Happy Thanksgiving for TWO!

Hey Y’all! I am still around and thought it be nice to pop in and wish everyone (well if I still have any readers) a Happy Thanksgiving! This year I didn’t want to go anywhere. While I’m very thankful for our friends always offering my mama and I to come over, it just seemed right to enjoy this day with my mama. We worked out this morning, hit up Old Navy and Wholefoods (YES we had to do a little shopping!) and made our dinner together. We took a very easy approach to Thanksgiving and one I like because it is SIMPLE and you don’t have to feel guilty about gaining any extra weight.

We only eat white meat, the dark meat usually goes to my father or in the trash. This year we opted to buy a turkey breast on the bone, rather then a whole turkey. We stuffed it with fresh herbs and drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper. Instead of roasting the turkey in the oven, we did the slow cooker approach instead. It was DELICIOUS! Super juicy, very flavorful and easy clean up. We followed this approach when making our turkey.

I roasted the sweet potatoes, sliced in circles, olive oil, salt and pepper. My mom handled the green beans (steamed) and homemade cranberry sauce. We added 2 tablespoons white sugar, 2 tablespoons stevia, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, splash of orange juice and a dash of cinnamon.

For dessert, we used the slow cooker and I prepared a homemade apple crisp. It was gluten free and I made sure to just make enough (3 large apples), so we wouldn’t have a ton of leftovers. The house smelled amazing and this is something I’ll be making more often going forward. I will share the recipe with you next week.

Cheers,
Fallon

Happy Thanksgiving from Fallon’s Cucina!

GOBBLE GOBBLE!!! I just wanted to wish all my blog friends a happy and wonderful Thanksgiving! I’m spending Thanksgiving with my mom at my best friend’s house. I love celebrating Thanksgiving with a huge crowd, so I’m thankful my best friend invited me to her place. I also don’t have to cook a huge feast, phew! Stuffing and a bottle of wine. I got it off easy this year. Don’t even need to make dessert! Did you get it off easy this year too?

I woke up at 5:30am this morning and saw this beautiful sunrise from the kitchen sink. I took a moment to think of everything I’m so fortunate to have and even though life isn’t always perfect, my life in itself has been very lucky for me. A morning like this deserved a hot breakfast, like oat bran. This was simple, not over the top and very tasty. I’ll be sure to share the recipe this weekend.

My mom just went to pick up the newspaper. I can’t wait to check out all the sales! I’m in the market for either a new desktop and/or laptop. Of course I work tomorrow but I’ll be shopping online. Way better then being in lines and being cold. ;)

Time to get ready for my Thanksgiving workout. Body pump sounds like a plan.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Fallon

A Cannoli Cake for Thanksgiving

Hey bloggers! How was your holiday weekend? Mine was super crazy. I must say since I have to work 10pm-10am on Black Friday, I am just now perfectly recovered. That day totally wore me out!

As for Thanksgiving I spent it with my boyfriend at his parents house. It was great seeing everyone again. It is hard to believe 2010 is almost done. I’d like to know where this year went! Again, this four day weekend went too fast as well.

I’m not the type of person to go empty handed when I’m invited to someone’s house. I’m always asking what can I bring, what do you need etc. Well my boyfriend kept telling me he wants a cannoli cake. The last time I made this cake was 2 years ago for Christmas. I’m a bit rusty in the cannoli cake department if you know what I mean. All I can remember was it took me forever to make, I made mistakes, I made a huge mess and it took me forever. ;) Well this time around I planned it out so I wasn’t doing a cake for an entire 5 hours. The first day I baked the cake and let it cool overnight.

Then the following morning I put the cake together by splitting the two 9in rounds to make four layers, make the filling and the rum simple syrup.

Hello Captain!

I put the cake together and I let it set in the fridge for almost 2 days. Then the morning of Thanksgiving I frosted the cake and decorated it. I must say this process was much better for me since I had work every day, BUT I made mistakes AGAIN.

Mistakes:

-Not enough ricotta filling, I forgot to double it.

-Rum simple syrup, not enough rum flavor.

-I doubled the frosting but forgot to double the powdered sugar. Oops

I mean the cake was good, but it wasn’t great. Now I have to make this cake AGAIN because I want it right. I follow the recipe from Dolce Italiano. As for the frosting it’s a whipped cream/cream cheese frosting. Once I get the recipe right, I will share it, for now.. enjoy the photos! PS: Check out this post on my first cannoli cake I made! (Yikes it looks so much better then the one I made recently.)

The filling was smooth, creamy and thick!

You can never have enough simple syrup on a cake when it calls for it.

     

Whipped cream that took forever, 3 cups worth before blending!

My piping skills are bad but I made it work!

Can’t have a cannoli cake without an actual cannoli on top. ;)

 

And since you made it to the very end, don’t forget I’m hosting a giveaway with CSN. Click this LINK to join the fun!

Fallon 

Leftover Turkey Cranberry Sandwich With Goat Cheese

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I can’t believe another year has almost gone by. I want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving. Take the time to enjoy the moment with your friends and family. Forget about all the other crazy things going on in the process. That is my plan and I’m sticking to it!

And just because it is only Thanksgiving today..  I’ve already been preparing myself for the best part, LEFTOVERS! I love to make my leftovers into a sandwich. A few weeks ago my mom picked up a turkey breast already cooked. I’m usually a bit weary on something like that but wow I was super impressed. Not salty, good flavor, all white meat, and moist! Probably better then most turkeys I’ve had. I could only think of one thing and it was to make a delicious sandwich. I tweaked my sandwich by adding in fresh baby spinach and goat cheese. It looks festive and tastes delicious.

Leftover Turkey and Cranberry Sandwich With Goat Cheese

Ingredients

Leftover turkey breast

Goat cheese, softened

Cranberry sauce

This is my choice of sauce from TJ’s!

Baby spinach

Salt and pepper

Grainy bread (I Love Great Harvest!)

On both slices of grainy bread smear the softened goat cheese and cranberry sauce.

On one side add the turkey and the other side add the spinach. Salt and pepper to taste.

Put the sandwich together and enjoy!

 

I think the most important part of this sandwich is the bread. You want a bread with nuts, seeds and whole grain goodness. I love Great Harvest for that reason. I was MMMing my whole way through this sandwich.

What is your favorite way to enjoy a leftover sandwich?

After Thanksgiving only follows the craziest shopping day ever. Black Friday! If I had a choice I’d hide in my closet on this day but since I work in retail, I get to enjoy the craziness. What is even crazier is I’m working from 10pm-7am.. because hello Old Navy opens at MIDNIGHT!!

Stay tune for a giveaway next week. I’m debating on what I want to actually do. I need to think quickly!!

Have a great Thanksgiving and don’t forget to be thankful. ;)

Love and Kisses,

Fallon

Sauteed Roasted Butternut Squash with Chickpeas and Spinach

Good morning my friends! How has everyone been? I’m doing great on my end. Work is very busy (YAY!) and if I’m not at work, I’m at Krav. It has been over a month I started going to a Krav Maga studio and you can’t believe how much I’ve improved. My teacher is VERY proud of me and I’m proud of myself, I never thought I could coordinate myself enough to hit, kick, knee, elbow, etc. Let’s just say it is a GREAT way to release built up tension. ;)

My main goal while practicing Krav is protein, protein, protein and less sugar. This method is what keeps me stable and full of energy. In the end I’m actually craving less sugar because of the additional protein. Plus I've always been a carb lover and with extra protein, I’m a happy girl!

In this dish today I wanted to have a side dish with some leftover vegetable pizza. I had roasted butternut squash and huge tub of spinach. Something about cooking it on the stove top in garlic would make a good side dish, but it needed one more thing.. Chickpeas! It needed that extra protein. This dish was wonderful, hearty and very tasty. The roasted squash is a must because it has been caramelized in the oven and adds a whole other layer of flavor to this dish. This dish reminds me of the Fall. Enjoy!



Sauteed Roasted Butternut Squash with Chickpeas and Spinach 
Serves 2

Ingredients
3/4 cup of roasted butternut squash, diced
1 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup baby spinach
2-3 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Heat up a skillet on medium-high. Add your olive oil a few minutes later and add the butternut squash to heat up. Next add in the chickpeas. Add a little salt and pepper. Once the squash and chickpeas start to get color and have warmed through, add in the garlic. Cook for a few seconds and add in half of the spinach. Mix till it starts to wilt. Then add the rest of the spinach, season with salt and pepper and cook until just slightly wilted. Shut the heat off and remain mixing till everything is incorporated and the spinach has been married to the other ingredients.






This dish goes well with grilled chicken or even at your Thanksgiving dinner.

If anything your vegetarian/vegan friends will love you if you make this dish. ;)

Love,
Fallon

Thanksgiving 2009.. Flop?!?! :)

Hey bloggers! I've been enjoying everyone's Thanksgiving posts, and figured I better get my picture's edited and blogged about tonight. I must say some blogger's entire Thanksgiving spread looked beautiful, especially the "turkey." Thanksgiving this year was just my mom and I. We had plans to see a movie, go shopping at the Forum Shops, or go to our friends house for wine and dessert. I really wanted to go out and do something, but once I came home I didn't want to leave. It was definitely a lazy day for me. Constantly working the days leading up to Thanksgiving and knowing I had to work on black Friday, I just needed the lazy time.

It is tradition that my mom and I will go to a spin class Thanksgiving morning and then afterward to Starbucks. I always feel a good workout before a big event/meal is needed because then I don't feel guilty! Definitely was a much needed workout and we had fun looking at all the black Friday deals while having our Starbucks. If you notice in my title I said flop because well this year our turkey was not very good. We thought it looked sick when cleaning it. I did my usually stuffing aromatics into the cavity and stuffing fresh poultry herbs into the breasts and cavity. Rub down in olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Well I saw somewhere to cover the breasts with tin foil and then the last hour of cooking to take the foil off and let the top brown. They said this keeps the breast moist and from drying out. Made sense right? FLOP! Turkey breast was DRY and my bird still wasn't finish cooking after almost hitting the 5 hour mark and was only a 12 pound turkey. We picked through the breast with the parts cooked but basically felt "weird" eating it and just chucked the bird out. Major flop :( But I'm still here to show you the other wonderful things we had and already have a fresh turkey to cook up tomorrow since my dad will be home. He can take control and hopefully turkey #2 will come out delicious! I love my turkey and cranberry sauce.

Before going into the oven, apples, pecans and butterscotch chips definitely NO mistake here. ;)
 

I'm going to start backwards. Tuesday I made our dessert, Butterscotch Apple Cake from the lovely Noble Pig. I've had this recipe bookmarked for several months and that when I knew this was a Thanksgiving dessert. I decided to cut the recipe in half since my family is small, 3 people. Worked perfectly. I used a pink lady apple and granny smith apple. The combo worked perfectly with the cake, and my mom loved it so much she wants me to make this for her bunko coming up on December 14th! Good because I already want another piece! At least dessert made up for the bad turkey!

The cake smell the whole house up and was 
very hard to not have a piece till Thanksgiving.
 

I loved the apple contrast from light pink and grassy green. 
Definitely made for a very festive cake!
 

Don't get me wrong I like a good glass of Pinot Noir, but give me a good glass of champagne and I can't stomach it! Just something about the taste that I don't care for. I think it is over-rated! Well my mom's good friend mentioned this great Prosecco she picks up from Trader Joe's for only $6.95 a bottle and said she goes through a bottle a night. Yeah she likes to drink a little ;) I knew about Prosecco because they use that in a Peach Bellini and I know those are delicious. We picked up a bottle along with some pomegranate juice to give a splash of color to our drink. Umm can I say I found my new favorite holiday cocktail? Prosecco with a splash of pomegranate juice was delicious! It was a very smooth sparkling wine, and the juice took away from the slight dryness from the Prosecco. Yeah I usually don't drink 2 glasses but that day I had 2 glasses!

Glass #1 of course. This was very refreshing!
 

If you see this brand pick it up because I think you'll like it! 
I'm not a champagne girl, I'm a Prosecco girl!

With my first drink I also had a mini appetizer. I was going to actually eat this with my meal but figured it be way too much all at the same time. I was already a bit snacky so I sat down with a bowl of my tomato cucumber salad and a pumpkin cornmeal muffin!

But my snack didn't stop there. My dad was heading into work soon and I promised he could have his dessert then. I figured it was time for my dessert too and then my mom said, "Well if everyone having dessert, I want mine too!" Okay let's have dessert!

I heated the cake for a few seconds in the microwave, 
so it be warm as if it was fresh out of the oven!
 

 Noble Pig used whipped cream, I thought vanilla ice cream would be even better!
 

It is Thanksgiving and I want the real stuff! This was DELICIOUS vanilla ice cream. 
It was light and rich. Easily scoop-able straight from the freezer.

Which brings me to the "main event." The turkey that was a flop! I'm so glad everything else turned out delicious or else we would of been scrambling up some eggs for dinner.

I love the fall colors. I added a gala apple, sweet onion, carrots, lemon, and celery. 
This was stuffed into the turkey cavity. Perhaps it was over stuffed?
 

After all our snacking, we realized it was almost 5 hours and the turkey was still cooking! We couldn't wait no longer. I guess a few drinks down, anything looked good at this point to eat. haha.

Looking at this turkey now, it is still PINK! We need a meat thermometer. 
I'm glad no one got sick off the turkey.
 

The turkey breast were so dry.. we almost used up this whole bottle to hide the 
dryness. Verdict? I missed the jelly cranberry sauce, it has a more 
pungent flavor and I don't need to use as much.
 

We were so hungry, that I forgot to take a picture of my plate before digging in! 

Basically licked clean! So something must of been good ;)
 

This was one of our sides, roasted brussel sprouts and carrots. 

We also had baked sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon! I totally forgot to take a picture of this, but I think you get the idea! ;) It was nice spending the time with my mom! We finished watching up all the Biggest Loser shows from that week and just relaxed. I was so tired but I ended up staying up to watch the Beyonce concert on TV. That girl can sing! I was literally out by 10pm and up early to get ready for the Black Friday shoppers! I've been working in retail for 6 years now and I KNOW what to expect. It was a very successful day and this holiday season will be very busy. I'm just happy to see people out shopping and spending money! I hope this makes for a better year economy wise in 2010!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday because tomorrow is Monday. That means we all go back to work! Be well,
Fallon