Buffalo Turkey Bites

One of my favorite things about the holidays, well besides being with family and friends, is all of the great food. I especially love Thanksgiving food, you know, turkey and gravy, stuffing and gravy, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and did I mention gravy? I love gravy. I also love Thanksgiving leftovers, but after two or three days of turkey, one can get a little tired of the reheated poultry taste. There's something about reheated meat in general that I'm not a huge fan of, but poultry is especially gross. I don't really know how to describe the flavor, but I know that you know what I'm talking about.

Well, we fried up an 18lb. turkey with the help of my father-in-law and it was delicious. But we were also left with a gallon sized Ziploc bag of turkey. My husband suggested that perhaps we should make a casserole of all of the leftovers, you know stir all the turkey, stuffing, gravy and mashed potatoes together and bake it in the oven. Now, I like Thanksgiving food, but I also like to enjoy each part separately, except the gravy that can cover every bit of my plate (minus the sweet potato casserole of course). I am not a huge casserole fan in general. So I nixed that idea pretty quickly.

My husband's second idea should win a gold star or maybe a blue ribbon because it was genius. Buffalo Turkey Bites. At first, I was skeptical because the turkey had to be reheated, but it was actually very tasty and if I hadn't known, I wouldn't have been able to tell that I was eating off the same turkey I've been nibbling on for the past three days. It also wins major points because it was so simple and easy. Have you seen those cooking shows where you need your leftovers plus 50 more ingredients to transform your food. Who has time for that? Plus I don't want to see the inside of a grocery store or any store for that matter for weeks after all of the shopping I've been doing lately.

Okay, okay, I know, get to the Buffalo Turkey Bites already. Simply cut up your leftover turkey into bite sized chunks and toss in a large bowl with your favorite wing sauce. We used traditional buffalo sauce, hence the name, Buffalo Turkey Bites. Next lay your sauce covered turkey onto a cookie sheet (we used our stoneware sheet) and bake until warm and the sauce is set, about 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Dunk in your favorite ranch or blue cheese dressing and voila, you are eating your leftover turkey and you won't even know it.

Yum! I hope your Thanksgiving was full of family, friends and great food!

Revenge of the Dinotrux

I thought we all needed a little reprieve from the holiday season, so tonight my book pick is one of my five-year old son's favorites and it just so happens to be the one we read tonight! Revenge of the Dinotrux is the sequel to Chris Gall's Dinotrux. The Dinotrux are fed up with museum life and decide to escape and paint the town. That is until the mayor puts a stop to their destruction and sends them off to school. With the help of their school aged friends, the Dinotrux learn how to read and put their talents to good use. You'll never believe what happens when the Dinotrux break out of school!

Revenge of the Dinotrux

$16.99

By Chris Gall

Buy on Amazon

Jack-O-Lantern Joy

Tonight we finally carved our giant 40 pound pumpkin! It's pretty much a family tradition to carve the night before Halloween. If you haven't already figured it out, we are a last minute kind of family. We get things done, but not until they absolutely have to be done. It's something I'd like to change, but I'd like to think we work best under pressure. Our pumpkin turned out great, of course, and my husband was able to keep the kids occupied scraping and seed collecting for the better part of an hour, while I made cookies for a school bake sale. Now all that's left are treat bags for my students, packing up costumes for school tomorrow, and writing this post.

The carving was tonight, but I'd like to think we've been preparing for the actual carving event since we created our paper plate jack-o-lanterns last week. My son wanted to make scary faces and my daughter was just happy to paint, cut and glue. All you need to create your own at home pumpkin patch are white paper plates, orange poster paint, black construction paper, scissors and a glue stick.

First, we painted our plates, round side out with orange poster paint.

After painting, the plates need to dry. We let our plates dry overnight, but they were ready within an hour or so. While your plates are drying you can cut shapes out of black construction paper to serve as your jack-o-lantern eyes, nose and mouth. My son drew his shapes with a white crayon before cutting and my daughter just hacked away at the construction paper until she had some pieces that resembled eyes, nose and a mouth. She may have had a little help from her brother too. Drawing and cutting the face of the jack-o-lantern can be a great shape review.

When the plates are dry, you can commence gluing the construction paper shapes onto the orange pumpkin.

Now all that's left is to display your cute little pumpkins.

Happy Halloween!

Room on the Broom

There are so many fabulous Halloween children's books, so this week's book selection took a bit of thinking. Lately, I find myself saying to my students almost daily, "Today I'm going to read you one of my favorite stories." The truth is I'm not crazy about Halloween and I'm not a huge fan of scary things, but you say the word Halloween in Kindergarten and the kids get super excited. Their small little faces light up with glee at the mere mention of the word. I could be wrong, but I think it might have something to do with the candy. So even though, I'm not jumping for joy as Halloween approaches, I can appreciate a good holiday themed book. I also love the rhyme and repetition of this particular Halloween read. The illustrations are vivid and colorful as well (I'm a sucker for cutesy illustrations).

Room on the Broom, written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, tells the story of a witch and her cat out for an evening ride on her broomstick. As the weather picks up, her things take flight. Some friends help her retrieve her things, but want a ride in return. Will the broom be able to carry all of her friends? What will happen when a dragon wants to eat the witch? You'll have to read to find out!