"There's no I in team, but there is one in meat pie..."

Happy Saturday to you! Hope you week went well, and your weekend is even better. We are finally enjoying some warm weather. Spring can be fickle here in Washington, warm and sunny one minute and cold and wet the next! I think though, we are done with the cold and ramping up toward the heat of summer!

I have two meals to tell you about, so lets get going! We had brisket for dinner on Monday that left us with a TON of leftovers. We needed a plan, although it could have been eaten as is... it was delicious. What to do...? I had planned on preparing Aussie Meat Pies (#201 from Rachel Ray's 365: No Repeats), and instead of going with the ground beef that the recipe called for I went with the leftover brisket. Can I say... FANTASTIC! What a great idea. It's always a great plan to reuse your leftovers and make them into another meal!
I fiddled with the recipe a little bit by making them into actual pies rather than the sandwich-like things that were called for. The recipe called for baking the crusts out and then topping them with the meat filling. Instead, I layered the crusts with the meat filling in the middle and pinched them shut around the edges. This really didn't take a whole lot more time, and the result was certainly a hit. We ended up with NO leftovers. A first for Rachel's generous meals.

Meal number two was certainly fancy, although not as tasty as the first. Don't get me wrong, it was "delish''... just not as "delish". We had Chicken No. 14,754- Chicken Bustard, a.k.a. Chicken in a Basil- Mustard Sauce (#295). I was a little wary because I'm not big on dijon mustard and things prepared in a lot of it, but it worked. I think the biggest reason this recipe turned out ok was because a couple of spoonfuls of pre-made basil pesto was added to the sauce at the end (by the way, I don't think I have ever had pesto before, and after trying it I can't tell you why- it is really quite good. I even spread some on the bread that was served along side). I served the chicken atop some orzo pasta to soak up the excess sauce, which also made for a pretty presentation. Overall, we decided it would be good enough to repeat, and recommend to you :)

Hope your weekend is fantastic, we are off to a birthday party... Happy B-day Dad!