Friday, September 26, 2014

Hidden Veggies: Kale Muffins


I love eating things that are both healthy and tasty and I think this combo that comes together as kale muffins fits that description to a T! It started out as an experimental recipe, adapted from a spinach muffin recipe I had made before. As I"m typing they are out of the oven, and a couple are in my belly.

It's September and there is still a lot of kale in my garden. I do like to freeze some to add to soups throughout the winter, but I have a lot. For some reason my mom and I are really good at growing kale. Peppers never turn out so well for us, but we can raise kale with the best of them. This year we had both curly and dinosaur kale in the garden. For this recipe I used curly but I'd swap out any variety any day and bet it wouldn't make much difference.

The muffins turned out just how I like them. A little sweet, with a hint of banana. I recall teh spinach ones being a little brighter green, but the slightly more dull color doesn't bother me. If you're looking to "trick" kids into eating a green muffin, I might go with the spinach instead. Swap it out, tit for tat, no problem.

Here's how I made them...


Ingredients:
6-7 cups fresh kale leaves, washed and roughly chopped with stems removed
1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted just enough to be a liquid.
2 ripe bananas
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup quinoa, cooked and cooled
2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup slivered or chopped almonds, walnuts or pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°.

Using a stick blender in a large bowl, puree kale with milk and oil. (This part starts off slow but picks up speed as more kale turns to liquid. Regular milk is just fine if you don't have almond milk.) Add bananas and vanilla and continue blending to combine. Add quinoa, stir to combine and set aside.


Combine next six ingredients in a separate bowl and whisk or stir to combine. Add dry mixture to the kale mixture and stir until just combined. (If batter is very thick and dry, add an additional splash of milk.) Add nuts and stir gently to combine.


Drop 1/4 cup batter into greased muffin tin. Bake for 18-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Expect about 20 muffins.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Dinner straight from the garden.

To me one of the best things in life is eating a meal made from food homegrown in my own garden. My mom and I did just that with this simple and super healthy pasta.

Like a lot of the things I make, the so called recipe for this meal is very flexible. Add what you have from your garden or farmers market or grocery store. You can't screw it up! Try to eat the rainbow!

Here's what we came up with:
Candy stripe beets and their greens
Yellow squash
Kale
Cherry tomatoes
Yellow onion
Frozen peas
Chives
Basil
Oregano

Other than the peas, tomatoes and onion, we picked all the veggies and herbs from the garden just before eating them. Perfect!

We sautéed them in some olive oil with just salt and pepper before tossing them with pasta and a couple pads of butter. Done. Voila! Super yummy.

Ingredients:
1/2 large yellow squash, or one small one
3 small beets (peeled) and their greens
1/2 large onion
6 large kale leaves
A dozen or so cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup frozen peas
Small handful of chives
Couple sprigs of each basil and oregano
1/2 pound dried pasta
2-3 Tbsp butter
2-3 Tbsp olive oil

Prepare pasta according to package directions and save some of the cooking water before you drain. Meanwhile, chop all veggies into bite size chunks. Chop up the herbs as well. Then heat a big drizzle of olive oil in a sautée pan. Add veggies from hardest to most tender. For me the beets and onions went in first. Then the squash and greens. Salt and pepper to taste. After a minute or two we turned off the heat and threw in the tomatoes, peas and herbs. Add the veggies to drained pasta with the butter and another small gulf of olive oil. Add 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid or so to make a very light sauce. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Friday, July 11, 2014

Baby bump!

Some people have (daringly) asked if I had a baby bump these days. Well it is true! My husband, Bryan, and I are so excited to let everyone know that we are expecting our first little one in January. The due date is January 9th to be exact so that puts me at 14 weeks today.

Answers to the obvious questions...
Yes we are planning on finding out the gender.
And yes we have a couple names picked out for either a boy or a girl but we aren't telling those! 

Mmmm. Double chocolate banana peanut butter muffins

So I woke up this morning to the sound of thunderstorms. A very welcome sound since they were in the forecast! The baby and I decided we were going to make muffins for breakfast. A quick scan of Pinterest gave us these:
http://www.averiecooks.com/2014/05/flourless-double-chocolate-peanut-butter-mini-blender-muffins.html

We used a kitchen aid mixer with the whisk attachment instead of a blender but otherwise followed the recipe just like it says. And oh yummy are they good!! They came out of the oven about 10 minutes ago and I've eaten 4 already.


My batch made 23 total mini muffins. I predict the remaining 19 won't make it through the weekend. Maybe not even through tomorrow!

P.S. I guess the my energy really is coming back now that it's the second trimester. Even just a couple weeks ago I never could have imagined scraping up enough energy to cook or bake anything! This is very good news!

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Pasta alla Belinda

The inspiration for dinner last night began when Bel came into the office with a bag of beet greens. She had used the beets but brought the greens to me because she knows me well enough to know I'd make good use of them.  I've never cooked with beet greens before, but here's what I came up with...

It was an all day rain... gloomy for days. So a good belly-filling pasta made sense to me. This is how pasta alla Belinda was born.

First, the sauce. It's an artichoke and dry salami red sauce. Made from scratch but almost as easy as dumping in a jar of marinara.

In a heavy sauce pan heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Add chopped salami, onion and garlic along with crushed red pepper, dried Italian herbs and salt and pepper to taste. Saute until onions are translucent and salami is starting to brown a bit. Add 2-3 Tbsp tomato paste and incorporate.

Add 1 quart tomato puree and chopped artichokes and stir to combine. Simmer 10-20 minutes to your desired thickness. If you want it even thicker, just add more tomato paste.

Next, the noodles and greens.

Preparing the greens just involves a very rough chop and lots of rinsing. You don't want dirty grit in your pasta! Also make sure to pick out any slimy greens or any that have begun to brown.

Because I can't tell the difference I always use whole wheat noodles. My husband doesn't notice the difference either and he is definitely not a whole wheat kind of guy. These noodles have really been improved over the last couple years. Good news there!

Anyway, prepare the noodles according to package instructions, making sure to add salt to taste. I chose thin spaghetti, but feel free to use any type of noodle you have on hand.

Then during the last 3-4 minutes of cooking time, add your washed and chopped beet greens.

Strain them together in a colander when the noodles are done al dente.

Lastly, plate it up!

  
Top noodles with sauce and grate some fresh Parmesan on top if you wish. Serve with some crusty bread and a glass of red wine and you're good to go!  This dinner takes about 30 minutes start to finish.


Sauce:
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups chopped dry salami
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp crushed red pepper, more or less to taste
1 tsp dried Italian herb blend
salt
pepper
2-3 Tbsp tomato paste
1 jar artichokes, chopped
1 quart pureed tomatoes ( diced tomatoes in juice will also work just fine.)

Heat oil in saucepan. Add next seven ingredients and saute until lightly browned. Add tomato paste and combine. Add artichokes and puree. Simmer 10-20 minutes to desired consistency.

Pasta and greens:
1lb whole wheat pasta
2 bunches beet greens, chopped and thoroughly washed.

Cook pasta according to package instructions. Add greens during the final 3-4 minutes of cook time. Strain. Top with sauce and serve.


Monday, April 14, 2014

Magical Muffins.

I got a new oven, so naturally I needed to bake something. Scraping together what I had in my nearly empty refrigerator and paring that with a few different posts on Pinterest I whipped up two different versions. Both super healthy and super yummy!

Version 1: Carrot and quinoa muffins with wanuts.

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked quinoa, cooled
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 coconut oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 carrots, shredded
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine first eight ingredients in a stand mixer and beat just until incorporated. It help to slightly warm the coconut oil so you don't get chunks, but if you're lazy like me and don't want to dirty yet another dish, just turn the mixer on high for 15 seconds or so and that should do the trick.

I know with baking you're supposed to be as accurate as possible with measuring, but that's just not my style. I loosely measured and the muffins turned out great, so have no fear.  Throw them together and they should be fine.

Combine the last three ingredients in a separate bowl and give them a quick mix before adding them to the wet mixture. Do not overmix. Just get everything together.

Divide batter into a lightly sprayed, 12 cup, muffin tin and bak at 350° until a toothpick just comes out clean. This should be about 18 minutes or so. Let them cool a couple minutes in the tin before transferring to a cooling rack. Enjoy or store in a plastic container!

Review: I could taste the quinoa in this recipe so if you're not a fan, move on to version 2. But I was a big fan of these and snacked on them through the week without feeling one ounce of guilt. I feel like they were a good make up snack since I ate lunch at Culver's twice last week.  Love Culver's! In fact, that was my first job. #Memories.

Version 2: Coconut, banana, walnut muffins with quinoa and summer squash (long name, I know)

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked quinoa, cooled
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 coconut oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 very ripe banana
1 small summer squash, shredded
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

I ran out of eggs so the banana and baking powder takes their place. The summer squash I had was in the freezer from last summer's crop. I actually had it cut into 1 inch pieces so I threw it in the food processor for a couple pulses to "shred" it up but it more or less turned out as a chucky puree. No prob.  Whatever you have is fine. Substitute zucchini here if that's what you have.

So, the directions are VERY similar to version one.

Combine first nine ingredients in a stand mixer and beat just until incorporated. It help to slightly warm the coconut oil so you don't get chunks, but if you're lazy like me and don't want to dirty yet another dish, just turn the mixer on high for 15 seconds or so and that should do the trick.

Combine the last four ingredients in a separate bowl and give them a quick mix before adding them to the wet mixture. Do not overmix. Just get everything together. here's a plus with this recipe: no eggs means the batter is free game. I LOVE MUFFIN BATTER! (I actually fully taste it with the eggs in too.)

Divide batter into a lightly sprayed, 12 cup, muffin tin and bak at 350° until a toothpick just comes out clean. This should be about 18 minutes or so. Let them cool a couple minutes in the tin before transferring to a cooling rack. Enjoy or store in a plastic container!

Review: These turned out a lttle flat on top, but their flavor was ah-mazing. This is the perfect version for those of you trying to hide healthy things in yummy tasting food. You cannot taste the quinoa or squash here. The coconut, banana and walnuts completely take over. I'm a fan.

Try them out and let me know what you think! Try substituting some of what you have in the pantry and give it a try. If it turns out, great! If not, oh well. Learning lesson.

PS, loving the new oven.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Second chance dinner.

I got a coupon in the mail for a free app fromPizza Luce with the purchase of a pizza. Well that's a no-brainer. 

One 16" Spanish chicken and an artichoke dip later... The hubby and I were full and there was plenty of leftovers.

The pizza got reheated and eaten for lunches. But the artichoke dip? That became some entirely new tonight.


I was lazy and didn't feel like dirtying a bunch of dishes since we don't have a dishwasher and there is already several plates and glasses sitting next to the sink and waiting for me to wash them.

So dinner formed into a creamy artichoke marinara pasta with focaccia bread. Quick, simple and delish! It went great with a glass of a petit sirah.


The recipe is simple: 

Combine leftover Pizza Luce artichoke dip with one jar of your fav marinara and heat through. Stir to combine. Serve over cooked pasta with a side of bread for dipping!


If I didn't have the leftovers I would say the recipe would look something
Like this:

1 jar marinara sauce 
4 oz. cream cheese
Handful (1/4 c.) of grated Parmesan
1 jar artichoke hearts, chopped, diced or even Puréed to the consistency of your liking.
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp Italian seasoning

Combine and heat through. Serve over pasta.  

This is just off the top of my head and untested but I'll make it sometime and update if needed... Enjoy!


Monday, March 31, 2014

Seed starters.

I can't wait any longer for Spring. Starting seeds indoors is my way of getting through the #worstwinterever.


Mom and I put them in today and already I feel just a little better about snow in the forecast four of the next seven days. (Ugh.)


We started with a potting mix with worm casings added. Peper towel and toilet paper rolls make great planters that can be transplanted right into the ground! Then of course, the seeds. We planted:

-Tomatoes, Roma and Beefsteak
-Peppers, Sweet bell and Hot mix
-Kholrabi (my favorite!)
-Sweet basil
-Sage
-Spearmint
-Zinnia

They sit under a grow light and the magic happens!


There's more to come, but it was wine drinking time so we will leave some for tomorrow!

Monday, March 24, 2014

Photo Shoot Day.

Today's photo shoot was several hours of prep, and about 5 minutes actually getting our photo taken.

First off, there was a couple hours of figuring out what to wear. It can't be seasonal, and it really can't be a print. It has to be formal, rather than casual. My choice: Classic black.

Next, 30 minutes of hair and makeup with the ah-mazing Bonnie.fake eyelashes, lipstick, eye liner... the whole gamut.

And then to the studio for the actual photo-taking. A couple rounds of serious face. (Which I have yet to master.)

And then some smiley takes. For me it was one round with the 11am team and another with the weather crew.

And speaking of the weather crew... In case you didn't notice, we have a bit of a height difference in the group.  Jerrid is 6'5" or something like that.  And Sven and I are significantly less than that, to say the least.

The remedy is to have Sven and I stand on a crate to even out the difference. (This happens during news casts too.)

Hope you enjoy the behind the scenes looks! Let me know what else you're interested in seeing and I'll try to hook it up...
 





Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Quick Lunch with Some to Spare.

It was about noon on Saturday when the hubby and I started to wonder, what's for lunch?  I'm a huge fan of going out to eat, but cooking at home is typically my vote to keep the budget in line. So we agreed on some tomato soup with, of course, grilled cheese.

The thing is... I don't do canned soup. So here's the quick and super simple bowl of tomato love that I whipped up.
 

In the pot goes onion, garlic, carrot and celery. If you don't have all that, put in what you do have! Throw in some fresh or dried herbs, and blend will do. I used Italian seasoning and added some crushed red pepper as well. As you will see now and in the future, I'm not big on measuring. To help the veggies soften up instead of brown I added a splash of chicken broth to the pot.


Once the veggies were soft instead of crunchy, I added two cans of diced tomatoes. The ones I had in the pantry were fire-roasted tomatoes. Okay, fine! Regular old diced tomatoes will work too. Stewed? Yes. Garlic and onion? Even better.

Simmer for a bit and whir it all together with an immersion blender. Top it with some parmesan cheese and set it aside a grilled cheese sammich. Lunch is done in less than 10 minutes.

Of course I always make a bit extra for leftovers so I don't have to buy lunch. It was a risky decision to eat it today at my desk with a white shirt on but all came out okay in the end, no spillage. Half an avocado made it into the mix for a nice addition as well. Nothing fancy, but super tasty and healthy!