Perfect Winter Supper

We just had such a yummy, and healthful supper, perfect for after all the junk from the holidays.

Winter Stew

3 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 can white beans or 1 pound chicken chunks
Half a bulb of fresh fennel chopped
1 large onion chopped
1 stalk celery chopped
2 carrots chopped
2 cloves garlic minced, I use garlic paste
2 good size potatoes chopped
1 cup white wine
3 - 5 cups veggie stock, or chicken stock, or water, but stock is better
2 tsp lemon pepper seasoning, mine had salt, so I didn't add any salt
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

Heat a large pot over medium to medium high heat.  If using chicken season it with half the lemon pepper seasoning.  Brown on all sides then stir in veggies and garlic, and add rest of seasoning.  If not using chicken, saute all the veggies and beans and garlic together with the seasoning till the onion starts to become translucent.  Add in the wine, stirring to scrape up any browned bits.  Stir in stock and simmer covered till everything is tender and sort of thick.  I start with the lower amount of stock and add any if it gets too thick while it cooks.  This took about 40 minutes for me.  Stir in fresh parsley.  Serve hot with crusty bread and the following cole slaw.

Winter Cole Slaw

Half a head of cabbage shredded
About 1 cup of shredded kale
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup yogurt or sour cream or mayonnaise for dairy free folks
2 T lemon juice
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp sugar
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all together in a bowl and let set while you make stew.


Eliza ate two bowls of cole slaw and ate up an entire huge bowl of stew.  Rich ate three!  CJ wasn't home, but loved it the last time we made it.  I love how light and refreshing the cole slaw is and how well it complements the stew.  Plus it is really easy except for the chopping, which can be done early.  Both can be made ahead, too.  Hope you try it :)

Perfect Summer Supper

I am sitting on my deck, enjoying a summer breeze, and the smell of my lavender and other flowers in the garden.  Tonight we ate out here, and had what I consider the perfect summer supper.  Easy, cool, light, but extremely filling and nutritious.  Salad Nicoise, homemade bubbly lemonade, and rhubarb blueberry pie.

Salad Nicoise

salad greens from the garden or farm market, I used about 8 cups for 4 of us
3-4 hard boiled eggs chopped
2-3 potatoes, cooked, peeled, and chopped
1 1/2 - 2 cups cooked fresh green beans, you want them still a touch crisp, not soft
1 cup of your favorite olives
2 cans water packed tuna, rinsed and drained well, optional for our resident vegetarians

What I like to do is put everything out in bowls and let everyone fix their own, like a salad bar.

The dressing is 2 T. country french vinaigrette seasoning from Penzey's mixed with 2 T. water, let sit a few minutes, mix with 1/3 cup each red wine vinegar and olive oil and 1 tsp dijon mustard, you can use any homemade dressing you like best though.

Pile on a platter or individual bowls and pour some dressing over.  I like to have the greens, beans, olives and tuna cold, and the rest still slightly warm.  Yum.

Homemade Bubbly Lemonade

I have a bit of an obsession with seltzer.  When it went on sale one time I bought 31 bottles.  31!  Obsession, like I said.  So recently we decided to invest in a soda stream machine, which makes liters of seltzer in seconds with just water and a co2 cartridge.  We LOVE it and use it daily.  So now we are working on mixing seltzer into all sorts of things, tonight lemonade.

Juice into a saucepan:
1 huge orange, or 2 regular
2 lemons
2 limes
Mix in 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar, we did about 1/3 cup and it was just right for us.
Heat just till sugar dissolves.  Pour over a pitcher with a couple cups of ice, and stir in 2 liters of plain seltzer.  So incredibly refreshing!

Later on I will post the pie recipe, with a half whole wheat crust.  It was so good!  Happy summer!

Homemade Junior Mints

3 oz cream cheese (I used Trader Joe's organic light whipped cream cheese and used a scale to weight it)
1/2 tsp mint extract
3 to 3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1 bag dark chocolate chips


Beat the cream cheese until smooth and creamy. Beat in the mint extract. Add in the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, (only needed 3 cups) until the mixture is stiff. It may look crumbly, but you should be able to push it together with your hands. Roll mixture into small balls and flatten slightly. I made these a little larger than junior mints but not quite as big as york patties, they were about the size of the ones you can buy for 25 cents.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, add a splash of milk if your chocolate does not seem smooth enough. Dip each mint in the chocolate until well coated and then place on wax or parchment paper on a baking sheet... Put this in the fridge until the chocolate sets... store in the fridge.

I was also thinking if you wanted these to be extra yummy you could crush up some hard candies or candy canes and add to the cream cheese mixture for holiday treats...

Game of Thrones Dinner and Easter Eggs

Sorry this post is so long in coming, it has been one crazy week!  Our Game of Thrones menu was deliciously successful, as the pictures will show.

We ate in stages all night.  Our first course, as it were, was this lovely bowl of mixed good olives, feta cheese, and warm white wine steeped with pepper, bay, clove,and lime.  It was very tasty. 

While we were snacking, we got the chicken ready.  Sliced oranges and lemons underneath.  Citrus herb butter under the skin.  Salt and pepper on top.  Rich butchered the chicken so we each got a half, but the breastbone was gone.  It smelled amazing cooking.

Oat bread with dates, candied orange peel, and diced fresh apple in it.  Everyone loved this.

Whole grain crusty sourdough bread.  Fantastic with honey butter.

Mustard stout deviled eggs.  These were topped with a little crunchy sea salt, and were an amazing snack.

Salad with greens from the garden, chopped fresh fennel and fennel fronds, and some fresh green beans.  This was topped with a homemade vinaigrette.  Yummy.

Cubanelle peppers stuffed with chopped caramelized onions and Italian blend cheese, and warmed just till the cheese was melted and started to brown.  These were amazing beyond words.  We will be making these again.

Rich preparing roasted beets and carrots tossed in olive oil.  Simple and sweet and delicious.

The completed chicken.  Drool.

Equal parts blood orange infused vinegar and honey cooked till syrupy as sauce for chicken.  Amazing.

Our complete meal, after all the appetizers.  Is it any wonder we didn't have room for dessert?  We served this with mulled wine, made from home brewed black currant wine, mixed with home brewed red wine, and cardamom, nutmeg, honey, and clove.

These are our naturally dyed Easter Eggs.  We used natural ingredients, boiled them with the eggs, and vinegar to create them.  We think they are lovely.  Starting at the left we used, herbal fruit tea, paprika and dried carrot, blueberry and red cabbage, red onion skin beet skins and cranberries, yellow onion skins, and lastly red tea with turmeric.  Next year we will try a green veggie to get green, and try to get purple somehow. 

 
Since we had all these hard boiled eggs lying around, today we had dill deviled eggs and salad for lunch.  We decorated the eggs with carrot and fresh dill.

Aren't they cute?

Awesome Cookies

These taste like a combination of a chocolate chip cookie and a macaroon.  I don't usually like to share recipes with such specialty ingredients but it is totally worth buying the coconut oil and coconut flour for this one.  I think these are some of the best cookies I have ever made and the whole family agrees.  Hope you try them and enjoy them as much as we do.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 375.

1/2 cup coconut oil, I used virgin which smells slightly coconutty
2/3 cup unpacked brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all in stand mixer or bowl with hand mixer till smooth and creamy.

Add 2 eggs and beat again till smooth.

Add in:
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup quick or old fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup coconut flour

Mix on low till thoroughly combined, won't be smooth due to oats.

Stir in 1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded coconut and 1 to 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets, I used a silicone lined pan.  Bake each tray for 10 minutes and let cool on pan a minute or two to firm up a bit.  Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely before storing airtight.

Hope you like them!

Sweet potato, Lentil and Kale Veggie Burgers w/Curried Yogurt Sauce

The Burgers:

3/4 Green Lentils
1 bunch of kale (I used about 1/3 bag of trader joes prewashed and cut kale) - Remove stems
1 medium sweet potato, cubed
1 medium onion diced
1 1/2 tsp garam masala
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
(recipes says pinch of cayenne here too, but my curry powder was plenty spicy enough without this)
3 garlic cloves
2 eggs beaten
3 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp salt
squeeze of lime juice (I took 1/4 of a fresh lime and hand squeezed it into the mix and that was fine)
3/4 bread crumbs
1/4 almond flour or meal (since we can't have nuts in our house I used wheat germ and it was a great substitute)

Preheat oven to 375.

Okay, the recipe has you using dried lentils for this, but I had a package of precooked lentils and it was fine for this.. I refuse to use dried beans whenever possible! Anyway, they also have you steaming the sweet potato and kale separately, but I found that if I put the sweet potato on the bottom of a steamer and the kale on top, and steamed it for about 8 minutes they both came out fine...

While the things are steaming, chop up the onion and garlic and sautee in olive oil with the spices until the onion is translucent. When the kale is done add that to the onion and sautee for about 2 minutes. Mash the lentils and sweet potato together with a potato masher, add the onion and kale mixture. Stir in the eggs, cilantro, salt, and lime juice. Fold in the bread crumbs and wheat germ or almond meal. Shape into patties (should make 5 or 6). Fry in olive oil until browned on each side, if your fry pan is oven safe put it in the oven and bake for 12 minutes.. or if you're like me and don't have a good fry pan that is oven safe, put them on a cookie sheet instead.

Yogurt sauce:

1 cup greek plain yogurt
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
2 tsp lime juice
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp coriander (I only had seeds so I didn't add this and it was just fine without it)
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of cayenne pepper (again, didn't want it too spicy so didn't add this either)
Drizzle of honey (I added more than a drizzle, but I like honey in yogurt)

Mix all the ingredients and serve on top of burgers.

Yummy Granola

So I stumbled across a recipe for carrot cake granola, on a blog, and had to try it.  I changed it up of course, as I often do, but it came out so amazing. 

2 cups oats, old fashioned not quick
1/2 cup seeds or nuts of choice, I used pecans and pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup large flake unsweetened coconut, can use shredded
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1 pear, pureed to a sauce
1/8 cup honey, maple syrup, or agave
3 T ground flax, I like golden flax for this
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp oil, I like coconut (melted) or any vegetable oil also works
2 tsp baking spice blend, I use Penzey's baking spice, you could use cinnamon or apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice or nutmeg, or whatever you like
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325.  In large bowl mix oats, seeds, and coconut.  In a blender puree the pear, adding the carrot, sweetener, flax, vanilla, oil, salt, and spices.  Mix till blended and pour over oat mixture.  Mix well.  Pour onto large cookie sheet and bake 30-40 minutes, stirring every 10 till crunchy.  Mine took 30.  Let cool on the pan.  Store airtight. 

If desired add some raisins once it is cool, I didn't as I don't always like raisins, but feel free to add any other fruit you like, dried pineapple would also be nice.  This is really yummy with yogurt.  I really like that it isn't too sweet or drowning in fat.  I am thinking they would make amazing granola bars. I will let you know if I try that.  The kids love this too!

Spinach, Corn and Roasted Red Pepper Enchiladas

Filling:

1 cup fat free cottage cheese
10 oz frozen chopped spinach (thaw this and press out the excess water in a colander)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion minced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 cups frozen corn, also thawed
7 oz diced roasted red peppers (drained and patted dry if canned)
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
pepper to taste

You will also need (8)8 inch wheat tortillas (I think mine were 10in, but it doesn't seem to matter as long as they fit in the baking dish.

The Sauce:
1 1/4 cup mild salsa
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup milk

1 1/4 cup Montery Jack Cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Puree cottage cheese in a blender until smooth, put in a medium sized bowl. Saute the onion in the olive oil until slightly carmelized, add cumin and spinach, saute until heated through. Let this cool, then mix with the cottage cheese and remaining filling ingredients. Grease 9x13 baking dish with butter. Divide filling into 8 portions and fill and roll tortillas with the filling (put them on a plate and not in the baking dish once they are rolled). Combine the sauce ingredients in a small bowl, spoon a little bit of the sauce into the bottom of the baking pan (just barely coat it). place the rolled enchiladas into the baking dish and cover with the rest of the sauce. Sprinkle shredded montery jack on top of the enchiladas, cover with tin foil and bake for 25 minutes... Take the foil off and bake for 5 more minutes.

Salad with Crumbled Goat Cheese and Honey Mustard Dressing

Okay, I made a lot of changes to this original recipe, so I'll just put down my modified version here. The original one had this salad serving 4 people and arranging the ingredients on the plates all fancy, but since I had to serve 8 people, I just added some extra lettuce and tossed it all into the same bowl... it was still delicious!

Dressing:
1 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp (finely!) minced red onion
pinch of salt
5 tbsp light olive oil

The Salad:

Okay I hate washing lettuce, so while the original recipe called for using red leaf romaine lettuce, I just bought a pre-washed mixed bag of mixed herb salad from Trader Joe's (the added dill in the bag actually made this all that much better in my opinion)... Anyway, use all of one of those pre-washed bags or about 8 cups of romaine lettuce.

The original recipe also calls for 2/3 cups slivered red onion.. what I ended up doing was just cutting a medium red onion in half, mincing it, using tbsp for the dressing and throwing the rest in the salad.

12 pitted kalamata olives, sliced
4 tbsp crumbled soft mild goat cheese (honestly I didn't measure this exactly, I probably used a bit more)

Whisk together dressing ingredients, pour over salad and toss till blended!

Coconut Macaroons Dipped in Chocolate

Macaroons:

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
5 1/2 cups flaked coconut (non sweetened)
1/4 tsp salt
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk (trader joe's sells this in a super easy squirt bottle)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Dipping:
1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, mix the flour, coconut and salt. Work in the condensed milk and vanilla (the recipe said with your hands, but that was soooo messy, so I just used a large spoon and it worked fine). Form into golf ball sized balls (or if you happen to have a macaroon press you can make them look all fancy). Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until coconut is toasted.

Once the cookies cool, melt the chocolate and milk in a small saucepan (either over very low heat or in a double boiler). Dip cookies as desired into the chocolate, place them back onto the parchment paper until the chocolate sets.

Homemade Marshmallows

One of our favorite sugary treats.  You can make these any flavor you like simply by adding extracts or spices.  I have tried chocolate, but make sure you use fat free syrup or cocoa powder, otherwise the fat will make the marshmallows dense and flat instead of airy and fluffy.  One of my favorites was the coffee, I just added espresso powder.  Mint is nice for winter too.

3/4 cup cold water
2 1/4 oz packets unflavored powdered gelatin, I use Knox
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp to 1 T vanilla, depending on how strong a vanilla flavor you want
1/2 - 1 tsp other flavoring optional

Make sure you have everything ready before you start.  This is one recipe where measuring as you go could be problematic.  You will need a stand mixer or hand mixer with the whip attachments, a saucepan, an 8 inch square pan, a thermometer, a couple of bowls spoons and spatulas.

In small bowl combine cold water and gelatin, stir to dissolve.  Pour into your stand mixer, or bowl to mix in.

In another bowl mix the confectioners sugar and cornstarch.  I like to put this in a device I have that sifts sugar onto cakes or what not.  Sprinkle or sift half this mixture into the bottom of the 8 inch pan.  The other half will do on top of the marshmallow mixture.

In saucepan cook corn syrup, granulated sugar, water and salt over medium high heat until it reaches 235 on the thermometer, about 6 to 8 minutes.  (If using cocoa powder, add it here so it dissolves and cooks into the sugar mixture.)  Combine this with the gelatin mixture and flavorings.  Beat on medium high speed until thick and fluffy about 6 minutes.  At this point you could fold in some coconut or mini chocolate chips, but don't add these any sooner as they will deflate the mixture.  Scrape into the 8 inch pan and spread to the edges.  Sprinkle or sift the remaining cornstarch mixture over the top.

Let dry overnight, and then cut into whatever shape you like.  You can use colored sugar or toasted coconut mixed into the cornstarch mixture for some variation, or wait and roll the cut marshmallows into toppings like that.  They are also yummy dipped in chocolate.  Hope you enjoy them.  If you have any questions please call.  They are easier than they seem, and taste so much better than store bought.

Honey Wheat Bread (bread machine recipe)

Okay here is my favorite bread machine recipe so far:

1 3/8 cup water
4 1/4 cups Bread Flour (All purpose flour works fine too)
1/2 cup Cracked Wheat (This is the same dang thing as the Bulgar you use to make tabbouleh - although it took the lady at whole foods 10 minutes to figure that out for me, since they had nothing called cracked wheat anywhere in the store)
3 tbsp honey
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp Butter
2 tsp Active Dry yeast

My Zojirushi says to use the "Quick Wheat" setting for this bread... I'm not sure of the equivalents on other bread machines - If folks are really interested I'm happy to post up the basic timing of the cycles so that you can figure out what works with your machines!

Trader Joe's mishap...

Just an FYI so no one else wastes a bunch of ingredients - Trader Joe's 100% Whole Wheat flour is actually WHITE whole wheat flour... soooo, it totally doesn't work for bread machine recipes that call for wheat flour...

DOH! :)

Pineapple and Coconut Yumminess

I think pineapple and coconut is a fabulous combination.  Especially in a dessert, when the coconut is a little toasty.  I love that this is also a fairly healthy dessert or snack since it uses whole grains.  In addition, it is as easy as a box cake with far yummier results.

Fruity Snack Cake

2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar unpacked
2 eggs
1/4 canola or veg oil
1 20 oz can crushed pineapple with juice
1/4 cup plus 1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1/2 cup sliced almonds or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 13x9 baking pan.  In a bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, eggs, oil, fruit and juice and 1/4 cup coconut.  Stir till combined.  Pour into greased pan.  Sprinkle with remaining ingredients and bake 35-40 minutes till done.  Cool at least 10 minutes before cutting.

This is really yummy with pineapple sherbet!