|
|
By sally, on May 13th, 2012
So for my last post, I shared a picture of my new container herb garden, but my small garden (which is doing quite well by the way!) is nothing compared to my mom’s garden. She has five raised beds filled with all sorts of veggies and herbs, and she has started expanding and taking over the rest of the backyard with fruit trees, berry bushes, and other small plots of veggies. She is not to the point where all of her produce comes from the backyard, but it does contribute a fair amount of food to her meals.
Whenever I visit my mom, I love to cook with her and take advantage of her yard full of produce. The last time I was there, one of the dishes that we made was a quinoa taboule salad with a fantastic selection of fresh herbs from her garden. Taboule is usually made with bulgur and fresh tomatoes, but we switched it up a bit and used quinoa and red bell pepper. The result was a light and refreshing salad that is perfect for picnics, potlucks, and everyday meals.
Graham and I would like to wish all of you mothers out there a happy Mother’s Day—especially our own mothers! Mom, I can’t wait to cook with you again soon!
Quinoa Taboule
Adapted from Bob’s Red Mill (recipe on the back of the quinoa package)
The original recipe that we used called for 2 cups of quinoa, but we thought the salad was a little too lemony, so we ended up using closer to 3 cups of quinoa. Please adjust the recipe below to your liking.
- 2-3 cups of cooked and cooled quinoa
- 1 cup chopped fresh parsley
- ½ cup chopped green onions
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
- 1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and diced
- ½ cup fresh lemon juice
- ¼ olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
In a large bowl, toss together all of the ingredients. Chill the salad for 1 hour to allow the flavors to combine.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
|
Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
|
You can’t go wrong with fresh herbs in a salad. |
|
Easy Rating
Four Easy Chairs (“ABC, Easy as 123…”)
|
It takes a little bit of time to cook the quinoa and chop the herbs, but a pretty easy salad overall. |
|
Healthy Rating
Five Apples (My Body is My Temple!)
|
Delicious and nutritious! |
|
Green Rating
Five Leaves (Absolute Green)
|
All of the ingredients were organic and the herbs were about as local as they come! |
By sally, on April 29th, 2012
Just a quick post today, as I am still catching up from my trip to California for work and my sister’s wedding. I did make it a priority to plant some herbs and tomatoes this weekend though. This year we are growing chives, dill, flat leaf parsley, oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, basil, mint…and two small tomato plants! I hope they all survive and we can start harvesting soon — stay tuned for a recipe next week!
By sally, on April 15th, 2012
I felt like the queen of leftovers last week. The biscuits that I made over the weekend used up the sour cream and some of the cheddar from our recent party, and these chili cheese fries were a great way to use up some extra beans and cheese. Graham and I liked the chili cheese fries so much that I made another batch with the sweet potatoes that we just got in our CSA box. I think these fries might become a staple in our house and not just a way to use up leftovers.
Sweet Potato Chili Cheese Fries
I used this recipe to make the baked sweet potato fries and this black bean recipe (I did add a little extra chili powder to the beans). MJ also has a great recipe for black beans on her site, MJ’s Kitchen.
To assemble the chili cheese fries, smother the fries with black beans and top with grated cheddar cheese.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
|
Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
|
The sweetness of the potatoes and the spicy black beans pack a flavorful punch. |
|
Easy Rating
Three Easy Chairs (Average Difficulty)
|
If you make the black beans from scratch this recipe will take a little longer, and there is some prep time involved in peeling and cutting up the sweet potatoes. To make it really simple you could add some spices to a can of black beans and put it on top of a baked sweet potato. |
|
Healthy Rating
Four Apples (Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise)
|
If you go easy on the cheese topping, these baked sweet potato fries and black beans can be pretty healthy. |
|
Green Rating
Four Leaves (Mother Earth Approved)
|
The sweet potatoes were local and the beans and cheese were organic. |
By sally, on April 8th, 2012
This weekend we had a few friends over to celebrate Graham’s birthday, which was a lot of fun. For the celebration, I ended up making some old favorites from the blog including corn and manchego cheese empanadas and black bean soft tacos. I also made carrot cake cupcakes loaded with cream cheese frosting from this recipe. We had a great time at the party and ate a ton of food, but of course we had some random leftovers.
Since I didn’t think that Graham and I could (or should) go through a big tub of sour cream and a bunch of cheddar cheese before they went bad, I decided the best thing to do was to bake with it. After a quick web search, I found a great looking recipe for sour cream and cheddar biscuits. We both love fresh biscuits and these fluffy and cheesy biscuits are no exception. Aside from the taste, one of the best parts of this recipe is that you can freeze the biscuit dough and bake it up later—a nice way to avoid having to eat all of that cheese and sour cream in the next few days.
Sour Cream and Cheddar Biscuits
Adapted from Gourmet via Smitten Kitchen
To cut out the biscuits, I ended up using the mouth of an old jam jar. Once I had cut out the dough, I baked up half of the biscuits and put the other half in the freezer. I plan to add a few more minutes to the baking time when I get around to baking the frozen biscuit dough.
- 1½ cups of flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
- 1½ cups or ¼ lb of sharp cheddar cheese (I also added a little leftover manchego into the mix)
- 1 cup of sour cream
Preheat the oven to 425°. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Once combined, cut in the butter with a pastry cutter until it looks like a course meal. Stir in the cheese and sour cream until it forms a dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead a few times. Pat the dough out until it is about ½ inch thick. Cut out several rounds using a biscuit cutter or the mouth of a jar dipped in a little flour (the jar I used made nine biscuit rounds). Bake the biscuits for 15-17 minutes, or until golden.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
|
Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
|
These biscuits are wonderful when they are still warm from the oven. |
|
Easy Rating
Four Easy Chairs (“ABC, Easy as 123…”!)
|
When it comes to baking, these biscuits came together really quickly. |
|
Healthy Rating
Two Apples (Surgeon General’s Warning!)
|
While I did use light sour cream, these biscuits are by no means healthy. |
|
Green Rating
Three Leaves (Average Environmental Friendliness)
|
A few organic ingredients, but several ingredients were conventional. |
By sally, on April 1st, 2012
When I set about making these thumbprint cookies, I was expecting another mishap—in part because of my recent kitchen adventures, but also because I was modifying a recipe I had never tried before. However, the resulting cookies were delicious and provided yet another way to use up the almond pulp leftover after making almond milk. Enjoy!
Almond and Oat Thumbprint Cookies
Adapted from Whole Foods Market
If you aren’t trying use up any leftover almond pulp, you can grind up some whole almonds for the cookies, as suggested in the original recipe. I ended up adding roughly ½ cup of all-purpose flour to my cookie dough because the dough was too sticky to roll into a ball. After adding the flour, the dough was still pretty sticky, but I decided to just go with it. The cookies turned out well, but I may experiment with adding different amounts of flour next time. Also, I used apricot jam for the cookies, but feel free to try other flavors.
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 cup almond pulp
- 1 cup spelt flour
- ½ cup canola oil
- ½ cup brown rice syrup or maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ all-purpose flour (optional)
- 5 tablespoons (or more) fruit jam (low or no sugar added)
Put the oats into a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. In a large bowl, stir together the ground oats, almond meal, spelt flour, canola oil, syrup, and salt. If the dough seems like it is too sticky to roll into balls, add some all-purpose flour a little bit at a time.
Roll the dough into walnut sized balls and arrange them on parchment lined baking sheets. The dough balls should be about 2 inches apart. Using your thumb or a spoon, press down in the center of each of the balls to form a small indentation. Fill each of the indentations with about a teaspoon of jam.
Bake cookies for about 15-20 minute or until they are golden brown around the edges. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card |
Notes About Recipe Ratings |
|
Tasty Rating
Four Chefs (Delicious!)
|
Loved the texture of these cookies and the sweet jam filling. |
|
Easy Rating
Four Easy Chairs (“ABC, Easy as 123…”)
|
If you have a food processor at home that you can use to grind up the oats, this recipe is a snap. |
|
Healthy Rating
Three Apples (Average Nutritional Quality)
|
As with all cookies, these thumbprint cookies should be eaten in moderation. However, they are made mostly from whole grains and have a relatively small amount of sugar/sweetener in them. |
|
Green Rating
Four Leaves (Mother Earth Approved)
|
Most of the ingredients were organic, but not local. |
|
|
