Roasted Vegetable Bowl

I had some success with a new recipe tonight and while I wasn't blown away by it, it was very good for using ingredients that I'm not particularly fond of in the first place. It used things from my bountiful basket and ingredients I've been trying out and already had in my kitchen (namely chickpeas, nutritional yeast, and  tahini paste, though it didn't have an overly-eastern taste to it).

A minor note before I launch into the recipe: I cooked dried chickpeas in chicken stock (you can use vegetable if you're doing vegetarian/vegan) and it made them SUPER tasty compared to the usual canned-fare!  Though I would recommend rinsing them before starting the soak (I forgot that step!)

Roasted Vegetable Bowl

Ingredients:
For Roasting:
-1.5 cups cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or one 15oz can)
-4 Tablespoons melted butter (divided)
-2 Tablespoons lemon juice (divided)
-2 teaspoons garlic powder (divided)
-1 teaspoon sea salt (divided)
-1/4 teaspoon black pepper (divided)
-1 head broccoli, chopped into bite sized pieces
-1 head cauliflower, chopped into bite sized pieced
For the Dressing:
-1/2 cup almonds, soaked
-2 Tablespoons lemon juice
-1 Tablespoon tahini paste
-1 Tablespoon garlic, minced
-1/4 teaspoon sea salt
-1/4 cup nutritional yeast
-3/4 cup vegetable or chicken broth
Top with:
-2-3 Tablespoons chopped almonds
Instructions:
1. Soak almonds in a bowl for 8 hours (or boil for 45 minutes).
2 Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line two large baking sheets with foil. Prepare with EVOO spray.
3. Combine 2 T butter, 1 T lemon juice, 1 t garlic powder, 1/2 t sea salt, and 1/8 t black pepper.  Drizzle over broccoli and cauliflower.  Stir to coat.  Place on a baking sheet and set aside.
4. Combine 2 T butter, 1 T lemon juice, 1 t garlic powder, 1/2 t sea salt, and 1/8 t black pepper. Drizzle over chickpeas. Stir to coat and place on baking sheet.
5. Roast veggies and chickpeas for 15 minutes. Give the pan of chickpeas a gentle shake to rotate. Roast and additional 10 minutes.
6. Prepare the dressing by placing all the dressing ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.  Set aside.
7. Mix roasted vegetables and chickpeas together and serve into bowls.  Drizzle dressing over the veggie mixture and garnish with chopped almonds

Special note: This dish serves 4.  If you wish to serve more people or just want leftovers, double the "For Roasting" ingredients but not the dressing.  The dressing recipe makes much more than you use with 1 recipe's worth of roasted vegetables.

Tasty Dried Veggies!

I have a confession to make:  I'm a pig.  If it's in my house and it tastes good, I'm eating it. **sigh** Superbowl was a disaster.  Or delicious, depending on how you look at it.  Though I did have a victory this weekend with some brussel sprouts!

In all of my meal planning last weekend after receiving my bountiful basket, I realized that I'd found uses for everything in my basket except for the brussel sprouts.  After running through a few recipes for how to cook them as a side dish I found a couple that suggested you bake them for 10 minutes or so after coating them in EVOO and sea salt.  I have to admit, I was completely unexcited about just salt and the baking at 350 was a disaster with the first batch.  Some parts were burnt and other parts still moist.  But my oven has a dehydrating setting and I decided it was finally time to try it out.  Well, it was SO tasty... it was gone before I remembered I should even take a picture of the finished product for my blog **blushes** PLUS, my kids LOVED them and asked for more!!

I'm super eager to try out this recipe with other vegetables for quick snacks!!

Dehydrated Veggie Recipe

Ingredients: 

From the 1st batch that didn't turn out,
but shows them spread out.
Add drying rack and MUCH less heat!

-10 Brussel Sprouts (or whatever vegetable you want to try and substitute; about 2 cups?)

-2 Tablespoons melted butter

-1 Tablespoon lemon juice

-1 teaspoon garlic powder

-1/2 teaspoon sea salt

-1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions: 

1. Cut stem off the bottom of brussel sprout, save leaves that fall off, cut a little more of the stem off and remove leaves.  Continue until desired amount has been removed (How hard do you want to work for the little leaves?).

2.  Melt butter in a pan, add other ingredients and stir well.

3. Pour over brussel sprouts and stir until evenly coated.

4. If using a dryer setting your oven: set a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet.  Spread veggies evenly over the top and dry until crunchy all the way through.  (was a few hours in mine)

If using a dryer: spread evenly over trays on a low heat and dry until crunchy all the way through.

5. Let cool to room temperature and bag (if they make it that long!) 

Vegetarian Enchiladas

So in the past, when I've made enchiladas, the filling has had sour cream, chicken stock, cream of mushroom soup, cheddar cheese, canned diced green chilies, and shredded chicken. It's a dairy, calorie overload of fantasticness!  Top it with some homemade guacamole and my eyes just kinda role back into my head.  However it doesn't fit into the veggie-filled goodness I've been trying to transform our dinner times into and was inspired to try something different when I received 6 green chilies in my bountiful basket this week!

I was so pleased with how these enchiladas turned out and hope you will give them a try!

Vegetarian Enchiladas

Ingredients:

Rice:

-1 cup brown rice

-2 cups vegetable or chicken broth

-1 Tablespoon lime juice*

-1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

-1/2 teaspoon cumin

-1/2 teaspoon onion powder

-1/4 teaspoon chili powder

-1/8 teaspoon salt

Sauce:

-6 chili peppers, stemmed, seeded, and chopped

-1 28 oz can diced tomatoes

-5 cloves garlic, minced

-3 cups vegetable or chicken broth -reserve 4-6 Tablespoons

-sea salt and pepper to taste

-1/4 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

-3 teaspoons sugar**

-2 Tablespoons corn starch -dissolved in reserved chicken broth

-2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (optional)

-3 peppers (green, red, yellow or orange), stemmed, seeded, and sliced

-2 medium onions, halved and sliced into slivers

-1 can black beans***

-12 flour tortillas****

-1 cup shredded cheddar cheese to top (optional)

Instructions:

1. To cook the rice, combine broth, garlic powder, cumin, onion powder, chili powder, and salt.  Pour over rice in cook in a rice cooker (If you don't have a rice cooker, saute the rice in couple tablespoons of melted butter in a large sauce pan. Add broth mixture, stir, cover and cook until water is mostly absorbed).

2. In a large saucepan, combine the chilies, tomatoes, garlic, broth, salt pepper, vinegar and sugar.  Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.

3. Reduce the heat and maintain a gentle, constant low simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Stir in the cornstarch mixture and continue to cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Taste test the sauce.  If it is too spicy, add small amounts of sugar until you reach the desired taste.

6. Remove from heat, stir in 2 cups cheddar cheese, and set aside.

6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

7. Prepare 9x13" baking dish by spooning some of the sauce mixture into the pan and coating the bottom and edges.

8. Fill a tortilla with rice, beans, peppers, onions, and top with sauce.  Fold and overlap tortilla ends as best you can (I always end up with too much stuff and have only like, a 1/2" overlap!).  Repeat with all the tortillas and arrange in a row in the pan.

9. Pour remaining sauce over the top of the enchiladas and using a spoon, move sauce around so that all the tortilla edges have some of the liquid on it (keeps it from getting too crispy in the oven).

10. Top with 1 cup cheddar cheese and bake for 30 minutes.

*I was honestly planning on doing more, but my lime juice was empty :-(  Oh! And there's a cilantro allergy in our family so I don't cook with it, but I LOVE it and if I could, I would go NUTS with fresh cilantro right here in the rice!

**As soon as my sugar stash from my Christmas cookie baking is gone, THIS will become organic cane sugar :-D

***As always, my "can" of beans is actually beans I've soaked, cooked in a crock pot, measured with a 14.5 oz can and poured into a freezer bag.  Someday my tomatoes and broth will be this too... *sigh* hence the title of my blog containing the phrase "baby steps" ;-)

****Enough stars for you yet?? But really: I used whole grain.  If you wanted to go gluten-free you could use corn tortillas, but honestly, I'm not a fan of corn and it doesn't seem to be a taste I can manage to acquire.

Awe!! I just had the horrible realization I meant to serve these with avocado slices on top... DRAT!!

Well... even so. They were still really good.  There shall be fights over the leftovers!

Sweet Potato Coconut Curry Soup

Well, I was hoping to have this fantastic soup recipe and a garlic puree recipe that would be to add to the hummus I made to the other day, but then my sweet husband came home from work and started sniffing at my pots and pans.  He asked about the pan that was the puree and within a couple minutes, he looked like Remy from Ratatouille, throwing all sorts of spices around.  He's an amazing cook, but he likes to dirty every dish in my kitchen so I don't give him leash too often.  All that is to say we had this awesome garlic sun-dried tomato hummus tastiness with our fresh vegetables and curry soup and all I have to show for it is a soup recipe.

I had high hopes for this recipe.  I'm a HUGE fan of massaman curry and need to go diving through some old recipes to find the print-off of it.  It's a lot of work, but SO worth every minute. But unfortunately the soup just didn't stand up to my flavor expectations, though it was quite good (and got thumbs-up form the other adults; I think the flavors were too strong for the kiddos, even my inhales-everything kid took a while to get through his bowl of soup).

Just a note real fast on my chickpeas or any bean that I use really: I go through a soaking marathon every once in a while where I soak a type of bean that I use on a regular basis for a day, the next day they cook on low in the crock pot, the following morning I bag them up in freezer bags in 14.5 oz can proportions so that my home-made, healthy beans are recipe ready and I don't have to plan my meals as closely (provided I keep a good variety in my freezer.  My favorites are kidney, black, pinto, great white northern, and now chickpeas have joined the group!)!

Sweet Potato Coconut Curry Soup
Ingredients:
Soup:
-2 medium white onions, diced
-8 cloves garlic, minced
-1-3 Tablespoons coconut oil (butter or EVOO could be substituted)
-2 large sweet potatoes, cubed (about 1/2")
-3 Tablespoons yellow curry powder
-1/4 teaspoon cayenne
-1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

Roasted chickpeas!

-1/4 teaspoon black pepper
-1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
-6 cups coconut milk (I got the organic SO Delicious 1/2 gallon carton and it was wonderful)
Chickpeas:
-2 cans chickpeas
-6 Tablespoons EVOO
-1 teaspoon yellow curry powder
-1/2 teaspoon sea salt
-1 teaspoon garlic powder
-1 teaspoon ginger
-1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Melt 1 Tablespoon coconut oil in large sauce pot on medium heat. Add onions, cook for a few minutes, add garlic, and stir.
3. Add sweet potato, curry powder cayenne, salt, pepper, and cinnamon.  Cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, and adding coconut oil as needed to keep the pan from getting too dry.
4. Add coconut milk and cover.  Bring to a simmer and the reduce to low (Simmer for 25 minutes more).
5. To prep the chickpeas, in medium-sized bowl, combine the olive oil, curry powder, salt, garlic, ginger, and cayenne.  Add chickpeas and stir to coat.
6. Spread chickpeas evenly on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes
7. When chickpeas are finished, add them to the soup pot, blend mixture with an immersion blender, and serve.

If you are looking to change it up a bit from your normal soup and salad or soup and bread sticks, I served the soup with fresh chopped veggies and the hummus and it went really well together!  Enjoy!

More Adventures

As I cozy up to a bowl of left-over soup and a side of pickled carrots gifted to me by a friend (that I may or may not have danced a jig over), I can't help but be excited about our family's new eating habits.  There has definitely been the lows of things like accidentally overcooking vegetables and blending it into a soup so I could stomach the idea of  feeding it to my family.  But they have been super encouraging and brave to try everything and make the victories of food that tastes amazing (on top of being healthy) even more wonderful!

The BEST part of all this is that, after only two weeks, I actually feel GOOD.  I'm not sluggish, my joints don't hurt, I'm not unreasonably tired, and I've come to a place where the chemicals in processed food don't "call" to me like the Aztec gold from Pirates of the Caribbean.  I can easily choose foods without fighting myself or reason through that I'm "munchy", not hungry, and can have a glass of water first and reevaluate how I feel, and it's WONDERFUL!!

I wanted to share last night's dinner with you, not because I think it was fantastic and everyone should try it, but to encourage bravery.  Try something new and crazy that you have NO idea how it's going to turn out!  I picked up this five pound bag of organic mixed root vegetables from our local farmer's market and to be honest, I still don't think I know 100% what was in it.  I peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces, coated them in olive oil and spices (also some grilled chicken that I abstained from, but the rest of the family really appreciated), and steamed them in foil packs in the oven (425 degrees for one hour).  I know for sure that there was some red potato, carrots, and beets. There might have been some radish and jicama but there was some orange skinned-yellow fleshed radish-like things and some purple potato-like things that I'm still not sure about!  The moral of the story is that I was pleasantly surprised at how good they turned out!  They won't be a new favorite, but the were very edible (and pretty!)!

I started out with the oil and just went nuts with things that sounded good.  Fortunately I wrote everything down, so here's what I ended up with (as a side note, I use a onion soup knock off spice in this recipe that I keep on hand in a jar and I'll give you that recipe next!):

Roasted Vegetable Seasoning
Ingredients:
-1/2 cup EVOO
-5 Tablespoons onion soup mix
-1 Tablespoon fresh garlic, minced
-1 teaspoon sea salt
-1 teaspoon dried parsley
-1 teaspoon dried rosemary
-1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
-1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions:
1. Mix ingredients together in a bowl
2. Pour over mixed vegetables or chicken and stir until coated
3. Pan fry or bake in foil packet until done

Homemade Onion Soup Mix
Ingredients:
-3/4 cup dried minced onion chips
-1/3 cup beef bouillon powder
-4 teaspoons onion powder
-1/4 teaspoon crushed celery seed
-1/4 teaspoon crushed celery seed
Instructions:
1. Stir all ingredients together and store in an old spice container or jar (makes about 1 1/4 cup.  5 Tablespoons = 1 store bought envelope)


And I have to apologize, it was a while ago that I found this and I'm no longer finding the link from where I originally got the onion soup mix recipe!

In other adventures, I'm also trying my first batch of water kefir!!  Yay for increased probiotics! 

Homemade Hummus

Yesterday I tried this promising recipe for tomato basil quinoa.  In addition to what it sounds like, it also has broccoli and white beans in it with a hummus-based sauce that is poured over the top (that also had nutritional yeast in it!).  I was really excited to try it.  But honestly, the base was very Italian and the sauce, very eastern.  It tasted forced and incohesive to me.  This in conjunction with the fact that I had to add a lot more water (or stock in my cooking preference) than the recipe called for, it just wasn't a keeper.  Though, both my kids did manage to eat it all and everyone was very polite about it, so I guess it wasn't a total loss!

All that being said, I was excited with the homemade hummus recipe that I used as the base for the sauce!  I've heard it's VERY hard to make something that's a good consistency and tastes like what you'd get in the stores, so I was ecstatic to find a good recipe on my first try!

I will say, this really is a good base, and while it could stand alone, I think it could be better with some other flavors added in.  I want to try to make some purees (Sabra has a garlic and a red pepper variety that are just fantastic!) to change it up, but here is the base-recipe I used:


Authentic Middle Eastern Hummus*
Ingredients:
-3 cups dried garbanzo beans, soaked for 24 hours**
-1 pinch baking soda (optional)
-1/2 cup EVOO
-3/4 cup tahini paste (eastern sesame seed paste)
-1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, or more to taste
-1 large clove garlic, minced, or more to taste
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-sea salt to taste (and by this I mean go nuts, usually I'd just do one crank on my grinder when I say "to taste" I probably did more than 10 cranks because this makes so much)
-1 Tablespoon EVOO, for drizzling (optional)
Instructions:
1. Rinse the garbanzo beans and place in a large sauce pot.  Fill with enough water to cover by at least one inch.  Add baking soda (optional).  Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer over medium heat until the beans are very soft (1.5-2 hours).
2. Drain the beans, RESERVING THE LIQUID.  Transfer beans into a blender (or if you have a hand blender, a large bowl).  Add olive oil and blend until smooth (add reserved liquid as needed to help blend and get it to the desired thickness).  Blend in tahini paste, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, and salt.

*If you are using a standard blender to prepare this recipe, I HIGHLY recommend splitting the batch in half and doing it in two parts.  It makes roughly 8 cups and it was very difficult to manage all at once in the blender.
**A word on soaking: Use a large glass or ceramic bowl (never plastic or metal), hot water, a little bit of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice (about 1/4 cup), fill most of the way to the top with water, and cover.  Make sure you rinse thoroughly.  Here's some great reading on why soaking is a great idea for ALL of your grains, beans, and nuts: 
http://www.yogitrition.com/why-you-need-to-soak-your-grains-beans-nuts-and-seeds/
and here's a great article on how to do it::
http://www.yogitrition.com/soaking-grains-beans-nuts-and-seeds-101/


If you're looking for a health-conscious way to enjoy those fresh pepper and cucumber slices, this is a tasty addition to mowing down on them plain and, for me as a ranch addict, is a reasonable substitution for those store-bought dressings!  Plus this is a great way to make the most of those fat-soluble A, D, E and K vitamins (our bodies have trouble absorbing A, D, E and K when they're not consumed with fat as well!)!  Hope you enjoy your crunchy vegetable goodness!!

Here's the Allrecipes link to the original recipe I found:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/authentic-middle-eastern-hummus-chummus/ 

Doritos Knock-off Popcorn Seasoning

Well, last night's dinner was completely unimaginative.  We had baked potatoes with butter, topped with broccoli and onions grilled in butter, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper.  It's one of my fall-back meals I make when I don't really feel like cooking or following a recipe.  I can check out, flip on auto-pilot, and dinner just happens.

So I won't bore you with that, but I did want to share my newest favorite snack food with you!


I can't think of high school without thinking about the many lunch hours spent in the band room practicing a new piece or messing around with a couple of good friends over a Pepsi, candy bar, and a bag of nacho Doritos (Yes. Pinnacle of health I was, even then!). There's something about Doritos that are just amazing... open a bag and they're gone in 10 minutes flat!  Even the big bags because there's always someone willing to help you with them!

I did manage to swear off Doritos during my "dieting years" and have never really started eating them again, but that doesn't mean it's not painful to refuse them when somebody offers them and I peer down at the atomic, glowing goodness being reflected by the metallic packaging.  All that being said, a friend recently introduced me to this seasoning recipe that she puts on her popcorn (which I'm also a sucker for) that is a super close second to the Nacho Doritos flavor! Plus, it has the added benefit of not being some unnatural neon color and is guilt-free good for you!

I was so enthralled with it that I made it EVERY night for a straight week and munched on that instead of my usual post-children's-bedtime fare and **blushes** finished the whole HUGE bowl by myself almost every night (my husband's not a popcorn fan... lucky me!).  The crazy thing?  At the end of the week, my belt was down a notch even though it was my only diet change!

The good news is it's pretty easy, the only odd things you are going to need that might not be lying around your house already is a used and cleaned spice container (I like the old Costco ones cause they hold a lot), some nutritional yeast (You can find it at health foods stores.  Ours had it in these by-the-pound bins and you can buy as little or as much as you want.  In my experience it's been flakey like fish food (though it does come in powder) and yes, it is absolutely necessary, it's what gives the mix it's cheesy flavor!), and coconut oil (I imagine you could probably use EVOO, but coconut oil is super good for you and is great for so many other things as well!).

Jessi's Nacho Popcorn Seasoning*
Ingredients:
-1 cup nutritional yeast
-4 teaspoons onion powder
-4 teaspoons garlic powder
-4 teaspoons cumin
-4 teaspoons paprika
-4 teaspoons chili powder
-1/2-1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on how spicy you like it, you want regular Doritos, use 1/2 teaspoon, you want the spicier variety, use one teaspoon)
-8 teaspoons sea salt
Instructions:

Miss Pickey-pickerson Approved! 

1. Measure ingredients into a blender and pulse until it's completely mixed.
2. Using a funnel, carefully pour mixture into a used spice container (yields about 1 1/3 cups)
To Prepare Popcorn: 
1. Heat about 4-5 teaspoons coconut oil in a saute pan on high heat. When melted, add 1/4-1/3 cup popcorn kernels and cover.  Shake to coat in the oil then shake every 15-20 seconds to keep kernels and popped corn from burning.
2. Turn out into large bowl when you have 2-3 seconds of space between pops.
3. Wipe out pan and heat 4-5 more teaspoons of oil until it's melted.
4. Drizzle 1/2 the coconut oil on the popcorn, moving a spoon back and forth through the stream. Stir and repeat with the second 1/2 of oil and stir again.
5. Sprinkle a generous coating of the popcorn seasoning over the top and stir, turning the bowl as you stir. Repeat. Enjoy!


So I realize you might have some questions about a few of the ingredients I used in this recipe.  When I share recipes people often have a couple of the same questions about how or why I prepare some of the dishes the way I do, and I wanted to take a minute to answer those in case if you were wondering as well!

What's with the coconut oil?
The first reason is that it has lots of health benefits. It has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties and it's a healthier fat than a lot of other sources to start with.  Here's a Dr. Oz article that talks a little more about it:
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/surprising-health-benefits-coconut-oil
The second reason, in it's simplest form, is that many oils need to be heated too hot to extract the oil and because of how it's made, come to us already rancid on the shelf, covered up by lots of over-processing.  
http://www.draxe.com/are-you-eating-rancid-oils/
Some would call it conspiracy but why would you mess with it if they can't all agree on a conclusive answer? Try oils that come from being pressed and don't need to be heated, like butter, extra virgin olive oil, and coconut oil.

Tell me about the nutritional yeast, I've never even heard of it!
It's yeast that's been deactivated by cooking and is popular among vegans for it's cheesy flavor that's hard to get from other natural sources. It's high in protein and B-vitamins (a happy vitamin) and low in fat and sodium.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/nutrional-yeast-not-just-for-vegans_n_1420734.html

Himalayan Rock Salt

Why sea salt? What's wrong with regular salt??
Refined table salt is striped of it's natural minerals and has toxic additives.  I personally use pink Himalayan rock salt because it's what is available to me at my local Costco.  I've also heard good things about Celtic Sea Salt.
http://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/food/food-for-thought-is-salt-good-or-bad






*I think this is probably the web site my friend originally got the popcorn recipe from:
http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/dorito-flavored-popcorn-dairy-free/

Remy's Ratatouille

Apparently the dish the Remy makes in the Disney movie Ratatouille is not a traditional ratatouille.  But this awesome hack of the dish he does make got rave reviews in my house tonight (well... to be honest, four gave it two enthusiastic thumbs up and the littlest pair of thumbs in our household gave it two teary-eyed thumbs down but that's a whole other blog in and of itself...).  My son took THIRDS and I got a happy groan out of my husband on the first bite and AGAIN on the second bite!  I made extra of this so we could have it again another night, yeah... that's not gonna to happen.  It's pretty much gone!

Plus it's a very pretty and colorful dish, and it has goat cheese.  Who doesn't like goat cheese??

I was able to use three red peppers, two yellow squash, and a small onion from my bountiful basket in this recipe!


Remy's Ratatouille
What you Need:
-2 10" oven-safe baking dishes
-parchment paper
-EVOO cooking spray
-4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
-2 cups brown rice
-1 Tablespoon butter
-1/2 medium onion, diced
-2 garlic cloves, minced
-1 14oz can diced tomatoes
-basil,  parsley, and thyme to taste (again, I go nuts on the basil and easy on the parsley and thyme)
-1 egg plant (or 2 Italian Eggplants)
-2 zucchini
-2 yellow squash
-3 long, skinny-ish red bell peppers
-1/4 cup EVOO
-1 teaspoon thyme
-1 teaspoon dill weed
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/4 teaspoon black pepper
-AT LEAST 6oz soft goat cheese (and I would say "optional" here to make it vegan-friendly, but it's the contrast of the cheese with the other flavors that makes this dish so phenomenal!)
Instructions:
1. Set a piece of parchment paper on top of each baking dish and use a pencil to trace around the lip of the dish and cut the circle just inside the line so it'll fit nicely over the top of your ratatouille and set aside.
2. Combine the stock and rice in a rice cooker and start it (If using a saute pan, melt an additional 2 Tablespoon of butter in pan on a medium/high heat, add rice and stir for a few minutes and then add the stock.  Cover and simmer on medium/low for 30-40 minutes or until most of the water has been absorbed.  I also recommend moving this step to while the ratatouille is in the oven if you decide to prepare it this way)
3. In a small sauce pan, melt butter and saute onion on medium/high heat.  When tender, add garlic and stir.  Add tomatoes, basil. parsley, and thyme and stir.  Reduce heat and allow to stew and reduce while you prepare the olive oil and cut vegetables
4. Combine olive oil, thyme, dill weed, salt, and pepper in a small bowl and set aside
5. Trim the ends off eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, and red peppers.  Carefully remove the core from the inside of the red peppers, leaving the tube intact.
6. Thinly slice the yellow squash, zucchini, and red peppers (and if you got Italian eggplants, those as well) into thin rounds, about 1/16th of an inch.  If you have a normal eggplant, cut the narrow top into rounds just like the other vegetables. Then quarter the thick part of it length-wise and cut the quarters into 1/16th inch slices.
7. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
8. Coat 10" dishes with cooking spray, pour 1/2 the tomato mixture into the bottom of each dish, and arrange slices of vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the dish, overlapping so just a small amount of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables.
9. Using a basting brush, brush half of the olive oil mixture onto the top of the vegetables in each dish. Cover with parchment rounds and bake for 45 minutes
10. Serve over rice with a dab of goat cheese on top!


Hope you enjoy this scrumptious dish!  I know we did! 

Not Spaghetti

So I'd just like to start by saying that I wish I'd had a video camera to capture the spectacle of me trying to half the spaghetti squash that I used in this awesome recipe. I pulled out my biggest knife and tried to saw into it, without success.  So I lifted the knife probably more than a foot above the squash, trying to get the knife to penetrate the tough skin by hitting it.  This got the knife in about half an inch, and trying to saw on it again would do no more good (can you tell I'm a weakling??).  So now I'm balancing the knife-clad gourd on my cutting board with one hand, straining around behind me with the other hand to open a bottom draw to retrieve my meat tenderizer to bang on the back of the knife which only helped me cut into the squash the width of the knife. My next tactic was to try to drop the gourd onto the cutting board while putting pressure on the knife which ultimately ended with the two halves falling to the floor of my kitchen.

This aside, the recipe was surprisingly good considering that the contents of the dish were 90% plant matter.  Not to mention who doesn't need to add a little to their exercise routine??

I had a request to share some of the recipes that I was trying to use some of the contents of my bountiful basket, so this is my first one. I used the onion and two spaghetti squash.

Not Spaghetti
Ingredients:
-5 cups beef or vegetable stock
-1 cup lentils, rinsed
-4 mushrooms, diced
-1/2 teaspoon black pepper
-4 teaspoons garlic, minced, divided
-2 Tablespoons butter
-1 medium onion, diced
-28 oz can diced tomatoes
-6 oz can tomato paste
-season to taste with basil, oregano, parsley, sea salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce 
  (NOTE:  I go nuts with the basil, easy on the oregano and parsley, salt and pepper are kind of a personal preference as to much much you want or don't want, and we're talking like, 4-5 DROPS of Worcestershire sauce, a little goes a LONG way!)
-2 spaghetti squash, halved and seeds removed
-Shredded Parmesan cheese for garnish (optional)
Instructions:
1. Place stock, lentils, mushrooms, black pepper, and 1 teaspoon of garlic in a sauce pan and cook on medium heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. In a sauce pot on medium/high heat, melt butter and saute onions until soft. Stir in garlic. Add Dices tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, oregano, parsley, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.  Stir, cover, and simmer on low.
3.Strain lentil mixture (reserving the stock) and add to the tomato mixture.  If the sauce to too thick for your preference, add some of the stock to thin it down.  Continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until ready to serve (ideal is 4 hours, though it's still wonderful at 1 hour).
4. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
5. Carefully pour remaining stock onto a cookie sheet and arrange four halves of squash sliced-side down in the stock.  Bake for 30-40 minutes (other directions said "or until you could pierce the skin with a fork" but it got to the point that the fork was just pushing the skin into the soft meat of the gourd and I figured that was good enough!)
6. Flip halves over and return to the oven for an additional 5 minutes
7. Using tongs to hold the squash still and a fork to scrape, scrape the stringy meat of the gourd into a bowl
8. Serve the sauce over the squash and top with cheese (optional)


Mmmm... I'm eating the left-overs as I write this! SO tasty! :-D I can't wait to try this with tomatoes I've canned myself this summer!!

A Healthy Change

A couple years ago I had a friend who jumped off the "crunchy" deep end.  It started with just a few small changes here and there as she prepared for the arrival of her first child.  I remember having a conversation with a mutual friend where we agreed that the research, effort, and changes were all wonderful and how cool it was, but that it was so time-consuming and could it possibly last?

Now, two years later, my dear friend is an inspiration in her whole food, low budget cooking, in her aspirations of raising grass-fed rabbits, goats, chickens and all sorts of animalia for nutritional benefit, as well as in how she makes her own home-made shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, and cleaners just to name a few things. 

Every few days or so she excitedly shares the findings of her newest research and how she plans to change how they live to live a healthier life-style.  And every once in a while, she shares something that I think sounds easy enough to copy that I follow gingerly along behind her.

I've come to a place where I realize that conventional medicine and nutrition in the United States is not what it should be and that much of what we've been raised to believe about our health is not beneficial, or worse, it's harmful.

This year, I'm seeking to help my family make changes, especially regarding nutrition.  To eat more whole foods, organic when I can, vinegar baths when I can't, raising the over-all fruit & vegetable ratios of our diet, & possibly looking into vegan & gluten-free options. One of the things that I've already done is signed up for bountiful baskets (a food co-op that allows you to buy lots of produce for a discount, but is a challenge because you don't get to pick what's in your basket).  I've had some requests, now and in the past, that I share some of my recipes or things that I've discovered just experimenting with my own health and so I've decided to do a blog sharing what I've found.  What has inspired me is other people's stories of things they try and I hope I can inspire you to take baby steps towards living healthier as well!

The first recipe (this was before my first bountiful basket) I tried I found searching for vegan AND gluten free dishes (The easiest explanation I can give for this is the anti-cancer properties they talk about in this Huffington Post article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegan-diet-cancer_b_2250052.html, and you don't need a PhD to reason through that stuff that grows in the ground or animals that eat the stuff grown in the ground is WAY better for you than some chemically processed and preserved something or another that comes from a box or bag, though... bear with me, I am taking baby steps and so you will find that many of my recipes at this point do rely on things like canned tomatoes and dried chicken bouillon.). I was VERY impressed with the tastiness of this recipe!


Asparagus Risotto
Ingredients:
-A bundle of asparagus, sliced diagonally into 2-3" pieces (discard bottom portion)
-4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
-2-3 Tablespoons EVOO
-3-4" leak, sliced across the round starting at the roots (discard roots and remaining greens)
-3 mushrooms, sliced thinly
-1 cup raw organic Arborio rice (found it on the top shelf above all the normal rice at the store)
-1 Tablespoon minced garlic
-1/2 cup white wine
-Sea salt, to taste
-2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped 
Instructions:
1. Pour about a 1/2 inch of water into a saute pan and blanch the asparagus until it's bright green, remove from pan and rinse with cold water to keep it from cooking more.  Set aside.
2. In the same pan, heat the olive oil on medium heat and saute the leak and mushrooms for a minute, add the uncooked rice and saute for 3-5 minutes
3. Add the white wine and stir until most of the wine is cooked off.
4. Pour in 1 cup of broth and bring to a simmer.  Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, stirring frequently for 7-8 minutes.
5. When most of the liquid is absorbed, add the remaining cups of broth 1 cup at a time, stirring and simmering until each cup of liquid is absorbed before adding the next (NOTE: you can't cook risotto like standard rice, you have to babysit it like this)
6. Add the asparagus to the top of finished risotto.  Cover and set aside for 5 minutes.
7. Spoon into bowls & garnish with parsley


I was pleasantly surprised with how flavorful this dish was and the family (myself, husband, 4 year-old picky eater daughter, 7 year-old son, and 84 year-old Nana) polished off the whole pan!

Hope you enjoy!


***UPDATE***: I made this dish again with a sweet Riesling and a Tablespoon of lemon juice and it was still tasty!  It was a hit with the kiddos too, the picky one finished her bowl and the not-picky one took seconds!  Oh!  And I got a picture: