A Work in Progress

Italian Veggie Casserole

{ 02:08, Tuesday, February 6, 2007 } { Posted in Recipes } { 0 comments } { Link }

So... in my quest for post-baby weight loss I am trying to eat as few carbs as possible. We are, of course eating full fat traditional foods such as whole milk yogurt, whole milk (non-homogenized), full fat cheese, organic butter, cheese, bacon, cream, and all other delicious fatty things that are good for you. So... fat + vegetables = yummy and healthy. Go wild with this recipe.

2 green peppers
1 package of cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 zucchini
1 large onion
8 cloves of garlic
2 cans of crushed tomatoes
dried oregano
dried basil
8 oz. mozzarella cheese
parmesan cheese

Saute peppers, mushrooms, zucchini and onions in olive oil. Mince garlic. Add half of that to the vegetables and half of that to the crushed tomatoes. Add a little bit of dried herbs to both the vegetables and the tomatoes. Butter or oil medium sized casserole dish. Layer half of the vegetables into the bottom of casserole, followed by half of the tomatoes and half of the cheese. Repeat with remaining ingredients. Bake at 375 for 30-45 minutes or until it is nice and bubbly and the cheese is nice and brown on top.

Oh man this is good. In our house we have a saying "there's no such thing as too much garlic." If you do not hold to that saying in your house you may want to leave out a few garlic cloves. I am convinced that you could throw any vegetable that you loathe into this dish and it would be fantastic. In fact come spring I may sneak in a little bit of asparagus - my arch nemisis in the vegetable world. Try it, you'll like it!

Sugar Free Broccoli Salad

{ 01:09, Monday, January 29, 2007 } { Posted in Recipes } { 0 comments } { Link }

There are many reasons that our family does not consume artificial sweeteners - but mostly for health reasons. One sugar substitue that we do use quite often now a days is stevia. Stevia is an herb that is somewhere around 300 times sweeter than sugar. The actual leaf itself is quite bitter, but we find that we enjoy the extract. I buy it in packets like you would see at a coffee shop. The extract is still extremely sweet and too much can throw off the taste of a dish or drink, so be careful! I have been trying to get sugar out of our diet. Even though we always consume natural sugars - maple syrup, sucanat and honey - we still should only rarely consume these products. The only sweetener that we are now consuming on a daily basis would be raw honey, and there are many benefits to raw honey. So I am experimenting with Stevia in our salads like the broccoli salad recipe below and coleslaw which normally would contain sugar. I also use it in tea and will be continuing to experiment with it in desserts as well as for sweetening yogurt. The salad below will be in our refrigerator for a few days, which will force me to eat broccoli - one of my least favorite vegetables to consume :).

Sugar Free Broccoli Salad

Salad
About 2 big heads of broccoli
1 bunch of green onions
Dried Cranberries
Sunflower Seeds
About 6 oz. cooked and crumbled bacon

Dressing:
1 c. mayonnaise
1 1/2 packets of stevia extract
3 T. vinegar

Mix up dressing. Mix up all other items in large bowl. Pour dressing over top (will be pretty thick). Mix everything well. Chill for a few hours to let the flavors meld. Enjoy!

Vanilla Oatmeal Scones

{ 05:12, Friday, August 11, 2006 } { Posted in Recipes } { 0 comments } { Link }

Today has been uneventful. We got our diaper pail liner bags in the mail as well as a big box of baby clothes from my mom. I love folding the baby clothes. They are in the drier right now.

I decided to bake something up for breakfast/the weekend for us. I found a recipe for oatmeal scones on the hillbillyhousewife website and decided to try that. The only change I made was to add some vanilla for flavor and added 2 more tablespoons of butter. Here's the recipe:

Vanilla Oatmeal Scones

1 1/2 c. ww pastry flour
1 1/2 c. rolled oats
1/4 c. sucanat
3/4 t. salt
1 T. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 stick butter
2/3 c. milk
1 large egg
1 T. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 425. Mix all dry ingredients together in large bowl. Cut butter into small pieces and cut into flour until it resembles coarse meal. In measuring cup mix the milk, egg and vanilla well. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix well. It may be a bit wet, if so add some more flour. Spray a 9" cake pan with non-stick spray. Pat the dough into the pan. Cut the dough into eighths. Sprinkle a lil more sucanat on top. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes.

These are currently in the oven and I will update when they are done and possibly quality control tested by my husband when he gets home.

Time to clean up and start dinner.

Note on scones: They were successful. They aren't real sweet and are very hearty. Unfortunately dh came home with a box of leftover doughnuts from work and we had one of those along with the scones. Now there is a box of them sitting in our kitchen staring at me shouting 'eat me.' I hope they stop shouting soon.

Have a great weekend y'all.

Veggie and Cous Cous Salad

{ 06:02, Wednesday, August 9, 2006 } { Posted in Recipes } { 0 comments } { Link }

Well dinner was a managerie (sp?) of veggies and cous cous. I was going to mix in some beans for protein, but the bowl wasn't big enough lol. So instead we had a bunch of raw, unsalted sunflower seeds on hand to throw in there. Here is my best guess as to a recipe:

Veggie and Cous Cous Salad

1 1/4 c. whole wheat cous cous
1/2 c. boiling water
6 T olive oil
1/3 lemon juice
Blanched sweet corn
Blanched green beans
4 scallions, chopped
1 large tomato
Approx. 1/2 c. sunflower seeds
juice of 2 lemons
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper

Combine cous cous, boiling water, 1/3 c. lemon juice and 6 T. olive oil in large bowl. Cover and let sit 5 minutes. Meanwhile, remove blanched corn from the cob and roughly chop green beans. Roughly chop tomato and dice green onions. Add all veggies to cous cous along with sunflower seeds. Add remaining lemon juice and olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Stir well. Delicious!

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