Quinoa Zucchini and Carrot Muffins

Pinterest failed me last week. BIG time.

As I was making this recipe I kept thinking, this is SO MUCH butter, and it look SO WET that there's no way it will turn into muffins. I should have listened to myself.
Burned on the outside, sunken in the middle, and what's with all those air pockets? Terrible recipe. The comments on the blog all said it worked for them, so maybe I'm just broken, but it made no sense.

So I looked up muffin ratios and found that recipe to be WAY off in terms of baking powder, and there were way too many eggs and too much butter and way too much sugar.

Now this was the only such recipe I could find, and I was (and still am) determined to use up that 20 lb bag of carrots I bought at Costco, so I decided to come up with my own. And it turned out pretty good :) I'd like to try one more time and see if I can't perfect it, but here's what I have right now. They're a little heavy, so I'm thinking the zucchini wasn't quite wet enough and a little milk would help. Any muffin experts out there are welcome to chime in.

Jill's Quinoa Zucchini and Carrot Muffins
2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 c butter
3/4 c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 c grated zucchini
1 c grated carrots
1 c cooked quinoa

Mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Cream butter and sugar, then add egg and vanilla. Stir in veggies.
Add dry ingredients to wet until mixed, then add cooked quinoa.
Divide into muffin cups.
Bake for 15-20 mins at 350 F.

Makes about 2 dozen.

Simple Spinach Artichoke Pizza

Lately I've been making food based on the hope of squashing a bad craving. The other night for dinner I was feeling like a huge plate of nachos. Probably not the healthiest choice. I started wondering how bad it would be to add spinach to nachos...that's when I decided I should probably make something that isn't cheese based.

I always start with spinach. It's one of the best veggies you can eat, loaded with iron and folate. And I just can't get away from the combination of spinach and mozzarella. Cheese is terrible for you, but sooooo yummy! Just don't eat too much, I guess :) But like I've said before - whatever you have to do to a veggie to get yourself to eat it, DO IT!

This took 5 minutes to prep and 2 minutes to cook.
Here's what I did:
1. Spread a (whole wheat) tortilla THINLY with ranch dressing.

2. Chop up a handful of spinach and throw it on the tortilla.

3. Add 1 or 2 artichoke hearts. I bought a really simple, cheap, store-brand can of artichoke hearts without any extra flavoring. They're quite yummy. Tear them up as you go so you can spread the leaves around a bit.

4. Grate some mozzarella on top.

5. Broil until the cheese is melted (or, if you're me, until you've turned around and helped your kids for 5 minutes so that by the time you pull it out the edges are charred).

Voila. So easy, so yummy, and tons of veggies. You're gonna need to fold the pieces in half to eat them, and they'll be messy anyway :)

How to Build a Healthier Dinner

I saw a great film a few years ago called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". Now, I'm not recommending that everyone go on a juice fast. It's definitely not something that will benefit everyone. But I do see the benefit in retraining your body to desire more vegetables, and whatever method you find that helps you reach that goal is great. For me it was froze veggies, and then smoothies. Now I just love veggies (obviously).

But here's the part of that movie that had the biggest impact on me:

This image shows the national average of food intake per day. The 60% stands for processed foods, including white bleached carb type products. Now look at this image:

This is how every plate you eat should look. Isn't it a little insane how much processed CRAP we put into our bodies? It's no wonder people are always lacking energy and getting sick.

So with all that in mind, here's how you should build EVERY meal:
Decide on a veggie
Come up with a protein that goes well with the veggie
Decide if you need carbs or not and choose wisely
Top it off with a HUGE glass of water

My example meal for this formula is the amazing dish I came up with last night. As it is July and our garden is ridiculous...

...my veggie choices are limited to basically zucchini. This worked out well, because we made zucchini chips the other day and had leftover breading. I. Love. Zucchini. So here is the recipe we (kind of) made for zucchini chips. Ours had more breadcrumbs than called for, and I would have liked more parmesan. Next time.

Choosing meat for me is really easy: Tilapia. Always tilapia. It's the easiest and quickest meat for me to cook, and I'm typically STARVING when I get around to making dinner. Also it's ridiculously good. Here's how I cook tilapia:

1. From the freezer, pull it out of the little vacuum pouch they sell it in and stick it on a plate in the microwave for 1 minute. Even if you're cooking more than one filet, 1 min should be long enough to defrost it.
2. Heat oil/butter in a pan over medium-high heat. I prefer butter, so I have to watch to make sure it doesn't burn. When your pan starts sizzling, it's likely hot enough.
3. Place your fliet(s) in the pan. They will sizzle A LOT so watch out. Season the tops however you want. I typically use lemon pepper or just salt with rosemary. Let them sear for about 2-3 minutes, until you can see the edges turning white.
4. Flip your filets and turn the heat down just a tad. Cover your pan with a lid and let them cook for about 3 minutes.
5. Check the solidity of your filets by squishing them with the flat of a spatula. If they start flaking apart, they're totally done. If they still feel kind of squishy, go ahead and flip them again. Also if you can see any pink in the vein be sure to flip them again to get that cooked.
6. If you poke the filet with the tip of your spatula and it cuts itself in half, it's done. If you end up cutting it in half and the middle looks gooey instead of flakey, let it cook a little more.

The breadcrumb overage from the zucchini actually worked out for the carb section of dinner. I said above that you should decide if carbs are necessary for you, and here's what I mean by that. Back when I decided to eat a lot healthier, I decided that the easiest way to cut down on calories is to come up with lunches that don't contain any carbs. I did it this way because I was cooking for my entire immediate family at the time, and with all the teenage boys I knew my healthy-style dinners wouldn't go over very well. Lunch was the meal I could control, so I did. I usually had a salad, or some kind of simple vegetable, or a green smoothie. Low carb lunches worked well for me because I NEED carbs in the morning to give me energy, and they're fine at dinner, but lunch is right before naptime, and the more veggies I ate, the longer I could stretch it out. I've never felt hungry in the afternoon eating this way, and allow snacks as long as they are fruits or vegetables. I was able to get rid of my bread dependency in this way, and that has really gone a long way in my weight loss/maintenance.

But let me say again: decide what works for you. If you can't survive without some carbs at lunch, try to cut down on the amount. I would recommend replacing carbs with a fruit or veggie that still has some but contains all that other good stuff to kind of cancel it out. A good choice is sweet potato or carrots. Also, try beans or quinoa as your carb - they double as protein!

At any rate, my typical formula for carbs in a day is kind of out the window right now. PREGO WOMAN NEED PASTA!!! So I made pasta. I got some of the colorful kind at Costco and whipped up some farfalla last night. Then I used this recipe for a light sauce. I LOVE this recipe. It's super light, but super tasty. And I got to use the leftover zucchini chip breading up in the pasta, so that was great. So let me clarify - I didn't follow this recipe exactly either. Instead of the whole breadcrumb-making section I just used what I had left from the zucchini. Also, I make breadcrumbs a lot more simply. I toast a piece of bread, then throw it in my Blendtec. Done.

So that is my lovely dinner. Pretty simple, and it only took about 30 mins to make.

Quick and Healthy and Oh So Yummy

I've had a few moments of inspiration this week so I thought I'd share. And let me remind you - my inspiration comes from looking in the fridge and seeing what needs to be eaten. It doesn't take much more than that to come up with something yummy.

First, a dish I'm going to call Cauliflower Creamed Spinach.

For starters, I have no idea what creamed spinach is. But I figure if you can sub cauliflower in for potatoes AND bread, why not cream?

I bought a head of cauliflower a week or so ago, planning to make some cauliflower sweet potato soup, which as been a hit in the past. But then I went to the farmers market store and found super cheap butternut, so I bought that, also for soup. When I got home I dug out the recipe book from the bag of sweet potatoes I bought in November (yes, they last that long, don't worry) and found a recipe for sweet potato butternut soup. Ok seriously? Needless to say the cauliflower got forgotten about. And that brings me to Monday, and trying to use up cauliflower for lunch.

I recently found a pin on Pinterest for cauliflower cheese sticks, which are basically bread sticks but with cauliflower instead of bread. Interesting. I decided to try it out, and it kind of failed. I was unable to keep the concoction from sticking to the pan, probably because of the copious amounts of spinach I decided needed to be in there. BUT it was super yummy! I decided to modify the recipe a little to my own tastes.

So here's what I did:
1. Rice (grate) some cauliflower. I did about 1/4 a head. Heat it in the microwave for about 5 minutes.
2. Chop some spinach. I used 3 big handfuls, whatever that equals in cups. Saute it in just a tiny bit of oil until it's all wilty and lovely.
3. Grate some cheese. I used about 1/2 c mozzarella. Love me some mozza!
4. Combine everything, and spread in a GENEROUSLY greased baking dish, about 9 x 5.
5. Broil for 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and it starts to brown on top.

So easy! And so yummy :)

Sorry no pics! Next time I make it I'll add some.

My second dish I shall call Salsa Tacos

Again, I looked in the fridge. I had a pepper from the farmers market store that cost me a quarter and a bag of sliced onions from the roast Richard made on Sunday. Also the plethora of tortillas that I always have.

Light bulb.

The last time I made avocado chicken enchiladas we ate them every day for a week and never tired of them. And one of the reasons was the delicious mixture of peppers and onions whose smell I can still remember if I close my eyes. So this invention started with that lovely aroma - diced and grilling red peppers and onion.

So here's what I did:
1. Dice and grill 1 red pepper with about half an onion in olive oil. Grill it as long as you want. It smells better and better as it goes.
2. Heat 1 can of DRAINED AND RINSED black beans in a pot.
3. Once the peppers are grilled and the beans are warm, mix them together and add some frozen corn. Heat until it's all nice and warm.
4. In a skillet, toast both sides of a tortilla.
5. Grate some cheese.
6. Construct your food. I left it open because I knew my kids would want burritos, I would want mini tacos, and who knows what Richard would want. He ended up rolling his tortillas and scooping the mixture onto the end for each bite. My mini tacos were constructed by tearing the tortilla into 4 triangles and scooping the salsa in and topping it with cheese. It was fabulous.

This is a super easy way to turn a meaty meal into a vegetarian one, btw. I ate WAY more than I should have for lunch today, as you can see...but all I had for dinner was a bowl of green beans, so it evened out :)

Ok for those of you wanting to try fish...This is my FAVORITE.

Tilapia is the best food on the planet. I found some on sale at Winco for $3/lb and couldn't help myself. So here's what I did. Are you ready for the intense simplicity?
1. Grill the tilapia.
2. Heat some frozen broccoli in the microwave.

It. Was. Heavenly. As you can see in the picture I topped it off with a nice cool glass of veggie juice. I love veggie juice.

So there you go, three easy ideas. Buy tilapia if it's less than $4/lb, and keep a variety of fresh veggies on hand, and you should be able to come up with easy, healthy meals at any time :)

And for desert...Homemade Larabars!

These are incredible. I eat at least 4 a day. I'm 2 weeks into my no-sugar diet, and it's going well, mostly due to these delectable morsels. It started out as an experiment for marathon snacks, and I fully intended to freeze them and save them for my long runs in the summer, but everyone here likes them too much for that. Hey, if it gets my kids eating fruit I'm down. Let me just emphasize the best part of these snack bars: there is NO sugar in them! Just dates, nuts, and some flavoring. I love dates as sweeteners. The problem with processed/artificial sweeteners is that the body doesn't treat it in an incredibly digestion-friendly way. Pure sugar is turned into carbs and then into fat by the body, and your liver is really bad at processing it correctly, so you're not only gaining weight but damaging your liver. But the sugar found in fruits, WHEN EATEN WITH THE FRUIT (i.e. making smoothies rather than juicing), are digested properly and turned into energy that your body can use, rather than fat that, let's face it, goes straight to your hips.

Easy Vegetarian Dinner

We all need to eat more vegetables. That's just all there is to it. One way I've tried to get my family to do this is to make at least one meal per week that has no meat. This is what we had for dinner last night, and it was super easy and super yummy!

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

This soup is AMAZING! Well, if you like mushrooms. To make it truly vegetarian you should probably use veggie broth instead of chicken broth, but I'm a fan of doing that most of the time anyway. The fact is, chicken stock was on sale at Costco so that's what I ended up using.

Soups are one of the easiest ways to make a vegetarian meal. What I usually end up doing is looking around at what veggies I have that need to be eaten, then I google a soup recipe for that veggie. I can tell you right now that I have made some delicious soups out of sweet potatoes, cauliflower, butternut squash, pumpkin and split peas.

We paired this soup with some Brussels sprouts, which is basically all my son ended up eating, lol. My favorite way to cook these powerful veggies is to saute them in lots of butter with some salt. I admit, it would be better to do without all the butter. But here's the thing: If butter gets you to eat a vegetable that you would otherwise not be eating, I say add the butter. You can eventually wean yourself from it if you want :)

So that's just a quick idea of how you can have a vegetarian meal pretty simply. The more ideas you gather, the more able you'll be to come up with your own as you get used to playing around.

Salsa

Last year we had an amazing garden, and we got a TON of romas. We decided to save them all for late fall, when my friend was planning to have a salsa-making party. Let me tell you what, that was the best salsa we've ever had. Richard dreamed about it for 10 months until this fall, and we planted over 20 tomato plants in preparation. Unfortunately that didn't work out so well, but Winco was having a really good sale on romas, so we lucked out.

Our first batch made about 12 pints, and that went WAY too fast. Off I went to Winco to get more veggies, and we made a second batch. We had a slight mishap with the seasonings, but Richard was able to work his magic and make it super tasty. We brought 4 quarts to Thanksgiving, and they all disappeared. And then everyone wanted the recipe, so here it is!

This is my friend's uncle's recipe, but I'm sure he doesn't mind sharing.

12 c tomatoes
1 1/2 c white vinegar
1/2 c sugar
3 onions, chopped
4-6 chopped green peppers
3-6 chopped Anaheim peppers (or whatever you want to add for spicy)
3 T salt
1 T black pepper
1 T or more garlic powder
cilantro (optional)

Peel tomatoes by blanching in boiling water and removing skins. Simmer all ingredients for 2ish hours or until it's as thick as you want it to be. (You can also add 1/2 c dried onion toward the end of the simmering to make it thicker if you want.)

Put in jars, leave about 1/4 inch at top, water bath for 15 minutes to sterilize and seal.

Variation: Use only 1 c vinegar and add 1/4 c lime juice.

Makes about 6-8 pints.

Southwest Sweet Potato and Quinoa Casserole

This is so yummy. Sweet potatoes are SO good for you, but not everyone likes them as much as white potatoes. I'm trying to find more ways to incorporate them into meals my family enjoys without losing the flavor, and this recipe is great for that. It's also very simple. I threw it together in less than half an hour yesterday, and Richard approved. Reuben liked it too, but it was a little too spicy for Rachel.

This recipe will easily feed 4 people.

Here's what I did:
1. Shred 1 medium sweet potato.

 You can skin it if you want, but remember that a lot of the nutrients are packed into the skin, and no one's going to notice it since it's shredded anyway.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the shredded sweet potato, 1 can of drained and rinsed black beans, 1/2 cup of cooked quinoa*, and 1/2 cup of shredded cheese, along with dashes of salt, pepper, and cumin (technically it calls for 1/2 Tbsp, but that's a lot for my sensitive 3 yr old) and mix well.

 3. In a separate bowl, mix 1/2 cup salsa with 1 egg. 

 4. Pour into greased baking dish.

 Pour the salsa mixture on top,

 and top with another 1/2 cup or so of shredded cheese.










 
5. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Enjoy!

*Quinoa is fun to experiment with, but this is my absolute favorite recipe for it. It cooks just like rice, but you do need to rinse or soak it before you cook it. I usually put it in a pot of water for 15 minutes, then rins it in my mesh strainer. Then return it to the pot with a 2:1 ration of water to quinoa, bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. 1 cup uncooked yields 3 cups cooked, so for this recipe you can easily cook up 1/3 cup and do the rest of your preparation (mostly shredding) while it's cooking.

And if you end up with extra beans or quinoa from making this recipe, here's another yummy thing I made for lunch the other day.