What's For Dinner Wednesday

I'm keeping it short and sweet tonight. First of all, THANK YOU to those of you who shared their dinner menu last Wednesday. I was inspired by Ellen's tofu and Erin's stroganoff and made Tofu Mushroom Stroganoff over brown rice, with sourdough bread and carrot spread for tonight's dinner. Sounds pretty tasty, no? Unfortunately, it was...eh. Definitely edible, there was (thankfully) no gagging toddler at the table tonight, but it was definitely not make-again-good. And not a recipe worthy of sharing. Sorry. :)

I will, however, come through with a good recipe later this week. Stay tuned. ;)

What did you have for dinner tonight??

What's For Dinner Wednesday

Sometimes it's really hard to decide what to make for dinner. I find myself getting into ruts and patterns of cooking...for example, right now we're in a root vegetable rut. I just can't get my mind out of the carrots/kale/potatoes/yams/beets rut. :) Sometimes all it takes is a dinner at a friend's house to get a new idea, and I can get myself into a whole new rut. So begins my new, weekly, What's For Dinner Wednesday. I will share with you, readers, what we had for dinner each Wednesday night. Even if it's a bad day and we just have PBJ for dinner. And, if you're nice, you'll share what you had too. Please save us from root vegetable overdose!

Cheeeeese!

Tonight's dinner was:

•Barley Vegetable Risotto (recipe below....barley because I'm trying to cook some other grains besides just wheat, wheat, wheat)

•Sourdough bread with curried carrot spread

•Baby carrots and roasted garlic hummus

What did you have for dinner???

BARLEY AND VEGETABLE RISOTTO

adapted from "More Vegetables, Please!" cookbook

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 c pearl barley

2 c white wine

2+ c vegetable broth

1 c cubed sweet potato

1 c torn pieces kale

1 c chopped broccoli

2 med tomatoes, chopped

3 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

Saute onions in oil over medium heat until tender. Add garlic and barley and cook, stirring often, for 2-3 minutes. Add the wine and cook until it's evaporated.

Steam the veggies and set aside.

Gradually add the broth (warm it first!) to the barley, stirring it regularly until it's cooked, about 50-60 minutes. Add additional broth if needed.

Stir in the cooked veggies, remove risotto from heat, and stir in tomatoes and cheese.

Serve sprinkled with additional parmesan cheese and/or toasted pine nuts.

A Rainbow for St. Patty's Day

Okay, Okay, I know...I'm a day late for an official St. Patty's Day celebration. Can I blame it on being a little stuck in laid-back California time? :) San Francisco was beautiful, the baby traveled amazingly happily, and my friend was the best travel company! THANKS, MANON!! (also thanks to Manon for this weeks recipe!) :)

I hope everyone's not too sick of roasted vegetables...I feel like that is the basis of many of my meals lately, but this one is waaaay too good not to share. Sadly, no photos of this one because hubby took the new laptop to LA with him (we swapped coasts within 24 hours...I tried to convince him to take Lainey with him and let me meet up with him in LA, but the flights were too expensive. :( ). You'll have to go on description alone for this one. It sounds pretty simple and maybe even a little boring, but it's NOT. It's so good. I've made it now for dinner company three or four times, and it's a hit every time. And, Lainey gobbles up every veggie on her plate, without hesitation or convincing. Gotta love that.

I've served Rainbow Salad now over rice, over lo mein noodles, over ramen noodles, and as a stand-alone with bread. It's quick and easy and full of flavor. Hope you like it!

RAINBOW SALAD

7 C. root vegetables, chopped: (use any, all, or a few of the following)

turnips

red beets

yellow beets (they have these at Price Chopper on occasion!)

chioggia beets/candystripe (the farmer's market)

red carrots

yellow carrots

orange carrots

sweet potatoes

7 whole garlic cloves

2 c. chopped kale or spinach

1/2 c. cashews, chopped

Whisk these ingredients together for the dressing:

1/4 c. rice wine vinegar

1/2 c. sesame oil

1/4 c. vegetable oil

3/4 c. soy sauce

2 tbsp. honey

2 tsp. dijon mustard

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2" ginger, minced

Chop roots and add whole garlic cloves. Roast in oven at 425° for at least 45 minutes until fork tender. Add chopped kale/spinach to warm veggies; this slightly cooks the kale for a wilted texture. Add chopped cashews. Toss in about half the dressing, and save the rest to add to individual servings as desired.

California, Here I Come!

I'm taking a mini-vacation this week...Lainey is staying home with Daddy, while baby Sarah and I fly with my dear friend to San Francisco for a long weekend. I'm super excited. However, it hit me last night that I'll be leaving half of my little family with no head chef. :) Unfortunately (for them), my hubby is a mess in the kitchen (figuratively and literally!)...so I'm left with two choices:
1. Leave them to fend for themselves (and eat Moe's bean burritos, PBJs, and canned baked beans) for five days.

OR
2. Get crackin' on some serious cooking that will feed them at least something in the healthy/vegetable category while I'm away.

So, I got my butt in gear today. I made the biggest batch ever of my veggie soup this morning, and I'm making a super-sized

dinner for tomorrow night with the hopes of having some leftovers to save (menu TBD...still unsure). Then Lainey and I baked some delicious Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins this afternoon. She is my official banana masher.

This is one of our favorite recipes, we make some with our extra bananas just about every week. It's really,

really good, and does NOT taste like it's whole wheat. (Check out Lainey's beautiful apron from our friend Emma!! :) )

CHOCOLATE CHIP BANANA BREAD MUFFINS, adapted from Whole Foods for the Whole Family
1 3/4 c whole wheat flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/3 c. oil
1/2 c. honey
2 eggs, beaten OR 1/2 c applesauce (I do applesauce, they come out super moist)

3 medium bananas, mashed
1/4 c. hot water

1 c. choc chips (I use the grain sweetened chips from the co-op, just eyeball it until it looks good and chippy!)
Cream oil and honey in mixer. Mix in the applesauce, then bananas. Add the dry ingredients, pour in the hot water (I just keep the mixer on the whole time), then fold in the chips. Bake at 325° until a toothpick comes out clean. Time depends on what you make--mini muffins take about 10 minutes. A loaf pan takes 45-55 minutes.

The end of my kitchen help came when a pretend phone call came in from Aunt Erin... :)

The last while-I'm-away menu item I made was a surprisingly tasty salad dressing for some Apple Goat Cheese Salad. I've kind of been on a goat cheese kick ever since my pizza... Anyway, the dressing is five minutes to mix up, then just drizzle over some lettuce (pre-washed

and waiting for family in the fridge!) with diced apples and some goat cheese crumbles. We had some tonight and it was a hit with the adults. Lainey didn't like the goat cheese, so I'll leave that out for her next time. Who knew there was a cheese she wouldn't like?

SALAD DRESSING, from Paula Deen

2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1 small clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/3 c olive oil

Mix all ingredients but oil. Whisk in oil or just shake it up in a jar with a lid!

I may post my last big-batch dinner, but in all likelihood I'll be hustling around trying to get my packing done tomorrow. Anyone have any tips on what NOT to miss while in San Francisco??

I'm in Love...

With a blog. Let me explain. For days now I've been craving some roasted veggies...we stocked up on tons of root vegetables this weekend at the co-op, and this afternoon they were calling my name. I decided to hunt the internet for a new recipe using roasted veggies, and I found the best blog. Seriously. I emailed the blogger just to tell her how wonderful her blog is. So, we can thank Jan over at Mixing Bowl Kids for tonight's yumm-o dinner. Her blog is packed with awesome recipes, and she has tons of ideas for involving kids. She's my hero. :) Take a look and you'll see what I mean. (I had to stop looking because I got overwhelmed with how many of her recipes I wanted to try!!) Okay, on to the food. Directly from her blog...
Honey Roasted Root Vegetables with Pasta and Goat Cheese
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
6 large carrots, peeled and sliced 6 shallots, peeled and halved
1 beet, peeled and diced 2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp grainy Dijon mustard
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp fresh thyme

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Place all of the veggies on a parchment lined baking sheet.
Combine the honey, oil and mustard and pour over vegetables. Toss to combine well.
Sprinkle with salt and thyme.
Roast for 30 minutes or until brown and fork tender.

** For a complete meal toss with your favourite cooked pasta and sprinkle with goat cheese.

I almost never follow a recipe as-is (unless I'm baking), so I did make a couple little changes. I had no shallots, so I just roasted three large cloves of garlic instead. I increased the beets to 3 because (as Lainey says), I love love love beets. I also doubled the sauce so that I had some extra to toss into the pasta (leftover whole wheat angel hair), along with a tiny bit of olive oil. Oh, and I threw in a few big handfuls of spinach to wilt at the end. Last change was a splash of lemon juice, just because (honey and lemon are good together?).

The photo I posted doesn't do the meal justice. I'm a terrible photographer with a crummy camera. But it gives you an idea, at least.

For dessert, we had these peanut butter cookies, from Jan's other blog, Family Bites--they were insanely easy and really good! Try 'em!

Kale, Revisited...

My dear, dear friend Emma came over Friday night, toddler and baby in tow, with dinner. I'm so lucky to have friends in my life who not only cook me dinner, but even bring it to my house (my friend, Stubborn--from this post-- does this all the time, too). I love to cook, but it's really a treat to have a delicious dinner and great company come right to my door.

Emma arrived with two incredible homemade pizzas: butternut squash with goat cheese and fresh mozzarella, and kale with fresh mozzarella and ricotta (I think that was the cheese combination...). The kale, oh, the kale...when it baked on top of the pizza, it turned into these crunchy, crispy bites of deliciousness. All of my previously mentioned feelings about kale were out the window...all I could think with every bite was that I could so eat a bowl of this kale!

So, after having kale pizza on my mind all weekend, I used Friday's dinner as inspiration for tonight's. Pizza #1 was butternut squash with caramelized onions, goat cheese crumbles, green apple and mozzarella cheese. Pizza #2 was ricotta and mozzarella cheese, caramelized onions, tomatoes, and kale. I attempted a homemade pizza crust that ended up more like a thick cracker, and these pizzas were still so good I could eat them every night this week. I can't wait to try it again with a decent crust.

There's no formal recipe, but here's what I did.

Prep work:

1. Slice a small onion into thin strips, put into a skillet on med. heat with about 1 tbsp. butter and 1 tsp. brown sugar. Cook, stirring often, until caramelized.

2. Cook a butternut squash, whole, in the oven, for about 45 minutes at 350°. Let it cool, peel the skin off and cut around the end with the seeds. Puree. (I always just cook my squash whenever I have the oven on for anything else; just stick it in the fridge until I need it.) Leftover puree freezes well.

Roll crusts out to fit 9x13 cookie sheets (greased) and top as follows:

Pizza #1: Spread pureed butternut squash in a thin layer across entire crust. Sprinkle with caramelized onions (about 1/3 c.) and crumbled goat cheese (1/4 c.), and one diced apple. Top with desired amount of grated mozzarella cheese.

Pizza #2: Sprinkle crust with 1/4 c. mozzarella cheese. Add caramelized onions (1/2 c.), half of a diced tomato, randomly dropped teaspoons of ricotta cheese, another sprinkling of 1/4 c. mozzarella, and a few leaves of torn up kale all over the top.

Bake at 400° for 10-15 minutes.

The kale, again, was the highlight of this pizza for me. I wanted to pick it all off, but I exercised some self-restraint, only for the sake of the leftovers. A quick internet search after dinner led me to this recipe for Baked Kale Chips...whoa. Stay tuned, because I am so making these this week. :)

The only toddler-friendly note I should add is that the idea of sauceless pizza didn't go over great with Lainey. A small bowl of marinara on the side was all she needed to eat this one right up. Oh, and she thought "Apple Pizza" was a pretty cool thing to have for dinner, too (versus the initial refusal when she thought it was squash pizza). It's all about presentation!

Get your Read On

For many years of my life, I almost never thought about my food (besides things like "yum" or "yuck" :) ). I paid a little more attention as I got older, out of college, and then even more attention when I was feeding my family, not just myself. I started really learning about what we eat, and I've been surprised along the way about how little I really knew. (And how much BS there is in the supermarket, too, by the way...for example, if you're spending extra cash on "all natural" chicken like I was, you're throwing your precious dollars out the window). At the risk of sounding too preachy here--YOU are the only one that has your (and your family's) best interest in mind, so question, read, and learn!!

These first three books are MUST-READ books for anyone interested in learning about where our food comes from and what we're feeding ourselves and our kids...

What to Eat, by Marion Nestle (learn about what all-natural really means!)

Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer (this book was incredibly well-written...couldn't put it down)

The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan (he was just on Oprah, did you see??)

My other book recommendations are my cookbook all stars. I'm really picky with cookbooks, because I HATE putting in all the time to try a recipe, and have a meal that is really not worth the effort. These are the books I pull out over and over, the ones that inspire my Leslie-creations, the ones that are full of pretty much no-fail recipes.

Whole Foods for the Whole Family, from La Leche League (don't judge a book by it's cover...this one happens to have the cheesiest cover of all time)

The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen (every single recipe I've made from this book is phenomenal!)

Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites, by Moosewood Collective (these need the occasional doctoring up, but also really great recipes)

I have a few new cookbooks on the shelf that I haven't gotten to explore yet (including "The Sneaky Chef" and Alicia Silverstone's "The Kind Diet"), so there may be more to come, but this is a pretty heavy start. Happy reading!

Spaghetti...It's What's For Dinner...All Week...

I am feeling less than creative, and not much into cooking this week. Ugh. That's how I feel. It's for a reason, though--this is the fifth week in a row of hubby traveling for some portion of the week. I am all about easy dinners when I'm Solo Mama, so Lainey and I are definitely are getting our fill of pasta lately. I made an entire box of spaghetti on Sunday with the plan of just eating it every night this week. In college, my room mate made an incredible spaghetti pie (basically an yummy mess of spaghetti and lots of cheese), and I figured I could make a Sort-of Spaghetti Pie, with some cheese and throw in some veggies. Here's what I came up with: (no photo of this one because we ate it all before I remembered...trust me, it looked good!)

SORT-OF SPAGHETTI PIE

3 medium carrots, sliced thin

1 leek, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

8 button mushrooms, chopped

3 kale leaves, finely chopped

1 jar pasta sauce

8 oz cooked spaghetti

about 1 1/2 c cottage cheese (I didn't measure....)

about 1 c shredded mozzarella cheese (again, didn't measure)

2 tbsp olive oil

In a small skillet, saute all veggies in olive oil until tender. **Add the garlic near the end or else it will burn. Set aside.

Mix a little sauce into the cooked spaghetti (just enough to coat it so it won't dry out).

In a small baking dish (I used the one a size down from my 9x13), coat the bottom with a layer of sauce. Put a layer of half the spaghetti on top, then top with half of your veggie mixture. Top with half the cottage cheese, and half the mozarella cheese. Repeat layers once more, and top with a bit of sauce and a light shake of parmesan cheese.

Bake, uncovered, at 350 for about 20 minutes, until bubbly.

Like most of my recipes, you can obviously just use whatever veggies you have...you could even just throw in a bag of frozen mixed vegetables.

Please stay tuned for a (hopeful!) return of creative cooking and more enthusiastic blogging!

Breakfast for Dinner!

Breakfast is my favorite meal lately, so tonight it's what's for dinner. There is something so comforting about it...maybe it's because it's what my mom used to make when I was sick, or for a special girls-only treat when my dad was out of town (he is not so much a fan of Breakfast Dinner). Either way, it's a treat. White flour pancakes will leave us all hungry by 8 pm, though, so whole wheat it is for us. I've tried quite a few whole-wheat pancake mixes, and they're pretty good, but usually are clearly whole wheat and need lots of syrup to make up for it. And I basically dismissed the idea of pancakes from scratch because it seemed like too much effort. With a toddler who decides that 5:30 a.m. is a reasonable time to start the day, though, I decided to take the effort to try it one morning a couple weeks ago.

I found this recipe for whole wheat banana pancakes after hunting through my cookbooks, and figured I'd give it a shot. W-O-W. Really. Sooo, good. The bananas, which I'm usually not a fan of in my pancakes, add just the right sweetness, and they are light enough to make it easy to forget that they're whole wheat. No more dry, drowned in syrup pancakes in this house!


WHOLE WHEAT BANANA PANCAKES

2 c. milk

3 eggs

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour

3/4 c. wheat germ

1 1/2 tbsp. brown sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. lemon juice

1 c. chopped bananas

Beat milk, eggs, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Pour 1/4 c. batter onto greased preheated griddle. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

From: Whole Foods for the Whole Family Cookbook, La Leche League International

The recipe made enough to feed two adults plus Lainey, AND have some extra to keep in the freezer (four to a layer, separated by wax paper, in a ziplock bag--just pull out desired quantity, throw in the toaster oven, and voila!). I also threw some chocolate chips into the last few. Delicious, of course.

To add to our pancake dinner, I served some scrambled eggs with a link of

chopped Smart Sausage Italian style "sausage". I bought the sausage last week because it was on sale, and I was actually pleasantly surprised with how good it tastes! My meat loving Dad even thought it was turkey sausage, so at 7g of total fat, 13 g of protein, and zero cholesterol per link, it's totally worth trying!

Now, go cook some breakfast...or dinner...or both! :)

Yogurt Making A La Stubborn

Yogurt-making has been the topic of discussion between a few of my friends recently. They're trying to master it, and having quite some trouble. Since I've been making yogurt for a while now, I started to email them my directions and I realized I might as well share with you all, too.

I must credit my dear friend, my yogurt-making teacher, for this one. She insists on remaining nameless, so from here out I will refer to her as Stubborn . :)

When Stubborn first explained it to me, it sounded a little complicated. But it's sooo easy, and much less expensive than buying yogurt in the store. No yogurt machine or crock pot necessary for this one. It makes a delicious plain yogurt, but you can also add a little maple syrup and about a teaspoon of vanilla to your jar when it's done...yum.

You will need some plain yogurt to start it the first time; I've had good luck with Stonyfield Farm and Hawthorne Valley yogurts.

Here's what to do:

1. Fill a Ball jar (or any desired container with a lid) with milk. I use milk from the local health food store--you want to avoid the ultra-pasteurized milk from the grocery store, it doesn't support the growth of the bacteria that makes your milk into yogurt. Whole milk/2%/1%, doesn't matter. Pour your milk into a sauce pan and heat it on low heat until temperature is 170•F.

2. Turn off the heat, and let the milk cool until the temperature is 120•F. While it cools, add 3-5 big spoonfuls of your current yogurt to your jar. (maybe about 1/4 cup). When the milk is cooled, skim the top and pour it into your prepared jar, put on the lid, and shake vigorously for about a minute.

3. Now get creative. You have to keep this jar warm for several hours--it usually takes at least about 5 hours for the yogurt to set. To keep the jar warm, I put my oven mitt over the top of the jar (it's just the right fit) to cover it to the bottom, then wrap in a towel and place in front of our gas fireplace (even when ti's off, the pilot light puts off a little heat). When the fireplace is off for the season, I wrap the jar in a towel, put it up the sleeve of hubby's down coat, and stick it someplace warm in the house.

4. Come back about 5 hours later (depending on what you use for starter), and put your now-yogurt in the fridge. I often do this before bed at night and put it in the fridge in the morning...longer than 5 hours but it works.

Sometimes it comes out a little runnier than others...when this happens, I just wrap the jar up in my hot pad, on the high setting, for an hour or so. Check it, stick it back in the heat if necessary.

I'm no Alton Brown, so I can't explain the science of it or troubleshoot any problems beyond that, but I've never really had any! Good luck!