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!