January 22nd to the end...

I cannot tell a lie. This was by far my poorest performance in the Eat at Home Challenge and I'm very disappointed in myself. It's not even that we ended up eating out it's that I forgot to take pictures of my meals (more often than not), I didn't find time to try new recipes as I normally do during challenge month, I didn't blog often enough and we ate an awful lot of leftovers from the freezer which were often too repetitive or too boring to mention.
I do have a few things to report in the last week though...one night Paul cooked butter chicken sausage from our local market with sautéed shrimp, saag (a curried spinach dish) and pickled mango chutney.
Another night I made a pork & broccoli stir fry plus I've recently discovered a love for home made cooked oatmeal. This had apples in it with a blueberry syrup drizzled over top...YUM!
Though we didn't exactly end the month with a bang, we did start February off well by contributing home made treats on Superbowl Sunday. We made a cooked tex mex dip (1lb ground beef browned with 1 packet taco seasoning and 7.5 oz of tomato sauce, 1 can refried beans, 500ml sour cream and 200g shredded Kraft Habanero cheese). Layer in a 12x8" flat dish in the order above and cook at 325 until bubbly. Eat with tortilla chips!
I also made a flourless chocolate torte with white chocolate raspberry buttercream and dark chocolate ganache since one of Paul's friends is gluten intolerant. Lastly, I made a giant chocolate chip cookie and decorated it with PC Dark Chocolate Sundae Sauce using a piping bag.
Hooray! I finally did some creative cooking/baking. Too bad it was in the wrong month!

There's a reason why I don't have my own blog...

Please accept my apologies for falling off the face of the earth over the past 10 days. I've been a good girl and I've taken pictures of a few of my meals but I've been up to my eyeballs making wedding invitations on short notice for a very dear friend of mine so I haven't had time to blog!

Last time I wrote, I had just made a pot of soup and joked that it would last for days. I wasn't kidding! I ate soup for dinner for 5 days straight plus I had it for lunch twice and still froze 5 servings for future use!

So...next on my cravings list was a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce with some Johnsonville mild Italian sausage, some cheese tortellini and garlic bread. Oh and those are Quaker oatmeal muffins in the back with a TON of chocolate chips in them. I apologize for not getting a picture of this meal on the first day when it was plated, I was so excited to eat that I forgot to get a picture.

When I ran out of tortellini then I switched to eating up the last of the sausage. I wasn't sure what to eat with it and decided to have 1/2 a can of green beans and the last of the bread. I prefer fresh green beans but I was raised on canned beans so I like them, too. So all in all, 1 pkg of sausage, 1 pkg of tortellini, 1 baguette and a can of green beans made 4 nights of dinners for me! Mackenzie had school functions or work every day so I was eating alone!

I didn't take a picture of my dinner today because it's the same meal I had near the start of this month's challenge (scrambled eggs with minced green pepper, diced low-fat turkey kielbasa, a sprinkling of tex mex cheese and a little salsa) but I thought you'd enjoy my dessert. Anyone who knows me knows that my husband turned me into an ice cream lover. While it's not uncommon for us to have 2-6 flavours of ice cream in the house at any one time (we usually make ice cream cones to keep the portion size under control), I love fruit and yogurt parfaits equally as much! Plus, just because you're eating at home it doesn't mean that it shouldn't look like you're at a fancy restaurant! I like to get some regular use out of my wine glasses (since I'm not a wine drinker) so they're often used to serve up dessert! This is fresh strawberries with a 1/4 cup of Danone Creamy vanilla yogurt and a couple of tablespoons of Harvest Crunch granola. DELICIOUS!!!!

Park Round Up

Well it was a semi successful Eat at Home month here at the Parks. Last time we did this I didn't eat out once, but this time it seemed like closer to once a week. A big part of that was how much I was working and sometimes I just didn't bring myself enough food for the whole day. I know excuses, excuses. There was also some friend "stuff" that got in the way of eating at home. But I didn't eat out for the convenience of it this month.... which is something for me.

We had a lot of our typical meals over the last couple of weeks. Although one March tradition that we only do once a year was boiled dinner. I find it a challenge to find corned beef at other times of the year but it's always around during St. Patrick's Day. So we boil carrots, potatoes, cabbage and corn beef together for the day (although dont' add the cabbage until the last 20ish minutes). It is a very tasty although sounds a little boring. That night we also had a really delicious dessert, banana bread with rum sauce and caramel. Here are the directions to the rum sauce. It was very very good.

Here is the rum sauce recipie:

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons white or dark rum (I used dark and spiced)
  

Directions

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Mix together the sugar and cornstarch, and stir into the butter. Pour in milk, and cook stirring frequently until the mixture begins to boil. Continue cooking until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, and stir in rum. Serve warm.

And here is the banana bread recipe

Ingredients

Makes 1 loaf

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature, plus more for pan
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan; set aside. In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and beat to incorporate.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined. Add bananas, sour cream, and vanilla; mix to combine. Stir in nuts, and pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Let rest in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.

Most of my recipes I get from allrecipies.com or the kraftfoods.com website.

Jenn

My First Food Blog Post

Jenn asked me to participate in this blog. I figured that I better actually get busy with it. This was not really the best month for me as I was on vacation last week. I do enjoy cooking and trying new recipes. The only thing that I don't really like is cleaning up after. I am a big fan of the food network especially Michael Smith. For my birthday Jenn bought me his cook book "The Best of Chef at Home". I have tried a bunch of different recipes and they have all been good. He encourages his reader to freestyle his recipes, allowing us to use our imaginations or leftovers from the fridge. One of my favorite recipes is Orange Ginger Beef. On Saturday we had Jenn, Darryl, Lucas and Nathan over for dinner. I did freestyle it as the first time I made it according to the recipe and found it to be a bit soupy. Here is the original recipe:

Orange Ginger Beef

a splash of vegetable oil
1 lb for stewing beef (I use round steak and dice it myself)
a sprinkle of salt and pepper
2 onions peeled and chopped
a small knob of ginger, thinly sliced (I have no idea what a knob is I used about 10 thin slices)
one 10 oz can of beef broth
1 cup of orange juice
1 cup of orange marmalade
a generous splash of soy sauce
1 tablespoon five spice powder
another sprinkle of salt and pepper
10 oz bag of baby spinach
a handful of bean sprouts
1 bunch of green onions (I always seem to forget to add these)
a handful of cilantro leaves ( don't use, I hate cilantro)

Preheat a large pot over medium high heat and then splash in enough vegetable oil to thinly coat the bottom. Season and then sear the meat until it is evenly browned on all sides. Searing the meat first adds lots of rich carmalized flavors before adding the liquids. Remove meat and set aside. Add the onions and ginger to the ban and stir for a few minutes. Then add the meat back. Add the broth, orange juice and marmalade, soy sauce and five spice powder. Bring to a simmer and then reduce heat for lowest setting that will maintain a simmer. Place a tight fitting lid on the pot to contain the tenderizing steam. Simmer for about an hour Taste and season the broth. Divide the spinach and bean sprouts evenly among four - six bowls. Stir the green onions and cilantro into the broth and then spoon onto spinach and sprouts.

I free styled it by using a bit of cornstarch and water to thicken the sauce and then stirred in the spinach and bean sprouts. I served it with rice.

Tonight we had chicken cooked with mushrooms, mashed potatoes and green beans. I found a recipe for a fruit crisp type dessert so I made that tonight for dessert. Sorry didn't get a picture.
I used frozen blueberries tonight but I think you could used the mixed berries as well. What I liked about the recipe is that you could make individual servings and how ever many you want. So I filled each ramekin with frozen blue berries almost to the top. Then I mixed some 1 tsp of corn starch with 4 tsp of water and divided it equally between the two ramekins. (If you were making four you would double the starch and water) I put a little bit of honey on each ramekin. Then I sprinkled granola on top and put in a 375 degree oven for about 35 min. I put the ramekins on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper so I wouldn't make a mess in the oven. Then I served it warm with a scoop of ice cream. Yummy !!!!!

Day 6 at the Parks: Shrimp Alfredo

Tonight we had our friends over for dinner, so we were trying to find a mix of gourmet and still please the kids.

Shrimp Alfredo

1 tablespoon of oil in the pan
4 cloves of garlic (1/person)
One bag on shrimp
1 jar of alfredo sauce


Cook the pasta according to directions. I usually leave it on the al dente side, becuase we add it to the other pan and it will cook a bit longer there. Heat the oil in the pan, add garlic. Saute the shrimp till they are light pink. (This time it only took one mintue because the shrimp were the precooked kind, but if they are not cooked it can take longer). Add sauce and heat. Add pasta. One othe tip is when you are adding the pasta, don't throw the whole thing of pasta in, incase you don't have enough sauce. I add it in "clumps".


We also had dessert. It was very very very rich chocolate torte cake. Just what I love. We added strawberries and whip cream to try and cut the chocolatness, for the people who don't like chocolate.

Jenn

Day 5 at the Campbells

I can't take the credit for this meal...not even a teensy, weeny bit. It's all thanks to Darryl and Jenn.

It all started during high school music trips to the US which usually resulted in a meal at Denny's. It was at Denny's that my love affair with Belgian waffles began.

For months now I've been green with envy over Darryl, Jenn & Lucas's Sunday morning waffle breakfast routine. What a decadent breakfast to have on a regular basis! I was surprised and completely ecstatic when last week at the beginning of their visit, Lucas presented us with a beautiful Cuisinart waffle maker of our very own! I LOVE IT!!!

While I'll admit, my topping choices turn waffles into more of a plate-sized dessert than a breakfast entree I can't imagine eating them any other way than covered in fruit, ice cream (or my favourite Creamy Danone vanilla yogurt), whip cream and a sprinkling of confectioners sugar. YUMMMMMMMMY!!!

Darryl and Jenn...have I mentioned how much I LOVE YOU for bringing the waffle routine into our home now, too?!

In this picture, I had run out of berries so some President's Choice Blue Menu raspberry jam was an excellent substitute on short notice.


Lastly...Mackenzie our almost-14 year old daughter was desperately hungry for a late night snack. She ended up making a ham & bacon sandwich. An odd combo perhaps...but any time a teenager will reach for protein instead of chips and pop is fine by me.

Sorry...that picture should be rotated but it didn't want to cooperate with iPhoto tonight.