Gratitude Pie...great for Turkey leftovers

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!  We celebrate the friendships we have made in blogland and hope each of you have a safe and happy holiday. 

Hubby and I are visiting Mom in the hospital and then having a quiet turkey dinner at home.  A few weeks ago, we made a different kind of shepherd's pie...with (cooked) Turkey and sweet potatoes.  Everyone who tried it, loved it!  Here's our recipe in case you want to try it:

Gratitude Pie (not your Mama's Shepherd Pie)

1/3 C lt. sour cream
2 sweet potatoes
2 C diced raw vegies (we had onions, celery, carrots and zuchini on hand when we made it)
1 T chopped garlic
1 T olive oil
1/2 C chicken broth
Leftover turkey about 1 and 1/2 C, shredded.
Other frozen vegies you might have on hand (we used frozen peas)
Grated cheese (optional)
Paprika

*Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

*Grease 2.5 deep dish casserole pan

*Peel and cube potatoes.  Boil until soft in two Seperate pans...about 7 minutes depending on how small you cut them.

*Combine and Mash potatoes together, add sour cream, blend briefly with hand held mixer.  Set aside.

*Heat oil in deep saute pan, add diced raw vegies and then garlic.  Cook until tender.  Add 1/2 C chicken broth and pulled turkey, cook until leftover turkey is warm. 

*Pour the turkey mixture into bottom of greased casserole dish.

*Add layer of frozen vegetables on top.  Do not mix! 

*Top with layer of mashed sweet potatoes, smoothing top of casserole.  Sprinkle with some cheese (not a ton of cheese) and paprika to taste.

Bake 30-35 minutes. 
Bon Apetit!

Vintage Revisited...

Remember when I talked about Mary Kerr's book, Vintage Revisited?   On Wednesday, our minigroup met and shared the quilts we had made.  If you recall, we started with this bow tie block, circa 1900:

It was wonderful to see my friends again (I've been so busy with my mother's health issues) and share our creative processes: 
Pam is a gardener and she used buttons to make these funky flowers.  Some of them are buttons on buttons!  What a great idea!  She loves black and white and red quilts and this one will go with a bed sized quilt she has been making.  I love the border print she used as well which ties it all together:

Both Kim and Pam used some reproduction fabrics in their quilts and I love the result Kim got with her bowtie quilt.  Her quilt has a really crisp feel to it!  I think the plaid fabric in the border adds a really fantastic dimension to the quilt.  She worked on hers while recovering from illness.  Look at the cool fabrics she used:

Julie went a different route using embroidery to embellish hers.  The strawberry fabric makes it sing!   She is going to hang hers in a room in her house.  I love the greens  and the gingham she used.  She still needs to bind hers (and she has an awesome binding too!) and will have done it by our December guild meeting:

Close up of one of the embrodiery sections:

Then there is mine,  I went through various ideas before I settled on "Peter's Merry Little Christmas" celebrating the special relationship my son had with my Dad and the various Christmas traditions we have in our family--like Danish Ribbons, St. Nicholas Day, my Dad's tradition of nerf guns or sword for the boys (and Dad which made Christmas particularly raucous) and the annual gifts of slinkys and yo-yos:

PS--the black and white plaid fabric is the train rails and the reindeer antlers.

I emailed Mary Kerr today and hope she will check out our blocks...and if she did one, we will post her photos too!  

Next challenge?  A dresden plate block that Pam supplied us.  Our new challenge quilts are due in March and we are all probably going to start ours in January, but the ideas are coming already!!!!!