Hi Ho Hi Ho...to my kitchen I go! (insert whistling if you wish)

Second night of cooking since we have been back from our 2 1/2 week vacay.  While I enjoyed getting a break from cooking, it sure has been nice to start getting my kitchen messy again!  As usual, my kids were just not interested in dinner or don't like the vegetarian fare!  I am thinking they just don't like dinner since they never devoured dinner while we were on vacay either.

Our menu this week consists of some "back on track" meals...these are meals that are quick, easy, and vegetarian to get ourselves readjusted to the dietary changes we had adapted before we left.  On the menu tonight was Fusilli Col Buco with Braised Spring Vegetables, a recipe I found in one of my new vegetarian magazines I have been getting.  We made a few changes, and I will write the recipe out the way we made it.  I wanted a quick and easy side dish, so I whipped up some Quinoa with a drizzle of olive oil, black olives, tomato, and feta cheese.  I didn't have a recipe to go by for this, so I went off of a picture that one of my Facebook friends posted on her wall a couple of days ago.  The Quinoa was my favorite part of the dinner!  I buy these super sweet, organic, on the vine cherry tomatoes from my local health food store, and they absolutely MADE the dish!  

Alright, enough talk, here are the rcipes; and because I usually only use recipes that have a picture of the dish, I am throwing in a couple pictures too!

Fusilli Col Buco with Braised Spring Vegetables

2 cups chopped frozen onion

4 cloves (4 tsp) minced garlic

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

2 cups dry white wine

1 cup vegetable broth

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 can artichoke hearts, halved or quartered

3 medium carrots, diced

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced

1 cup frozen peas

8 oz. Fusilli Col Buco pasta

parmesan cheese, to taste

* Heat a large dutch oven or pan to medium high heat.  Spray with non-stick cooking spray and saute the onion and garlic for about 3-5 minutes.  Add the red pepper flakes, white wine, vegetable broth and lemon juice.  Stir in the artichokes, mushrooms, and carrots.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium low and simmer about 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender.  Add the peas and cook another 3-5 minutes.

*Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a pot of salted water according to package directions and drain.  Return the pasta to the pot.

* Using a slotted spoon, remove the vegetables and combine with the pasta.  If you prefer a more dry pasta, do not add any of the vegetable braising liquid.  If you prefer a bit os sauciness, add a ladle or two of the braising liquid (the whine, broth, and lemon juice mixture) to the pasta and vegetables.  Add salt, pepper, and parmesan to taste.

MY NOTES

Overall, this was a good dinner!  It was light, refreshing, and full of vegetables.  I would probably not add the red pepper flakes, it gave it a bit of a kick that I didn't like in this dish.  I added two ladles full of the braising liquid and I found that the combo of the wine, vegetable broth, and lemon juice gave the pasta a somewhat vinegar taste that I really didn't care for.  If I make tis again, I will not add any of the braising liquid to the pasta.

Quinoa with Olives, Tomatoes, and Feta

1 cup Quinoa

extra virgin olive oil

5-6 large cherry tomatoes

black olives, sliced (add as many as you like)

crumbled feta cheese (again, add as much as you like)

* Follow package directions for preparation of Quinoa; otherwise a typical way to prepare is 1-2 cups of water per 1 cup of Quinoa.  I added 1.5 cups water and 1 cup Quinoa and brought to a boil.  Once brought to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the germ separates from the seed.

* Once cooked, add a drizzle of olive oil, sliced tomatoes, sliced olives, and feta cheese.

Quinoa Fun Facts

1. Has a protein content of 18%

2. A source of complete protein, which means it has adequate proportions of the eight essential amino acids which are necessary dietetic requirements for humans and animals

3. Good source of fiber, magnesium, and iron

looks good, tastes good, and easy to prepare!

Thanks for reading and good eats!

I'm Baaaaaack!

No, I did not fall off the face of the planet!  We spent 2 1/2 weeks traveling back to the midwest to visit family and celebrate my little sister's college graduation!  While it was a fun trip, we were gone a very long time and am happy to be back home now.  Living out of suitcases and spare bedrooms for that amount of time can be stressful when you have three little kiddos.

Our diets pretty much went out the window on this trip!  There was way too much eating out and eating a lot of unhealthy foods and consuming way more alcohol than we normally do!  We ate a lot of yummy food, but were missing our own meals while we were gone.  We have gotten so used to an almost meat free diet, it was kind of hard to eat so much meat, and it was not friendly to my body; I came back 3 pounds heavier!  

There were two things I was most excited to come back home too; my bed and my kitchen!  I sat down and immediately planned our menu for the week and went directly to our local health food store to stock our kitchen back up.  So, back to a mostly meat free diet and more new blog entries (I found some new recipes to try out!).  

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

Plain and simple...nothing crazy so far this week, just really busy!  No entertaining stories from the kids, no interesting things going on...just going with the flow of life and enjoying every minute of it.

Tonight's dinner serves triple duty!  I would eat or serve this for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!  I have told you before how much I have started to love tofu, the tofu in this dinner was so well flavored and tasty!  If you are scared of trying tofu, this would be a great "starter" dish for you!  My son has an egg allergy; crumbled, sauteed, and seasoned properly, this seems to be a great substitute for scrambled eggs!

I got this recipe from our Blissful Bites cookbook.  Instead of making just the southwest tofu scramble, we added  some gluten free tortilla wraps that we heated over a hot skillet in some olive oil.  This is flavorful all on it's own, but if you wanted a bit more, you could add some shredded cheddar cheese to the wrap.  If you wanted to get really chop happy in the kitchen, you could add some diced red bell peppers, scallions, or diced and sauteed red potatoes as well.  I imagine you could omit any of the vegetables in the recipe below that you don't care for and swap in ones that you enjoy.  All in all, I think this is a pretty versatile dish!

Enough talk, here it is!

Southwest Tofu Scramble


oil spray, for skillet (I drizzled olive oil in the pan...I just can't seem to give that up yet!)
1 package (14 oz.) extra firm tofu, pressed (to soak up the water in the tofu) and then crumbled
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
2 Tbsp tamari
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 medium carrot, diced very small
pinch of sea salt
1 cup zucchini, diced very small
5 mushrooms (We like mushrooms, so I just used a handful of button mushrooms), diced very small

My add ons:
tortilla wraps, optional  (I used some gluten free ones from the natural food store, they were much better than I thought they would be!)
shredded cheddar cheese, optional

* combine the tofu, nutritional yeast, tamari, cumin, and chili powder in a bowl and set aside
* In a large skillet with the olive oil, saute the carrots with the pinch of sea salt until slightly tender.  Add the zucchini and mushrooms and saute for two to three minutes with a lid on.  Remove them from the pan, and wipe the pan out.
* add another drizzle of olive oil to the pan and add the tofu mixture in an even layer.  Cook the tofu over medium heat for 5 minutes (without flipping or turning), after 5 minutes, turn the mixture over in the pan and let sit for another 5 minutes or so.  Stir in the vegetable mixture and serve immediately.

Now, you can serve this alone as is, or you can throw it into a tortilla wrap, like this!

And because I know what you are all wondering, what did my little food critics think of dinner tonight?  My son was skeptical about it, but when I told him we were having breakfast tacos he was sold!  My son hates mushrooms, he won't eat mushrooms in anything that I cook; the little bugger always pulls them out and throws them on my plate (I don't mind though!).  I diced the mushrooms so small, he didn't even know they were in there!  Both kids ate EVERY bite!  Papa nothing said he was going to save the rest and make a breakfast burrito in the morning; unfortunately, I helped myself to the last remaining bites!  I can't wait to make this again and do some ingredient experimentation!  

Thanks for reading and good eats!

Two for One

Well, I did cook last night.  However, I was lazy and decided not to actually tell you about it until tonight!  So, as a little treat for today, you get last night's dinner as well as tonight's dinner!  Aren't you a lucky bunch of readers?!  So, instead of telling you all the boring details of my day, I will dive right into the food, because let's face it, that is why you are sitting here reading this!

I got this first recipe from a blog one of my friends suggested I check out called Peas and Thank You.  Like my family, this was a mom who had finally had enough of all the bad things she and her family were ingesting, and their family went vegan.  She also has a cook book that I intend to buy once papa nothing starts getting antsy for some new recipes.  I changed the ingredients a bit since we have not really gone vegan; I can't bring myself to buy tofu cheese yet, and quite frankly, it just doesn't taste the same as some melted gooey mozzarella cheese!  Anyways, here is the recipe for Spaghetti Squash Casserole.  This was one of my favorites so far...and...it only took about 15 minutes to prepare (once you baked the squash in the oven)!  The recipe has you cut the squash and then microwave it, I don't like that method...I almost lost a finger doing it that way once!  Those things are a real pain to try and cut uncooked.

Spaghetti Squash Preparation

*do this about an hour before you are ready to start dinner prep.  For example, we like to eat around 5:30 pm, so I put the squash in the oven and then went and played with the lil' ones for an hour*


* preheat oven to 375 degrees
* put squash on a cookie sheet and bake 40-60 minutes ( I baked it for 60 minutes)
* remove from oven and cut lengthwise; it is so soft you can pierce it with a paring knife
* scoop out the seeds and "guts"

this is all that should be left when you are done

* take a fork and shred the squash, it will look like short spaghetti strands

this is what the squash looks like shredded

Spaghetti Squash Casserole


1 large spaghetti squash (about 7-8 C of squash strands)
2 C marinara sauce
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil
1/2 C non-dairy (Tofutti) or organic cream cheese (oops, I misread this and bought sour cream, so I used 1/2 C sour cream instead)
1/4 C nutritional yeast or parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
2 C lightly steamed broccoli florets
1 C mozzarella cheese, shredded

* preheat oven to 350 degreees
* in saucepan, combine the marinara sauce, oregano, basil, cream cheese (or sour cream if that is what you bought by mistake) and the nutritional yeast or parmesan.  Heat over low to medium heat until all melted together.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.
* add spaghetti squash and broccoli to the saucepan and evenly coat
* put it all into a large casserole dish, lightly sprayed
* top with the shredded mozzarella and bake for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is bubbly
* after baking, broil for 2-3 minutes

Ok, now we move on to dinner tonight!  As you can see by some of my blogs, I really like gnocchi!  I made a new gnocchi recipe tonight that had spinach (another one of our faves), baby peas, lemon, and heavy cream...what could be better than that combo?!  As usual, the kids started raiding my pantry and fridge about halfway through dinner...they found a bag of lunch meat that they decided was an acceptable substitute to gnocchi.  My son threw slices of it across the table to his sister, who promptly chewed two little eye holes and made herself a meat mask!  Papa nothing, who by the way, was an hour late for dinner, declared it was a great meal.  He told me that if I had cooked like this when we first met he would have married me even quicker!  His next sentence was "this is put me in the mood to spend money good" hmmm...mama nothing thinks a new Coach purse might be a good reward for all this extra effort.  I got this off of Epicurious, and pretty much followed it by the book.  The best part about this recipe:  prep time is 10 minutes, cook time is 20 minutes...mama like!


Lemon Gnocchi with Spinach and Peas


1 cup FROZEN baby peas (do not thaw)
1/2 heavy cream (I used organic)
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 garlic clove, smashed (I just used the minced stuff from a jar)
3 cups (3 oz) baby spinach
1 tsp grated lemon zest (any excuse to use my microplane grater, I use!)
1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 lb. dried gnocchi
1/4 cup grated parmesan

* simmer peas with cream, red pepper flakes, garlic, and 1/4 tsp salt in a skillet, covered, until tender, about 5 minutes
*toss in your spinach and cook over medium low heat until spinach is wilted
* remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the lemon zest and juice
* bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add your gnocchi, boiling about 2-3 minutes until gnocchi start to float to the top
* add gnocchi to the sauce mixture and stir in the parmesan

Gnocchi me happy!  Add a side of lemon roasted asparagus (see earlier blog post) and you have a healthy and delicious dinner!

Thanks for reading and good eats!

Who loves fluff?

It was like Christmas at my house this past week!  My kids get so excited when the UPS driver walks up to our door!  Not only did I get a package of fluffy mail; I am a total cloth diaper addict, I also got TWO boxes of make-up and skin care products from Mary Kay (which I sell).  Papa nothing thinks I am a bit nutty for buying so many cloth diapers, every month he looks at my credit card bill and shakes his head in frustration at how we don't actually save any money by using cloth diapers if every month I keep buying more!  Here's a little secret that Papa nothing doesn't know (so, let's hope he doesn't follow my blog as closely as the rest of you!), I don't use cloth diapers because I am a tree hugging eco mom who is using them to save money or because they are good for the environment; in my mind, these are like the little "bonuses" to using cloth.  So, why do I use cloth...well, honestly, there is nothing cuter than a little baby booty decked out in some adorable fluff!  There are so may colors and designs to choose from, sometimes, I just can't hold myself back from buying that new owl print or the newest AIO (all in one) diaper!

who doesn't enjoy a bit of fluffy booty during tummy time

I will also admit that I was bad this week...really bad!  Papa nothing was gone for most of the week leaving me and the three little ones to fend for ourselves!  When Papa nothing is gone I tend to retreat into laziness; "you have been gone all week, I couldn't possibly have had time to clean the house", "too hard to actually cook a meal with the kids hanging off of me"...so...as much as I really enjoy cooking a great wholesome and usually nutritious dinner for my family, it was nice to take a break from the kitchen!  We ordered pizza on Monday night, ate out fast food on Tuesday night (yes, I did say fast food!  Once in awhile I do rely on the drive thru to supply food for my children), and took advantage of our church's soup supper on Wednesday night!  In that time frame, I also made a most unhealthy and "not clean" chocolate ganache cake for our church dinner on Wednesday!  I did however use organic heavy whipping cream for my ganache ...hey, it's the little things that count!  Needless to say, when Papa nothing returned from his work trip, he really wasn't in the mood for more eating out...back to the neglected kitchen I went!  I decided since it was the first time I had cooked all week, I needed something relatively quick and easy, so I decided on a recipe I came across on Epicurious.  As usual, I tweaked the recipe to make it to my liking, and definitely have one major thing to change when I make it again!  So, here is the recipe for my dinner on Thursday night...Gnocchi Gratin with Gorgonzola Dolce.

I will say, I am not a fan of cheese that has mold, so you can imagine my surprise when I opened the gorgonzola dolce cheese to discover it very reminiscent of blue cheese, which I really don't care for!  The finished product has that same "bite" that blue cheese has, so while I did eat my helping, I will find a different cheese to use next time, feel free to comment with suggestions for cheeses that could be used!  This recipe also has you making your own gnocchi, but seriously, I am a busy mom of three, i don't have that kind of time nor patience, so I used the ready made gnocchi, which made my job WAY easier!

Gnocchi Gratin with Gorgonzola Dolce

1 package vacuum sealed gnocchi
6 oz. parmesan cheese, divided
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 good pinch of dried rosemary
1 good dash of ground ginger
2 Tbsp butter, room temperature, divided
3 Tbsp Italian style bread crumbs
3 oz. Gorgonzola dolce

* bring cream, rosemary, and ginger to a boil.  Remove from heat, cover and let sit for 30 minutes.
* preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil; add the gnocchi and boil for 2 to 3 minutes when the gnocchi start to float to the surface.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer the gnocchi to a baking dish that you coated with 1 Tbsp of the room temperature butter.
* mix the bread crumbs, the last 1 Tbsp of room temperature butter, and 3 Tbsp of the grated parmesan into a small bowl.
* strain the cream mixture (I used a sifter for this) over and into the baking dish with the gnocchi in it.  Break off small pieces of the gorgonzola (or whatever other cheese I decide to use next time) over the top of the gnocchi and cream mixture.  Then top with the remaining parmesan cheese and add the bread crumb mixture last on top of the parmesan.
* bake until filling is bubbly and top is slightly browned, about 25-30 minutes.

My little eaters, who don't normally eat any gnocchi recipe I make, really enjoyed this one!  I was surprised that they weren't put off by the taste of the cheese.  I threw together a side of cous cous, although I probably should have done a vegetable.  My lemon roasted asparagus recipe would have tasted great with this!

Sassy Sweet Potatoes

Short and sweet tonight!

For dinner we made a recipe from our new "Forks Over Knives" cookbook called Raise the Roof Sweet Potato Lasagna.  While I will admit this was a good recipe, I definitely have some adjustments to make the next time we make it...which will be again soon!  This is another one of those recipes that I seriously recommend you take the time to try...go ahead, give your kitchen some love, spend some time in it!  This lasagna has tofu in it, and if you are on the fence about trying tofu, this would be a great recipe to get you accustomed to the taste and texture.  As I have mentioned before, tofu takes on the taste of whatever you are cooking it with, seriously, please don't be afraid of it!  And, just for your own reassurance, once you eat tofu, you will not suddenly be turned into some tree hugger yuppie sort, I promise!  

Raise the Roof Sweet Potato Lasagna

1 onion, chopped

1 small head of garlic, cloves chopped or pressed

8 oz. fresh sliced mushrooms

1 head of broccoli, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2 bell peppers, chopped

1 can corn; rinsed and drained

1 package firm tofu

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp basil

1 tsp rosemary

2 jars pasta sauce (little or no added oil)

2 boxes whole grain lasagna noodles

16 oz. frozen spinach; thawed and drained

2 sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed (I did this about an hour before I was ready to start dinner)

6 Roma tomatoes, sliced thin

1 cup raw cashews, ground

* preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Water saute the onion and garlic on high heat for 3 minutes in a wok or nonstick pan.  Add the mushrooms and cook until the onions are limp and the mushrooms give up their liquid.  Remove them to a large bowl with a slotted spoon.  Water saute the broccoli and carrots for 5 minutes and then add to the mushroom bowl.  Saute the peppers and corn until soft then add them to the vegetable and mushroom bowl.  Drain the tofu by wrapping it in paper towels to absorb the excess water.  Break the tofu up and mix it in the vegetable and mushroom bowl.  

* cover the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan with a layer of the pasta sauce.  Add a layer of noodles.  Cover the noodles with the sauce, this way the noodles cook in the oven saving time and energy.  Spread the vegetable mixture over the noodles.  Add another layer of lasagna noodles over the vegetable mixture and cover with pasta sauce.  Spoon the spinach mixture over the top of the noodles and then spread the mashed sweet potatoes over the spinach.  Add the final layer of lasagna noodles and cover with pasta sauce.  Cover the lasagna with thinly sliced Roma tomatoes.

* cover with foil and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.  Remove the foil; sprinkle with the cashews; and return to the oven to bake for an additional 15 minutes.

OK...MY ADJUSTMENTS FOR NEXT TIME!

Well, we have a nut allergy in the house so we skipped the whole ground cashew thing, although I am pretty sure it tastes darn good.  The recipe has you use UNCOOKED lasagna noodles that you layer with pasta sauce, and this is supposed to cook them; instead we ended up with chewy lasagna noodles in the middle and crunchy burned lasagna noodles at the edges.  Take the extra 15 minutes and boil the lasagna noodles so they are nice and soft, just as lasagna should be!  The recipe calls for two boxes of lasagna noodles, I think you can get buy with one box.  In total, I used 15 or 16 noodles.  Save yourself a bit of extra prep time and use frozen onions.  I used frozen onions and already minced garlic from a glass jar.  I have NO clue what water sauteing is, and it did not go very well for me, I will just use extra virgin olive oil next time to saute all the vegetables.  I also did not think the broccoli got softened enough for my liking, so next time we make this I will steam the broccoli instead of sauteing it...a bit of extra work and an extra pan to clean, but well worth it, I think.  I was also not a huge fan of corn in my lasagna, so will probably omit this next time, and I may even sneak in a bit of cheese!  And, just in case you get confused by lasagna layers like I do, here is a break down; sauce, noodles, vegetable mixture, noodles, sauce, spinach, mashed sweet potatoes, noodles, sauce, roma tomatoes.  

The kids were not totally keen on dinner tonight, so I bribed them with Veggie Straws to get them to eat at least some of my lasagna goodness!  Papa nothing needed no bribing whatsoever and had three plates of it!  All in all, pretty tasty, can't wait to tweak it to my liking!

I'm dreaming of a white...SPRING!

While most of you were outside enjoying your unusually warm weather and soaking in a healthy dose of vitamin D...up here in the mountains we were outside shoveling!  Well, actually, when I say "we" were shoveling, I mean papa nothing was out shoveling!

This is a 6 ft. privacy fence, the snow is halfway up the fence!  I took this picture this morning, yesterday afternoon papa nothing shoveled a foot and a half of snow off the patio that the trike is sitting on!  The snow on the trike is from overnight!  Behind the trike is the 30 inches of snow that fell from Saturday around 11:30 pm until early this morning!  Yes, you read that correctly, 30 inches!

What does one cook for dinner with 30 inches of snow on the ground?  My initial plan of attack for dinner was a sweet potato lasagna recipe I have been wanting to try, But I didn't realize I had to first cook and mash the sweet potatoes, I was out of time for that step.  Then, I thought soup would be good, but the soup has yellow split peas in it and you have to let those soak for two hours before you can even tackle the actual soup portion...it was already 4:30 pm!  So...we made a dish we have been cooking quite regularly for about 4 months now!  Crispy Gnocchi with basil pesto and then I sauted up some fresh brussel sprouts.  I initially got the gnocchi (pronounced nok-ee, unless you are one of my kids, then you call it Pinocchio pasta) recipe from a food blog, and she had got the recipe from another food blog.  I didn't like some of the original ingredients, so we switched it up and make it the way we like.

Crispy Gnocchi with Basil Pesto

1 pkg gnocchi (found in the pasta section, in a vacuum sealed little tub)

1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved; we use the heirloom variety because it gives it more color

2-3 Tbsp prepared pesto

1 container of Feta cheese, although you can use goat cheese as well (I think these come in 3 oz. containers)

* In a skillet, pour 1 Tbsp olive oil and heat over medium heat.  Dump the gnocchi in the skillet  and let saute for a couple minutes.  I then take a spatula and flip the gnocchi several times to get all sides golden in color.  usually this takes no more than five minutes...be careful not to burn the gnocchi!

* Add your cherry tomatoes and cook over medium heat for about 3-5 minutes until they are nice and soft.

* When the tomatoes are done, mix in your pesto and remove from the heat.

* Add the carton of feta or goat cheese and lightly toss.

For a side dish I cooked up some fresh brussels sprouts.  My kids are not huge fans of brussel sprouts, but if I found that if I add enough flavors, textures, and saute them, they will inhale them!  My daughter actually had three helpings of brussels sprouts last night!  The original recipe is from my new "Forks Over Knives" cookbook, but like almost everything we make we end up adding extra ingredients or omitting ingredients we either forgot to buy or couldn't find.  We ended up omitting some things in this recipe, here is the way I made it.

Maple Brussels Sprouts

1 1/2 lb. fresh brussels sprouts

1 large shallot

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 Tbsp Tamari

1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard

* clean brussel ssprouts, trim off the ends and cut the brussels sprouts in half.  Bring water in a saucepan to a boil, once boiling, drop in the brussels sprouts and boil for 2 minutes.  Drain and rinse with cold water.

* dice the shallot and saute in about 1 tsp olive oil for about 3 minutes.  Add the brussels sprouts and saute for another four or five minutes, tossing them in the pan occasionally.  

* while brussels sprouts are sauteing, whisk together the maple syrup, tamari, and dijon mustard.

* add the sauce to the brussels sprouts and let cook until sauce thickens up a bit, about five minutes or so.

and... ta da!

Enjoy your day, wherever you are, and happy eats!