Healthy comfort foods for the week(end)

I've got a busy week/weekend planned. In addition to the traditional cleaning and food prep for Thanksgiving, I'm going to paint two walls in the living room tomorrow. So I'm stocking up on some yummy but healthy foods to get my through the first half of the week.

I started with yam slaw the other day. This became one of my new favorite summer sides this year and even though summer is over, I've been craving it.  Grated yams, coconut, sesame seeds, and agave nectar.  It tastes ten times better than it sounds; it just needs to be prepared a day in advance.

This morning I've got carrot muffins in the oven.  This was a recipe Bobby made for Thanksgiving one year at mom's house and I've been making it ever since.  It's relatively healthy, especially since I've adjusted the recipe to include whole wheat flour, and ground flax. I also use walnuts instead of pecans because I much prefer them.  Here's my version:
1 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. sugar (I used a bit less this time - don't tell Kyle!)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
ground flax (2 Tbsp?)
1/4-1/2 c. walnuts broken down pretty fine
2 medium carrots grated
2 eggs
3/4 c. rice (or soy) milk
1/4 c. oil
2 tsp. fresh grated ginger

Mix dry. Add wet. Bake in muffin tins at 400 F for about 12-15 min. Yum!  Makes about 18.

and...I just took them out of the oven (now there's a way to pass the time while waiting for your food to be ready - blog about it!).

I'm thinking of also making applesauce with cranberries (someone advised me to leave the skin on for nutritional value and time saving), rye bread (some for now, some for the stuffing), and maybe the lemon sesame orzo I've been craving as well. I think I'll have plenty of food to sustain me until the big feast. Cheers!

Garden

In there are the carrots in the middle. Then, around it is the peas and beans growing up the fencing. It's trying to grow up to the sky I think. It ran out of fence but keeps going straight up.
These are just some of the many potato plants. They are starting to die already. So I might have to eat some soon. It stinks Tim isn't home to eat with me. That's why I keep putting it off.
This is the lettuce. It is about double that size now. I haven't picked any yet but I am thinking of having a salad soon!!!
This is what the asparagus looked like when it first started to come up. it looked just like an asparagus. Now it looks completely different. Tall and skinny with a bunch of sprouts coming off the top of it.






These are a few pics from my garden from at least a week ago. I want to get up there with the camera tomorrow to take some recent picks of how great everything is doing. I can't wait to have a bigger area next year though! Everything is pretty cramped right now!!!

lamb and peas

MMMM.....this one was pretty good and different. I made lamb chops, pea risotto and roasted potatoes. The potatoes were my favorite but everything was delicious! I'm just not crazy about peas and the taste of lamb is alot different. I did a pretty good job preparing everything though if I might say so myself.

Salmon

This is a salmon I made one night for dinner. It was delicious! And I'm not that crazy about fish. Tim thought it was great though. This is a frozen salmon I got at whole foods. I sometimes mess with Bobby about it because he came shopping with me that day and was loading up the groceries in my truck and the salmon fell on the ground. It was snowing so it got dirty mush all over it. So I say that he threw my salmon on the ground cause he had something against salmon. I don't make much fish for dinner but I try to every once in a while.

lox

Today's lunch: Lox on multigrain with capers and cream cheese.
The best part: Kyle and I caught this salmon on Sunday and I made the lox myself!

I've been wanting to make my own lox for a few years and finally got my chance.  We caught an exceptionally large salmon from Cayuga Lake (24 inches) and a recipe book from my good friend Kathryn made this very simple (and delicious). It's much milder than you would typically find in a shop - which means I have to share with Kyle. Although, with about 4 pounds of fillets, that's ok.

The boat is paying for itself already. Next week, I'm hoping for perch or walleye. When we start catching trout, I'm going to need a smoker.

Cow

Christa...Have you heard about the cow we are getting?

Bobby and Debbie ordered a whole cow for us the other day. We are splitting it 4 ways with other couples. It's pretty exciting. It is grass fed beef. So it's a good thing we have a deep freezer. I can't wait. We should have it by the end of the month. Beef for like a whole year!

Joe's

Crab Shack that is....

A few weeks ago we went there with a few other couples. There were 8 of us. You may have heard from Bobby, If not, he would be glad to tell you about his disappointment in the one guy who pretty much didn't eat anything. And he ordered a complete meal! Meanwhile, Tim & I and Bobby & Debbie each got appetizers and then a meal each. I think Bobby and Tim finished that guys meal and everything else on the table. It was pretty good. I should have gotten something else probably but I wanted to try what I got. Most of it was really good but some was crab cakes and crab stuffed shrimp. It was all kinda too sweet or something for me. Well just the crab part was. Everything else was delicious.

I made them!

I made those cinnamon rolls I talked about a few blogs back! They were delicious. We ate them for breakfast all week and I also threw some uncooked in the freezer for another time.

Schmorgasborg!

2 Saturdays ago we had our friends come up from washington, pa. They have 3 little girls, ages 3, 2 and 1 and we offered to keep them overnight. So the 5 of them came up for dinner and the parents stayed til about 10 and left the girls here for the night. We also had mom, Dre, Emoni and Micha over for dinner and to play for a while. I made a deeeeeeelicious dinner. I had made these mashed potatoes a few days prior and they were so good I had to make more. I used red potatoes and mashed them, but not completely. We enjoy some clumpiness left in there. I added a bit of garlic, butter and salt and everyone loved them! I made a salad with all kinds of veggies on the side. The most boring part was the canned corn. Then the best part was shared by the veggie lasagna and meatloaf!

The meatloaf was the best meatloaf ever and I am not the biggest meatloaf person cause it usually involves more ketchup than I like. This had some ketchup but it was mixed in and not just squirted on top. I am not a fan of that at all. It also had some cheese, onion soup mix and steak sauce in it. This meatloaf was so juicy and delicious. Dre had as much as he could eat of it until he was full and then we had to wrap some up for him to take home.

The lasagna I kinda just added whatever to it. I made homemade noodles a few days prior! I used some canned tomatoes and tomato sauce with a bit of jarred spaghetti sauce. I used ricotta cheese. If I can remember....the veggies were....spinach, asparagus, green pepper, onion, mushrooms, garlic, zuchini and I think there may have been more but maybe not. I'm not sure. I have a tendency of making stuff and forgetting how I did it. I need to start writing everything down for the next time I do it. I did that with this chili that Tim loved and he wants more but I don't remember all the seasonings I used.

Frank's smoothie

I've been in smoothie rut for a few years, always going with the traditional berry, banana, orange smoothie.  I kick it up a bit with some oats mixed in, but I haven't tinkered with peaches, mango, pineapple or other fruits in quite a while.  Until yesterday.  I have a new favorite, recommended by Frank: peach, banana, vanilla soymilk.  Try it if you haven't already. 

homemade chocolate bars

mmm....chocolate
I've been thinking about the awesome chocolate bar I purchased at the chocolate shop in the strip and thought a.  I can't live much longer without another one and b. I can do that.
So I did.  I took about half a pound of chocolate pieces (62% cocoa I think) from that shop, melted it, added pistachios, golden raisins (the only kind of raisins worth eating), and dried blueberries, mixed, and poured.  Later Saturday afternoon I had chocolate bars. Yum!!  This is a good use for those flexible silicon pans.  I oiled it a bit and then when the chocolate hardened again, it popped right out.  Make your own chocolate bar today. :)

another reason to live in Ithaca

I just received this message from my CSA coordinator telling me what I'll be coming home to tomorrow.
"This week, we're sending out about 3 pounds of apples (a mix of organic Enterprise and Gold Rush), a quart of grape juice, and a pound of frozen blueberries. The blueberries are form the Berry Bush and the juice was made from the grapes grown by Ed Dugue in Hector. You may notice some crystals on the bottom of the grape juice. These are a naturally occurring acid that separates out as the juice sits, and occur in our juice because it is unfiltered. We hope you enjoy it!"
Does it get any better than this?

Take Out

On Sunday we got some delicious food from The Flame Bar B Que. Kyle would love it! I had pulled chicken and pork with mac 'n' cheese and it was delicious! It's a big menu of all kinds of different barbecued meats and delicious sides. I think I saw a fish sandwich too and there are some meatless sides. It is located on babcock down toward the shop n save in millvale.

Another place that is awesome but I feel like we have had it too much for the amount of time we have been living here is Big Shot Bob's. We keep having different people over to try the wings and sandwiches. We are having some friends over soon so they can try them too. They have over 100 different wing flavor and some serious sandwiches. Again, I'm not sure that they have many vegetarian choices. I think one hoagie. The sandwich I have been getting is "The Tom Hardy". It's loaded with Buffalo Chicken, bacon, provolone, American cheese, onion, banana pep-pers, lettuce, and Ranch dressing. I have also tried a few different flavors of wings like....garlic ranch wet and pigeon wings.

Both these places are pretty awesome. Tell Kyle to check out the menus online. We will have to order from these places at some point when you guys are around.

In the Near Future..

In the next week or so I plan on making cinnamon rolls. I have been thinking about them for almost a week and just keep putting it off for some reason. I can't wait!

I will also soon make the Apple Walnut Muffins that we got for Christmas from Bobby & Debbie. The jar of dry ingredients looks awesome and I can't wait to bake them.

I also want to pull out my homemade bagels from the freezer but I don't want them to be gone! I will just have to make more! I froze a bunch the last time I made them because we bought some at the store. Turns out the store bought ones are horrible. Of course they would be though after making them homemade! I would like to make Tim some jalapeno cream cheese as well sometime soon. I prefer plain cream cheese but I always like to experiment and I am glad Tim loves to eat just about everything!

Tim's lunches...

Every so often I pull out a bunch of chicken or some random meat and make a few different recipes with it and freeze them for Tim to take for lunch. I pack his lunch 98% of the time. Every once in a while when he feels spunky he will get to it before me. But making meals and freezing them is working out great because we don't have to worry about finding something for lunch and there is an assortment to pick from so he just isn't having last nights leftovers or the same thing all week. I'll also pack some fruit or yogurt and some other cool stuff. It makes him pretty happy when I throw in a boysenberry spritzer or some chocolate milk!





The other day I made chili. I pretty much made up the recipe and don't remember everything I put in it. I used chicken and ground turkey. I believe maybe 2 cans of tomato sauce for the base and I also pureed some tomatoes we had here that were about to go bad. The seasonings are what I am mainly unsure about. I know I put chili powder in there but I'm thinking maybe I added parsley and or something more. Also, there a bit of salt and pepper. The veggies I threw in were celery, green pepper, onion and garlic. I also added kidney beans. It didn't make a ton of chili but just enough for what I was doing. Oh I remember one other ingredient...sugar. It added a bit of a sweet taste. This chili defenitely had a different but very good taste to it. I put this in individual containers in the freezer for Tim's lunches. I left one container with enough for both of us for one evening. At first I was cooking this in the slow cooker but I got anxious and halfway through(after a few hours) I put it on the stove to finish it up quickly.





That same day I made something called Chicken Vicious. The following were the ingredients..


2 teaspoons vegetable oil
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
2 tablespoons garlic powder, or to taste
1 tablespoon onion powder, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 (8 ounce) package button mushrooms, sliced
1 cup frozen green peas
3 green onions, chopped
3 teaspoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons cold water


Not to the T on the measurements though. At the beginning of cooking this, the vinegar and soy sauce were doing a good job of going right up my nose and clearing me right up. It was horrible when I would get a wiff. But in the end it made the house smell soooo good. I took the tiniest taste at 2 different times because I had to make sure it was ok but it was way too spicy for me. Tim got home just after I finished making it and thought it smelled amazing through the house. He can't wait to try it for lunch! He is having it tomorrow because I can't wait to see if it tastes just as good as it smells. Seems like something Kyle would really enjoy though so I will have to let you guys know how it is after tomorrow.

He also got 3 other delicious lunches waiting for him from this week. I got 2 lunches out of the meatloaf night and one from tonights pork chops. Both with all the fixins! When I made a few dips for New year's I froze some in small containers for Tim to take in his lunch every once in a while too. I am jealous of those though and might have to steal some of the buffalo chicken dip ones! Christa, you need to see if you can make buffalo tofu dip or something because this is one meat snack you are missing out on!!! In the past I have made Chicken Tikka Masala over rice...that's a big hit!

Does anyone else have a cool camoflauge lunchbox like Tim? hahaha....I bought it cheap at Target one day cause I thought it would be funny but it kinda works great. If I didn't have a kid size lunchbox then I would probably just keep adding all kinds of delicious food to his lunches, then he would eat it all and the end result would be him working out more than once a day! The lunchbox even came with a bottle that velcros to the outside!

The guys at work get pretty jealous too! It's funny to hear what they always have to say to him at lunch time when he brags. The one old guy gets an ok lunch. Unless his wife is out of town. One time she was out of town for 2 weeks and he had hot dogs every single day! Tim said sometimes she will go to a fast food place before she leaves and freeze burgers for him to have everyday. That is so horrible! Bryan(the cowboy) eats like a poor college boy. Even though every once in a while his gf will bake brownies. He isn't poor so I guess just too lazy to make something delicious or grab a piece of fruit.

On a side note...

We have been having Breyer's ice cream all week and I love it! I have cookie dough and reese's and a little bit of Smucker's chocolate fudge. Then, I mix it all together and enjoy the end of my evening! Sadly, I finished the cookie dough last night while we watched The Davinci Code.

For lunch today we had random snacks and some hot dogs. We had one sausage bun, a hamburger bun and a few slices of bread so we improvised. But I was sure to add cheese and onion to mine. I can't wait til summer to cook on the grill! It was much easier to cook on the grill in the winter at mom's house!

Another sad part of the week concerning my snacks is that I ran out of york peppermint patties! I still have plenty of Reese's though!

So much good food...

Last Sunday, a week ago, we had Bobby, Debbie and Tim's mom over for dinner. Tim made fish sandwiches that were so awesome! He made a beer batter with lots of good stuff in it and fried them in our cast iron skillet. With that we had mac & cheese and asparagus. We have a whole book of mac & cheese recipes and he has been waiting to make some for a while. This one was very creamy and delicious! The asparagus was fresh and cooked perfectly. I can't remember if he put butter or olive oil on them but I believe he baked it and it was so good. 66% of this meal was stuff I wouldn't typically eat but it was so good. I think the asparagus was my favorite then the fish and last the mac & cheese which is odd for me. I am starting to like lots of new vegetables. Bobby got me really liking brussel sprouts which youll see we also had for dinner last night.

Last night we had brussel sprouts sauteed in butter, pasta and meatloaf. I am not typically a meatloaf person because I don't like ketchup. Especially when it is cooked on top and I can see it and most of the time it is too dry. The recipe used was amazing! Not alot of ketchup but it was mixed in the meat before cooking with other ingredients and everything made this so juicy and fantastic! The meatloaf and pasta recipes I got from allrecipes.com. I get alot of recipes or most of the time recipe ideas from here. The majority of the time I change half the ingredients. The pasta was called "Pasta e Olio". It is basically olive oil, butter, parsley, garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. The noodles were delicious as well. I was worried while I was cooking them because I'm not crazy about spicy food and I thought the red pepper flakes would be too much for me. They were just right though! Every once in a while at the end of a bite I'd get a little kick from it and it was perfect. Then the meatloaf was called "Rempel Family Meatloaf". I just realized that was probably the first time I didn't change anything from the recipe. So if you want to know anything about them just go to the site and search those recipes.

Tonight we had pork chops, corn and the same noodles from last night. I am not crazy about pork chops either but Tim likes them alot and I like to have a variety of meats for dinner. As it turns out...these were the best pork chops ever! Again, I got the recipe from allrecipes.com and they were titled "Baked Pork Chops I". First, I put just a little bit of Lawry's and garlic powder on them. I then seperately put them into egg, flour then MANCINI's bread crumbs. I cut up some fresh mushrooms and onion and put everything in the cast iron skillet with some olive oil. When the pork chops were seared I put them in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. Not sure how long because I always forget to watch the time. When they were pretty much cooked through I added the sauce for another 5 minutes in the oven. The sauce was milk, chicken broth and cream of chicken. I put that in the same cast iron skillet with the onions and mushrooms(and where the pork chops were seared) before I poured it all in the oven with the pork chops. The corn was defenitely a nice change from the Aldi's corn we usually eat. We went all out(because we had a coupon) and had Green Giant frozen corn. You can defenitely taste the difference! The noodles were even better tonight because we put some of the sauce from the pork chops over them.

brinner

Kyle loves brinner!  We had breakfast for dinner on Friday night- homemade English muffins, potato pancakes, applesauce made with apples from our fruit CSA share, and mushroom frittata.  Yum!

chocolate pomegranate treat

Looking for a quick dessert or snack?  Need to bring a dish to share?  Remove the seeds from a pomegranate.  Melt about 5 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate.  Mix and drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper.  They will harden in just a few minutes.  The seeds pop as you eat them, creating a party in your mouth.  Quick, delicious, and so full of antioxidants that as Kyle observed, "they are as beneficial as herbal supplements."