I love weekends. I know you're with me on this one.

Friday Happy Hours. Sleeping in. Turkey bacon breakfast sandwiches. New purple sunglasses. Disneyland. 

 

 

And the occasional thunder and rainstorm.

Say what? In Southern California? YES. Saturday morning I woke up in bed to the sound of pouring rain and really loud thunder. Ian was like, "Do you hear that?" and I was like, "Yeah, wtf, why are they emptying the dumpster so early on a Saturday morning?!" But it was not the garbage men, it was rain, hooray!! I was so excited. I put pants on, a sweatshirt and even put socks and my cute boots on. We went out to run some errands and not only had the rain stopped, the sun had come out in full force. Yeaaaah. It sucked. 

I did some cooking. I made this:

Balsamic Chicken with blue cheese. But I didn't really like how it tasted on the grill, so I'm working on a baked version to share with you, hopefully I'll have that up this week :)

I even tried to do some baking today...I found this really good recipe for some cheesecake brownies BUT when I opened the flour sack, there were little bugs in it. Ew. So no brownies today.

But what I did make is this delicious polenta and red pepper dish. I'm serious, it's amazing. We almost didn't have leftovers. Very easy, and makes super good leftovers. Add a little seasoned chicken breast or some crumbled turkey sausage if you want it meaty. I roasted my own peppers, but if you don't have time you can use bottled roasted peppers. The fontina cheese is perfect in this dish, and I reallly recommend using it, but in a pinch you could use mozzarella. Same for the Herbes de Provence, they're really tasty, but they're basically Italian Seasoning with lavender so you can swap if you need to.

I'll get back to you on the brownies and the balsamic chicken, promise. 

Polenta with Roasted Red Peppers and Fontina Cheese

makes 6 servings, 180 calories per serving

Adapted from My Recipes

• 3 large red bell peppers
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp Herbes de Provence 
• 1 (28 oz) can whole tomatoes, undrained and chopped
• 1 (16-ounce) tube polenta, cut crosswise into 12 slices
• 1 cup shredded fontina cheese 

• 1. Preheat broiler. Cut peppers in half lengthwise, remove seeds and membranes. Place peppers, skin side up, on foil-lined baking sheet. Broil 10 minutes or until blackened. Place in a zip-lock bag and seal. Let stand 15 minutes. Peel and cut into strips. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 350°. Drain tomatoes but reserve liquid. Set aside.

• 3. Place a large skillet over medium-low heat and add garlic. Use a little of the tomato sauce to cook the garlic until fragrant. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a minute. Gradually add tomato liquid and simmer another minute. Add the Herbes de Provence and pepper strips, and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

• 4. Spread 1/4 cup pepper sauce in bottom of a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Arrange polenta slices over pepper sauce; spread remaining pepper sauce over polenta. Top with cheese. Bake for 25 minutes. 

enjoy!

Amanda