it has become a treat for our family when she makes them.

Cranwich
Ingredients
Brownberry Whole Grains Health Nut Bread
Whipped Cream Cheese
Chopped Walnuts
Sliced Swiss Cheese
Turkey Breast
Leaf Lettuce
Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce

Directions
Chop walnuts and set aside.

Take one piece of bread and spread whipped cream cheese all over one side.

Sprinkle chopped walnuts over the whipped cream cheese.

Add a slice of swiss cheese.

Add the desired amount of turkey breast.

Top the turkey with a piece of leaf lettuce.

Spread the whole cranberry sauce on one side of another piece of bread.

Assemble the sandwich.

Cut into 4s and serve with a toothpick inserted into each fourth.

This sandwich is a real treat as it puts a real twist on a traditional turkey and swiss sandwich.

Hopefully these recipes have given you something to think about as you  stare down your Thanksgiving leftovers and think of quick and easy weeknight meals that just hit the spot.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Oh how I love traveling for work

Well I'm currently sitting on the airplane waiting to take-off. We were supposed to leave 30 minutes ago yet we are still sitting here. They are working on our plane for mechanical reasons. Now don't get me wrong, I would much rather them take the time to fix the plane as opposed to having problems while we are in the air; however, I have never understood why these issues aren't figured out before we board the plane. But I will not complain as they are still letting me use my iPad and remember, it can always be worse. There is a family with three small children on our plane that aren't too happy we're delayed either. I'm so glad I'm traveling alone at the moment and hope this isn't any foreshadowing of our big family road trip this weekend.

Since I'm still on the ground, I have no idea what I'll be having for dinner or when I'll be eating but be sure to check out my guest post for Sweet Jeanette if you need some inspiration for dinner.

If you give a girl a bucket...

If you give a girl a bucket like Red Hill General Store gave this girl, you never know what she might use it for around the home and garden...

At first we used it as a lunch pail to have a picnic in the car on a slightly rainy day in between Vacation Bible School and swimming lessons.

(I don't know if you can see those gogurts in the bucket or not (they are the blue tubes sticking out on the top left hand corner), but those are an amazing lunch treat at this pigpen.  They are specifically designed to be frozen overnight, put in the lunchbox or lunch bucket in the morning, and completely defrosted by lunch time. Big Sissy requests them all the time during the school year and they are a great source of calcium and Vitamin D.)

Then, we used it as a trash can after our picnic in the car. (To keep our trash contained in the bucket, I had everyone put all of their trash, if possible, into their sandwich bag before putting it in my bucket.  As an FYI, we are able to recycle the Kool-Aid drink pouches through Big Sissy and Bubby's school.)

Later we used it as a vase for these beautiful yellow spider mums, but be careful, this particular mum tends to shed.

Big Sissy thought it would make the perfect place to put all of the kids' drinks for our Father's Day family cookout.

And she was right.

(Having kid-friendly, mom-approved drinks accessible to the kids at a height they could reach was highly popular with both the kids, moms and dads at our family party.)

And Little Sissy thought it was fun to carry around the house and play peek-a-boo with it.

It also made a great place to store all of Little Sissy's necessities like lotion, hair bows, and her hair brush... what more could a 2 year old need.

(I do have to tell you the most popular item in Little Sissy's bucket is her diaper rash ointment.  Thanks to a tip from a great friend, we started using Resinol this winter for diaper rash and it is absolutely amazing.  It is a non-prescription product, but you have to ask the pharmacist for it.  I really can't believe I've potty-trained 2 children and was almost ready to start working on potty-training a third child before I knew about this product.)

To Bubby, it was his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Unfortunately, the money wasn't real, but to a 5 year old you can have a lot of fun with play money and a pot or bucket of gold.  

That being said, you, my lucky readers, have the chance to win one of Red Hill General Store's buckets.  You see my good friends over at The Real Farmwives of America and Friends are giving away a galvanized embossed tub to one lucky reader thanks to Red Hill General Store.  So be sure to check it out and enter the contest.


While Red Hill General Store did provide me with a bucket to blog about for this post (thanks Red Hill General Store), the pictures, ideas and opinions shared here are my own.

Our Bucket List for the Summer

Even though I'm a full-time, off-farm working momma that still has to go to work 5 days a week despite the fact that the kids are on summer break , I've tried to craft a pretty good bucket list for our summer.  This will be our last summer for many years that no one at this pigpen is in 4-H.  Big Sissy will be a first year 4-H member next year and in Indiana you can be a 4-H member for 10 years.  So needless to say our summers are going to get real busy after this year.

So that being said, I'm trying to squeeze in as much as my work schedule will allow as summer is about spending time with the family and letting the kids truly be kids.

Swimming lessons, vacation bible school, 4th of July with my family, the county fair, the State Fair, and soccer camp have been on our list the last couple years; although, this will be the first year Bubby can attend soccer camp.  (It is just a one week program for 1 1/2 hours each night about 5 minutes from our house.)

This year we also have a pretty exciting family vacation planned; however, The Farmer and I have only told the kids that we are going on vacation.  They don't know where or when, but let me just say we may or may not be visiting a mouse and his friends.

So, I'm pretty pumped about this year's bucket list which is why I was excited we started working on one of our items today.  Another one of our annual summer bucket list items is our county library's summer reading program.  Growing up I loved the summer reading program and I have tried to instill this love of the library and in particular the summer reading program with Big Sissy, Bubby, and Little Sissy.

Today we made the first of many trips this summer, I hope, to the library to officially sign up for the summer reading program and enjoy the library.

Big Sissy hit the computers.

Bubby loves looking for books and movies about farming, building, and trains.

Little Sissy lined up the dinosaurs.

So here's to reading this summer and enjoying our summer bucket list.

What's on your summer bucket list?

Pulled Pork with a side of Gooseberry Patch shredded chicken

Big Sissy requested pulled pork for the menu of her First Communion party.  Now as pig farmers AKA pork producers, we love to serve pork at this pig pen and often make pulled pork from a shoulder or loin roast in the crock pot.  However, for busy days like this, we have an even easier option.

As you know, my mother-in-law and I sell retail pork cuts at our local Farmer's Market and other venues to help raise money for the 3 kids' college.  One of our most popular sellers is our pulled pork.  You see it is already cooked so all you have to do is defrost and warm to serve and you have one yummy sandwich.  We sell it plain or with BBQ sauce.  I prefer the plain as you can then sauce it up to your own likings.

So on Thursday night, I took several containers of pulled pork out of the freezer and put it into the fridge to defrost.

Saturday morning, I put it in the crock pot on low for a few hours and then switched it to the keep warm setting for serving.  Besides having to stir the pork a few times in the crock pot, I didn't have to do anything else and it really doesn't get much easier than that.

We served the pulled pork with buns and BBQ sauce on the side.  We also had a few requests for ketchup.

This is one convenient option that this working momma appreciates.

Another convenience for me is the cookbooks I can download onto my Kindle.  Recently I downloaded Gooseberry Patch's Circle of Friends Cookbook Slow-Cooker Recipes.  After downloading the cookbook, I found myself on a long plane ride so I decided to do some menu planning and stumbled upon this yummy chicken sandwich recipe.  Since it used my slow-cooker, I thought it would be relatively easy so what did I have to lose.

The recipe had a few more steps than I usually prefer for a crock pot recipe, but all in all, it was well worth the effort and one that I would especially recommend for the weekends.

Vickie's Shredded Chicken Sandwiches
1/4 cup olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 onion, chopped
10 3/4 oz. can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup chicken broth
2 t. soy sauce
2 t. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 c. sherry or chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Brown chicken for 5 minutes on each side.

Place chicken in a slow cooker; set aside.

Add onion to skillet; saute' until golden.

Add soup, broth, sauces, sherry or broth, salt and pepper to skillet.

Stir well.

Pour over chicken in slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low setting for 6 to 8 hours, until chicken juices run clear.

Shred chicken with a fork and serve on buns.

Enjoy!