Giveaway: Club House Prize Pack & $50 Gift Card!

I love to cook. But when I'm stuck in a rut, like I am right now after cooking so much during harvest, I really don't like it or look forward to it! I like my meals to be flavorful and exciting...and I like trying new things! Club House has these new Flavourful Recipe Mixes that seemed like the perfect solution to my cooking rut. They have 6 brand new mixes to try:

• Flavourful Creamy Parmesan Chicken Penne
• Flavourful Herbes de Provence Roasted Chicken
• Flavourful Hickory BBQ Ribs Recipe Mix
• Flavourful Lemon Ginger Beef Stir-fry Recipe Mix
• Flavourful Lemon Thyme Pork Recipe Mix
• Flavourful Tuscan Chicken Recipe Mix

Each mix comes with a recipe on the back but you can also find more recipes on their website, or in your case - by clicking the links I've provided for you! I asked my farmer husband which mix we should try first and he picked the Hickory BBQ Ribs Recipe Mix...and we kept it simple and made the recipe on the back of the package and did ribs!

Instead of using pork spare ribs as the recipe suggests, we went with pork loin back ribs but followed the rest the same.

Ingredients

• 1 package Club House Flavourful Hickory BBQ Ribs Recipe Mix
• 2 packages pork ribs (your choice of cut!)
• 1 cup ketchup
• water

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350
• Stir together Club House mix with ketchup - let stand 15 minutes
• Place 1/4" water in a roasting pan with a rack
• Baste ribs all over (~2/3 cup)
• Place on rack, meat side up and cook for 1 hour, covered
• Turn ribs and cook for 1 more hour
• Turn ribs meat side up, baste, and cook for another 20 minutes

I served with potatoes, green beans, and corn on the cob and it was a hit by all! I usually boil my ribs and then throw them on the BBQ for extra crispiness, but this oven method was VERY good too! The ribs were nice and tender and the sauce was very flavorful. We agreed that we are more fans of sweet sauces, but switching it up with this tangy, hickory sauce was a really nice change and we both all really liked it too!

We all loved it, in spite of my husband's "Friends" humor of rubbing his tummy and saying "mmmm!!!!" I think I will be using Club House recipe mixes a LOT during a lot of my post partum phase, I can't wait to try lots of new recipes. Now it's your turn to try!

Win! Club House is generously offering a Club House prize pack and a $50 gift card to get you started to one of my readers!

How To Enter All you have to do is go to the Club House website and tell me which recipe mix & recipe you'd love to try first! Just leave me a comment saying so and then you can fill out the rest of the Rafflecopter widget for more entries (if you don't see the widget, click the "Read More" link)! This giveaway is for Canadian residents only.

While this does not count as an official entry, I would really appreciate if you could spare 2 extra clicks to vote for us while you're here!

Happy Chinese New Year with VH Sauces!

Did you know that Chinese New Year has come and gone? That doesn't mean it's too late to celebrate! This year is Year of the Dragon!


January 23 was Chinese New Year and we were travelling home from our vacation. We're a little late, but we're still going to eat some home made Asian inspired food! I love to cook and I'm always looking for ways to spice it up sauce it up in the kitchen! I was really excited to sign up for this blog tour, because now that Braden is a seasoned toddler, we are in full on fussy-ish eating! He, like many kids, looooove to dip their food in sauces. Enter, VH Sauces! I have long been a fan of VH plum sauce, it is a staple in my fridge so I was looking very forward to trying some new sauces. We got sent the new VH garlic hoisin sauce, VH medium garlic rib sauce, and VH sweet & sour sauce. Since it is new, I decided to use the VH garlic hoisin sauce first, using the recipe right off the bottle - how easy!

1. Spray large pan with PAM. 
2. Saute chicken for 10 minutes on medium-high until fully cooked. 
3. Add peppers & cook for 2 minutes.
4. Add VH Hoisin sauce & heat until warm.
5. Serve with steamed snow peas & rice topped with VH Soya Sauce.

Instead of just snow peas, I used a frozen pack of stir-fry veggies. Next time I'll definitely use all fresh - tastes much better!

My helper!



It got the approval from the boys! The sauce was very tasty, not bland, and not too strong or spicy! We'll definitely be doing this again and adding some more ingredients too, Jay wants cashews and I think that would be very nice.

I've gotta say, the VH Sauces website is pretty amazing and very user friendly. They have a good index of recipes and it's really easy to do a search using either ingredients that you have at home and/or VH products you have. A lot of the recipes look really easy and don't take very long at all! They also have a new Facebook page, so you should go like that too while you're at it!

VH has a new line of frozen meals called VH Steamers. This is a great option for me at work because I don't always have time (or food!) to pack a lunch or supper...or especially a lunch and supper when I work a 12 hour shift.

Now it's your turn to try VH! They are kindly giving away a Chinese New Year prize pack worth $60 to one of my Canadian readers! Please click the "read more" link to enter. This is a Rafflecopter entry, once you make a comment (mandatory) you will be able to fill out the rest of the form for more entries!

My Token Pinterest Post

If you follow other blogs like I do, there's been a lot of buzz on Pinterest lately. What is Pinterest? Well they describe themselves as:

Pinterest is an online pinboard.
Organize and share things you love.

It's awesome. You can have an assortment of boards and "pin" anything and everything to them. I have baking, cooking, photography, Braden, funny boards...you name it! Well, I'd like to share with you some of my favorite pins...it has really inspired me to try new recipes and I will also be crafting a lot one day too, I hope!

Twice baked potatoe casserole. I made these as a side when I had my inlaws over...and they were a BIG hit! It's essentially like a baked potatoe in a casserole dish - devilishly good!

Source: sippitysup.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Baked spaghetti with cream cheese. This was supper last night and it was YUMMY! I will tweak it a bit next time I make it, but Jay said it's better than our "usual" spaghetti!

Source: salad-in-a-jar.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Chicken parmesan bake. Again, very yummy but I will tweak it next time to make it even better!

Source: foodwishes.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

And some decorating! I did my version of this, this year.

Source: allyou.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Love this idea for Christmas ornaments!

Source: asortafairytaleblog.com via Sarah on Pinterest

They have lots of sewing tutorials and I will learn to sew one day!

Source: everydaybeautiful.typepad.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: luvinthemommyhood.com via Sarah on Pinterest

And some stuff I want to do with/for Braden!

Source: google.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: blogs.babble.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Cool Star Wars art!

Source: etsy.com via Sarah on Pinterest

So those are a few of my favorites. Jay even asked last night, "so...is this a recipe from Pin-something?" :) You know you've been Pinning too much when....! Pinterest is addicting, some may say it's a waste of time, but I LOVE it! They've got a great app for iPhone/iPods too!

If you want, you can follow me on Pinterest!