Runaway October

In case you’re liv­ing under a rock, like I was until recently, this is the run down of Cre­ative Estates.

Doesn’t that sound like a mil­lion pounds of fun? (Who really says things like ‘a mil­lion pounds of fun’?)

Any­way, the con­fer­ence is in Chan­dler, Ari­zona on April 8^th, 9^th and 10^th. Tick­ets are only $149, which is dang cheap for a 3 day con­fer­ence of this type.

Check out the Agenda here. I’d have a hard time choos­ing which ses­sions to go to if I was able to go.

You can reg­is­ter here, but be sure to check out the whole Cre­ative Estates web­site, espe­cially the guest speak­ers.

If you’re like me and need to win tick­ets in order to go, be sure to check out Shey B’s Get Your Butt to Ari­zona give­away post here. She’s gen­er­ously giv­ing away 2 or more all-inclusive passes to the lucky win­ners. YAY!

Do you already have your tick­ets? No?! Bet­ter hurry! And let us know if you’ll be attend­ing!

I have a hard time cook­ing for my brood some most days. Some don’t like mush­rooms, some don’t like any­thing spicy, some don’t like food that requires work (such as chicken wings), some just don’t like any­thing like lit­tle Rowan. It can get frus­trat­ing when you’re flip­ping through a cook­book list­ing off deli­cious recipes and every­thing gets vetoed by one per­son or another. It’s also frus­trat­ing when you give up and choose some­thing and it doesn’t get­ting eaten quickly enough to not grow slimy in the fridge. I know. It’s hard to believe that hap­pens in this house.

Matt, the boys and I stopped by a Half-Price Book store the other night, and I res­cued a cou­ple beat up low­fat cook books for a dol­lar a piece. Can you imag­ine the groans that caused? “Low­fat? You mean ‘Fla­vor Free’ right?” Etc etc. But there are actu­ally quite a few recipes that I think will end up being keep­ers. This recipe is one of them.

Seafood is not some­thing we nor­mally eat. I’ve never been huge fan, Matt doesn’t see what the hype is about, and kids will be kids, right? My brother on the other hand… We made a dou­ble batch and picked up a pound of shrimp on sale for less than 5 dol­lars. Every­thing else I pretty much had on hand.

Even a large serv­ing of the dish comes in under 350 calo­ries. The pasta makes it very fill­ing, and the broc­coli gives you lots of good vit­a­mins. Am I the only mama blessed with kids that gen­er­ally love vegetables?

Par­don my bad pic­tures. The sun had gone down before I started din­ner. Oops!

Pasta in Gar­lic Sauce with Shrimp and Broccoli

Adapted from The 99% Fat-Free Cookbook

This clear, thin gar­lic sauce is a note­wor­thy change from the heavy mound under which pasta typ­i­cally is buried. It lends both a per­me­at­ing fla­vor and a gloss to the pasta, set off by flecks of seafood and veg­eta­bles.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingre­di­ents:

• 10 gloves garlic
• 1 cup 99% fat free, reduced sodium Chicken Stock
• 8 ounces uncooked thin-strand spaghetti
• 2 table­spoons water
• 1 pound broc­coli flo­rets (About 1 large head)
• 1/2 cup sliced white onion (About 1 small onion)
• 1/2 pound cooked medium shrimp (About 24) peeled, deveined, and halved
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
• 1/8 tea­spoon red pep­per flakes
• Salt and Pep­per to taste

Direc­tions:

• Put the gar­lic and stock in a small non­re­ac­tive sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Sim­mer for about 20 min­utes, until the gar­lic is soft and eas­ily smashed with a fork. Trans­fer the con­tents of the pan to a food proces­sor or blender, and purée until smooth. Set aside.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir­ring to make sure the strands don’t stick together, and cook over high heat to desired ten­der­ness. (3 to 4 min­utes for home­made or other fresh pasta, 8 to 10 min­utes for dry pasta.)
• Mean­while, put 1 table­spoon of water in a non­stick fry­ing pan and bring to boil over medium heat. Add the broc­coli and onion and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 3 min­utes. Add the shrimp, dill and the remain­ing table­spoon of water. Stir, recover and cook for 4 to 5 min­utes more. Remove from the heat.
• When the pasta in done, drain it in a colan­der and return it to the pot over very low heat. Add the gar­lic purée then mix well to coat the pasta. Add the broccoli-shrimp mix­ture and the sea­son­ings. Toss together until well blended and serve immediately.

Nutri­tion info:

• Calo­ries  316.1
• Total Fat 2.5 g
  • Sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
  • Polyun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.9 g
• Monoun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
• Cho­les­terol     110.5 mg
• Sodium     613.3 mg
• Potas­sium     416.4 mg
• Total Car­bo­hy­drate     49.7 g
  • Dietary Fiber 4.8 g
  • Sug­ars 2.1 g
• Pro­tein     22.2 g
• Vit­a­min A 30.0 %
• Vit­a­min B-12 14.1 %
• Vit­a­min B-6 15.8 %
• Vit­a­min C 115.2 %
• Vit­a­min D 0.0 %
• Vit­a­min E 7.2 %
• Cal­cium 7.8 %
• Cop­per 9.1 %
• Folate     39.6 %
• Iron     25.0 %
• Mag­ne­sium 10.6 %
• Man­ganese     18.5 %
• Niacin     30.3 %
• Pan­tothenic Acid         6.3 %
• Phos­pho­rus         14.5 %
• Riboflavin     22.1 %
• Sele­nium 36.7 %
• Thi­amin 36.0 %
• Zinc     8.8 %

I have been tagged by Tamara of 1/4 of an inch. Yay!

With­out fur­ther ado:

1.) I absolutely abhor clowns in any shape and form. *twitch* They really make me get creepy crawlies and I have to look away. I’m always afraid that I may go bal­is­tic if one ever approaches me in per­son.

2.) My hus­band pesters me to stop drink­ing soda, and I know I should. But I fear the caffiene with­drawls I get . I also fear try­ing to get through the day with­out caffiene.

3.) I des­per­ately want a lit­tle girl, but I need to drop a lot of weight (I’d be happy with 80 pounds) and I’d like to have the 3k for my home­birth mid­wife saved up already.

4.) I have a prob­lem fol­low­ing through and fin­ish­ing projects. I have 4 sewing projects that need fin­ish­ing and a ton of stuff that needs doing for Hal­loween.

5.) Speak­ing of Hal­loween, it is by far my favorite hol­i­day — fol­lowed by Christ­mas and St Patrick’s Day.

6.) I spend mas­sive amounts of time scour­ing blogs for tuto­ri­als. Much more time that I actu­ally spend doing the tuto­ri­als. Sad.

7.) Matt and I are try­ing to get into Real Estate invest­ing, but we’re hav­ing a hard time get­ting the money together for the tuition. I’m really scared about some of the cre­ative financ­ing ideas he is com­ing up with. I don’t want to ruin the lit­tle credit we have.

Wow. That felt like a mini ver­sion of Post­Se­cret!

As far as tag­ging peo­ple, well that never works. If you feel like play­ing please join me. Leave me a com­ment if you decide to play along.

Oh! I will tag Tina of Miz­zTin­aBam­Bina. Go check out her blog!