One more thing, you can chalk this up as a healthy meal too, with nothing but a little bit of olive oil, and the natural fat of the meat used to cook it. The only problem I had last night was not making enough to keep everyone happy!

Here’s the cover of the cookbook. If you’re interested I’ll have a full review of it up in the next day (there are a LOT of cookbook reviews coming!).

And here’s the recipe I used. I did modify it a bit to suit us. For one, I’m not a mushroom fan, and seeing as I’m the cook, I don’t have to use them. I also add potatoes, the few times I’ve tried variations of this without potatoes, Bo’s felt like there wasn’t enough substance for there to be a whole meal, and I think he’s right.

First thing, drizzle some olive oil in a pan and get it just smoking.

Toss in your Italian sausages.

Cook them, turning occasionally, until golden brown on all sides.

While the sausages are cooking prep everything else.  Peel a heads worth of garlic cloves, then give them a quick smash with the back of your knife. You also have to slice up an onion, which I forgot to picture. You just want nice big chucks, so that the individual petals are a bite each.

There’s the sausages out of the pan. The peppers I used were a mix of red, orange, and yellow super sweets (the kids favorites). You can see the potatoes on the left. I found some small “bistro white”. Which were kind of a cross between a regular white potato, and a fingerling (a really chubby fingerling) so I peeled and sliced them in quarters length wise. If you use regular white potatoes, just cut them into really chunky wedges.

Now, I let the sausages rest for about 5 minutes while I finished prepping the rest of the veggies, then I sliced them into rounds and tossed them back into the pot, just to get a nice golden crust on every bite. I like all the pieces in this to be bite size when it’s done, so you can just dish it up and go at it with a fork.

When the sausage is done use a slotted spoon to get them out of the pan (in order to retain all the fat in the pan), and toss them into your roasting dish. I know it looks empty now, but have faith.

Now, throw your potatoes in the pan. Give them a stir every few minutes over medium heat, until lightly browned and crisp on the outside. You can add a little bit of salt and pepper here to season if you’d like.

Looking beautiful!

Toss them into the pan with the sausage. See, it’s looking better already!

This was happening behind me while I was cooking.

Now toss in your sliced peppers and onion, and the slightly crushed garlic. You’re just going to stir this over medium heat until everything starts to soften up a bit and gets a bit of colour. If it seems like it’s sticking to the pan, you can add a little bit more olive oil. Season with a little bit of salt and pepper here too.

Toss everything into the roasting pan and give it a good stir. I like to add a little bit of italian seasoning here too. Pop it in the oven for 20 minutes, giving it a stir half way through so that nothing sticks.

All the roasted veggies pick up so much flavour from the sausage, it’s unbelievable really. This has always been a go-to in a pinch for me, and it’s nice that now, thanks to Lidia, it tastes just as good as I thought it should!

Here’s your printable:

So, keep that in mind. This is a dinner that I can promise you will absolutely wow whomever you cook it for, but you will pour your own sweat, and possibly tears, into the creation of it. Make it at least once though, you won’t regret it. Just do it on a Saturday or Sunday when you really want to show someone you love them.

Ok, enough warning you, I’ve probably scared all but one or two of you away now, so on to the recipe for you brave souls.

Note: I made way more sauce then necessary, the amount in the recipe will show quantities half of what you see in the pictures.

First thing we have to do is roast some peppers.

To save yourself some cleanup line a glass baking dish with foil. Seed and half or quarter your peppers. Lay them out in the dish, skin side down, and drizzle with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. Cover tightly with more foil and roast for 30 minutes. You can do this a day ahead to save some time!

Here’s the peppers out of the oven. Now here’s the key to this whole thing: leave the dish covered for 30 minutes once out of the oven – don’t even take a peek at it. This keeps the moisture and steam on the peppers, and makes the skin just peel off nice and easy. You will really regret it if you don’t do this.

After they’ve sat, covered, for 30 minutes, just flip the peppers over and grab one end of the skin – it will peal right off for you in one piece.

Here’s all the skinned roasted peppers.

Just give them a rough chop and you’re good to go.

Now we have to make a tomato concasse. This just means you’re getting all the seeds out and dicing them up.

Cut your tomatoes this way, east to west, so that the top and bottom is intact.

Pare out the little stem on top.

Now you have to get a little dirty. Push your thumb into where all the seeds are, and then push it forward, and all the seeds will squish out. This is actually a surprisingly fulfilling thing to do.

Here’s your tomato skeleton.

Now just roughly chop them all up and set aside.

Time to dice our onion. Here’s the easiest way to do it: slice off the non-root end and peel off the skin.

Take a small slice out of one of the sides so that it can sit flat on an edge.

Like this.

Now, make slices from the top to the bottom, about ¼” apart, BUT – do not slice all the way down to the root. You want to stop at least ¼ from the bottom.

Now, flip the onion back onto that flat edge that you made, and start making slices again, ¼” wide, and stopping at least ¼” from the root.

Now the magic happens, make ¼” slices from the front, working to the back. Voila, perfectly diced onion! This is hands down the best thing I have learned since taking cooking seriously. As usual, set aside.

I like the whole mise en place style of cooking, so lets get our white wine, chicken stock, and heavy cream all measured out and ready to go.

Here’s my big cheat – I totally bought the giant tub of pre-diced garlic at costco. As a garlic lover, this saves me endless hours. I’m sure it’s not as good as fresh, but frankly, I don’t care. If you’re doing it yourself though, mince up some garlic and set aside.

Now, there are lots of things you can add in to this dish. Bo loves some prosciutto, either fresh (like today), or sometimes crispy (just put slices on a baking tray and crisp under the broiler). Sautéed mushrooms are another favorite of Bo’s.

Any way, for fresh, I just tore some slices into chunks to place on top at the end.

Ok, now get your chicken breasts and pound out so they’re an even thickness.

Season both sides with salt and pepper.

Heat some olive oil in a pan until just smoking, then add the chicken breasts. You’re only cooking them for 4 minutes on each side, just until browned, not all the way through. They’ll finish cooking later.

Once they’re browned take them out and put on a plate. This is a horribly blurry picture, there are a few of them coming up. Sorry.

Toss the onion in the now empty pan and sauté until softened.

Add the garlic and stir for about 30 seconds, just until nice and fragrant.

Now pour in the white wine. Use your wooden spoon to scrap up any brown bits that are still stuck to the bottom of the pan from the chicken – that’s all flavour. Cook this at a boil until reduced by half.

Toss in the tomato concasse and peppers.

Mix it up and cook, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes have softened and lost most of their juice.

While my tomatoes were cooking down I looked over to see this. Her great-great-grandpa was a jockey. I think she may have some of that in her.

Ok, now add the chicken stock and, you guessed it, boil until reduced by half.

Last time – add in the cream, slowly, whisking constantly, until fully incorporated. Bring to a rapid simmer and cook until slightly thickened.

My house is smelling so ridiculously good at this moment.

Ok, now we just nestle the chicken pieces into the sauce, cover the pan, reduce the heat, and let the chicken finish cooking for 10 minutes.

Remove the chicken to a plate. It is super tender, so if you’re worried about plating move it carefully (I did not, lol).

You have two options here. You can just serve the sauce as is on the plate, nice and chunky, or you can puree it. My friend Lindy was the first to do this, and since I took her advice I haven’t gone back to chunky. So, if you want, put the hot sauce straight into a blender (be careful here please, it is VERY hot). You could use an immersion blender if you have one too, though I worry about the mess with that.

Here’s the blended sauce.

Now, just pour the sauce onto the bottom of your plate and top with the chicken. Dress it up with some freshly grated parmesan and the prosciutto we tore up earlier.

Right about now I’m wishing we could be eating this again tonight. I promise, it really is worth all the hassle.

Here’s your printable:

Both the kids love it, and it’s really all due to Oliver that I tried it out. He pointed it out in an ad for cream cheese, but I didn’t like their crust so we made our own. Anna loved swiping the berries from the top into the filling, and Oliver loved trying to dig berries out of the filling like treasure. All you need is 4 cups of mixed berries, 2 packages of cream cheese, some white sugar, a tub of cool-whip, graham cracker crumbs, and melted butter. The cake itself doesn’t bake, it just chills in the fridge for a few hours, but I do like to pre-bake the crust.

Alright, here’s how I like my graham cracker crust. I add sugar to mine, and a little bit more butter than other recipes, but this way it cooks up more like a cookie, and it’ll stay crisp for longer when you have a wetter filling like this one. So, mix together the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter with a fork until evenly combined.

Pour the crust into the bottom of a spring-form pan, and press it into the pan using the bottom of a glass. Bake it at 350℉ for 8-10 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown.

Put the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of your mixer and whip for a couple of minutes until soft and fluffy.

While the cheese is whipping, measure out 2 cups of mixed berries (I used strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries).

Mash the berries down until they’re squished and slightly broken up, but not completely macerated.

Here’s the cheese mixture nicely whipped.

Dump in the squished berries and mix until evenly distributed.

Measure out 2 cups of cool-whip. This is more than 2 cups… those poor kids, they had to eat some off a spoon.

Add the cool-whip to the cheese mixture and fold in until evenly incorporated.

Pour the mixture onto the cooked crust, then use a spatula to even it out. Refrigerate until set, at least 8 hours. Ours went for 6 hours but it was still a little loose around the edges, it’s much better now having been in there over night.

Before serving just top with the remaining 2 cups of berries.

This really is just biting into summer, which can’t get here fast enough these days!

Here’s your printable:

I soon realized that I was in over my head, though I did stumble across this for you cocktail drinking adventurous lovers out there (Fluffy Duck anyone?). I know, you’re all wondering how this ties back into our anniversary. Well, while scouring for something new to try Bo walked in, called me weird, and asked me why I didn’t just make some Planters Punch.

This was the drink I tried for the first time on our honeymoon, five years ago (five Bo). I then proceeded to drink only this punch for the next three days and nights. I loved it, the combination of sweet and sour, it was just SO refreshing in the hot Bahama air. So, I made myself a glass tonight, and I really enjoyed being taken back to that beach, in the midst of all this snow we’ve been hit with. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it too!

Because it’s a drink I won’t bother doing a printable. Here’s the mix:

Planter’s Punch

1 oz Dark Rum
1 oz Light Rum
2 oz Orange Juice
2 oz Pineapple Juice
½ oz Simple Syrup
¼ oz Lime Juice
Dash Grenadine
Dash Angostura Bitters

Shake everything up with some crushed ice, strain, then serve in a nice tall glass with more crushed ice. So yummy! Also, if you decide to make a big pitcher (like I did for Oliver’s first birthday party, no judging), toss in a bunch of pineapple slices, orange slices, and maraschino cherries.

Quick note: this bread is one of my favorites to freeze, right up there with my banana bread, and pumpkin bread. That’s why you’ll see that I tripled the recipe and backed up 5 medium-sized loaves. The printable at the bottom will be for one standard size loaf pan. I really do suggest that you at least double it and freeze one though. When I’ve had a long day, there is no better feeling at 10 at night than taking out of loaf of bread to defrost over night for the kids in the morning.

Ok, let’s get to it.

First up, grate your zucchini. Just use your cheese greater, or if you’ve got it, the grating blade in your food processor.

Put the oil, sugars, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl.

Beat it until well combined.

Toss in the zucchini and mix until evenly distributed. Just use a wooden spoon for this part.

Now, it would be better if you whisked all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl first, then added them. I was in a rush so I didn’t bother. Either way, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, salt, and cinnamon to the zucchini mixture. Mix it until well combined.

Now, this part is optional, but if you want to take chocolate zucchini bread into the ultimate, double chocolate territory, stir in some chocolate chips. Mini chocolate chips are awesome for this, but I didn’t have any.

Finished batter.

Pour the batter into well greased loaf pans and toss them in a 350℉ oven for about 45 minutes for medium pans like this, closer to 60 minutes for 1 standard loaf pan.

Here’s what comes out. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before popping out of their tins.

Yes. It’s as good as it looks.

This is pretty much a guaranteed way to get at least some vegetables into your kids. I’m lucky with my two, they’re good with their fruits and veggies. They didn’t complain about the slice of chocolate cake for dessert after breakfast today though either

Here’s your printable:

My next choice: bake them or fry them. Of course, baking them should have been the answer. New Years resolutions and all. The problem was that I could hear Bo’s voice in my head Don’t you dare bake me a doughnut. So, frying it was. I’m not complaining though, they were delicious. I just didn’t eat as many as I wanted to, New Years Resolutions and all. In moderation though, well, they’re quite a nice little treat.

I made small ones, easy for the kids to hold, easy to throw a bunch in a bag, and frankly, I just have a thing for small food. You can cut them out to any size you would like though.

Alright, lets get to making some surprisingly easy doughnuts.

Whisk together some flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and cinnamon.

Pour in some melted butter, and give it a quick whisk until slightly crumbly.

Pour in the eggs and milk, and mix with a fork until it comes together.

This is the crumbly mess you’ll be looking at. Pour it out onto your counter.

Knead it quickly to form a ball. It’ll still feel pretty dry and crumbly at this point.

Then keep kneading until it turns smooth and a little sticky feeling. This takes about 2 minutes of good kneading, that’s it.

Throw down a bit of flour.

Roll the dough out to about ¼” thick. If you’re making bigger doughnuts, you might want to go a little bit thicker, say ⅓”.

Cut out your doughnuts to what ever size you want. Just use 2 different sizes round cutters. The quickest ones to my counter top are always the ones I use for buttertarts, so that’s what I used.

Now, get a big heavy pot and throw about 1½” of vegetable oil into it. That’s all you need. Add the doughnuts in batches.

Flip them over with tongs when they turn golden brown.

Then, take them out, drain on paper towel, and finish off how you like. I’m a sucker for tossing in some cinnamon sugar.

As good as they look!

Here’s your printable:

So, what is this exactly? Well, most importantly, it’s a nice and quick meal that cooks up in one pot. This means it’s great for a week night dinner when you’re in a rush. It’s just some boneless pork chops that get nestled in a bed of lightly creamed spinach (I say lightly because it’s a 2 to 1 stock to cream mixture that I really liked the flavor of), that’s started on the stove and finished in the oven, in the same pan. I almost left out the delicious crust of Parmesan cheese. Yeah, you can see how this was a winner.

No credit to me though for this recipe, it’s from “America’s Test Kitchen – Simple Weeknight Favorites”. They actually sent me this book about 6 months ago when I was part of an online chat, and I’ve got to say, every recipe I’ve made from it has turned out fantastic! I highly recommend it.

Alright, lets get to the recipe!

Here’s your cast of characters: fresh baby spinach, olive oil, whipping cream, chicken broth, salt, pepper, nutmeg, garlic, shallots, Parmesan cheese, and boneless pork chops.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil in a large, oven safe pan set over medium-high heat.

Add about a third of the spinach, enough that your pan is pretty full, but you can still toss it around without making a mess.

Cook it down until it’s completely wilted. Now just keep adding fresh spinach until it all looks like this.

Here’s what three full pans of fresh spinach looks like all wilted down.

Throw the spinach in a colander and press out as much of the water as you can.

Now give it a quick, rough chop.

Then, you can put it pack in a colander to get the rest of the water out, but I found that it was a lot easier and faster to split it into two halves and squeeze it out in a clean dish towel. Let the spinach cool a bit first though.

Ok, get your pork ready to go now by cutting the boneless rib sections in half lengthwise, and salt and peppering them on both sides.

Heat up a bit more olive oil until shimmering.

Now add half of the pork to the pan and cook until golden brown on both sides, about 2.5 minutes per side. Remove the chops to a plate, and repeat with the second half of them.

Here’s the finished plate of chops

Now, don’t touch that pan!

Toss in the shallots and cook for a few minutes until softened.

Tossing those shallots around with a wooden spoon will get most of that brown, baked on goodness, up. Once the shallots are soft, toss in the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, just until fragrant.

Stir in the flour.

Now slowly whisk in the chicken stock, and then the cream.

Get it bubbling and add the salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

You leave it to simmer for about 5 minutes, until it’s thickened up enough to stick to the back of a spoon.

If you run your finger through it, it shouldn’t drip through the run.

Now, toss in a third of the grated Parmesan cheese, and the spinach.

Mix it all up.

Nestle in the cooked pork chops.

Then take a spoon and cover the tops of the chops with the spinach mixture.

Evenly sprinkle on the rest of the cheese and toss it in the oven for 15 minutes.

Here it is out of the oven, golden brown and bubbling.

And here she is on the plate! Bo requested some mashed potatoes to go along with it, and he was right. They were fabulous with some of the spinach sauce on top.

Here’s your printable:

Me though, I think when you grow up with something, and it’s that nostalgic flavour that gets you most excited, so I make it as is. It turns a simple appetizer into a bite of Christmas at 8 years old for me. That’s what cooking should always be about, not just the flavour, but the feeling. <— And there, right there is where I got all yoga pants, shouting to the ocean, carried away.

Lets get to the cooking! I really should mention that these can me made ahead of time and frozen. Yep, that’s a party trick we can all get behind!

First off, about 8 years ago I made this as a Christmas present for all the women folk in the family. It’s a bunch of family recipes, and a bunch that I’d found online that turned out great. I can pretty much promise you that I’m the only one who’s opened it, lol.

At least I was organized about it. By coarse, then alphabetical.

Here’s what you need, it’s pretty simple: phyllo pastry, melted butter, milk, shredded cheddar cheese, crumbled feta cheese, flour, butter, pepper, and slightly beaten eggs.

Toss the butter in a large pan over medium heat.

Melt it down. You don’t actually need it to brown, but no harm no foul if it does a little.

Toss in the flour and whisk until nice and bubbly, and a little toasty looking in colour.

Whisk in the cream until you have a nice, thick paste like this. Don’t worry, it’s not too thick. Turn off the heat now.

Toss in all the cheese, and give it a good stir with a wooden spoon.

Next, add the pepper and parsley (a late addition that I forgot about, so had to use dried).

Lastly, stir in the beaten eggs.

Next up, lay your phyllo sheets out flat.

You need to cut it into three long strips. Each strip will be about 4″ wide

Now, get that melted butter (along with a pastry brush), and the cheese filling that we just made.

Lay out the phyllo strips individually (keep the ones not in use stacked and covered with a damp towel so they don’t dry out). Brush each strip with some of the melted butter.

Add a generous teaspoon of the filling to the bottom of the strip, about ½” from the bottom.

Fold the bottom right corner up until it’s flush with the left side, to make a triangle.

Now flip the triangle up… yep, you’ve got it. Just keep flipping it up and across and up and across until you reach the end of the strip. It doesn’t matter if you overlap a little like this, I prefer to keep it snug to the filling so that the finished triangles look nice and plump when cooked up.

Beautiful! You’ll see that the end of every strip will leave you with a different amount of leftover, and sometimes it’ll finish perfectly. None of it matters, just fold it over and you’re done.

Toss that baby on a lined baking sheet and move on to the rest of them. I promise, the first 5 might seem tedious, but then you get the hand of it and whip through the rest of them.

Also, I highly recommend laying out as many strips as you can on your counter and do them in bunches. It’s much faster. Please excuse the Christmas chaos that we’re still holding onto in this house.

Here’s the trays of finished triangles.

One last thing before they hit the oven though, brush the tops with that melted butter again.

Ok, if you’re freezing these for later, to finish cooking at party time (and I promise you can’t tell the difference), you want to take them out after about 10 minutes of cooking, when the edges just start to brown. Then let them cool completely, and freeze in layers with either freezer paper, parchment paper, or foil between each layer. Then you can easily separate them to finish cooking from frozen when needed.

And here’s the golden brown beauties that you’ll end up with at the end.

All I can say right now, is that after writing this post, I’m really glad I can through a few of these in the oven to eat tonight. Enjoy!

Here’s your printable:

I figured I’d throw it up here in case someone else could use it.

I’ll update with a picture of my house when it’s done.

NOTE: There is a page full of shutters, but really, just cut each window (that you cut out of the walls before baking) in half and you’ve got your shutters.

Gingerbread House To Print

Bo and Oliver are huge gingerbread fans, and as I was flipping through a magazine at the drug store, I saw a picture of an old fashioned gingerbread cake, so as soon as I got home I started researching recipes. Most of them that I found used a ton of oil, which I wasn’t thrilled about, or had complaints about it being dry, so I subbed applesauce for it and the cake came out nice and moist. Let’s get to it!

Put your butter and sugar in a large bowl.

Beat them until well combined and fluffy. My helper was very excited about making a cake for Daddy.

Butter and sugar look good.

Beat in the egg.

Add the molasses and apple sauce.

Mix it all up.

Add the flour, baking soda, spices and salt. You really should whisk these together in a seperate bowl first, but my dishwasher still wasn’t fixed at this point and I was trying to keep the number of dishes I had to wash down.

Now, add the hot water, and mix.

Beautiful!

Pour it into a 9″ cake pan that you’ve greased, and bake it for about an hour.

It was so delicious. A nice amount of spice to it, but not over powering. I served mine up with some whipped cream with a bit of cinnamon, and some fresh peaches.

So so yummy, and the kids loved it too.

Here’s you printable: