Bloglovin and Addicted to Recipes

Hello everyone!  

Word on the street is that GFC is going away come July, which for me meant finding a new way to follow my favourite blogs all in one spot.  I love Bloglovin (not being paid in any way for my opinion here!) - I like the daily email with the updates from each blog that I follow (all in one spot).  You should check it out...and if you follow me on GFC, you may like following me on Bloglovin too!

And if you are a blogger on Bloglovin, leave me your link below, and I will follow back :-)

Turkey Sausage Patties

OK, so my friends are reading the title of this post and saying..."What?!  She doesn't like sausage, why the heck is she trying a sausage recipe?  Needless to say, they are baffled...at least for the moment.  And well, that's how I roll...I like to throw a little loop in now and then.  LOL.  It's true, I don't like sausage.  Not one bit.  Well, there was one time at a BBQ with friends, and my friend's Dad made homemade sausage, and that was good.  So maybe I should say that I don't like store bought sausage.  Or hot dogs...but that is a whole other story :-)  My boys, however, LOVE sausage, and whenever my parents make a trip south, my hubby always asks for a package of Jimmy Dean's.  

So, how is it that I came to here, trying a sausage recipe?  Well, on my last Costco run, I picked up some ground turkey.  Threw it in the freezer, and promptly forgot it was there.  Ground turkey isn't something that I often buy.  And it was in the freezer in the garage, I don't go in there very often.  The other day I remembered the ground turkey and thought, "Hmmm, I better find a recipe for that turkey."  Sit down, open a cookbook, and the book practically opens itself to a recipe for Turkey Sausage Patties, using, yes...ground turkey.  So there we have it...fate stepped in and here we are, trying this recipe.  Here it is:

Turkey Sausage Patties (Source: My Father's Daughter)

1 pound ground turkey

2 teaspoons fennel seeds
Pinch of chili flakes
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons fresh sage, finely chopped
4 teaspoons maple syrup
4 tablespoons olive oil

Crush together the fennel seeds, chili flakes, cayenne, salts and pepper. I used the back of a spoon and a bowl to crush the spices.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the ground turkey, sage, and maple syrup.  Mix well (get your hands in there!) - add in the spices, and continue to mix well.

Create small this patties from the mixture.  I made mine about 3" in diameter.  

Over medium heat, heat the olive oil in a skillet.  Cook the sausage patties for about 1 1/2 minutes each side, pressing down on the patty. 

VERDICT:
Our kids LOVED these.  My hubby's first comment was, these aren't as salty (which in my mind, is a good thing!).  Hubby didn't love the fennel (next time I will put in a little less) and would have liked more pepper (so do-able!)...but the kids...the kids just loved these.  I thought they were OK, for sausages!

Recipe Recap #11

Hello everyone! Happy Tuesday to you!  Here we are, back with another week of Recipe Recap! This week looking at April 7-13, 2011!

Here are the week's recipes:

Easter Bunny Carrot Cake

and a fun one called the ABC's of Me!

See you again next week :-)

Kale Chips

Are you like me, always looking for "healthier" snacks for your kids?  I'm always on the lookout, and usually willing to try something new.  After all, that is the mantra of my blog - to try new recipes!  Have you tried Kale Chips before?  I have been eyeing recipes for Kale Chips for months.  I've never really had kale before, so I never really knew what to expect.  But I keep seeing articles in magazines and recipes shared for kale chips and all this talk about how great they are.  So I had to give them a try.  From all that I've seen, it appears that the basic recipe for kale chips looks like this:


Kale Chips

1 bunch of kale, washed, dried, stems removed and cut into bit-sized pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt

Take your kale and toss it with olive oil.  Mix well, coating as much of the kale as possible.  Lay the coated kale onto a cookie sheet, spread evenly on the sheet.  Sprinkle with salt.

Bake at 400F for 10-13 minutes.  Do not overbake as will cause the kale to be bitter.

VERDICT:
My husband and I were a little skeptical, but we gave the chips a try.  He kept going back to the chips to grab more...I take that as a good sign :-)  Our 5 year old kept eating and eating them, he thought they were delicious.  Our toddler, not so much.  We gave him a chip, he put it in his mouth and promptly spit it out.  It was kind of funny.  I find them somewhat addicing.  Certainly something that I will try again, perhaps with some different seasoning.  I have some Epicure Chili Sea Salt that is calling to me as a kale chip topping, and I did have some readers suggest Parmesan cheese as a topping too.  How do you like your kale chips?

Scrumptious Sunday Recipe Link Party #58

Hello and good morning friends!  I hope you are enjoying your weekend. 

If you've been catching me on
Facebook at all this weekend, you know that I am in spring cleaning mode!  Who knew that children could accumulate so.much.clothing.  I've been flipping the closets from winter to summer, and putting away everything that the kids have outgrown.  

Hopefully the April showers stop tomorrow so that we can get the back patio cleaned and ready for next weekend...we've got a big birthday party coming!!

Scrumptious Sunday Recipe Link Party #58 is now live...pop on over and share your recipes!

Cheers!

Feed the Fun! Bear Paws Morning Snacks & Giveaway!

Bear Paws...our oldest son is in love with them.  Bear Paws are the special snack that Grandma (my Mom) keeps at her house and in her RV for the grandkids when they are over.  When I was given the opportunity to try the new line of Bear Paw Morning Snacks, I was excited, especially knowing how happy our oldest would be!  We received the two new flavours:

Cereal & Blueberry Yogourt

Cereal & Vanilla Yogourt

Both sounded very appealing.  Not only do we have Bear Paws fans in the house, we also have yogurt mongers in the house.  So really, pairing the two seems like a no-brainer to us!

When our samples arrived, I hid them away so that oldest wouldn't see them.  Along with our Bear Paws Morning Snack samples were some fun things for the kids to play with...over the Easter weekend we made good use of these items.  Our oldest son loves to search for bugs in the back yard, and he found his new magnifying glass to be super handy.  And since we were blessed with amazing weather this past Easter weekend, he was out there searching away!  Our youngest loves stickers, and we can sit and stick stickers with him forever (or what probably feels like forever for a toddler!).  We had lots of fun sticking his new stickers everywhere.  When it was time for a break, aka "coffee break" I brought out the Bear Paws...you should have seen our oldest's eyes.  Lit up like you wouldn't believe.  He had a hard time picking which one to try first...but chose Cereal & Blueberry Yogourt.  He was super excited that I was writing a blog post about them and that I wanted to know his opinion.  His verdict...two thumbs way up!  He's so stinkin' cute.  The toddler must have loved his too, his was gone before big brother's!

In addition to being a snack that our kids enjoy, another thing we are pleased about with Bear Paws Morning Snacks is that they are peanut free - such an important consideration today.  I like knowing that I can send these as a snack at school or daycare or include them in treat bags and not be worried about causing a reaction in one of the other children.

Head on over to the Bear Paws Facebook page to connect with other parents and learn more about all the new products!

And now it is YOUR TURN to enter to win a great "Feed the Fun" Bear Paws Morning Snack prize pack!  Check out all the fabulous items included in the prize!

(The prize pack includes a colouring book, stickers, magnifying glass, sidewalk chalk, cryons, markers, magnetic drawing board, Jenga, and of course, the two new flavours of Bear Paws - Cereal & Blueberry Yogourt and Cereal & Vanilla Yogourt!)

Enter via the Rafflecopter below.  Contest is open to CANADA only.  Winner will be selected at random and will be contacted by email.  Winner will have 48 hours to respond to the email, failure to respond will result in a new winner being drawn.  Good luck!



a Rafflecopter giveaway


Disclosure - I am participating in the Bear Paws Morning Snack "Feed the Fun" blog tour by enCompass Media on behalf of Dare.  I received compensation as a thank you for participating and for sharing my honest opinion.

Recipe Recap #10

Hello everyone! Happy Tuesday to you!  Here we are, back with another week of Recipe Recap! This week looking at March 31-April 6, 2011!

Thinking back, early April is always busy...our oldest celebrates his birthday, so we are often planning and prepping...so it was a slow week on the recipe front, just one to look back on!

Blueberry Raisin Wheat Bran Muffins

See you next week!