Winter Vegetable Hash, Two Ways!

We had Winter Vegetable Hash for dinner early this week, and it was a so-so hit. I loved it, my husband loved it, and Lainey ate it (with the regular reminder of a piece of Halloween candy for dessert if she did....). She didn't gag on it, but she didn't give me my "oooh, Mommmmy, fanks!" that I was hoping for. (C'mon, kid, this is a dinner with raisins in it!) The original recipe was from Allrecipes, and here's what I did:

Winter Vegetable Hash

serves 6

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

1 lb diced potatoes

1/2 lb diced mushrooms

2 small squash, partially cooked and diced

1/2 onion, chopped (I used leeks this time)

2 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

1 full cup chopped kale/other greens

4 sprigs of fresh sage (this time I only used about a teaspoon of dried, it was all I had)

1/4 c raisins

splash lemon juice

1 tsp garam masala (I added this on a whim and it was perfect!)

Place oil and butter in a large skillet; add onion and potatoes, cook about 10 minutes, stirring often.

Add garlic and kale. Cook another 10 minutes, stirring often.

Add squash, mushrooms, all seasonings, lemon juice, raisins, and stir well. Cover and cook, adding a little water/oil as needed to cook vegetables fully.

We had this topped with a little grated cheddar, but I would have liked to try topping it with a poached or fried egg. (Sorry, no photo this time, I forgot!)

So, it was a slightly Lainey un-friendly dinner...no biggie, except that I've been meal planning (see my post all about it tomorrow on the other blog I write for, From Scratch Club!!) and my double batch of Hash was supposed to be the main dish for my "leftover" night tonight. I'm really proud of the solution I came up with--probably a little too excited, but I feel like it was pretty darn creative. It was a hit all around (even my 1-year old babe Sarah ate an entire bowl!) and it was a piece of cake!

What did I do, you ask? I turned it into soup. I know the picture looks less than appealing (next time I'll try to shoot the greenish soup not in a green bowl...), but it was good--sorta like a pumped up potato leek soup. I heated all the leftovers in a large saucepan, and put a couple of inches of water in the pan. If you're unsure how much water to add, start with less than you think--you can always add more liquid once it's pureed. Once the hash was warm, I pureed it right in the pot with my immersion blender. I added a few splashes of milk and a little more water to achieve a good consistency, and served it topped with a handful of shredded cheese.

A leftover night success!!

Moe's at Home

I love a quick-to-prepare meal, especially when it's a pretty healthy one! This dinner is a home made alternative to one of our regulars, Moe's. Lainey is a huge fan of burritos, and I love that I can throw in a few extras at home to boost the nutrition of her dinner.

I must give credit where it's due for this one: my dear friend, Keely, inspired me to fix this meal, which not only led to an incredible dinner, but lunches for the entire week. Beautiful. :)

A rice cooker is a big help for this meal--any appliance that allows me to push a button and walk away is a must for me. I cooked the rice late-afternoon, and just kept it on the "warm" setting until dinner time. You don't need to go fancy on this; I have a verrrry basic Salton Rice Cooker that I bought in college for $18 and is still going strong.

Here's the rough recipe.

2 cups brown rice

4 cups water

1 can black beans

salsa

sour cream

avocado

grated cheddar cheese

1. Put rice and water in rice cooker with a splash of olive oil, and cook.

2. Drain and rinse one can of black beans. (any type of bean can be used)

3.. When rice is cooked, stir in about 1/2 c salsa; it should be just enough to give the rice some color and flavor.

4. Stir in black beans. I very roughly mashed about 1/3 of the can before stirring in, just to help it all come together a little more; totally optional.

Now, assemble as desired. I made Lainey a burrito--spread the rice mixture down the center of a whole wheat tortilla (I found the Archer Farms brand at Target actually has almost no gross ingredients and they're still soft and delish). Sprinkle with cheddar cheese, a few big dollops of mashed avocado (full of good fats!), a drop or two of sour cream, and any other desired fillings (lettuce, tomato, extra salsa...). I sprinkled in a handful of crumbled kale chips--you can get pretty creative. Roll the end up, fold the sides in, and roll the rest. To contain the mess, I usually then wrap the whole thing in a piece of foil that can be pulled down as the burrito gets eaten.

For my dinner, I made a rice bowl. Rice and beans topped with salsa, cheese, and sour cream. If I had lettuce on hand, I would have made the whole thing a taco salad. This is what I love about Mexican themed dinners--the same handful of ingredients can make an endless possibility of meals.

My Little Helper

This is a non-food post, but it's kinda, sorta food -related. I have been meaning to share this for quite some time, so tonight's the night! I made a pretty awesome kid-in-the-kitchen discovery. It's this beauty, from Bissell:

I bought this a year or two ago in hopes of having something to easily tackle the mess that was (well, still is...) my kitchen floor after every meal. I hate the feeling of crumbs stuck to my feet, and that's a tough pet peeve to have along with a toddler.

Anyway...the vaccuum itself is really nothing terribly special. It doesn't pick up huge bits of food, but it helps with most dinner messes. It's designed to be a dust-buster type, hand-held vaccuum, but it also has a handle that can make it like a little sweeper. Oh, and it's five pounds...very light for one of these things. Here's the beauty: when assembled as a floor vaccuum, if the handle is removed, it is now a perfect child's vaccuum.

I was able to clean up dinner, get the baby changed for bed, and clean up all the toys in the family room during the time Lainey spent vaccuuming the kitchen for me. I was thrilled to have help, and Lainey was thrilled to be the one who "cleaned the whooooole kitchen!". This doesn't count as child labor, right? :)

Autumn Perfection: Triple Ginger Cookies

I feel like my brain wants to start every post lately with some comment about how much I love the Fall. I'm sounding less than creative, but it's so true. I LOVE the Fall. And one of the main reasons I love the fall is for all the amazing foods that just taste so much better when the weather is cool. The smell of soup simmering on the stove all day, warm apple cider, sweet squash, root vegetables....sigh. LOVE LOVE LOVE!

One Fall Food that graces my kitchen counters on a verrry regular basis are these incredible Triple Ginger Cookies.

In my husband's world, a cookie is not a cookie without chocolate, so I confess that I bake these quite selfishly for myself. I've never been a big gingersnaps person; they're tasty, but I could never get into that extreme crispiness in a cookie. This, however, is the perfect blend of the gingersnap flavor with a very chewy cookie. They are delicious, and healthy--whole wheat flour, honey-sweetened, loaded with ginger to help you fight off all those nasty cold germs floating around this time of year...I literally can't get enough of them.

The "triple" ginger comes from three different forms of ginger baked into these beauties, so be sure to serve these to kiddos with a big cup of water or milk. Lainey enjoys them, but I do get an earful of "my tongue is tingling, mama!" every time she eats one.

TRIPLE GINGER COOKIES

2 1/2 c whole wheat flour

3 tsp powdered ginger**

1 tsp cinnamon**

1/2 tsp ground cloves**

dash of nutmeg**

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

tiny pinch cayenne pepper (yes, trust me!)

2/3 c honey

1/2 c oil

1 egg

1/2 c molasses

1/2 c chopped crystallized ginger

2 tbsp fresh grated ginger

---display-worthy crystallized ginger---

**I buy my powdered ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves from Wild Thyme, in Ballston Spa...they sell bulk organic herbs and spices for a FRACTION of what you'd pay in the grocery store, and the quality is incredible.

Heat oven to 350°. Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl, set aside. Mix all wet ingredients in another bowl. Mix wet and dry together.

Gently stir in crystallized ginger and fresh grated ginger.

Drop by the tablespoon onto cookiesheet (I have nonstick, so I don't grease mine) and bake 8-10 minutes. They WILL be soft, DO NOT OVERBAKE! Let sit on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes, then move to cooling rack to cool completely.

---oops...still working on cracking eggs...---

Creamy Veggie Pasta

I've been slowly working my way out of my cooking rut...sleep deprivation (cumulatively over the past three years) combined with a busy schedule leaves me in no mood to spend much time on dinner. The good news is that moods like this force me to find more relatively easy, sorta fast-to-prepare recipes (no matter what, when cooking with fresh veggies, there's always peeling/chopping to deal with...maybe I can hire a sous chef? :) ). I found this recipe and modified it as usual, to create this delish dinner.

It was supposed to be a one-pot, boil everything all together deal, but I decided that taking one extra step to saute the veggies would make it less mushy and more tasty. I was right. Yum! We all loved it, the girls devoured it, there were barely any leftovers. Here's Lainey making her "mmmm!" face.

Creamy Veggie Pasta (vegetable measurements are approximates because I adjusted as I went; you may need to adjust slightly to your taste!)

2 small zucchini, sliced thin

1 small summer squash, sliced

2 cups mushrooms, sliced

2 large handfuls spinach

1/2 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 c milk

1/2 c parmesan cheese

2 tbsp butter

salt and pepper to taste

6-12 oz. macaroni (I like to use less pasta than recipes usually call for, or more veggies--my goal is to make the meal equal parts pasta and vegetables)

1. Cook the pasta.

2. While pasta is cooking, saute veggies in olive oil. I started with onions, then added garlic, mushrooms, zucchini, and squash. Once they were all tender, I tossed in the spinach to wilt.

3. In a large bowl, mix milk, parmesan cheese, butter, salt and pepper.

4. Drain the pasta and immediately pour into serving bowl. Toss to coat all with cream mixture.

This is another recipe that would work with just about any veggies you have on hand. Even frozen vegetables would work, just do as the original recipe suggested and toss it right in your pasta pot.

I hesitate to ask due to an historical lack of responses, but...I know that mostly anyone who reads this blog is a friend. So please, if you have a fast(ish), easy(ish) recipe that you love, please share it!

Rhubarb Cookies

In my house, with the cool weather come lots of warm soups, and lots of baking. I've really gotten in gear this week with both, and today's baking experiment REALLY paid off. I cut and brought in the little bit of rhubarb that I managed to grow in my garden this year--what an amazing plant. The leaves on these stalks were incredible...I'm not a very good photographer, so it isn't the best photo (the apple is for a size reference!), but look at the size of this leaf!! (They actually grow much bigger than this, but my plants were transplanted this Spring and took a while to recover.)

I've realized recently that baking a healthy sweet treat makes a huge difference in my snacking and sweet-cravings all week. When I don't have something baked at home, I still get a sweets craving, and end up getting cookies at the McDonald's drive-thru...mmm, but ick. :) If you're trying to cut back on sweets, try some healthier baked goods at home and see if it helps you, too! (try baking one big batch of something Saturday or Sunday, then you're set for the week...or at least a few days :) )

Back to today's treat: I didn't want to deal with a rhubarb pie, so I hunted for a rhubarb cookie recipe and found this, from thefoodspot.com. I made a few modifications, as always, and these cookies came out waaaay better than I expected. I got nervous once they were in the oven that substituting honey would not give enough sweet to counter my rhubarb's tart, but the sweet level is perfect (unless you ask my husband, who believes a cookie isn't complete without chocolate chips...if you are a fellow chocolate lover, it would definitely work in these cookies).

Rhubarb Cookies

from The Food Spot

2 cups flour (I used half whole wheat, half all purpose)

1 1/4 cups brown sugar (I used honey)

8 tbsp butter (I used half butter, half chia gel)

1 egg

2 tsp milk

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup dried cranberries (had none, used raisins)

1 cup rhubarb, finely chopped

1 cup chopped walnuts (only had 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 350°. Beat wet ingredients in bowl until smooth. Mix in dry ingredients, then stir in rhubarb, raisins, and nuts. Spoon out about 2 tbsp. cookies onto a greased cookie sheet, and bake for 12-14 minutes. Cool one minute on cookie sheet, then move to cooling rack.

Delicious, healthy, and even pretty with those flecks of red rhubarb!

Homemade Applesauce

The Fall is my favorite time of year. Even though it's actually quite the opposite by definition, it always makes me feel alive and full of energy--I think the new school year, starting-fresh feeling of the Fall has stuck with me into adulthood.

Along with cooler weather (a refreshing break from getting sweaty just getting the kids out the door), the Fall season brings many of my favorite foods, and apples are at the top of the list. I am still in awe every year at how incredibly delicious apples are when they are in season and fresh-picked. We've been getting them in the fruit share of our CSA, and have made several batches of applesauce already this year. It's SO easy, and VERY kid-friendly. I think this was the most involved Lainey has been in a cooking activity in a long time.

First off, wash and peel the apples. Really, if you're making a good-sized batch of applesauce, you've gotta have one of these:

It peels, cores, and slices up your apples in seconds. And, supervised, it's kiddo-friendly and really fun!

Get rid of all those peels and cores, and throw your apple slices in a large saucepan. Cover the bottom with just a drizzle of water...I usually use enough to cover the bottom of my pan about a half inch or so...again, I don't measure it, so just eyeball and add more if you need to! (another very kid-friendly step: no measuring required, no hot stove!)

Now just put it on the stove, covered, and medium-low heat, and let it simmer away. In about 30-45 minutes, shake in your cinnamon and nutmeg (amounts are up to you--to your taste), give it a little mash up with a fork or a pastry cutter, and you'll have this:

You do NOT need to add sugar to this applesauce! If you are using fresh apples in season, they are delicious enough. No sugar needed. :)

Happy Fall!

Getting Back in the Groove

Okay, okay, I'm back. It has been record time since I've last posted, but for good reason. It hit me a few weeks ago that summer is very quickly coming to an end, and so we have been very busy soaking in our last bit of summer activities...playgrounds, walks, gardening, playing outside in the sandbox...and a few other fun things along the way, almost all not related to food...

Some garden time...Lainey apparently inherited my love of creepy crawlies-played with this guy for almost an hour.

A fantastic camping trip at Woodstock KOA with two of our favorite people, Pop and Gramma, and Lainey's first ever roasted marshmallow!

About to (very excitedly) walk in the door at Lainey's first day of preschool...sigh.

My kitchen has been quite neglected. I'm starting to get back in the groove, though, and now I'll share with you the perfect, don't-want-to-cook-dinner dinner. :) I realllly wanted eggplant parm a few weeks ago, but I'm way too lazy to deal with all the breading, egging, frying, and layering. I lost the original website and I cannot find it again, so I cannot credit the amazing mama who came up with this recipe, but this one's a keeper. (I don't usually measure stuff like this, just eyeball it, so my apologies for the non-recipe!)

Lazy Mama's Eggplant Parmesan:

Dice eggplant into bite sized pieces. Cook over medium heat in a couple tablespoons of olive oil until tender.

Transfer into a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle top with a good layer of breadcrumbs (I used seasoned), top with a layer of tomato sauce, then a layer of mozzarella cheese (I thinly sliced a log of fresh), sprinkle with grated paremsan, and bake at 350° until golden and bubbly. Serve with a side of whole wheat pasta.

Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit...

When I go shopping and I find a great steal on a fabulous piece of clothing, I just can't keep it to myself. If I wear my awesome sale find and someone compliments me, I actually cannot just smile and say, "Thanks!". I get completely overcome with pride for my thriftiness, and usually blurt out something like, "Oh, thanks, it was only $3 on the clearance rack at Macy's, can you believe it??!!" (and, I say it really fast, too, like I only have 2-3 seconds to convince the listener what a great steal I really did find...).

Which brings me to the beans. I use alot of beans...my bean medley recipe alone takes 5 cans. I'm, unfortunately for those close to me, not the most organized person. My pantry supply dwindled without my noticing, and last week I completely ran out of beans...not even one can of chickpeas to be found. Shoot. And the thought of buying a large quantity of cans in the grocery store (shopping, transporting, unpacking...yuck) was super unappealing.

I buy lots of my often-used foods in bulk, so I did a quick search on the internet and I found that I can order a CASE (12 cans!) of Eden Organic beans for $19.98 on their website. Even with shipping costs factored in, my bean order cost me $2.08/can. Compare that to the $3-$4 cost in the grocery stores around here....STEAL!

Here's my six cases (a year's worth?) of beans...$2, can you believe it?! :)

PS-I chose Eden's canned beans because their bean cans are not lined with BPA, as many canned products are....

Easy Popsicles

Last week, I wrote a product review of these popsicle molds (thanks, Jeanine!!) by Tovolo:

(see it on the other blog I write for, From Scratch)

I am definitely a big fan. The molds themselves are great, and the process of popsicle making is so toddler friendly: it's very easy, there's no hot stove involved, and the end result is a super kid-friendly treat.

We have made three batches now from our one bottle of juice. The first round was half creamsicles and half popsicles, but the straight up juice is a much bigger hit, so we've been sticking with those. There's no recipe, just pour the juice into the molds and freeze. Lainey has helped by using her kid sized ladle to fill them, but here's a few more complicated (if you could even call it that!) recipes that I think we'll try in the coming weeks.

• Fruity Veggie Popsicles, from the Green Baby Guide: yummy strawberry popsicles with fresh spinach pureed right in!
• Green Pops--bananas, pineapple, plus greens of your choice, from Goddess of the Garden
• Carrot, Sweet Potato and Apple Popsicles from Kids Going Green

The very best thing about these popsicles is a completely unexpected surprise...these are pretty good-sized popsicles, so it takes a good 30 minutes for Lainey to eat an entire popsicle (which she always does...she's devouring these things the the very last lick!). This means a full half hour of time for me...to get a meal ready/clean up (or maybe blog... :) ).