Fell off the wagon

So sad to say but this week has had nothing focused on this blog but today I am back at it.  I have started a few different crafts but I wanted to start with a couple of the recipes we had recently.

The first I will begin with was the romano Turkey Burgers.  Ok - I am not sure if any of you have had home made turkey burgers before but I can tell you this got a big thumbs up for me.  I had to start by mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl from the ground turkey, romano cheese, minced onions, garlic powder & salt and pepper....

 Then formed them into patties so we could eat them like burgers.

 The directions asked me to pace the patties on a broiler pan and broil for 10 minutes however I found that they didn't quite cook as quickly as I would have liked and I ended up finishing them off in the frying pan for a few moments.

In the meantime, I wanted to make a side with this so lately my specialty is cutting up potatoes and baking them in the over with spices so that is exactly what I did :)  I added my own special blend of spices and voila!  Here is the finished product.

Now I have been rating what Curtis and I have been giving this food however I think I rated this a bit higher then Curtis so we have agreed to settle in the middle at 8.5.

The next day we tried a little something I would have never tried on my own ever.  It was called Butternut Ravioli Stew.  This I have to admit is a MUST TRY.  This is definitely moving out of the comfort zone for me but I loved it.  Also there is no meat in this so for anyone avoiding meat - This could be a little treat.

I started out chopping my onions in my mini chopper as usual.  Anyone who knows me, knows I am not an onion fan but when in a meal, I can definitely pull it off.

After this I had to prepare the butternut squash.  This was a little bit of a process.  I had to start with stabbing it, then microwaving it for about 5-8 minutes.  Now looking back I could have probably put it in there longer to cook more but it worked.

Then I split it in two, deseeded it and then cut it in cubes.

After this was completed I took the onions and cooked them in a pot with a little butter then added the squash with some liquids and spices (cinnamon, ginger, broth) and let it simmer for a while.  The recipe states that 10 minutes should be sufficient however I undercooked the squash starting out so I wanted to make sure it was cook throughout now. 

 While that was being cooked, I them had to boil water and cook the ravioli.  Once this was done I was to drain it and set it aside.

Finally I was to go back to the squash and take half of it, put it in my blender and add 3/4 cup of neufchâtel cheese.  Well I am not sure if it is because that isn't common around here or I was just stunned but I couldn't locate this cheese anywhere.  I googled it and found out that this is comparable to cream cheese so I added a full block of cream cheese to this mixture and blended it all together until it was smooth.  Then I needed to add this back to the remainder of the mixture along with the ravioli.  Then I was to add some half & half and heat it until it was almost a simmer.  

By this point, my kitchen smelled delicious.  It was so aromatic and I was looking forward to eating this.  

We ended up eating this for a couple of days afterwards and I was not complaining.  Curtis and I would rate this an 8.5 out of 10.  We did truly enjoy this and would definitely make this again.  

As for my crafts, I made something for a friend of mine, who just had a baby and due to the fact that there is a chance she might read this, I am going to have to wait on showing you the finished product.  Hopefully by Sunday I will have it up here.  Until then hope you enjoyed our newest dishes :)