I wanted to share a few links with you if you are hosting the event yourself or just need to bring a side dish/dessert.

The first set of recipes comes from:

I love this magazine!

Eating well has an accompanying website EATINGWELL.COM

Their list of MANY side dishes is HERE. Some of my favorites are lemon/dill green beans, pear proscuitto and hazelnut stuffing and maple-roasted sweet potatoes!

And my buddy Bobby Flay posted an awesome 2 minute video with his pomegranate black pepper glaze. The glaze is comprised of pomegranate molasses, dijon mustard, horseradish and salt and pepper.

Click HERE to watch the video.

Bobby Flay's Pomegranate black pepper glaze - Photo from FOOD TV

So, who’s hosting dinner this year and for how many people?

*******Also, I’ve tried a few new things this week:*******

I mentioned before that the grocery store I go to has a ton of different kinds of fruits and veggies.

Has anyone had a quince?

I never have before and I wish I would have looked it up before I cut into it:

The seeds look cool!

The quince is a fruit Native to Latin America, The middle East, Asia and is related to the apple or pear. I knew that fact, so I cut it up like an apple and me and my family tasted it. It was super grainy, tough, not too sweet, we all spit it out!

Fast forward to me actually reading how to eat a quince and you are supposed to cook it first! Whoops! And you are supposed to peel the skin as well. The most common method is cooking it in a simple syrup which softens the flesh and makes it sweeter.

There are many ways of preparing quince but the most basic method is poaching, or heating quince in a water and sugar mixture, from eHow.com

Difficulty: Moderate
Instructions

Things You’ll Need:
6 large Quince fruits
Knife
Spoon
Large saucepan 3 cups Water 1/2 cup Granulated sugar

1. Rinse quince under warm water and rub gently to remove any outer fuzz. Pat dry and use knife or peeler to remove the outer skin.

2. Cut quince lengthwise in half to expose the core and seeds. Use a spoon to scoop out core and seeds, then chop the quince into wedges or thin slices

3. Heat 3 cups of water and 1/2 cup of sugar in a large saucepan on stove over high heat until boiling. Reduce heat to medium.

4. Place quince pieces gently into water and sugar mixture. Heat until quince turns pink, which can take up to an hour.

5. Serve quince warm or at room temperature. Store leftover quince in a container with the cooking liquid for up to one week in the refrigerator.

Well, I learned my lesson to do a little research BEFORE I cut in to something and taste it! Ha!

Another new vegetable I tried this week?

I’ve had regular cauliflower and purple cauliflower, so I thought why not try orange? I added to my stir fry I had for dinner tonight.

My kids asked me how come it was orange and I didn’t know why, so I looked that up too!

First discovered in 1970, the orange cauliflower is able to naturally hold more beta carotene than white cauliflower. Because of this it has 25% more Vitamin A than white cauliflower. Who knew?

I thought it was delicious!

That’s how I was feeling yesterday at work. I was feeling a little under the weather and I kept thinking about getting M & M’s from the 7-11 near my office. I actually was heading out when I decided to just take a look and see what other options I had.

In the end, I DIDN’T CAVE!! I got this instead:

This was really good!

So, instead of a king size bag of M & M’s for 500 calories, this bar was only 180 calories, and to go with it, I made:

25 calorie packet of Diet Swiss Hot chocolate mixed with hot coffee! It hit the spot.

How do you get past a craving that will hamper your weight loss efforts??

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I’d like to thank Food Buzz for hooking me up with Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. As a Food Buzz taste tester I was sent 3 coupons for 3 of my readers to buy their product for free!

ALSO, Lea & Perrins is hosting a “Shine at Dinnertime” cooking contest. It’s a video recipe challenge, submit a video under 4 minutes using Lea & Perrins and the grand prize winner gets $10,000 + a VIP meeting with celebrity chef Claire Robinson of Food TV! Once the finalists have been picked, then America gets to vote from December 3rd – December 10th. Biz, are you going to enter???

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I have a lot to say tonight! I wanted to share the most deluxe stir fry I’ve made in a long time. Local Chicagoans, if you haven’t gone to Caputo’s market, you HAVE to go! Their produce section is the biggest one I’ve seen in any store. Gorgeous fruits and veggies, some I’ve never heard of like UGLI fruit!!!

Have you had UGLI fruit?

The UGLI fruit is a hybrid of orange, grapefruit and tangerine. You can peel it like an orange, or slice it in half like a grapefruit. It was really juicy and good! No seeds either! So that’s a new one for me, and I only bought one just in case I didn’t like it, but now I’ll have to go back for more.

OK, back to my stir fry!!!

Lots of chopping!

We had, purple and regular cauliflower, garlic, red onion, pea pods, water chestnuts, carrots, celery and bok choy.

First I cooked a few chicken breasts, cut up in small pieces, until just about done, then set that aside. I also cooked a big pot of brown rice (start that part early because it takes 45 minutes to cook).

Add the veggies and cook for about 5 minutes or until desired tenderness. Add back the chicken and serve over rice with your favorite stir fry sauce. I used House of Tsang brand peanut sauce.

This made a bunch!!!

*****
3 lucky readers who leave a comment will get a chance to receive a coupon for Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce.

Yesterday when I was at the store, I picked up some more tomatillos, a big poblano pepper, a white onion, some garlic and headed home to make another batch of salsa. It was hot out yesterday, and I didn’t want to turn the stove on, so I got out my skillet and added everything to the pan.

The beginnings of a great salsa

Ingredients:

Tomatillos
1/2 large white onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
1 Poblano pepper
juice of 1/2 lime

I just added a few teaspoons of Canola Oil, and threw everything into the skillet. I turned the heat on medium and just cooked the veggies on all sides for about 15 minutes. Some parts got a little browned, but I was OK with that!

I removed the stem from the Poblano pepper, and the paper from the garlic, but other than that, I threw everything into the blender.

I also added a few teaspoons of Tapatio picante sauce. And this is how it turned out:

The best salsa I've ever made!

Since it’s kind of warm, I put some into 2 bowls and stuck it in my freezer for about 15 minutes to cool it off.

It was so good! And the best part is it makes so much. I’m seriously thinking about canning some of this for gifts at Christmas!

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So, are many of you into back to school stuff yet?? We went shoe shopping yesterday and right now Payless Shoe’s has buy one get one pair half price, AND, I went on line and found a coupon for an additional 20% off. I wasn’t sure if it would work, it just had a coupon code, but the man at the register punched those numbers in, and I saved $15.00!!

Click here to print out the coupon code I used, one is good until 8/9 and the other one is good until 8/31!

So check out the shoes my kids picked. My oldest son is going to be a Freshman in high school, my middle son is going into 7th grade and my daughter is going into 3rd grade. It’s going to be a crazy year with 3 kids in 3 different schools, we’ll see if I survive!

Paul's shoes!

Mark's shoes

My daughter Claire's shoes!

I should be lucky I have a few more weeks before school starts. 67 Chicago Public Schools have adopted a YEAR ROUND school and they go back to school on Monday!

Year round students get 6 weeks off during summer, 2 weeks off at Christmas and 2 weeks off during Spring break. It’s all in an effort to keep kids off the streets and keep them safer. Which I am all for that! Some areas in Chicago are pretty rough and dangerous!

If you have kids, are you excited about school starting again soon?