The Yum Yum Factor

There is a company called Back to the Roots  and they make products that help regular people connect to the food they eat. Their signature product is a kit that allows you to grow mushrooms out of recycled coffee grounds. They gave all of the Food Bloggers of Canada Conference members one of their mushroom growing kits so we could go home and grow some delicious edible fungas in our homes.

I don't think I have ever met a meatball that I didn't like. In this house we are all about the lovely balls of meat. Whether it's swedish meatballs, spaghetti and meatballs, my vietnamese bbq pork meatballs, sticky meatballs, saucy meatballs, spicy korean meatballs or lamb and mint meatballs - any meat that can get jammed into my meat grinder ends up as a meatball at some point, so watch your step when you visit.

Yesterday was a very, very exciting day in my life. Yesterday, Shack came home with  the meat grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid!!  Oh happy day! I have been starting to really get skeeved out by the thought of buying pre ground meats from the grocery store and realistically, I can't always get out to the actual butcher to buy a pound of ground beef or pork or chicken for a quick weeknight dinner. I have been coveting this forever and Christmas is still weeks away! What to make? Well, considering that he also brought home a pound of beef to grind up last night and that would have to used up, I decided to  make swedish meatballs. I have never made them and have only eaten proper swedish meatballs a time or two but Little Shack eats them at school and says that he loves them. I went out this morning and bought about 1/2 lb. of stew pork and literally ran home and threw it in this bad boy! How awesome is that? I could weep with joy. I am so easy to please you kno...

It was a terrible, no good, windy, rainy, chilly horrible day and I refused to go outside anymore than I had to. I had to take Little Shack to school (the poor kid went on a field trip to Pioneer Village today - better him than me! ) and I had to go pick him up again but that's it. I had a couple of choices. I could spend the day doing housework, cleaning, putting laundry away, washing floors, cleaning out cupboards etc. OR I could make something for dinner that would be labourious enough to justify not actually doing all that housework. Guess what i chose? Shack has been asking me to make calzones for weeks and I have been too busy thinking of lasagne to pay any attention to him. You know, every time I text him to ask him what he wants for supper, he texts back "veal parmesan" and I always ignore him and make something else. I don't really like veal parmesan so I just can't get exited about making it and sometimes I feel a bit guilty about that, especially...

My friend, Jen, at  Piccante Dolce  has issued a lasagna challenge for November and I was so exited about joining in the fun that I started this blog so I could play along. I have some ideas floating around in my head for the next three weeks but I wanted to start simple for the first week. It also helped that I had a big bowl of meat sauce in the fridge that I had to use up. Since the three of us all have different needs in a lasagna, I was interested in making individual lasagnas. I thought about making three small lasagnas but i only have ramekins, which are too small or various mismatched casserole dishes of varying sizes.  To avoid a catfight over who got the biggest casserole, I decided to make lasagna roll ups and customize each roll up since I like spicy and bitter, Shack likes mushrooms and Little Shack doesn't like either. I sauted mushrooms in garlic, olive oil and a bit of butter for Shack and I. I sauteed some finely chopped kale for Little Shack and Rapini...