Hi all,
So, some of you may have heard the news that Google is phasing out Google Reader by July. Most of you I believe read my blog thru email subscription, but for those of you who use Google reader, I’d like to suggest you either subscribe via email or find alternative RSS reader to continue to follow my blog. Thank you all for reading!
I’m so excited about this month’s recipe redux: Brunch. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, followed closely by brunch. What’s not to love–all the delicious yummyness of breakfast with all the heartiness of lunch all at one meal! But, what kind of recipe??? Pancakes, waffles, french toast, eggs benedict, oh, the list goes on. Well, one of my latest go-to side dishes at dinner has been a quick version of roasted potatoes, which got me thinking about home fries–those creamy nuggets of flavor that pair so well with both the sweet and savory brunch foods.
To boost the nutrient quota I decided to add some vitamin-A packed sweet potatoe to the mix with delicious results. I hope you and yours enjoy my spin on home fries as much as mine do. Let me know.
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Instructions
Check out what my other reduxers have to offer for brunch:
I LOVE cupcakes, so I was thrilled when I learned they were the topic this month’s redux! They are just perfect little personal bundles of sweetness. Oh, but what kind to make for the challenge???? Chocolate, vanilla, something unique, oh how will I ever choose?
Then it hit me–Carrot! My mother makes me carrot cake every year for my birthday and has for I can’t remember how long. Oh how perfect to make little individual servings of my favorite cake. This recipe has been in my family forever, but to make mini cupcakes I wanted to tweak it a bit. I changed a little here and there, but the main change was the frosting. I am definitely a frosting person, love the creaminess with each little bite of cake. But I have to admit, the frosting on this carrot cake is often even too rich for my sweet tooth. I decided to cut the recipe in half and then place just a little dollop on each cake.
The result: perfection if I do say so myself. Tell me what you think….
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Instructions
Check out these other yummy, bite-sized treats too!
The other day when I went to the mail box, I found a big box from Nature’s Bakery, thank you very much by the way.
You can see all the pretty little packages I found when I opened it–all filled with different yummy flavors of fig bars.
There’s apple cinnamon, raspberry, blueberry, and more. Many are whole wheat–with whole wheat flour being the first ingredient!
I haven’t tasted one I didn’t like yet, and trust me, there’s quite a few empty wrappers in my trash can. And without sounding too much like a commercial, these are trans and sat fat free, dairy free, kosher, and the whole grain ones provide 4 grams of fiber in just two bars.
If you’re interested in possibly trying some, Nature’s Bakery is running a contest from now until the end of the month. It’s about Mommy Survival Kits. All you have to do is tweet @naturesbakery with the name or picture of one or more items that are must haves in your “Mommy Survival Kit”. It can be anything from chapstick, to wipes, to a certain snack, or anything that’s a must have for you. The company will create 4 kits of what moms have tweeted at us and GIVE THEM AWAY. Contest runs until the end of this month–so hurry up and start tweeting!
Good luck!
One of the often suggested steps to eating healthy is planning your weekly meals ahead of time. Planning your meals allows you to make sure you’re including a variety of foods in your weekly meals. It allows you to make one big shopping list and therefore helps prevent all of those mid-week quick stops at the grocery store–less trips to the store mean less impulse purchases of chips, candy, etc. And, planned meals and fewer grocery store trips means you’ll spend less money and who doesn’t want to do that?
The excuse I hear most for not planning meals ahead is lack of time. But that’s just hogwash! It can take as little as a half hour or so (once you’re organized) to plan a week’s worth of meals, and just 3 extra trips per week to the grocery store could easily take 3 times that much. And going out to eat or even the drive thru a few days a week adds up to more time spent. So there!
It may not surprise you but I am one of THOSE people that does plan my meals. Honestly, I think if I didn’t plan, the stress of not knowing what I was having for dinner each day would kill me. Planning meals can be as simple or as complicated as you choose to make. I’ve seen examples on Pinterest of very elaborate meal planning methods like this and this. As you can see by my menus for this week:
my system is on the simple side. I choose as many meals as I need for the week, but don’t necessarily know which meal is for which day. I know that I’ll be making pizza on Saturday for family movie night and I know the crock pot soup (cp soup on list) is for Monday when I have less than an hour between my son’s Tae Kwon Do and my daughter’s science team meeting. The rest, I play by ear. Some meals are very specific with the entree, side, and veg while others are just an entree without other specifics and I’ll pick a vegetable that looks good at the store or head to my freezer or pantry for a quick and easy veggie that night.
I challenge you non-meal planners to give it a try. I’m sure you’ll find you’re eating healthier and cheaper too! Start out slowly–make a list of a few of your family’s go-to meals. Include the sides and veggies you’d serve, when appropriate. Then, for each meal, make a list of all of the ingredients you’d need for that dinner. You don’t need to include staples like oil, seasonings, etc. Just include those ingredients you’d need to buy to prepare the meal. These lists are what you’ll refer to when making your weekly grocery list. But don’t worry about that yet. For now, just write down the meal idea and ingredient lists. At the very least, pick 7 meals, but you can do as many as you’d like. The more options, the more varied your eating will be from week to week. Come back next week to learn what step 2 is.
You’ll see one of the meals on my list this week is Wh Grn breaded Chick a la heidi with
rstd broc. Translation: Whole Grain Breaded Chicken Cutlets a la Heidi (a la Heidi means the sweet tomato sauce I serve on the chicken) with roasted broccoli. Here’s the chicken recipe if you want to include it on your list.
(In planning this week I was still being inspired by the Kretschmer Wheat Germ that was so generously given to me.)
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Instructions
Here you can see how the chicken should look cooking. The one on the right has already been flipped. Hope you try and enjoy this and Good luck as you begin menu planning! Let me know how it goes.
This post is linked to The Country Cook Potluck
One of my favorite things about weekend mornings are the relaxed breakfasts. During the week, my husband’s already at work by the time I’m getting the kids through their cereal or toast so we can head off to school on time. But on a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning–usually we only get one per weekend as we’re typically rushing off somewhere at least one of those days–I love to get out the skillets or griddle, and slowly cook up a pan of creamy scrambled eggs and golden potatoes, or poach eggs, or as I did this weekend, make yummy, fluffy pancakes.
This particular weekend I was fortunate enough to have been given some Kretschmer wheat germ and thought it’d make a perfect addition to my pancakes, and I was right.
Wheat germ is exactly what the name says it is–the germ of the wheat plant. This tiny nugget of nutrition is packed with vitamins and minerals because this is basically the seed of the wheat plant. If the germ is allowed to sprout, this is what develops into new wheat plants and these nutrients help it do so. And of course, these nutrients are super helpful to we humans too!
In just about 2 tablespoons wheat germ you’ll get 20% of your daily needs of Vitamin E and Folic Acid, as well as 10% of your daily needs of Thiamin, Phosphorus, and Zinc. These nutrients offer an array of benefits, including promoting heart health, cancer protection, and helping healthy babies develop in moms-to-be.
And, getting 2 tablespoons over the course of a day is incredibly easy. You can easily sprinkle some on your cereal in the morning, your yogurt at snack time, and your salad at dinner. But, there’s so much more you can do with it. It’s fantastic as an ingredient in baking (as you’ll see with the pancakes below) and cooking (later in the week I’ll be making some crusted chicken cutlets with a delicious tomato sauce, and of course I’ll share the recipe). Check out this chart from Kretschmer for great tips on how to incorporate wheat germ into your recipes.
I hope you’ll give these pancakes a try on your next lazy morning, and that your family gobbles them up as mine did.
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I keep meaning to blog more, but then life happens and I don’t get to it. Thankfully, I participate in this monthly recipe redux, so at least you get a yummy recipe from me once a month! I promise I’ll try to do better.
This month’s theme is tied in with the upcoming Oscars. We’re to share our favorite movie-inspired recipe. Well, when it comes to favorites, that’s tough for me. I’ve never been the kind of person who could pick a “favorite” anything. Not food, movie, song, color, not anything! Perhaps its the Gemini in me with the whole two personalities thing OR maybe its just because I can’t ever make up my mind about anything. But, usually I can narrow things down to at least a handful of favorites, and when it comes to movies one that definitely makes that list is When Harry Met Sally.
And anyone whose seen that movie certainly must remember how famously and specifically Sally ordered her apple pie–heated with strawberry ice cream on the side, if no strawberry ice cream then whip cream, but only real, not from a can, if they only have the can, then just pie but not heated.
I too am a lover of apple pie a la mode, however I prefer vanilla ice cream with my heated pie and like it on the side, not on top, just like Sally. Oh, and mine has to be homemade–not a heated up frozen, packaged pie. However, when it comes right down to making pie, well that’s another story. I do make a pretty darn good one, but I’m far more likely to make apple crisp because I have to admit pie crust intimidates me a bit. I’ve made many tasty ones, but that fear of it all tearing and sticking to the counter is always there. I’ve found I can get mostly the same flavor and pleasure out of a much simpler apple crisp.
And the recipe I’m about to share is written in my cookbook as “5th Grade Apple Crisp.” Now I can’t remember why we made apple crisp in 5th grade, but we did and it was a pretty darn good dessert. I’ve tweaked it a bit here and there and the results I think are perfection in a baking dish. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have all these years since I was in elementary school. Let me know.
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Instructions
Please check out my fellow Reduxers fav movie inspired recipes:
Also, check out the Country Cook’s Weekend Potluck.
Our recipe challenge this month was to look at a food trend for the upcoming year and turn it into a comforting bowl of soup or stew. Well believe it or not, chicken is a trend for 2013. It’s being predicted that chicken will take a more prominent spot on restaurant menus primarily for cost reasons. As the country’s money concerns continue, consumers are looking to be able to enjoy luxuries, such as eating out, while still trying to keep their budget in line.
For me, nothing says comfort like this Chicken Soup, so it was instantly the only choice for this blog recipe challenge. The recipe originally came from my Aunt Debbie. It was a staple meal every year when all of my aunts and cousins would gather at her house in New Jersey for a post-Christmas weekend get together. Over the years, its been tweaked a bit by this family member which brings us to today and this steaming, flavorful version of comfort in a bowl. I hope you enjoy it.
1 leftover roasted chicken (bones and meat)
3 cups low sodium chicken stock plus water
1 medium onion
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
15 ounce can tomato sauce
2-3 stalks of celery, finely chopped
Half a medium onion, finely chopped
4-5 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
Any other leftover vegetables you may have (optional)
1 cup acini de pepe, alphabet noodles, or ditalini, cooked and drained
Place chicken and stock in large pot, add enough water to almost cover chicken. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove chicken from pot and place in colander. Discard onion. Pick meat off of chicken, tear into bite-sized pieces and place back into broth in pot. Discard skin and bones. (If you didn’t have much meat left on your chicken, or if you would like more, you can add as much more cooked, shredded chicken as you’d like.
Add salt, oregano, pepper, cheese, tomato sauce, celery, diced onion, and carrots. Simmer uncovered 2 to 3 hours. Just before serving add leftover vegetables and pasta and allow to heat through.
Delicious served with whole grain crackers or soft rolls and a salad.
I hope you enjoy this belly warmer as much as my family has.
And check out what my fellow Reduxers have done with this challenge:
My challenge this month for Recipe Redux was to put a new spin on old-fashioned side dishes. Immediately I decided I’d be doing some veggie-filled spin on my my grandmother’s spaetzle. Spaetzle are those delcious little german dumplings usually covered in gravy or buttery bread crumbs. Yummy and great fare for a redux, right. However, the other night I was trying out a new green bean recipe, and started mentally tweaking it before I even put the pan on to heat. Thoughts of that Thanksgiving standby–green bean casserole as well as green beans almondine danced in my head as this new recipe began to look nothing at all like the recipe I’d ripped out of a magazine, and then it hit me—REDUX! (Don’t worry, I’ll try to work that delicious spaetzle recipe in another time).
A few tweaks later and I ended up with the recipe below, which I believe turned out great! I took away the creamy, canned soup sauce from the original casserole–but I did keep some of those crunchy little onions because I LOVE them! The resulting recipe is a slightly sweet, light, flavorful, and beautifully green side dish that is a perfect accompaniement to any poultry, seafood, or beef dish. In fact, just about anything, the night I made it I happened to be having lasagna.
1 pound fresh green beans, washed and trimmed
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, grated or minced
2 tablespoons raspberry jam
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup fried onions
Steam green beans until desired doneness. Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, heat olive oil and garlic together until garlic begins to lightly brown, stirring occasionally. Stir in the 
jam and vinegar. Add the grean beans and toss to coat. Sprinkle each serving with 1 tablespoon of fried onions.
Serves 4
Let me know what you think of my spin on green beans.
And, check out how others put a new twist on an old fashioned side dish:
It’s that time of the month again–Recipe Redux–Yeah!!! When I read this month’s theme, “Orange You Glad It’s Fall,” I knew my recipe would involve sweet potatoes and cinnamon. Those flavors to me meld into the perfect, comforting flavors of the season.
While two ingredients came to me immediately, what I was going to do with them took me a little while to figure out. However the other night we were having twiced baked potatoes with dinner and BAM! it came to me. I can make a more colorful version of that delicious potato side dish with sweets instead of russets–yum!
Before I get to the star of the blog, the recipe, just a bit about sweet potatoes. Many people are under the wrong impression that sweet potatoes are much higher in calories and carbs than regular potatoes due to their sweetness. In reality, a medium sweet potato contains only about 20 calories and a couple grams of carbohydrate more than a medium regular potato. PLUS, the sweet potatoes have twice the fiber (4 grams) as well as well over a day’s worth of vitamin A and a good dose of vitamin C.
If you like sweet potatoes, you’ll love these. If you’re not a huge fan of sweet potatoes, give these a try anyway, you may be sweetly surprised.
1 large sweet potato
1 tablespoon skim milk
1 teaspoon butter
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg
Dash of ground ginger (optional)
Dash of kosher salt (optional)
Preheat oven to 400. Scrub potatoes and poke a few times with fork. Bake in preheated oven until soft, about 60-75 minutes. Reduce oven to 350 degrees. Let potato cool slightly. Cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out potato halves, leaving about 1/8 inch thick shell and set aside. Combine potato centers with milk, margarine, brown sugar and spices. Beat with electric mixer until well combined. Divide mixture evenly among emptied potato shells. * Return to oven and heat through, about 15 to 20 minutes.
* Can be prepared in advance up to this point. Refrigerate until ready to eat and heat in preheated oven for 30 minutes.
Hope you enjoy the way I’ve turned the beautiful colors of fall into a delicious, comforting side dish or simple lunch. Let me know and check out what my fellow redux’ers did with this month’s theme.
Hi! I'm Heidi and I'm a Mom, a foodie, and a dietitian all rolled into one. Here I share my common sense thoughts, opinions, ideas, and more about raising healthy kids, eating nutritiously, and eating deliciously in the real world.
