Valentine Pie and other Last Minute Adventures

I had kind of grand plans for Valentine's Day.  It seemed like I had so much time to get ready...but then all of a sudden, there it was.

There have been millions of cute and practice Valentine's food ideas floating around the blogosphere, but I still found myself Valentine's afternoon, not knowing what to make for dinner.  I hadn't planned ahead and didn't want to run to the store.

I had decided to forget it and just make chicken corn chowder...not at all Valentine-like, but noticed my recipe for "Nana's Scotch Meat Pie" while looking for the chowder recipe.  (The recipe for the pie follows.)  It's something my mom made all the time when I was a kid, and just calls for hamburger (we used turkey burger), onion, tomato soup (YEAH!  here was our red!), and pie crust.  And lucky me...I got a red pie pan for Christmas.  So that's what we had.  I cut the crust for the top out in the shape of hearts with cookie cutters, and Valentine's Pie was born.

The great thing about using this recipe for a holiday is that you can cut out any cookie cutter shapes you want.

We had regular old cucumber salad on the side.  I added a few heart shaped carrots as garnish, and put it in a red dish.  The kids were happy, and it was no more work than making regular dinner...except carving the carrots took an extra two or three minutes.

As far as some other last minute Valentine's changes...I had a couple of ideas of things to make for Hubby...that never even got started.  Maybe next year.

I did make some shirts for the kids (girl version here and boy version here) that turned out pretty well. 

I was going to have Firecracker make these cute Valentines I saw on Little Page Turners for the girls in her class and these from MADE for the boys in her class.  I put it off though, and our printer ran out of ink...so the night before Firecracker and I made the ones from MADE for everyone and just wrote them by hand.

Her teacher and class aid got extra big ones because they're so awesome.

Firecracker was really sweet and wanted to make extra's for Little Brother and Sweet Pea, which they loved!  She also made one for herself, and a big one for Daddy.

Nana's Scotch Meat Pie


Cook: 4 Tablespoons minced onion in
           1 Tablespoon butter until soft.

Add: 1 pound hamburger (I use ground turkey) and cook until barely brown.

Blend in:1 can tomato soup
             1/2 teaspoon salt
             1/8 teaspoon pepper and mix.

Line a 9 inch pie plate with  pastry dough (double crust needed to do top too.) Fill with meat mixture, add top wedges or shape cut outs, brush with melted butter, and bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Then bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until done.