Back in Action...

Oh my goodness friends, it's been a while!  When I posted last Noah was home sick with the flu.  That stuck with the poor kid for 2 days.  Then Sarah got it, then I got it.  UGH.....fun times were NOT had!  We all seem to be back on track now, though.  Needless to say, my meal plan pretty much went out the window last week. So did hockey games, dance class and Zumba.  Eeek!  Looking through the photos on my camera I seem to have some from last week and all from the week before so this will be a bit of a hodge podge post.  So 2 weeks past the plan looked like this:

Turkey sausage, sautéed red peppers, green beans and millet.....

Roasted turkey breast, peas, polenta ans some smoky peach chipotle dipping sauce......

Lasagna, for the fam.  I had eggs on toast with mortadella.....

Thursday was pork chops, corn and basmati rice.....

And Friday was baked salmon fillets with broccoli and quinoa...

Pretty good week!  I've got to admit, I don't eat pork chops much and Thursday's dinner reminded me why.  I just don't like them!!  Guess I thought I'd give them another shot, but I won't be eating them again any time soon.

I don't even remember what last week was suppose to look like!  Here's what I got pictures of:

Noah had an out of town hockey game on Tuesday and I always try to get some sort of pasta into him before a game.  This is brown rice pasta which is always what I prepare for myself.

Whoa....dark photo!  This was Wednesday's dinner, which we ate late.  Well, 7pm is late for us!  We were out for this again...

 ....but over my lunch hour I put chicken thighs, sliced mushrooms, 2 chopped red bell peppers and a can of tomato sauce in the crock pot on low.  When we got back the kids ate theirs over leftover pasta while Jason and I had ours over quinoa.  It tasted SO much better than it looks!  I'm certain we had turkey sausage again on Thursday, but there doesn't seem to be any photo evidence!  Friday we decided to go out to dinner, but my camera was sitting pretty on the dining room table.  DOH!

I got some cool mail last week, too!  First up we have some Method dish and hand soap:

I haven't tried either yet, but I can't wait to get them started.  Method is one of my favourite brands of hand soap and I'm eager to try the dish soap.  These have seasonal scents, too!  Frosted Fir and Candy Cane!   Thank You, Method!!!  I also received my FREE Gevalia coffee for our Tassimo.

Somehow I managed to get to their Facebook Page before supplies were out! Too bad I'm blogging from Blogger right now and can't figure out how to rotate this picture!!!  Anyhow, this coffee is STRONG, but good.  I'll definitely buy more when I run out.

So, I think that's all I've got for now.  As always, you can check my meal plan out on my Facebook Page.....What's your favourite meal been this past month?  Or is it something that you will be eating over Thanksgiving?

Bye for now!!

Polenta Fries

Happy Friday!  I'm home from work this morning with a sick boy so I thought I'd post a recipe for polenta fries that I've been meaning to do for a good month!  Polenta was a staple in my parents diet's growing up and my  Mom continued the trend with us.  When my Dad was a kid back in Italy polenta was often served at the breakfast table as well as at dinner.  My Nonna would make a big batch and spread it out on a baking sheet.  Once it was set she cut it into strips and grilled it until crisp.  The next morning she would cut it up and serve it with warm milk.  A typical meal for lean times.  Although we never ate it for breakfast, we did eat lots of it! Mom served it mostly as a base for stews and cacciatore's.  Every now and again she would grill the leftovers on the BBQ which was my favourite way to eat it.

Before I get started on my "story" here's how to make a basic batch:

• 1 cup of liquid (I usually use 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup milk)
• 1/4 cup dry polenta
• 1 tbsp of butter
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Bring liquid and butter to a gentle boil
2. Turn down heat and slowly whisk polenta in
3. Stir, stir, stir until thick, about 5ish-mins (this is important or it will get lumpy on you)
4. Stir in cheese until melted

At this point it is ready to serve as a side.  If you're making a batch for fries pour contents onto a greased baking sheet and refrigerate over night or until set.

Not so long ago I found myself with a good portion of leftover polenta.  I decided to chill it in the fridge overnight in a square-ish container that I lightly misted with EVOO.

When it came time for dinner the next day I popped it out of the container on to a cutting board:

I cut it into strips (this is VERY easy to do when the polenta is cold):

While I was doing this I had a pan heating on the stove with approx 3 tbsp of EVOO.  Once that was good and hot a gently set the fries in the pan:

Sorry for the icky picture, but it gets the message across!  :)  I let each side get a crispy layer before turning them over.  This doesn't take very long at all.   I should mention that you don't have to use EVOO.  Whatever oil you have on hand would work perfectly as well as melted butter, coconut oil, coconut butter.  Basically, whatever floats your boat!  :)  Once crispy all over I place the fires on a paper towel covered plate and lighted dust with salt:

DELICIOUS!!!  The kids put these back like it's their job!  Actually, now that I'm looking at these pictures I feel inspired to make more this weekend!  Have you ever had polenta fries??


Enjoy your weekend!  But beofre you do, if you live in Canada PLEASE check out the awesome giveaway that I'm hosting.  **hint hint**  It's for a FREE Kitchen Aid 13 Cup Food Processor!!!!

Bye for now!

Menu Plan Flop

Seeing as I barely followed my menu plan for last week, hence no post about it, I decided to do a "what I ate yesterday" type post for today.  But back to last week for a second.  I managed to make 2 out of the 5 meals I had planned for the week.  Poor planning was the issue here.  LOL  I totally discounted the fact that Monday was Halloween and the kids really had no interest in eating much so instead of pork chops we ate egg sandwiches.  Noah had an out of town hockey game on the Tuesday so oven baked pizza for the road it was in place of the planned turkey sausages.  Wednesday I DID bust out the chicken I had planned.  Once again I stuffed the breasts with mozzarella cheese, basil pesto and roasted red peppers.  For a side I sautéed a package of sliced mushrooms with garlic then added 1 cup of water and a 1/2 cup of quinoa, covered and cooked it for 15 mins.  Voila!

I also made Thursday night's pasta dish.  Elbow rice noodles, homemade marinara and sliced chicken breast topped with smoked chipotle Tobasco sauce and freshly grated Parmesan cheese:

I had a touch of stomach upset Friday so while the fam ate their burgers, I had poached eggs on toast.  That's my #1 go to when I'm not feeling 100%.

On to yesterday's eats.  I bought some GF cinnamon raisin bread from the bakery over the weekend so I toasted up a few pieces and topped them with almond butter:

I'm on a late lunch hour this week (12:30-1:30) so I knew I'd need a little protein to get me through the morning:

I've still been going the the gym over my lunch, but on Tuesday there is a yoga class in there so I went home instead.  Once again, I was feeling some eggs!  I made 2 over easy eggs and popped them on top of GF bean bread and a slice of mortadella:

SO GOOD!  I really think I could eat eggs at least once a day and not get tired of them.  :)  Dinner was as per the menu plan; turkey, polenta & peas.

No natural light by the time we ate!  HAHA!  We had nothing going on last night so there was ample time to roast up a turkey breast for supper.  The polenta was super easy; 1 cup water, 1 cup milk, 1 tbsp butter....bring to a boil then whisk in a 1/4 cup of dry polenta (cornmeal).  Stir until thick, about 5ish minutes.  I also stirred in about a 1/3 cup of grated Parm  at the end.  And there you have yesterday's eats!  I also have a photo of today's breakie; 2 Nature's Path GF wildberry waffles topped with peaches that I sautéed with a little honey and cinnamon:

Delicious!!!

***To all my Canadian readers: CLICK HERE to be sure you don't miss out on your chance to win a brand new Kitchen Aid 13 Cup Food Processor!!!!  If you DO NOT do the facebook thing, never fear! Just skip those steps and answer the 2 questions in the comments section.  Make sure to leave a separate entry for both!!***  

Weekend Update

Hi everybody!!  I hope you all enjoyed the post written by my guest blogger last week….thanks to Danae for sharing her story!  I also hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me.  I love posting little questionnaire’s from time to time!  Some of you mentioned that you had some difficulty reading that post in Google Reader; my apologies.  Ever since I frigged up my layout I’ve been having some issues.  Oh, to be tech savvy right about now!
So the weekend was a success where my little man’s sporting events were concerned!  His hockey team made it to the semi finals in their tournament.  They played 2 games on Friday, 2 games on Saturday and one on Sunday.  The most exciting though was his soccer team WINNING the league finals on Saturday morning! They played like rock stars and were awarded a 5-2 win which earned them the spot of best in South Western Ontario for their age group.  I’ve truly enjoyed every minute of his soccer season.  The boys on the team are some of the best kids ever, the parents are all so friendly and easy going and the coaches are some of the most dedicated I’ve ever seen.   Just such a pleasure to be a part of it all.  Soccer is done now for a month, and then they will start practicing indoors mid October so a wee bit of a break there.
On the food front I’ve been really concentrating on making “stick to your rib” meals to keep us warm in the chill of fall, but more importantly to ensure that the kids are getting proper nutrition to keep them healthy and strong with school and extra activities all starting this month.  Not to mention the inevitable illnesses that come with the beginning of school.  Hello cold season!  Here are a few of the dinners we’ve been enjoying;
Poached Sole Fillets with Dilled Rice This was easy and quick.  I simply chopped and cooked 4 slices of bacon until crisp, then drained the drippings out of the pot.  Next I added a 19oz can of diced tomatoes with green pepper & onions, one crushed garlic clove, chilli powder, s & p.  Once the sauce was boiling I added sole fillets, turned down the heat, covered and cooked for 10 minutes.  While that was doing its thing I made a quick pot of Minute brown rice infused with 1 tbsp of fresh dill. Voila!!!
Roasted Turkey Thighs with Cheesy Polenta
Tuesday was a free night so I knew I would have time to make a more time consuming dinner.  Or maybe I should say one that takes longer to cook.  After arranging 4 turkey thighs in an 8x8 baking dish I treated them to an EVOO-BBQ spice rub massage.  I covered them up with foil and popped them in a 350* oven for 45 mins, then another 15 uncovered.  Now the fun part; sit on couch and watch Jamie Oliver’s new show!  I got started on the polenta after the thighs were out of the oven “resting”.  The polenta is super easy; simply bring 2 cups of liquid of your choice to a boil.  I used water this time.  Turn down heat and slowly whish in a ½ cup of dry polenta (cornmeal).  Once smooth you can start using a spoon/spatula.  Stir, stir, stir because it comes together lickety split!  When it’s thick, stir in a ½ cup each of cheese of your choice to equal one cup.  I used parmesan and goat’s Gouda with chillies.  Serve immediately.  As you can see from the picture, we had some baby peas, aw well.
Tonight’s dinner was requested by Noah; pasta.  The kid could live off this meal, I swear it!  HAHA!!
My sauce is always slightly different; sometimes is ground poultry, other times extra lean ground beef.  I can even get all fancy pants and use bison!  But it ALWAYS starts with chopped onion, carrot, celery and garlic.  You will also always find dried basil, oregano and the tiniest bit of nutmeg.  I also use straight tomato sauce; not ready to go jarred sauce.   For tonight I wanted to sneak an extra veggie boost into the sauce so I grated a small zucchini and added it after sautéing the beef.  The kids never realize when I do this because the veggies “melt” into the sauce if grated.  The fam had WW fusili, I used rice fusili for my own which is what you see in the above picture.
I haven’t bothered taking many lunch photos because most times it’s leftovers from the night before.  I did, however, snap a few yummy breakfast ones. 

This French toast was prepared with some homemade gluten free bread.  I won’t link to/share the recipe because clearly bread and I do not get along and although this was edible, it was FAR from the greatness I was hoping for.  Hence the “French Toast” disguise!  I topped it off simply with some blueberry/Meyer lemon jam that we purchased at the St. Lawrence Market.

Mmmm…pancakes!  I made these using a gluten free mix.  Again, not the best BUT!!!  While watching Diners, Drive Ins and Dives one night I saw a chef add homemade granola to his pancake recipe.  Brilliant!  So I added a ¼ cup of granola to my batter which did wonders for the overall taste and texture.  Try it out…you’ll love it!
Whelp!  The new season of Criminal Minds starts in a few so I’m off to tuck under a blanket, sip a cuppa tea and watch the show!  Enjoy your evening, friends!
Bye for now!!

Movember and a CSN Store Giveaway

I had to scrape the windows of the Jeep this morning!!!  With my library card no less!
Just thought I’d get that out there.  :)
How is everybody??  I’ve been pretty fantastic!  We had a smoking busy weekend at the Krista’s Kravings house.  Three hockey games (2 out of town) on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, a 1 hour soccer practice on Sunday, trick or treating Sunday night, Pilates last night.  Tonight was another hockey practice .  Tomorrow is FREE and Mom, DD and I are doing something fun on Friday night.  More deets on that later.  ;)
I actually took a half day vacation on Monday because the kids had a PD Day so weren’t at school.  DS was in a hockey camp all day and I didn’t want DD home by herself, for the first time, for a full day.  She asked if we could do lunch and I happily obliged.  We decided on William’s Pub because it’s been a long time since we ate there and we really do enjoy it.  I went with the half salad, half sandwich deal; Greek with the dressing on the side and a chicken pesto panini:
Our lunches came with a choice of chips, a cookie or an apple.  We went with cookies, obviously!  DD chose a PB one and I went with white chocolate macadamia nut.
I also enjoyed a pumpkin spice latte to go:
Love.
After a quick tour of the mall it was time to go back home and get a pasta dish in the oven so that I could get a decent meal into DS before we left for his game.  I found this “Take 5” recipe in my Rachael Ray magazine that I knew would be perfect.
It called for ravioli, sausage meat, a jar of tomato sauce, a head of escarole and mozzarella cheese.  I used tortellini because that’s what I had on hand and went with this Mexican Yves veggie ground round in place of the sausages:
My hubby totally thought he was eating taco seasoned beef!  Here’s the dish after layer #1:
The boys loved this (DD was at Mom’s for dinner because she had dance and wasn’t going out of town with us) although DS picked all the escarole out.  I knew that would happen, but he did give it a try.
Have you seen any men lately sporting some funny looking facial hair? Has anybody heard of Movember?  If not, the month of November is prostate cancer awareness month and men around the nation are growing funky moustaches to raise money for prostate cancer research.  My hubby included.  The deal is that they have to shave for the last time on Oct 31 and can’t shave the stash again until December 1.  They can grow a beard or goatee as well which can be shaved off at any time, but the moustache stays.  So here is my hubby Sunday night after a shave.  
I’ll post another photo of him mid month and again on Nov 30.  He plans on sporting a full goatee.  We shall see.  If you wish to make a donation to this worthy cause, go ahead and click here.
FOOD!!! 
The above is breakfast polenta.  I mixed 1 cup of unsweetened Almond Breeze with a 1/4 cup of polenta.  Right at the end I stirred in some sliced strawberries and dotted it with hazelnut mocha sprinkles.  YUM!  
Tonight’s meal ^^ was a quesadilla of sorts.  I sautéed red onion, red pepper, mushrooms and turkey breast with various spices and a wee bit of chicken stock.  This was placed on a tortilla that had been prepped with some mashed Romano beans then I topped it with a slice of cassata cheese.  Into the oven for 10 minutes at 350* and dinner was served….in the dark!  Haha!
Before I book outta here, I did a little shopping today…
Would YOU like $65.00 to shop here, too?  It could be yours!  CSN Stores has a huge range of great products to pick from.  There’s something for everyone for sure.  This is what you need to do to get your grimy little paws on this $65.00 gift certificate! (Canadian & US residents only, please)
1)  Browse around the CSN Stores site and leave me a comment letting me know what you would want most.
2)  “Like” me on Facebook.  Just click on my little FB Badge on the right of the blog.  Easy peasy and it gets you another entry.  Just remember to leave another comment telling me you did so.
3)  Check out the Thanks & Giving tab at the top of the blog and leave me a comment there letting me know what you think of my food drive.  Come back to this post and let me know you did that.
So there you have it; THREE chances to win!  I’ll pick a winner using the random number generator on November 17 and post the winner that same day.  Hey lurkers!  Now’s your chance to come out and say “hey”!  You don’t have to have a blog to enter so really, there’s no losing here.  :)  Have fun!
Bye for now!!