Sweet Potato Soup with Crisp Prosciutto

Are you a leftovers fan? I’m not. Not at all.

There’s just something that happens to leftovers once they enter my refrigerator. They change somehow and become completely inedible to me. It happens with even my favorite foods… They enter the “cold zone” and are never the same.

I don’t like to be wasteful, though… And, I also bad making my husband eat all of the leftovers (though, he doesn’t have the same issues that I have). So, I tend to re-purpose my leftovers. For reasons I can’t understand, when I view leftovers as ingredients instead of just food to be reheated, I have no trouble using them up. It makes no sense, I realize.

Cocoa Cardamom Espresso Roasted Almonds

If you’re hosting Thanksgiving dinner, hopefully you’ve already finalized your menu and are well on your way to a spectacular dinner! If not, you can always check out last week’s Friday Favorites for my collection of favorite Thanksgiving recipes.

Now that dinner’s taken care of, let’s talk about a fun snack for your guests to nibble on when they arrive. I always like to have a few bites and snacks available to keep everyone occupied while I’m cooking dinner and getting everything together.

Lately, one of my favorite snacks is roasted almonds. Almost everyone I know loves to munch on nuts (and they’re not so filling that they’ll spoil your dinner!), but I prefer to make my own than buy a can of pre-seasoned nuts. By roasting my own almonds, I have the opportunity to get a bit creative with fun flavors.

Balsamic Roasted Vegetables (WFMW)

Sometimes I get so caught up in worrying about the main dish that I’m making for dinner that I tend to neglect the sides. Can you relate?

With Thanksgiving around the corner, you’ve probably already thought about the perfect recipe for a roast turkey and may have already settled on the perfect stuffing, too. But, if you’re much like me, you may have neglected to worry about what vegetables to make. Unfortunately, they don’t prepare and cook themselves.

So, this week, I thought I’d share my super simple recipe (if you can really call it a recipe) for Balsamic roasted vegetables. It’s my go to recipe for vegetables in the fall and winter (and once in a while the spring and summer, too!)… It’s easy to throw together and can just hang out in the oven while your other dishes are cooking/baking. Plus, it’s a favorite with my family and friends. In fact, my husband actually gets excited when he sees me prepping roasted vegetables. Who would have thought?

Simple Tomato Sauce with a Food Mill (WFMW)

I love to make fresh tomato sauce, but I do not enjoy peeling and seeding tomatoes… At all!

Last summer, I got a big bag of tomatoes (about 40 pounds) from a local farm stand and decided that I wanted to make sauce to freeze so that I would have it for the winter. Fortunately, my mom was kind enough to lend me her food mill so that I wouldn’t have to suffer through all of the dreaded peeling and seeding. I loved it and put it on my wish list immediately (and my mom was kind enough to get me a food mill for my birthday later in the year!).

I’ve been surprised that we’ve still been getting quite a few tomatoes from our CSA this late in the season. So, in case you are still seeing lots of tomatoes, I thought I’d share my quick tutorial on making tomato sauce with a food mill. It’s a huge time saver, and it works for me!

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