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.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

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.

Garden Bounty: Holding onto Summer

After being teased with 2 months off during the summer, I am back into the swing of things (I know feel sorry for me now)...things being getting up at an unGodly hour, making lunches, and enforcing homework.....SIGH....summer can't last forever. As the last days of my summer break drew closer, I continued prepping for the zombie apocalypse winter. The Boy and I even made perogies for the freezer!

I started working on this post a while back but just haven't found the time.

The other day I made tomato sauce with the intent to jar it up and save it for later use. I wound up boiling the sauce down too much and it became quite thick. At first I thought what the hell? Then I tasted it and thought...Oh my!! I had inadvertently made tomato jam instead!! How divine!! I had actually been scouring resources looking for a tomato jam recipe but so many of them had so much sugar in them, which I didn't want. The
sauce recipe I followed was one I found on Pinterest from America's Test kitchen. It is simple, without too many ingredients and cooks down nicely. I have even made this twice, the second time cooking it down further on purpose and it turned out just as tasty!

Beautiful luscious jars of tomato jam!!

The original recipe calls to peel the tomatoes but I didn't do that. I washed the tomatoes, cored them and put them through the food processor. Other than that, I followed the recipe. (oh except for the fact that I didn't process that many tomatoes, I cut the recipe into fourths and did 1/4 of the amount...I just don't have the space for 4 pots of sauce and the water canner on my stove!)

Some of the tomatoes are from my garden and some I bought from the Farmers' market. Many of the farmers had bins labeled 'canning tomatoes'. These are just over ripe and extra juicy tomatoes and are cheaper than the others. Only $1/pound!!

We have used the jam to eat plain with bread, as a base for pizza bread, in sandwiches, as a dip for chicken, paired with ricotta or basil or both....the possibilities are endless.  So far the Boy's favourite sammy has been a waffle and grilled chicken breast with tomato jam...this of course is his own creation!

I fear not having anymore ripe tomatos on the plants but I'm sure cracking open a jar such as this mid winter will remind me of the summer bounty we were so fortunate to have this summer.

Until next time, stay warm and eat well.