A cold and dreary day deserves a little sunshine!
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 frozen banana
1/2 cup frozen pineapple
2 tsp chia seed oil (optional)
Coconut water
Blend all ingredients in a good blender, adding coconut water until desired consistency is reached.
I was out doing some errands today, and decided to run by the local organic self-serve farm stand. (Love that place!) I picked up some summer squash and peppers, as well as a couple of beets to make some pink juice. From experience, I know that it's best to use the fresh vegetables as soon as possible, so I decided to use them for dinner. I cut up the squash and peppers with some onion and sauteed them in a bit of olive oil. I served the veggies over pasta and topped it with some left over organic marinara sauce from Trader Joe's and shredded mozzarella cheese. Yummy!
I've had a craving for mushrooms lately, so I picked some up at the store today. I also had some kale and baby spinach in the refrigerator as well as some cream that needed to be used soon, so I decided to make a lasagne. It made a wonderful dinner. I thought I'd share the recipe, although I don't really measure when I cook (except for baking) so the measurements are 'guesses'. I made an 8 X 8 pan, so double everything if you want to use a 9 x 13 pan.
Filling:
Sliced mushrooms (1 1/2 cups)
Chopped onions (3/4 cup)
Kale (small handful torn into small pieces)
Baby Spinach (small handful torn into small pieces)
Saute the onions in a pan with a bit of butter until translucent. Add the mushrooms, kale, and spinach and cook until the mushrooms are tender. Set aside.
Second filling:
Ricotta cheese (2/3 cup?)
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste
Italian Seasoning (1/2 tsp)
Parmesan cheese (2 Tb?)
Mix all ingredients and set aside.
Sauce:
Butter (1 or 2 Tb)
Garlic (2 cloves minced)
Vegetable broth (1 cup?)
Heavy Cream (1/2 cup?)
Italian Seasoning (1/2 tsp?)
Arrowroot (if needed to thicken)
Parmesan cheese (2 Tb?)
Melt the butter in the pan, add garlic and saute for a minute or so. (By this time your kitchen should smell really delicious!) Add vegetable broth and whisk in heavy cream. Add Italian seasoning. You can add a bit of arrowroot powder at this point if you want it to thicken a bit more. Cook over medium low heat until thick. Whisk in some parmesan cheese.
I like to use the no boil noodles. If you aren't using those, you'll need to cook the noodles before layering the lasagne. To layer the lasagne:
Put a few spoonfuls of sauce on the bottom of the pan. Layer with noodles, then spread half of the ricotta filling over the noodles. Layer half of the mushroom filling over the ricotta and sprinkle a bit of shredded mozzarella cheese on top. Repeat all layers beginning with the sauce. Add one last layer of noodles, the remaining sauce and some shredded mozzarella. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until bubbly.
Enjoy!
I made this for dinner and it is definitely something I'll be adding to my regular menu!
Ingredients:
Mashed Potato Topping:
3 or 4 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
2 T butter
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
milk
salt and/or other seasonings
Shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Other ingredients:
1 cup cooked lentils (I used green lentils, but brown would be fine.These take about 20 minutes to cook, but could be done earlier in the day or even the day before.)
Veggie bouillon powder
1 cup diced sweet potato
1 cup diced carrots
1 medium onion (cut in chunks)
3 or 4 peeled and coarsely chopped garlic cloves
grape seed oil
salt
thyme
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss the sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic with enough grape seed oil to coat. Spread on a pan and sprinkle with salt and thyme. Roast them until tender (about 30 minutes).
While the veggies are roasting, start your mashed potato topping. Boil the diced potatoes just until you can put a fork in them. Drain and add the butter and Greek yogurt. Mash the potatoes with a hand masher or a mixer, adding enough milk to make them creamy. I like to add a 1/2 tsp of Wildtree's Onion and Chive seasoning to my potatoes. Set this aside.
Add about 1/2 cup of water and a teaspoon or so of the veggie bouillon powder to the lentils. Transfer the lentils to an oiled casserole dish. Layer the roasted vegetable mixture on the lentils, then add the mashed potato topping over the vegetables. Sprinkle with sharp cheddar cheese (optional).
Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly (about 30 minutes).
I found a recipe for an avocado pasta salad on the internet, but I wanted to change it up some. So here is my recipe. This salad has a nice lemony thyme dressing:
1/2 cup Organic Mayo (I like Trader Joe's)
juice of one small lemon
1 tsp sugar
pinch of dried thyme (or 1 tsp of fresh thyme if you have it)
2 Tb olive oil
Whisk the above ingredients well and mix with:
1 Tb diced roasted red pepper
1 diced avocado
6 oz of cooked pasta
I ate a good portion right after I mixed it up. I ate the left overs the next day and the avocadoes stayed fairly green. Enjoy!
I saw a recipe for cauliflower alfredo sauce on pinterest a while back. I knew that there would soon be cauliflower in my CSA box, so I set the recipe aside until this week. Yes, this week there was cauliflower in my box! I didn't follow the printed recipe exactly, but here is what I did:
2 tsp minced garlic sauteed in a bit of grapeseed oil
2 small heads of cauliflower, chopped small and cooked in 3 cups of vegetable broth until very soft
Transfer the cauliflower and a bit of the broth with the sauteed garlic into a good blender (I have a Vitamix that I LOVE). Blend well, adding more broth if needed. While it is blending, add a bit of milk (just enough to 'whiten it') and a drizzle of olive oil. Pour over pasta (gluten-free for some of us!).
I served it with some grilled one ball and eight ball squash and grilled chicken!
Enjoy.
Today I tried a new sourdough recipe that Elizabeth Hoyt (thanks for letting me share it, Elizabeth!) posted on the Vintage Remedies sourdough facebook page. It is FABULOUS! Great texture, not overly sour. The only strange thing is that it fell a bit during baking- and this is an issue I have with almost every loaf and I have no idea why.
I ate three pieces today. I had to force myself to stop because I didn't want any gastroparesis issues cropping up!
The recipe:
1 cup active starter
3 cups flour ( I used half white wheat and half AP)
1 t salt
1 1/2 Tbs honey (I didn't really measure this.....)
2 Tbs melted coconut oil
1 cups water
Method: mix starter thru oil until combined, add water to the consistency of bread dough (amount will vary depending upon hydration of starter, type of flour) Knead in mixer 8-10 minutes, until windowpane is visible. (I just let it knead for 10 minutes, not sure if it was actually at the windowpane stage.....) Let rise in a warm place 5-6 hours, until doubled. (I let it rise overnight - about 12 hours and it was fine). Pat onto countertop, shape into loaf, set in greased loaf pan, and let rise an additional 2-3 hours until doubled again. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes. (I bake my bread until the internal temperature is just over 200 degrees.)
I thought my dough was a bit wet actually. I had used the full cup of water plus another teaspoon or so, but since it turned out so wonderfully, I guess it was okay!!!
I'm looking forward to eating some more tomorrow and baking another loaf in a couple of days!!
Last week my CSA box contained sweet potatoes and kale (among other things). I decided to make one of my favorite things for lunch: Sweet Potato Pizza.
This is such an easy thing to make.
You will need:
Mix your onion, sweet potato, and kale with some olive oil to coat. Arrange the vegetables on the pita bread, sprinkle with Italian seasoning and a bit of salt. Add your cheese and bake in a 350 degree oven until cheese is melted and potatoes are tender. Enjoy!
My boys came home from college for the weekend. I didn't have any pressing activities, so the weekend was free to do things that we enjoy doing. I've wanted to try this sourdough pretzel recipe. This is a very time consuming recipe, but the pretzels turned out very good! If I ever make them again, I won't bother 'shaping' them into pretzel shapes, as that was the most time consuming!
Then the boys both helped me make apple pie filling. I still have quite a few apples from our apple picking trip a couple of weeks ago and need to get them processed (although apples do last a long time refrigerated). I made a cinnamon simple syrup first:
2 1/2 cups white sugar
2 cups sucanat
10 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 cup tapioca or potato starch (I don't use cornstarch for anything!)
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3 Tb lemon juice (I used the juice of one lemon)
Put everything except the lemon juice into a large pot and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until thick and bubbly - stir in the lemon juice. I took my sliced and peeled apples and put them into quart jars and poured the syrup over the apples, leaving about an inch of room in the jar. Put the lids on and into the freezer! I had a lot of syrup left over, so I'll probably be making some apple pies and cobblers with the fresh apples still in the fridge. I guess my husband will just have to suffer! The next time I make this, I will use all sucanat and skip the white sugar altogether.
The weekend ended with me whipping up a quick loaf of gluten-free pumpkin bread for the boys to take back to school with them. I use this recipe for my gf pumpkin bread and you would never know it was gluten free!