Oh Nuts Holiday Giveaway Winner!

Congrats to Natalie of The Sweets Life for winning the Oh Nuts $25 gift certificate!
"ah these giveaways with oh nuts are all over the place and i'm dying to win one! I'd take any of the treats but the candy house is cute :)"
http://www.ohnuts.com/buy.cfm/christmas-nuts-gifts-baskets/holiday-candy-house

Send me an email at veggiebyseason at gmail.com and we'll get your certificate to you asap!

Thanks for all who entered. My Christmas Cookie Baking session is this weekend, so I should have some great recipes posted next week!

Spicy Garlic Kale

When I was home at Thanksgiving, my parents gave me a bunch of kale they had just received from their CSA, as well as a jar of homemade picked jalapeños from my dad's garden (via the plants I gave him from my garden). I had a pretty unfortunate year in the garden with bugs and drought, but my dad's garden went absolutely crazy. It was so exciting for me to hear about his daily harvests. 

Their CSA is from an Amish Farmer in the Southern Ohio area, and their box was full of wonderful produce including this kale. If you remember my guinea pig-kale post from a while back, you know my family isn't big on eating kale, so they gifted it to me. While I love kale in soup, I wanted it to be a side dish or salad type portion of my meal, so I came up with this simple recipe. It's spicy and packs a punch, but I loved it! 

Spicy Garlic Kale

1 tbsp. EVOO

4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 head of kale, washed and roughly chopped

1/4 c. vegetable stock

Generous pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Heat a deep pot over medium-low, add EVOO.

Arrange sliced garlic on the bottom of the pan in a single layer.

Add kale on top, cover pot and cook for 4-5 minutes. 

Stir garlic up from the bottom of the pot and mix into kale, add stock and turn heat up to medium-high.

Cook kale, making sure garlic doesn't burn on the bottom of the pan.

Add crushed red pepper, toss and plate, arranging garlic on top of kale.

Yia Yia's Sunday Sauce

There's nothing better than a simmering pot of tomato sauce on the stove all Sunday long. It seemed like my mom always had a pot of marinara on the stove every weekend, especially when she had fresh tomatoes from the garden. 

This week, Kim chose Chef Symon's Italian Braised Beef with Root Vegetables in Yia Yia's Sunday Sauce. I couldn't think of a vegetarian substitute for braised beef, so I just made Yia Yia's sauce. Chef Symon places beef bones in his to give off more flavor, but I decided to use some balsamic vinegar and vegetable stock. This sauce was delicious, very simple and perfect over a steaming bowl of pasta.

All of the Symon Sundays ladies made beef, so please check out their blogs and thanks to Kim for a great choice! 

Kim - Stirring the Pot

Joanne - Eats Well With Others

Natashya - Living in the Kitchen with Puppies

Oh Nuts Holiday Giveaway

As I mentioned, Oh Nuts has offered to host a giveaway on my blog. If you remember, earlier this year I was sent some nuts from them and created these recipes: Cilantro-Macadamia Pesto, Pumpkin-Mango Casserole with Macadamia Crumble, and Spinach and Chestnut Pesto!
I was very impressed with the quality of the product, and love that they offer organic products! 

To enter the giveaway, follow these simple steps:

1. Go to the Oh Nuts Christmas gift baskets page. Choose your favorite Christmas Gift and leave a comment on this blog post with the name and url of the gift you like the most.

OR 

Go to the Oh Nuts Hanukkah gifts page. Choose your favorite Hanukkah Gift and leave a comment on this blog post with the name and url of the gift you like the most.

2. Go to the Oh Nuts facebook page  and post on the wall the url and name of your favorite Hanukkah Gift OR Christmas Gift. Please note that you're posting because you saw this giveaway on Veggie by Season. 

3. Follow @ohnuts and @veggieash and Tweet 

" Win a free Hanukkah Gift from http://bit.ly/6nIsCi Follow @ohnuts & Retweet to enter.  "

OR 

" Win a free Christmas Gift from http://bit.ly/dUpizt Follow @ohnuts & Retweet to enter.  "

Be sure to leave a comment if you've tweeted, please!

On Friday, December 10 I will select a winner via random.org to win a $25 gift certificate to Oh Nuts, so get your entries in by Midnight, EST on Thursday, December 9, 2010! 

POM Party Winner!

I am so excited to announce that I am a runner-up in the POM Party competition! I placed in the 4th-10th section of 100 entries! I've won a Williams-Sonoma gift card, so now it's time to decide what to get! Practical Food Processor? Splurge for an Espresso Machine? I don't know! But I can't wait to decide :)

Thanks so much for your comments and support, I appreciate it. 

Here is a full listing of the winners, if you'd like to check out their parties and congratulate them: http://www.pomwonderful.com/dinnerparty/

Updates!

Hello, blog world! I know, I pretty much dropped off the face of the earth since the POM Party and for the month of November. 

I am very proud to say that I am a NaNoWriMo winner, I finished writing my 50,520 word novel last night! Because NaNo took so much time, blogging fell by the wayside. I'm happy to say that I should be back to my regular blogging very soon! 

Today is a very special day, it's JJ and my 3rd Anniversary! Hard to believe it's been three years already!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We drove up to Cincinnati and I was able to meet my nephew, Evan for the first time. We had a great time watching Ohio State beat Michigan, and JJ enjoyed FSU beating up Florida. There was delicious food and desserts, and my pomegranate cranberry sauce took the award for best dish at Thanksgiving dinner! 

In the meantime while I get posts in the works, Oh! Nuts has offered to host a giveaway, so look for that post soon!