Grandma has been working her fingers to the bone, let me tell you. My goal was to hand make as many Christmas gifts as possible this year. That means I have spent a lot of time at the sewing machine making puppet theaters, seat belt pillows, super hero capes and hooded towels just to name a few things - all for the grandsons. We also made giant bubble blowers and beautiful beaded hand held bubble blowers that will be given with really cute buckets to hold the bubbles and a bubble recipe for making giant bubble solution. Let me just say, I will be making myself a seat belt pillow (they are awesome) and a giant bubble blower. Who doesn't love bubbles? There will be tutorials coming for these things, but probably not before Christmas. I am just frantically trying to get it all done. The boys will be receiving a few things from the store, but the majority of things are one of a kind, hand made originals.
While sewing away this afternoon, I had to think about dinner. What we were going to have? I decided fish sounded really, really good. So, I put some that I had frozen in a bowl of cold water to thaw. You can find my recipe for fried fish on my blog post of January 12, 2012. Then there is the proverbial question of what to serve with it.
Do you stand in front of your refrigerator and look and look, trying to figure out what to fix? Then, you close the door, walk away, come back, open the door and stand there looking and looking, like there is going to be something totally different in there? Hopefully, I'm not the only one who does this. While looking in the refrigerator for the second time, I had to get serious. Hmmmmm, there was some yellow squash, zucchini squash, a bag of baby spinach, onions, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. Decisions, decisions. I chose the yellow squash and spinach and dedicated the zucchini for zucchini bread which I will be making later - recipe to follow. Now what?
I diced up an onion and minced a clove of garlic. I put the big sautee' pan on the stove and put a couple of rounds of extra virgin olive oil in the pan and turned the heat on. This is one of those "wing and a prayer" dishes which means I am making it up as I go.
I put the diced onion in to sautee' and cut the three large yellow squash into 1 inch pieces. When the onion was nearly translucent, I tossed in the garlic and squash. I let the squash cook until tender. Now, how to flavor it? I used a little salt and fresh cracked black pepper, a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar and dusted everything with grated parmesan cheese. It was looking good and smelling really good. Now what? I opened a can of Rotel, drained it and added the contents of the can. After letting that heat through, I added a bag of baby spinach and let it wilt down. Not only was this dish colorful, it was delicious! What a quick and easy side dish. We all know that colorful food is good for you, full of antioxidants and vitamins. Even better!
Here is what you will need to make this dish:
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
3 large yellow squash, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 bag baby spinach leaves
1 can Rotel diced tomatoes and green chiles, drained
Grated parmesan cheese to taste
Extra virgin olive oil
Balsamic Vinegar to taste
salt and pepper to taste
Dinner was quick and easy tonight which is exactly what I needed. There is one more sewing project to be finished and then hopefully I am done with that. There are still a few other projects that need finishing, but I am finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Hip hip, hooray!
Do you have all your shopping done? Gifts wrapped? Cookies baked? If you do, lucky you. Me, not so much, but we are getting there - one gift at a time. Saturday is cookie baking day with the grandsons.
Everyday Donna
Things to Remember:
When things are hectic, you can still take time to make a delicious meal. They don't have to be elaborate meals, just flavorful, delicious and nutritious. Due to all the stress this time of year, it's very important to eat healthy food.
