After returning from Christmas in Colorado with family (tasty food post to come from our CO adventures soon, I promise), my first act in our house was to try to clean up our kitchen.  Somewhere along the line, I forgot how nice it is to start cooking in a kitchen with clean counters and no back log of dirty dishes piled up.  But my mom’s pristine kitchen (most of the time) inspired me.

Then before I knew it, it was time to make some dinner.  Enter turkey leftovers in the freezer.  We liked our Thanksgiving turkey so much that we put a few more in the freezer for later in the winter.  Great price per pound, tasty, easy to cook in one giant lump.  We also found a fresh turkey in our fridge/freezer thanks to some hunting friends.  Scott cooked up that smaller fresh turkey before heading out of town.

Yesterday, I used what we had around (plus a few potatoes and some frozen veggies from the store) to make my own version of Giada’s “Thankful Shepherd’s Pie.”  I would tell you exactly how I changed the recipe, but I think you can really adjust it to suit your needs.  I didn’t have any fresh herbs, so I used dried.  I didn’t have fancy cream or milk, but 1% worked just fine.  I didn’t have any leftover gravy (all gone ages ago), so I used milk and flour to make a rue with the cooked onions.  You get the idea.  Use what you have, enjoy the tasty results.

You can tell that with all of those adjustments, our pie doesn’t perfectly resemble the original recipe, but it was delicious anyway.  I’m sure the original recipe is even better.  Give it a try sometime.  Or make your own version.  Mmm.

Oh, and did I mention that there’s freshly grated parmesan cheese melted all over the top of the mashed potato topping?