Spring is in the air, cook fast and get out of the kitchen!

Spring is in the air and we have been spending as much time as possible outside trying to enjoy it! (Sorry to those in Seattle who are dealing with snow!) While we are enjoying the outdoors, I let my slow cooker do the cooking and use some go to items for quick meals that can be made at the last minute.

I have been trying to find a delicious easy way to make polenta from scratch. I’ve bought the premade tubes and mashed them up with milk and butter, bought the quick cooking polenta, which are both good, but not as good as using corn meal and mixing it by hand for a long time. Today I had an epiphany — make it in the slow cooker! So I did. I just googled slow cooker and polenta and found this recipe. It worked great and was delicious!! I served it with some sausages and leftover roasted butternut squash. I had promised Karina she could have carrots and cottage cheese too before I remembered about the leftover squash, so she got both! and ate both! Win win 🙂

 I took a couple of ladles full of the hot polenta and put it in a small square tupperware dish in the fridge to cool for about 15 minutes while I grilled the sausage and microwaved the squash. when the polenta was cool, I cut a Mickey Mouse shape out with a cookie cutter.

The boys didn’t eat too much tonight, a little overtired from all the outdoor fun, but they usually like it 🙂
Last night I made perogies, peas and shrimp, which only took about 10 minutes! This was a hit with 4 out of 5 of us. Neil didn’t eat much other than the peas 🙂 I try to keep frozen perogies and peas in the freezer, along with something like shrimp that can easily be thawed. I cooked the shrimp in a little olive oil and then once they were pink on a sides, added 1 clove minced garlic and some leftover honey mustard lemon vinaigrette.  [Honey mustard lemon vinaigrette – olive oil, lemon juice, white balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, lemon pepper and sugar. I tossed a spinach salad with it over the weekend]
 Coming up…cooking bucket lists and I’ve been doing some research on local CSAs and farmer’s markets!
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