Quinoa the new rice/ pasta.

I am making this again soon.  Quinoa. is NOT grain. It is a seed. It is pronounced "keen-Wah".
Nutritional facts about quinoa.

Eat one cup of quinoa (a single serving size), and you’ll consume:

• 220 calories (70 percent carbs, 15 percent fat, 15 percent protein)
• 40 grams of carbohydrates (13 percent daily value)
• 8 grams of protein (16 percent of daily value)
• 3.5 grams of fat (5 percent daily value with no saturated fat)
• A glycemic load (blood sugar spike) of only 18 out of 250
• 5 grams of fiber (20 percent of daily value)
• 20 percent of daily value of folate (various forms of Vitamin B)
• 30 percent of magnesium daily value (beneficial for people with migraine headaches); 28 percent daily value of phosphorous; iron (15 percent); copper (18 percent); and manganese (almost 60 percent)

Quinoa is stocked with life-sustaining nutrients all across the board, including all eight essential amino acids. There are other highly beneficial compounds, vitamins and minerals in this food that the Incas reverently called "chisaya mama" (mother of all grains).
(Thank you Mother Nature Network for making that information easy to find.)
I have had quinoa combined in a rice blend with brown rice and long grain/ wild rice.  and then cook in chicken broth and add your favorite flavors. Use just like rice and serve hot) 

Or cool it and use it like pasta and serve cold. Either way it is excellent for you.

Quinoa Salad
• 1 can black beans drained and rinsed
• 1 tomato diced
• 1/2 cucumber seeded and diced. (scoop the seeds out. Then cut in long strips and cut across)
• ½ c Frozen corn (I like white)
• ½ red or orange bell pepper diced.
• parsley
• cilantro
• avocado (optional)
• 1 cup quinoa
• ½ lime juice
• 1-2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup basalmic vinegar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 garlic clove
• 3 green onions sliced or ½ c of finely diced red onion.
• Small pinch of red chili flakes ( crushed red) a splash of it for the dressing
How to make it
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• Boil 1 cup Quinoa with 2 cups water and salt for 15 minutes. The water will evaporate or be absorbed kind of like rice. Fluff and let cool.
• In the meantime, put the black beans, tomato, and cucumber in to a serving bowl. Chop parsley and cilantro well and add to the bowl (you may want a lot or a little it is up to you), about 5 sprigs or more of each.
• To make the dressing put the green onions, garlic clove, red chili, 3 parsley sprigs, 3 cilantro sprigs, 1 tbsp of dijon mustard into the food processor (or blender) and process. Then add the basalmic and olive oil and process until mixed together well. This will make MORE than enough dressing.
• Once the Quinoa is done cooking and cooled dump into the bowl and add ½ c of the dressing. Stir it all together (or put it all into a bowl with a lid, and shake to mix.) and if you would like avocado I would add it now (to avoid it getting mooshy.)
• Taste. Add salt and pepper more dressing if you would like. Enjoy!
• I have also added a jalepeno to the dressing before with the seeds removed. This is optional. GO SPARINGLY with jalepeno, unless you know you like it hot.

Lasagna Roll Ups- Now and Later

This is the recipe, photos, and results for the Lasagna Roll Ups. I made up this recipe while I was pregnant, and wanted to figure out a way to make lasagna, that could be a good freezer meal. It has almost always been exactly this recipe. I combined three recipes, and used tips from my sister (the vegan one.. not sure if I have mentioned her before. She is vegan, and loves to cook.)
YAY. I remembered to take pics the whole time.

so here is the recipe.



1/2 pound each ground turkey and turkey sausage
2 1/2 cups diced mushrooms
1 onion diced
2 cups zucchini diced
1 box of lasagna
1 jar of sauce ( dealers choice, we use four cheese)
2 cups of cheese (Italian blend or 1/2c Parmesan and 1 1/2 cups Mozzarella)
2 tbs olive oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 block soft tofu
1 box of lasagna noodles

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add 1 tbs of olive oil and 1 tbs of salt (IF YOU WANT. Some people swear by all of this. I recommend the oil though because the pasta will be sitting for a few minutes while you prep the roll ups.)
Heat a large pan over medium heat. Add 1 tbs of olive oil. Saute' mushrooms, zucchini, onions, and garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms and zucchini are soft. Divide the mushroom, zucchini mixture.
Combine 1/2 of it with the tofu. Add the garlic powder,
and the grated Parmesan cheese.
This will replicate ricotta in a standard lasagna recipe.
Cook the turkey and sausage. (I use the same pan that I cooked the veggies in.)
Cook the lasagna noodles, just a little short of al dente. (if you cook by the times. do it for about 2 minutes less.) Pull the noodles out and lay them out on a cookie sheet.

So now you have, everything cooked. Lay it out and prep your area to make 3 meals worth. This can be one meal for dinner tonight, and 2 freezer meals, or 3 freezer meals.

This is how I set up to make these tonight. I am right handed. so I work right to left. Right. sauce (no need to heat it), the veggie and tofu mixture, the cooked turkey and sausage, and the rest of the cooked veggies. Middle, I am using a cookie sheet to prep the rolls on, above the cookie sheet I have the lasagna noodles in a roasting pan. (it was close and easy.) I have the black cookie sheet, for the ones I am freezing, and the baking pan for the ones I am cooking for tonight.

First coat the noodles in a little bit of sauce. As you can see in the above picture.
Second spread 2 tsp of the veggie tofu mixture across the noodle. Leaving about 1/2 an inch at the bottom of the noodle. The far left picture above, you just layer everything on. I do the tofu mixture, cheese, meat, and then the veggie. You can do a second layer of cheese. all these layers should be about 2 tsps. you don't want too much in there, then it is hard to roll.

Once you have rolled all of the noodles. It should look like this.Tonight I had enough to make 17 rolls. There was a little meat and veggie left. I could have done meat and veg in the two I made with just cheese. Instead I just topped the roll ups with the meat and veg, then the remainder of the sauce, and then about a 1/4 c of cheese. (whatever is left.)

< This is what it looked like about to come out of the oven. And that> is what it looked like in the freezer.
This is what it looks like once I bagged them up with the directions and the cheese with it.When you want to eat these for dinner. DO NOT DEFROST. Prep a baking pan, with about 1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce. Lay these in the pan, cover with sauce and top with cheese. Bake 40-45 minutes in a 350.

This is what it looked like for dinner last night. I usually have one, sometimes two. I was going to make a salad, but ran out of time. This would be great with the garlic monkey bread.

This is the first in a series of Freezer Meals. The second of a Fast meals pictorials.

FoodSperiment: Green Banana Muffins

I did it. I made GREEN banana chocolate chip muffins. The worst thing in these is the chocolate chips. They came out awesome, and no food coloring. Secret ingredient? Spinach. that I got for $.99 for a pound of washed bagged leaves. My kids ate them (ages 2-4), My best friends kids ate them (ages 9 and 11), My mother in law, best friend and her husband all ate them. No one said "Hey why are these green?" or " what are these green flecks?"
Do I get extra mommy food war points when I get other peoples kids to like them?

I combined these two recipes.
http://www.anjasfood4thought.com/2010/11/spinach-banana-muffins.html
combined with my normal recipe of
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-chip-banana-muffins-2/
This is what I came up with... YUMMMY
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 egg
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
• 3/4 cup spinach puree ( I used raw spinach in my food pro, with about 1-2 tbs water)
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Measure dry into large bowl. in different bowl beat together, eggs oil, yogurt, vanilla and bananas. then add wet to dry, stir gently to combine, add spinach fold in, and add choco chips.
375 12-15 minutes.
They came out so good. They are green and pretty. (were... they are gone now. they lasted about 15 hours.) It made 12 muffins and 2 mini loaves.
That is EXACTLY the recipe as I made them.
this is the recipe I actually created
• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 egg
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
• 3/4 cup spinach puree
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
I don't know HOW. But i omitted almost 3/4 cup of flour and it didn't seem to affect it at all.

Meatless Mommy Dinner

Potstickers and Morningstar Farms (you know I love them.) The Asian veggie patties and some veggie potstickers. YUMMY Yummy in my Tummy. I would have taken a picture, but I didn't know how good it was and then it was all gone. Super quick and easy. Healthy, low fat, low cholesterol, mommy dinner.
The patties have a zingy spicy flavor. I don't know that I would like them as a burger. But baked in the oven with a little oil, they got nicely crispy.
The potstickers have been a favorite of mine since I was pregnant with my daughter. They are easy to make a whole meal out of for one person. Saute' the potstickers in a little oil in a med high pan, until they are golden brown. Turn them for a few minutes. Then add 1/4-1/2 cup of water, and a cup or so of frozen veggies, and 1-2 tbs terriyaki sauce. Lid the pan, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Basically a one pan meal for one or two.

Meatless Monday New Product Review

(CLEARLY I am getting caught up today.)
Monday was Meatless Monday. We had tostadas. It is our fall back easy meatless thing. Hubby and I actually like the meatless crumbles, he calls it Veat (vegetarian meat). This week I found Yves Meatless Ground Turkey on sale ($1.50), so I picked it up to try it.
I seasoned it with onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, cayenne powder, a little salt and some paprika.
I used one pack. There was plenty for the 6 tostadas Hubby and I had. The kids had beans, rice and some of the veat mixed together like a dip. (as for the battle... Mommy gets 1/2. Hubby loved it. Caleigh ate it.) There was even some left That I am having for lunch today.
I Love this product. I would like it to be freezable, but it has a decent shelf life and it seasons really well. I would like to try it again in pasta sauce. But I think if I can find it on sale, will use this instead of the Morningstar Farms crumbles ($4-5 a bag).

Food Speriment Garlic Monkey Bread

A few weeks ago I found a Bridgford Monkey Bread... But it was Garlic Monkey Bread. I made it with dinner one night and it was SUPER yummy. I got it on clearance, so I paid $2.00. But normally it is $4.00. Not really willing to spend that much and I haven't been able to find it at any of my local stores. Last night I was at the store. (Grocery Outlet. If you have one near you.. Visit it.) I was getting a frozen garlic chicken pasta for dinner, and I thought garlic bread would be yummy. So I bought a Pilsbury french loaf. I unrolled it, just find the seam and unroll the dough. then I cut it into little 1/2X1/2 squares. Dipped the squares in 4 tbs melted butter with 2 tbs of chopped garlic in it. I then tossed them in parmesean, basil, oregano, and fines herbs. Then the pieces go into the spring form bundt pan. (I am cool and have one. You could probably pile them into the muffin cups in a muffin pan or into a round baking pan.) then baked at 350 for 22 minutes. The result FABULOUS. I really need to start taking pictures of these things. Because it was so good it was gone. So yummy, not salty, just garlicky and yummy little bites of bread. perfect for the kids.

A New Direction

While this food blog makes me sound like a crunchy earth momma, domestic goddess, this is not entirely so. I have a love for cheap mexican food, I love deserts, and I love cheese. This has resulted in my current predicament. My dr. called the other day to tell me that my cholesterol is too high. He wants me to start medication for 4 weeks and then retake the blood tests. I don't want to. SO. I have an appointment to talk to him (face to face). I am going to propose radical diet change and starting to work out again, instead of going on medication. If in 4 weeks my cholesterol has gone down. No medication. If not.. Well. I guess I am on medication.
So it is time for me to channel my inner crunchy earth momma, and do more home cooking and less eating mexican. I am going back to using whole grains, quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat breads. More fish, chicken and turkey and less red meat and pork. Less creamy sauces and less cheese. I guess I will be having oatmeal and cheerios for breakfast.
I will still eat out one day a week. My family goes to a mexican place near our church every Sunday after church, we have done it since I was 12 years old. So I will be doing that still.
The main problem is (confession...) I am terrible about doing the dishes. I hate doing the dishes. I don't know why. It really isn't that hard. But I will procrastinate until I have no clean dishes and we are eating off the "good china" with plastic forks. Then the leaning tower of plates, requires 4 loads of the dishwasher and 30 minutes of hand washing pots and pans. (I have started being better. It is another habit that I have to create. ) But when the kitchen is like that, I don't want to cook, so hubby lets me go out and get food. (an expensive and lazy habit.) The worst part is I love cooking, so it is stupid for me to eat food that doesn't make me happy.
So new direction.
Eat food that makes me happy, nourishes my body, and is healthy.
Get my ass to the gym 3-4 days a week.
Use whole grains, and convert the family.
Reinstate Meatless Monday, Fishy Friday and Wery Weggie Wednesday (sorry. little Star Trek reference there).
Oh and do the dishes every day.