Thanksgiving with POM!

Hi everyone! Hope all of those who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday had a wonderful time! I am still not used to Canadian Thanksgiving, it seems so early! Ben and I had the house to ourselves, so we celebrated U.S. Thanksgiving in our own way.

This is Magic Lake, all frozen over. It got coated in snow overnight!

We slept in, and woke up to more snow! We had nutella in our oatmeal, then went to visit our pigs. Tobogganing  down the hill got lots of snow up my back, but it was SO fun! I took Izzie down with me a few times, and Ben and I went together. Tons of fun!

You can see our sledding tracks all down the hill!

Bird prints in the snow! Too cute!

Then we came in, put on Miracle on 34th St., and Ben made a pumpkin pie. We played Mario Kart Wii, then I made us some dinner. We had pan fried chicken breasts, parmesan mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus. I also roasted a head of garlic. YUM! For the chicken I made a great sauce using red wine, dried cranberries, and POM. It had that perfect festive color, and a great savory/sweet contrast of flavor. I think the POM really made it!

Red Wine Cranberry POM sauce (inspired by America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook)
1/4 yellow onion, finely diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
1 Tbs. flour
3/4 cup red wine
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 Tbs. honey
1/3 cup regular POM pomegranate juice

Once you have pan fried your chicken

(breasts dried, tossed in flour s&p and fried in canola oil until golden and cooked through) remove it from the pan and keep it warm.

 Add the onion to the pan and saute until softened. Add in the garlic and stir until fragrant.

 Stir in flour and cook 30 seconds, then pour in wine, stock, cranberries, thyme, honey and POM juice. Scrape bottom of pan to loosen browned bits.

Bring to a simmer, and cook until sauce has thickened and reduced slightly, about 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over the chicken.

This was the perfect easy meal, that tasted and looked like Thanksgiving without the hassel! I've been using POM juice in other ways too! I made a spritzer out of it with lime juice and seltzer! Yum!

After dinner we had Ben's pumpkin pie and watched the new Star Trek movie.

Then it was off to work for us! I got to decorate this birthday cake! It was really fun! I think piping is my favorite! So many things you can do!

Hope everyone's work week was good, it's Friday!

Kilimanjaro Wot Sauce Chicken and SNOW!

Well hello there! This has been one busy week! We got tons of snow!!! This is supposed to be the snowiest/coldest winter in the last 50 years! I am so excited, being from California and not so used to the snow. It made driving a bit difficult, and we ended up walking 7 miles in the snow in the middle of the night for a work shift, but it's still fun!

Snow everywhere!Our deck, yard, and water view were all covered!

Lots of beautiful shots. This is at the Driftwood Center, where the bakery is, at about 4am! Like the cat tracks across the bridge?

Ben took this one. So cute!

Saturday was also the craft fair that I've been working towards! Most of my items were not so popular, but my candy went really well and I made back all i'd spent, plus a little profit!

I think I'll be doing the next craft fair, on December 12 th too. Admittedly, the power was out, and lots of people couldn't get there because of the snow, so it wasn't ideal selling conditions.

I had tons of fun though, and had lots of friends wander by, say hello, and buy things. I got to meet lots of new islanders too!

With all of this cold weather, and a house full of sick people, we wanted something a bit spicy for dinner. I had just the thing! The nice people over at Kilimanjaro Foods sent me a package with some fun new things to try! They have a great selection of African and African-inspired sauces and gourmet items, all full of flavor and enthusiastic inspiration. One item was this Wot sauce, a spicy tomato based sauce that's good for soups, stews, meat...anything!

I decided to try it over chicken and rice. I browned some drumsticks in a pan to bump up their flavor.

Then I poured half the jar of sauce over them, added about 1/3 cup water, and let them simmer until done.

I made a pot of rice, and  baked some cauliflower (425*, covered in olive oil and salt, bake until browned about 20 minutes). We put it all into one bowl and made sure everything had sauce. My whole family raved about this! Everyone in the house agreed that it is just delicious!

It was just right! Such a simple meal, easy and fast to prepare, and SO much flavor! The house smelled wonderful from all of the herbs blended in the sauce. There was a good spicy kick to the Wot sauce, but I could totally handle it, even being the spice-wimp that I am! I can't wait to try other Kilimanjaro products! You can try them too, by ordering online from their website! You'll be amazed by the intense range of flavors, and how easy it makes your dinner preparation!  If you have their products, and want some inspiration, then check out their recipe page for tons of good ideas!

We are expecting more snow, and some seriously cold weather here in the next few days. Time to break out the snow gear! Hope everyone enjoyed their weekends. I'll be posting more candy recipes soon. Stay warm!