Butter Chicken with Leftover Holiday Meats

 Ingredients

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil or butter

• 1 medium onion, nely chopped

• 3 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced 

• 2 tsp ground cumin

• 2 tsp ground coriander

• 1 tsp turmeric

• 1 tsp paprika

• 1 tsp garam masala

• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional, for heat)

• 1 cup tomato puree (or canned crushed tomatoes)

• 1 cup coconut milk or heavy cream 

• 1/4 cup plain yogurt (optional for tanginess) 

• 2 cups leftover cooked meat (turkey, lamb, or roast beef), shredded or cut into bite-sized pieces 

• Salt to taste 

• Fresh cilantro for garnish 

Instructions

 1. Prepare the Base: Heat the vegetable oil or butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and sauté until golden brown, about 5–7 minutes. 

2. Build the Flavor: Stir in the garlic and ginger and cook for 1–2 minutes until fragrant. Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, garam masala, and cayenne (if using). Toast the spices for 30 seconds to release their aroma. 

3. Add the Tomatoes: Stir in the tomato puree, reduce the heat, and simmer for 5–7 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly and deepens in color. 

4. Incorporate Creaminess: Pour in the coconut milk or heavy cream and mix well. If using yogurt, whisk it in at this stage. Simmer the sauce for another 5 minutes to allow the avors to meld. 

5. Add the Leftover Meat: Gently fold in the shredded or chopped leftover meat, ensuring it is fully coated in the sauce. Simmer for an additional 5–7 minutes until the meat is warmed through and infused with the spices. 

6. Taste and Adjust: Season with salt to taste. Adjust the consistency of the sauce with a splash of water or broth if it’s too thick. 

7. Serve and Garnish: Garnish with fresh cilantro and serve over steamed rice, with naan, or alongside a fresh salad. 

Tips

• Avoid overcooking the meat as it’s already cooked; just warm it through to keep it tender. 

• For a quick shortcut, use Butter Chicken Sauces from PATAK’S Original and skip the workload!

Holiday Leftovers Salad 

Turn cold leftover turkey, roast beef, or other holiday meats into a vibrant, nutritious salad that’s perfect for an instant lunch and a healthy way to kick off the new year. 

Ingredients 

• 4 cups mixed salad greens (or your favorite Fresh Express Salad mix) 

• 1 cup leftover holiday meats (turkey, roast beef, or lamb), sliced or shredded 

• 1/2 cup roasted leftover vegetables (e.g., sweet potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts), chopped 

• 1/4 cup crumbled feta or goat cheese (optional) 

• 1/4 cup dried cranberries or pomegranate seeds 

• 1/4 cup nuts or seeds (e.g., almonds, walnuts, or sunower seeds), toasted 

• 1/2 avocado, sliced 

• 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced 

• 2 tbsp olive oil 

• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar or lemon juice 

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard 

• 1 tsp honey or maple syrup 

• Salt and pepper to taste 

Instructions 

1. Prepare the Base: Place the salad greens in a large bowl or on a serving plate. 

2. Add the Leftovers: Top the greens with the sliced or shredded leftover meats and chopped roasted vegetables. 

3. Include Fresh Ingredients: Add the avocado slices, red onion, dried cranberries or pomegranate seeds, and toasted nuts or seeds for texture and freshness. 

4. Optional Cheese: Sprinkle with crumbled feta or goat cheese for added creaminess (optional). 

5. Make the Dressing: In a small bowl or jar, whisk together olive oil, balsamic vinegar (or lemon juice), Dijon mustard, honey or maple syrup, and a pinch of salt and pepper. 

6. Dress the Salad: Drizzle the dressing over the salad just before serving and toss lightly to combine. 

7. Serve Immediately: Enjoy as a light yet satisfying lunch or side dish. 

Tips 

• Use the dressing packet in Fresh Express Salad Kits to save time instead of making the dressing from scratch. 

• Pair this salad with a whole-grain roll or soup for a complete meal.

Leftover Holiday French Toast

Ingredients

3 Tbsp. corn starch 

1/2 C. Caliia Farms Organic Almondmilk 

2 tsp. sugar or maple syrup 

1 tsp. vanilla 

1/2 tsp. kosher salt 

1/4 tsp. cinnamon 

Pinch of ground nutmeg 

6 1-inch thick sliced leftover plant-based Challah bread or Panettone 

2-3 Tbsp. plant-based butter, room temp 

Maple syrup or powdered sugar for serving 

Directions

In a large bowl beat the corn starch with the Caliia Farms almondmilk until smooth and no lumps remain. Then whisk in the sugar or maple syrup, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. 

Add the bread slices and let soak on both sides until the bread has completely absorbed the liquid, about 1 to 2 minutes. 

Heat a non-stick skillet or frying pan with some plant-based butter on medium heat until it begins to bubble. Work in batches and cook each slice of French toast for about 2-3 minutes until golden brown. 

Serve immediately with maple syrup or powdered sugar. 

Yield: 2-3 servings

"Rockin' around the Christmas tree
At the Christmas party hop" – Brenda Lee

It’s a yuletide tradition on Capitol Hill. 

An annual custom of rockin’ around a congressional Christmas tree, festooned with hundreds of legislative ornaments, Advent appropriations and mistletoe modifications.

A political Polar Express chugs through the halls of Congress nearly every December. It’s always the last piece of legislation huffing out of the congressional station.

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"All aboard!" hollers the conductor.

Get your Noel needs loaded into the baggage car of this train, or it’s going to be left behind.

So, lawmakers decorated their "Christmas tree" in the only way they know how.

That resulted a few days ago in the colossal 1,547-page interim spending bill to avoid a government shutdown.

The sheer scope of the bill was breathtaking.

You want a hippopotamus for Christmas? You surely would have gotten it with this plan.

It wasn’t long until House Republicans pulverized the legislation.

"It's another cram down," fumed Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, the morning after congressional leaders released the bill. "Here's what you get. ‘Do this or shut the government down.’ So, it's very disappointing."

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., didn’t gift wrap his criticism.

"It's a total dumpster fire. I think it's garbage," decreed Burlison. "It's shameful that people celebrate DOGE coming, and yet we're going to vote for another billion dollars to be added to the deficit. It's ironic."

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., mocked his colleagues for talking out of both sides of their mouths when it came to spending.

"We keep on saying we want to take the deficit and the debt seriously. But we keep on voting to increase it. You can't have it both ways," he said. "This is irresponsible."

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, lamented this was business as usual.

"I mean, the swamp is going to swamp, right?" proffered Roy.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the following in the fall:

"We have broken the Christmas omni. I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition. There won’t be a Christmas omnibus," Johnson declared Sept. 24. "We won’t do any ‘buses.’"

So, yours truly pressed Johnson about his promise after frustrated Republicans upbraided him during a House GOP Conference meeting.

"You said back in September there would be no more Christmas omnibuses. You were not doing anymore ‘buses,’" I asked. "But how is this not yet another Christmas tree at the holidays?"

"Well, it's not a Christmas tree. It's not an omnibus," responded Johnson.

Johnson is technically right. In appropriations parlance, it’s not a true omnibus — even though outside observers and many lawmakers themselves might colloquially refer to the massive bill as an "omnibus." An omnibus is where Congress gift wraps all 12 individual spending measures into one package. A "minibus" is where a handful of bills are bundled together.

Even so, I reminded Johnson of the opprobrium directed at this legislation.

"They called this cram down. They said it was garbage. Those are your own members calling it that," I noted.

"Well, they haven't even seen it yet," said Johnson, even though the bill materialized the night before. "I’ve got a couple of friends who will say that about any end-of-year funding measure. This is not an omnibus, OK? This is a small CR (continuing resolution) that we've had to add things to that were out of our control."

The legislation was stocked with a hefty price tag to cover the entire cost of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. A radioactive pay raise for lawmakers. Health care provisions. Language about concert ticket prices. Emergency aid for farmers. And $110 billion to help cover devastation from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

"It was intended to be, and it was until recent days, a very simple, very clean CR stopgap funding measure to get us into next year when we have a unified government," said Johnson. "But a couple of intervening things have occurred. We had, as we say, acts of God. We had these massive hurricanes."

But then Elon Musk torched the bill. President-elect Trump demanded an immediate debt ceiling increase. Debt limit deals are one of the most complex and contentious issues in Congress. They require weeks if not months of painstaking negotiations.

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This wasn’t as simple as presenting Santa at the mall a wish list of items for Christmas morning.

The bill began bleeding support just hours before the House planned a vote.

But to paraphrase Charles Dickens’ opening line in "A Christmas Carol" about Jacob Marley, "That bill was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever, about that."

Democrats were flabbergasted at outside last-minute ultimatums. Especially since Johnson attended the Army-Navy football game last week with Trump. How could they not have discussed the contours of this bill?

"It was blown up by Elon Musk, who apparently has become the fourth branch of government," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., scoffed about the bill. "So, who is our leader, (House Minority Leader) Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., supposed to negotiate with? Is it Mike Johnson? Is he the speaker of the House? Or is it Donald Trump? Or is it Elon Musk. Or is it somebody else?"

Johnson and company then prepped a svelte 116-page bill to fund the government. But bipartisan lawmakers roasted that measure faster than chestnuts by an open fire.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., mocked Republicans for insisting that they adhere to their internal "three-day rule." That allows lawmakers to ponder bills for three days before a vote. Yet Republicans were now racing the new bill to the floor faster than shoppers rushing home with their treasures.

"Have you printed it? How many pages is it? What happened to the 72-hour rule?" mocked Moskowitz.

The bill plummeted to an embarrassing defeat on the House floor. It only scored 174 yeas, punctuated by an eye-popping 38 Republican nays.

"The Democrats just voted to shut down the government," Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the vice president-elect, claimed. "They've asked for a shutdown, and I think that's exactly what they're going to get."

By Friday, there was a third bill. And despite grousing, lawmakers finally passed the legislation. There was no need to go to "Plan Z," popularized in "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie." The House approved the bill in the early evening. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hit the Senate floor late Friday night.

"Democrats and Republicans have just reached an agreement that will allow us to pass the CR tonight before the midnight deadline," said Schumer.

Critics of the third bill might characterize the entire process as a "railroad." But it was an actual railroad that prevented the Senate from passing the bill on time. An unnamed Republican senator placed a hold on nominees to Amtrak's board. But once senators resolved that problem, the Senate finally aligned with the House to prevent the shutdown around 12:45 a.m. ET Saturday, 45 minutes after the midnight deadline.

The slenderized bill included disaster aid and emergency assistance for farmers. But when it came to appropriations, the legislation simply renewed all current funding at present levels. It was definitely not a "Christmas tree." It just kept the government running through March 14. So no holiday crisis.

Merry Christmas.

But beware the Ides of March.

A woman in Florida has discovered an unusual way to brighten her life and save quite a lot of money at the same time.

It just means deciding to frequent some places that many others won't. 

Melanie Diaz of Tampa, Florida, finds some of the magic of Christmas after others have tried to trash perfectly good — and brand new — holiday decor items. (See the video at the top of this article.)

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The 20-something goes dumpster diving in the outdoor receptacles located behind retail outlets to find her treasures.

She's saved as much as $20,000 by retrieving gifts and decor from trash cans, including wreaths from Michaels and toys from TJ Maxx, news agency SWNS reported.

The 22-year-old does her trash-to-treasure work in December and January and plucks out discarded holiday items that would otherwise go to waste.

"It is my favorite time going dumpster diving on Christmas because they start throwing out a lot of Christmas stuff," she told the outlet. 

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"I love saving everything so I can put it in my house and decorate it for the next year."

She finds the dumpsters that are placed behind such popular retailers as TJ Maxx, Burlington, Michaels, Jo-Ann Stores, Pop Shelf and Home Goods — and said she's found a jackpot of holiday items.

Some of her biggest discoveries occur after Christmas, she said, when stores begin clearing out their leftover holiday inventory.

"My biggest finds are in January," Diaz told SWNS. 

"I went dumpster diving to the TJ Maxx store, and I found a lot — the dumpster was full to the top."

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From 10 wreaths salvaged from Michael's — worth about $400 — to $500 Christmas trees, Diaz has curated a festive collection.

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She has also retrieved puzzles and dog toys from TJ Maxx, saving around $200 each, and countless other holiday staples, including ornaments and stockings, SWNS reported.

Sometimes there's so much to grab, Diaz said, that she has to enlist help. 

She's had to "bring my family to help me because it was too much," she said. 

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After one trip, "we took everything into cars, and the next day we did a garage sale. We also kept most of the stuff. It was incredible."

Her discoveries have included ornaments, festive shirts and kitchenware.

Diaz said that while she saves a great deal for herself, she also enjoys sharing her finds with those who would like them.

"I give some stuff to my friends and family," she told SWNS. 

"When Christ came into the world, he said: 'Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, "As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God"'" (Hebrews 10:5-7).

These verses are from the New Testament's Epistle to the Hebrews. They're Jesus' first words at Christmastime, Jeremiah J. Johnston, PhD, told Fox News Digital. 

This Sunday marks the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the final week in the preparatory period before Christmas. 

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Johnston is an elected member of the New Testament scholarly guild Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, president of the Christian Thinkers Society and pastor of apologetics and cultural engagement at Perstonwood Baptist Church in the Dallas area.

"The scriptures reveal a conversation between Jesus and God at His incarnation," he said. "Quoting Psalm 40:6-8, the author of Hebrews portrays the preexistent Christ speaking through the psalmist."  

Jesus' birth was during a time of "religious and political exhaustion," Johnston said. 

"Late Second Temple Judaism had expanded God's commandments into 613 laws of which 248 were positive ('do…') and 365 negative commands ('do not…')," he said.

This, he said, turned the practice of religious faith into a mechanical "burden of endless rules" that lacked heartfelt devotion. 

Additionally, the situation was bleak for most people living in the Roman Empire during Jesus' time, Johnston noted. 

The average life expectancy was just 20 years, he said — and about a quarter of the population was in dire need of medical attention.

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"As much as 40% of the population lived in slavery," Johnston said. "The much-celebrated 'Pax Romana' failed to deliver true peace." 

True peace was achieved in the world not through religious rituals or political power, but because Jesus followed God's will on behalf of humanity, he said. 

"His first recorded words, as echoed in Hebrews 10:7, reveal this mission: 'Then I said, "Here I am – it is written about me in the scroll – I have come to do your will, O God."'" 

During Christmastime, "these words remind us that God desires wholehearted obedience, not empty rituals," he said. 

In the verse, the use of the phrase "in the scroll" is a show of Jesus' commitment to scripture, Johnston told Fox News Digital. 

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"From His first words to His final moments before death, Jesus consistently upheld the fulfillment of God's Word," he said. 

"Unlike the four Old Testament sacrifices mentioned in Hebrews, which often lacked accompanying faith, Jesus' sacrifice was voluntary and wholehearted." 

God, Johnston said, "repeatedly rejects hollow religious acts without sincere devotions." 

Unlike the animal sacrifices, "Jesus willingly gave His life to fulfill God's eternal will, as planned before the world's foundation," he said.

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This, he said, is evidence that "what God desires is not outward performance, but inward faithfulness," Johnston said. 

As the world prepares to celebrate the birth of God's son, people should "reflect on the deeper meaning of Jesus' words and actions," Johnston said. 

These verses, he said, "capture the essence of Jesus' mission." 

"Only through the incarnation could Jesus do away with sin and accomplish God's will in His death, burial and physical resurrection," he said. 

"His life reminds us that true worship involves heartfelt obedience, not hollow traditions — something we could never achieve on our own, without His atoning-help." 

During the last week of Advent and leading into Christmas, "may we follow Jesus' example by offering our lives in sincere devotion to God, magnifying His love and peace through our actions and relying on Him," he said.