Keep Calm and Cook on - January

It's time for the January edition of Keep Calm and Cook On!!  

I don't know about you, but January can be one of those BLAH months...if we could afford it, I would love for us to be on vacation for part of January (one day when we make our millions...or get to stop paying for daycare LOL)... so I thought that this month's edition of Keep Calm and Cook On would be an easy one...I would love for you to share either your top recipe or your personal favorite recipe from your blog!  Thanks for sharing with us!

Keep Calm and Cook On - December Features

Hello to all my "Keep Calm and Cook On" Friends!  I hope that you had a stellar December, I know we sure did.  So much fun being with family and friends, hard to believe it's all done and now in's January.  Looking forward to our next break, which is Family Day in February.

There were so many amazing appetizers shared during the Keep Calm and Cook On - December party.  I'm featuring the top 8, as chosen by my readers!


Here we go:

Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps from A Nest in the Rocks

Game Day Recipe Smoked Salmon Spread from Turnips to Tangerines

Cranberry Meatballs from Sunflower Supper Club

Blue Devil Bacon Jalapeno Poppers from Sumptuous Spoonfuls

Spicy Crackers from SteakNPotatoesKindaGurl

Homemade Garlic Bread from Momcreiff

Pampered Chef's Veggie Pizza from Fancy Frugalista

Mozzarella Cheese Sticks from Noshing with the Nolands

Be sure to come back for the Keep Calm and Cook On - January party...party goes live Friday!

Fresh Spring Rolls

We are big fans of finger foods in our house.  My dear husband especially, he loves appetizers (wings, crab buns, and so on).  Being the new year, and since it has been exceptionally sunny so far this winter (an anomaly for us...as beautiful as our valley is, come January we are often buried in valley cloud. Take these gloriously bright and sunny days and add in the new year, when we all try to "do better" in one way or another, I was inspired to make something new for a snack for us - one on the fresh, springlike, healthy side.

Enter spring rolls.  And I don't mean the deep fried kind that you find at restaurants or in the frozen-food section at the grocery store.  These are "my style"...with fresh vegetables, fresh taste, and a little bit of zip from one of my favourites, feta.  I've never made any sort of fresh spring roll before, so I winged it based on what I had in my kitchen (except the rice paper, I did have to go buy that).  Here is what I did to put them together.

Fresh Spring Rolls

Chicken (thigh or breast - I used boneless thighs)
Rice paper - I used the larger ones (22 cm)
Rice vermicelli
Fresh spinach
Carrots
Cucumber
Red pepper
Feta cheese - I use TreStelle
Tzatziki (you can make your own, or use store bought - I had store bought on hand, so that's what I used)

Prepare the rice vermicelli noodles - I brought a pot of water to boiling, added in the noodles, cooked for about 3 minutes, strained, rinsed with cold water, and left in the colander in the sink while I prepared everything else.

Poach the chicken, cool and cut into pieces.

While the chicken is cooling, prepare your vegetables. Wash the spinach, remove stems.  I used organic baby spinach.  Wash, peel and julienne your carrots, wash and julienne the cucumbers (I left the peel on for added colour).  Wash and julienne the red pepper.  I set up all of the filling into an assembly line in the following order:  Rice paper, spinach, vermicelli, chicken, feta, tzatziki, carrots, cucumber, red pepper.


Prepare the rice paper, one sheet at a time, by soaking in warm water for 10 seconds, then lay flat on your work surface.  Add each ingredient to the roll - don't overfill!  I made these the same way I make soft tacos - put the ingredients more towards one end of the paper, fold over the sides, and roll it up to seal it all in.

The prep time for the filling takes way longer than the rolling time, and once you get into a rhythm with the rolling, you can burn through making rolls pretty quickly. 

VERDICT:
Quite simply, we inhaled these. So fresh, so good for us.  The tang of the feta and the tzatziki was just so good.  My hubby wanted dip too (appetizer guy!) - but he still enjoyed them just as they were.  We liked them so much that we made them again the next day :-)  These will be great come summer!

Goodness Me Stuffed Mushrooms

Our New Year's Day dinner got a little delayed, hubs was a little under the weather and I didn't want us to prepare a beautiful steak dinner that he wasn't gong to enjoy, so once he was feeling better we moved ahead with our plan.  I had planned to sauté some mushrooms in garlic and butter to go with our meal, but after a fridge clean-out, I discovered some cheese and cream cheese which left me inspired to try making stuffed mushroom caps for the first time.  I wasn't really sure what to do, but this is what I came up with:

"Goodness Me!" Stuffed Mushroom Caps

12-15 mushrooms, washed and stems removed (but keep those stems!)

2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 brick (1/2 cup) cream cheese, softened
100 g Havarti cheese (I used TreStelle Roasted Garlic Havarti)
2 tablespoons panko

Preheat oven to 350F.

Wash the mushrooms and remove the stems.  Set the caps aside. Chop the stem pieces into small pieces.

In a frying pan over medium heat, melt the butter.  Add in the chopped stems and the minced garlic.  sauté approximately 5 minutes.  Reduce heat to low.  Add in the onion powder and pepper.  Mix well.  Add in the cream cheese, stir frequently as the cream cheese is melting.  Add in the Havarti, again, stir frequently as the cheese is melting.  Remove from heat. 

Using two small spoons, scoop the cheese mixture into the mushroom caps.  Fill them up!  Place each cap on a baking sheet (I lined mine with foil for easier clean-up afterwards).  Once all your caps are filled, sprinkle a little panko on top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the panko is golden.  Remove from oven, and enjoy!

VERDICT:
Hubby LOVED these.  Oldest son hates mushrooms and cream cheese, but he willingly gave one a try.  Didn't like it, but at least he was willing to try! Our youngest spit the mushroom out, but he was fond of the filling (all that cheesy goodness, who wouldn't?!...well, except our oldest LOL).  And I loved them too.  They were tasty.  Slightly rich, perfect for our steak dinner.  Hubs is already asking me to make them again :-)

Meal Plan Monday

Hello everyone!  Happy Monday to you!  Is it a "back-to-school" and "back-to-work" day in your house like it was for us?  I am pleased at how surprisingly well our morning went - no crises, no running late, everything was smooth sailing.  Yeah!

Both of our kids were ready for back-to-school and back-to-daycare this morning.  2 weeks at home with Mom must not be as exciting as playing with friends all day, LOL.  We had a great Christmas break, but as always, it is nice to get back to routine.

Speaking of routine, here is this week's meal plan.  You may notice some carry-overs from last week.  Despite our best laid plans, our menu changed up a bit last week when we had extra leftovers and changes of plan.  Here is this week's meal plan:

Sunday - Sweet & Sour Chicken, Salad and Peas

Monday - Leftovers

Tuesday - Homemade Pizza

Wednesday - Savoury Fish & Rice

Thursday - Beef Barley Soup (Crock Pot)

Friday - Caramelized Salmon (recipe coming soon!), Salad

Saturday - Crock Pot Cashew Chicken (recipe coming soon!)

Enjoy everyone!

Detox Water

I don't make a lot of resolutions, but when I do, I tend to stick with them.  For example, this blog started as a New Year's resolution 2 years ago and I'm still here, doing my thing!  So, one of my resolutions this year is to drink more water.  I know, a no-brainer, but in my world, I'm a bit of a coffee addict.  I drink coffee all morning (my cut-off time is noon) and then I feel I don't drink enough until the evening, when I sometimes enjoy that glass of wine at the end of the day.

Well, given the amount of coffee (and sometimes wine) that I drink, I also feel that my body needs a bit of a cleanse.  So I figured that I would add a few things to my water to increase it's taste appeal and hopefully add a few other benefits too, like some extra nutrients and maybe some detox effects too!

Here is my Detox Water:

Lemon
Lime
Cucumber
Mason Jar
Filtered Water

Wash the lemon, lime and cucumber.  Slice. Put into a mason jar. Fill with water. Seal, and refrigerate overnight. Simple. So excited about this!

Do you make your own detox water? What do you put into it?

Top 10 Recipes from 2013

Here we are, the first day of 2014.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I spent some time this morning looking at my stats from 2013 so that I could pull together a list of my top 10 recipes from 2013.  What a great list@ And what great memories from all those wonderful meals.

Here are my TOP 10 RECIPES from 2013 (click recipe title to go to the full post)

10) Chunky Pecan Bars - Just made these the other day...took them to work...got RAVE reviews :-)

9) Chicken & Corn Chowder - Slow Cooker

8) Spaghetti Squash Mac N Cheese

7) Easy Cornbread - Slow Cooker

6) Pink Chantilly with Cranberries

5) Dawn's Baked Beans - Slow Cooker - Our youngest just LOVES these!

4) Parmesan Baked Potatoes - Oh so good...all that butter and parm!

3) Beef in Beer Pot Roast - Slow Cooker

2) Broccoli Cheddar Soup - Slow Cooker - a favourite in our house!

1) CINABUN CAKE!  My #1 recipe of 
all time, this one has been on fire this fall.  Such a simple recipe, and the ingredients are all typical pantry staples.  So good!