Time to Myself Fail - Mom Syndrome

There are so many things a Mom SHOULD do when she gets a day to herself. She SHOULD curl up and read one of the many books she has been wanting to read. She SHOULD pamper herself with a pot of tea while she reads. She SHOULD treat herself to a bubble bath complete with candles and relaxing music. The reality is that while lying in the tub she gets grossed out at the state of the bathroom and ends up scrubbing the place top to bottom. As long as she's doing that, she may as well run the vacuum and mop the hardwoods and kitchen. Oh hey, if she's doing the floors in the kitchen she may as well clean that room too. Then it's 'holy shit! The kitchen is clean! I'm going to bake!'  It is called Mom Syndrome and I know many ladies who suffer and don't even know there is a name for it!

It really is a steep hill to slide down. Planning a day of r & r and doing all that. Thank goodness I make a point of NEVER touching the laundry. SIGH.......damn you Mom Syndrome!!!!!!

In case you haven't guessed, I did get the day to myself today. The boys went to Comic Con (they even bought me a shirt!) and I had planned to finish a book and relax in my jammies. That didn't quite happen. Well, staying in my Jammies all day did.

I did however manage to Make some delectable pumpkin scones today. I used this recipe from Taste of Home to use up some leftover pumpkin I had kicking around. I actually did not have any pumpkin pie spice but I used a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. Everything turned out delicious.

Pumpkin scones from Taste of Home

• 4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (I used a mixture of 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cold butter
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/4 cups canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup milk plus 1/4 cup for brushing before baking

Preheat oven to 400 F

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Use the large holes on a grater, grate the butter into the dry ingredients and mix to coat the butter with flour. You want a mixture that is crumbly with small pieces if butter throughout.

In another bowl, mix together the wet ingredients until it looks like a mass of gloppy pumpkin.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and start mixing.  You will end up with a mass of messiness.

Turn this messiness onto the counter and press it flat. Fold it over onto itself (the best you can at this point)  and press. Keep folding and pressing until it forms a nice rectangle of scone goodness. This folding is how you get the tasty and flaky layers of buttery goodness.Pat the dough into a long rectangle. Cut into 8 squares then cut each square into 2 triangles so you have 16 wedges.

Transfer the wedges to a baking sheet, brush with milk and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack.

Mix together some icing sugar with a small amount of milk to make a glaze to drizzle over the cooled scones. You can even add some pumpkin pie spice to the glaze.

I managed to make enough of these to freeze for breakfasts and snacks this week!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.   (and rest up!)

Weddings, PhDs, and Life. Oh My!

We have been oh so busy these past few weeks in the Little Kitchen.  We travelled to BC for Brother in law's wedding, came home for Dr. Sister's convocation to see her claim that beloved PhD, then had Brother in law and his wife come here for more wedding celebrations.... All that mixed in with everyday life means we have been on the go.  Here's the run down:

First things first: I am happy to announce that Sheila Syms is the lucky winner of the VH prize pack! Congrats!

Second: We had a blast in BC and even had some time to do some sightseeing, including the Capilano Suspension bridge!!

Third:  I managed to use another tasty sauce from my VH pack to make some Korean BBQ chicken wings.....very tasty!

(wash and pat dry some wings, coat them with sauce, place in a 350 degree oven until crispy. Just make sure to give the wings a toss half way through and even pour some more sauce on them.)

Fourth: I had fun making cupcakes to help celebrate the wedding.

Fifth:  The Boy gets to go to WE Day Tuesday. I am excited for him also, one of the girls he went to Africa with gets to speak!

Sixth:  We already have some snow here and I am not too happy about that.  I think this means some comfort food and warm pjs every night.

Seventh:  As happy as I am for all the joyous occasions as of late, I am looking forward to some down time and cooking time!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Excite Your Dinner and Enter The Contest: Mango Curry Roast Pork

Today I finally got a chance to use the first of my VH sauces to excite my dinner. You may have read my last post which talks about the goodies I received in the mail that contained some neat prizes and the jars of VH sauces to try. I am to use them to 'Excite My Dinner' and tell the world what I think about them. They even gave me a fancy disclosure statement to post that goes a little something like this:

"Disclosure - I am participating in the VH Excite Your Dinner 

blog tour by enCompass Media on behalf of Con Agra Foods. I 

received compensation as a thank you for participating and for 

sharing my honest opinion."

What did I make for dinner you ask? I used the mango curry to coat a pork loin roast before slipping it into the oven to roast. It was an easy peasy way to add some new flavour to Sunday supper. Here's what I did:

Thickly slice half an onion and line the roasting pan. This will give a flavourful platform for the roast to sit on.

Using a large bowl to contain the roast, put a couple of heaping spoonfuls of VH Mango Curry onto the roast.

Get your hands messy and rub that sauce all over. Make sure every part of the roast is coated.

Place the roast on top of the sliced onions and add at least half a cup of 

water to the bottom of the pan. This will keep things from burning to the bottom

of the pan. This is a good time to insert a thermometer to help judge the 

doneness of the roast.

 

Part way through roasting, take the foil off and spoon some more Mango curry sauce over the roast. 

Continue roasting until cooked through.

 Allow the roast to rest for 15 minutes before slicing. I served the roast 

with steamed veggies and it made a very tasty dinner. The Boy, of course, 

made a sandwich with his Mango Curry roast pork and he thoroughly 

enjoyed it. VH's Mango Curry sauce is a sweet curry sauce with a faint mango

 taste to it.  It is quite nice because the curry is not overpowering. It is a well 

balanced sauce that combined very nicely with the pork loin. This is saying a lot 

because we are not generally a curry loving family. This was a bit of a surprise 

that  everyone enjoyed it.

There are a few things I do find a bit unsettling about this VH sauce. One of 

them is the salt content.(This is a big reason why I don't usually use premade 

sauces). A 1/2 cup of sauce has 680mg of Sodium in it. Now I know that

realistically, especially using it on a roast, I am not eating a full 1/2 cup of sauce

 but if I were serving extra sauce over rice this would concern me even more. If that were

 the case, I would also be concerned about the 230 calories per 1/2 cup. This is my

second concern. There are people out there who will eat more than that amount

 in a sitting. Once again, I return the realistic side. I'm not using these sauces 

everyday so once in a while, why not. I can see using this VH Mango Curry sauce with

chicken and veggies in a crock pot for a quick winter stew to serve over rice or

 even on some chicken wings.

My next sauce to try is the Korean BBQ! Any suggestions?

Please remember to enter the giveaway below for your chance to win a $25 VH 

prize pack!! It is just as easy peasy as this roast pork was. Go to theVH Facebook

page or the VH website, check our their sauces, leave a comment here telling

me what sauce you would like to try.  Do it. Contest ends Oct 26, 2012 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Until next time, stay warm and eat well. 

VH Excite Your Dinner Blog Tour and a Giveaway!!

Have I told  you what a lucky lady I am? I am fortunate enough to participate in the VH Excite your dinner Blog Tour hosted by Kathryn at Mommy Kat and Kids.  Today I received by wonderful prize package with some neat items, including a couple bottles of VH sauces to use and blog about.  I will have to wait until I am back from a family wedding to cook (Unless I feel adventurous and want to cook in the kitchenette our hotel room will have....). I do have some ideas rolling around in my head and have even given the Boy creative license to come up with ideas.

My bounty of goodies!!

As part of the VH Excite your dinner blog tour, I get to host a give away!! (EEEEE!) Please pay a visit to the VH Website or the VH Facebook page and choose a favourite recipe or sauce that you would like to try.

In the meantime, I will work at cooking up some deliciousness with my sauces from the prize pack and get back to you guys soon.  Enjoy checking out all the choices VH offers.


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Disappointing Dinner

Sunday night I prepared for the week with a big crock pot full of chili and a bunch of hamburgers grilled and frozen for quick and easy use. We were set! Well, until the beef recall hit. After i checked packages and dates it was discovered that the beef we used was indeed on the e coli recall list. SHIT! Everything had to go because I just don't like kidney damage and death. I'm kind of funny that way. As it happens we were out and about tonight and decided to give a new restaurant. Danny's Whole Hog proved to be a disappointment.
Tonight we went out for dinner as a family to a locally owned, newly opened restaurant and left severely disappointed. I hate it when that happens. The Boy was happy with his burger but my beef dip and Hubby's corned beef left so much to be desired. I even pointed out the problems with the meal and was given what seemed to be rehearsed excuse about being newly opened, still working on the menu, and looking for comments blah, blah, blah...... No apologies or attempts to fix the problem here.
The beef dip was said to be a house made brisket. This brisket had no flavor, a stringy texture, and probably more chewy fatty pieces than anyone should serve. Ever. In all honesty, the garlic toasted bun was the best part of the sandwich.
The corned beef was touted as house made and seemed to not only be the same shitty cut as the brisket but seriously lacked flavor as well. The fries were really the only things that seemed to be a winner here, but that's no reason to go back now is it?
The service we received was good and the food arrived quickly but this happens in a mostly empty restaurant. While we chatted about our disappointing dinner experience we realized that there were warning signs even before we ordered. For instance, when I walk into a BBQ joint, I should be smacked in the face with the aromas associated with BBQ! That should have been our first hint that things were amiss! The lack of customers should have been our second hint. I think our true disappointment came from the fact that we have eaten the food from this company at catered events before and it was quite good. If you are going to work so hard to build a reputation on a BBQ business then don't rush into a hastily put together restaurant venture. Take the to make the space yours. The previous restaurant's decor is still prevalent and just doesn't speak BBQ. As it were, I have no desire to return.

FYI: we are toying with grinding our own ground beef and have learned our lesson about going to the big chain store for such a product. Stupid thing is, Hubby even suggesting grinding our own but were low on time (and energy)so weren't with the store shit. Stupid stupid stupid!!!!!!!

Sorry about this disappointing review but I felt you should know.


To cheer us up, here's a picture of the fabulous tomatoes we got from put CSA this week!
Until next time, stay warm and eat well.