Pumpkin and Spice

Still staring down the last remains of turkey in your fridge? Can't stomach the thought of anymore turkey sandwiches?

Personally, I underestimated my family's turkey-eating capabilities and had hardly any leftover turkey (in retrospect, I would have gone up a couple pounds, so as to have more leftovers.) However, I greatly overestimated how much cornbread dressing eight people could eat, and had three (!) tupperware containers filled with dressing. I froze one, we ate the other as sides with various meals, but I wasn't really sure what to do with the final tub. I mean, I loooves me some cornbread dressing, but even I have my limits.

My second foray into the world of "Velveeta: Recipes for People who Eat Food" come from the chapter entitled "Mexican Madness". The chapter info:
"Your self control slowly diminishes, your eyes widen and your taste buds begin to pulsate... you have been diagnosed with Mexican Madness. This condition may sound a little scary and intimidating, but once you expose yourself and others to these recipes you will discover that being absolutely mad is a blessing and should be cherished and spread to others." Uhhh... what?

One plus side to the Velveeta recipes is that they've been turning out well. They're easy and so far, have been consistently good. Certainly not five star gourmet cuisine, but it is nice to have a recipe that you know you'd have to do something really awful to screw up.

As previously mentioned, the oven is out of commission. Still. And no one has come by to look at it. Still. I may need to make another phone call.

With the oven broken, my plans for Boston-style baked beans were out, but in addition to the bag of white beans I had in the pantry for that, I had a bag of small red beans. I also always have brown rice on hand, so I decided to take a culinary trip a little south of Boston and make a Louisiana favorite- red beans and rice.