Low Carb Four Cheese Chicken Casserole

Low Carb Four Cheese Vegetable Chicken Casserole
Last night Teri and I felt inspired after our workout to create a new dish, inspired by a quinoa casserole dish recipe I had. And it was very pleasing. It's a great alternative to high carb dishes and you don't miss the pasta that's usually thrown into a dish like this. So we wanted to share it with you.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 c diced, cooked chicken
1 10 oz package of chopped frozen spinach
1-2 bell peppers of your choice
1 medium onion (optional)
3-6 cloves garlic (depending on what you like)
1-2 c broccoli and cauliflower florets
1 c almond milk
½ c almond meal
1 ½ c shredded cheddar
¼ c shredded parmesan
¼ c crumbled goat cheese
1 c mozzarella cheese
1 teaspoon chili powder
Salt and Pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 375.
Grease a 9 x 13 casserole dish.
In a large sauté pan put your olive oil and warm the pan. Sauté the garlic, peppers and onion until softened.
Mix your chicken, cauliflower and broccoli in your casserole dish. Add the cheddar, Parmesan, almond milk and goat cheese. When your other veggies are ready add those in. Add the salt and pepper and chili powder. Give everything a good mix, evening it out. Take the mozzarella and almond meal and mix them together. Sprinkle evenly across the top of your casserole. Cook for 30 minutes, until the top is golden brown.

There's a Light....

After I got addicted to attending Cinespia this summer in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery I have felt sad about not being able to see old movies in a fun setting.
Well ladies and gentlemen I am pleased to share the news of a new venture that launched in October Called Electric Dusk Drive-In. It's a new drive in on top of a parking garage in Downtown LA. They even have carhops to deliver snacks and goodies! This month they are doing brazil and tickets are available through goldstar.com if you like that movie. I am holding out to take my fiance next month because they are playing Back to the Future, the perfect Drive in movie! If anyone wants to attend with us let me know! See you at the movies!

Book V8.3

Still missing my kindle. Hate it when I lose my place in real books. I need bookmarks that actually mark, goddamit! But at least when I actually go book shopping there are cool things to be found. My friend Rebecca discovered someone had given a used book store a signed copy of The Eyre Affair! Some person named Leslie, well your loss is my gain. I have enjoyed Jasper Fforde's work for the past decade and I love having a copy signed by him for only a dollar!
So I have been enjoying a reread of the series, double courtesy of Rebecca, until I get a new kindle.
In other news I am jumping on an opportunity to fulfill a resolution, again courtesy of Rebecca.
I will be volunteering to help clean up the LA Watershed. Orientation is next weekend. It's great because it goes along with 'clean in 13' as well. Josh will be joining me on this new adventure which makes me very happy. So far I am satisfied with the direction 2013 is taking.

Tart Appletini

Not entirely sure what to call your Friday cocktail. It's something I made up and isn't quite one thing or another. I love savory cocktails and one day I was trying to decide what to with some hard apple cider Josh brought home.
We already had apple juice around, something of a rarity in my house, (I was using it for cooking)and it was the good kind, 100% not from concentrate. So knowing both were too sweet for my taste I decided to go a bit rogue and add one of my favorite ingredients, the amazing and healthy unpasteurized apple cider vinegar. As good for you as coconut oil. So here goes the full recipe.
6 ounces hard apple cider
1 ounce vodka (to make it more of a real drink)
2-3 tablespoons good apple juice
1 tablespoon unpasteurized apple cider vinegar (or to taste)
Cinnamon stick for garnish
Combine ingredients, shake, and serve over ice
It's got a nice puckery taste and it's a way to get your daily apple in!

Xena, Prime Rib, and Murder!

Lots of great things are happening around LA in the near future. For those into Xena Goldstar has free tickets to the Xena convention this weekend! Lucy Lawless with be there so it's a great deal if you dig that show.

Dine LA is coming up the 21st through February 1st. I highly recommend it as a way to try some of the best LA has to offer food wise without breaking the bank. Open Table has all the details. It's worth making an account for when you make your reservations so you can earn free food back. Why not, you are going to go there anyway.

And speaking of the awesome restaurants on Dine LA Lawry's is doing another Murder Mystery Dinner on January 30th. Lawry's Event. Make your reservations soon though, these will go fast.
Happy Thursday!

Super Spaghetti Squash

Tonight Teri London my best friend and our friend Rebecca invented a great recipe we just had to share,over the woes of my lost kindle and the half finished baby blanket I am working on. We started by knowing we wanted spaghetti squash and from there, so here is my attempt to quantify it for your enjoyment.

Ingredients (6 servings)

2 smaller spaghetti squash or 1 big one
1 bag spinach
1 container white mushrooms
1/4 c plus 4 tablespoons olive oil
3-5 cloves garlic minced (we added about 5)
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/2 c Gorgonzola plus 3 tablespoons
3 tablespoons crumbled bacon
3-4 cooked chicken breasts
salt and pepper
We cut the spaghetti squash in half, scooped out the seeds and put it in the oven facedown on a cookie sheet at 350 for 45 minutes.
While that cooked we sauteed the mushrooms and all but 1 clove of garlic
Then we cut up the chicken pieces and added those
In a separate small sauce pan we put the 1/4 c oil, vinegar, 1/2 c Gorgonzola, salt and pepper. We let that cook down into a sauce while we added the spinach to the mushrooms, chicken and the last of the garlic.
When the spaghetti squash was cooked we added all the ingredients together and served hot, with the last of the bacon and Gorgonzola crumbled on top to taste.

Meats and Marinades

Josh and I discovered a fantastic cut of meat we have never tried before. It is the Chateaubriand. Amazingly tender and juicy and it was cooked to perfect medium rareness, not a bit more done than necessary. It was so soft you barely had to chew. It was served with a bernaise sauce but did not need it one bit. So if you go to Kelly's of Naples try it, you won't be disappointed.

My recipe for you today is a go to one that Josh and I created together. It's fairly idiot proof. We don't really measure it in perfect quantities but here ya go:
It is roughly 1 tablespoon each of soy sauce, sriracha sauce, yellow mustard and either brown sugar, or in our case of trying to be low carb, coconut sugar. Mix them together and throw your meat in for 1-2 hours. Our favorite is over pork tenderloins, which we then toss in the oven at 350 for 40 minutes. Gives it a nice sweet hotness, and the sugar caramelizes the meat nicely to lock in the juiciness. You can easily mess with the ratio of the ingredients, depending on how hot or sweet you like it, but it couldn't be much simpler. Enjoy!

2012 Summary

Finally have time to share my summary of the year and my goals for the next year. It has been an interesting year, full of lots of down but some occasional ups. The ups included starting this blog, National Novel Writing Month, The Ball at the Egyptian Theater, my dance show and trying aerial silks.

I haven't had a chance to think too much about what I want out of the next year since I was enjoying time with my family over the small New Year's break but I am going to try.

First off I would like to finish the novel I started in November. That is my main goal for 2013.
Obviously continuing this blog is important, defining it more. 5 posts a week is definitely more than I can currently handle, but finding a balance of posts is achievable.

Second I would like to find a place to volunteer more and do that when I have spare time, maybe once a month.

Since I am already behind on the Leslie Sansone Mile a Day in 2013 challenge I would like to complete 365 miles over the year. I feel I can do that. And I think that will put me in a more fit place.

I would like to continue to try new activities all year long. Up first is pole dancing with my friend.

I would like to move into an apartment with a nicer oven.

Kind of dorky but I would like to achieve better posture.