Some Tested Recipes & Tips

Well I have about a million things I could write about, but for some reason the things I want to document get lost  - like Christmas decorating or millions of fun moments with my clever children who are growing like weeds!

I have been working all of the past year on getting us down to 6 dinners a week at home. I relieve myself by doing at least one pizza every week with leftover meats and veggies and there is also typically one breakfast supper night ;) I work a lot off my Pinterest board and my allrecipes.com list. I make new things every week which makes creating the list so time consuming! But we aren't eating pasta or random meat every night so I think it's worth it. Here are some of my very favorite tested recipes from Pinterest. I have had some really bad experiences with Pinterest recipes - just because someone can take a good photo doesn't mean their recipe is going to turn out well, so hopefully this is helpful!

Mexican Slow Cooked Pork Carnitas recipe and image via skinnytaste.com

Notes: I didn't use the Chipotle peppers and it still had tons of flavor. Also, I had never cooked pork shoulder blade before but it was cheap and great. I made double the recipe and froze the leftover meat for something else. 

White Bean, Sausage and Kale Stew 

Notes: Excellent and so fast! I took my sausage out of the casing so it was basically ground, I also only used a bit, back to my trying to just focus on meat for flavor several nights a week. Kale is so good for your body, we are trying to make sure we get a green leafy veggie in everyday. 

Grilled Corn, Avocado and Tomato Salad

Notes: My only comment is just to not make too much of this because it doesn't last past they day you made it once the dressing is on and the avocados are in. 

Pumpkin Pie French Toast

Notes: Don't stack your layers, you want each piece nice and crispy on top. Also don't forget the powdered sugar topping!

Coconut Whipped Cream - Trick 

Notes: This is still pretty runny for me with just being in the fridge. We just put a can of coconut milk in our fridge when we buy it and then when we're ready to use it I open it and stir in some sugar and freeze it open for an hour. Then we eat it with cold fruit - easy!

White Bean and Roasted Mushroom Soup 

Notes: I have made this four times and every time it's been great. Those crispy, broiled herbs are a key factor so don't try to skip those and go with dried herbs. This is excellent with crusty bread and olive oil, herb dipping sauce.

Avocados Stuffed with Chicken Salad

Notes: I pretty much wing it on the chicken salad part now. These are a staple in our house and we have them with sweet potatoes oven fries. 

Do you have a favorite Pinterest recipe? Tell me please! 

Eating Better

One of my personal goals this year was to eat better. Not necessarily better as in lower calories even though that would be good. But better by cooking with higher quality ingredients, foods that have less processing, making more staples like breads, stocks, etc. myself and eating meals with more variety. I basically just make a menu list every week with a mix of very easy and more complex recipes so I have a couple of challenges and then a few nights where the whole process takes less than 30 mins. 

I have been slowly working up to a perfect week shopping trip and I think I have finally figured out the right mix for us. This is what a weekly shopping trip looks like now!

 Thanks to the most awesome market ever (Dekalb Farmers Market in Atlanta) my whole load here was just over $100

New spices, wheat germ, apple butter, fresh almond butter

Fresh pasta and a great bag of sweet peppers

Nori, cheeses, salmon for sushi, lots of trail mix ingredients, meats, shrimp, breads

And a happy little eater with this Greek salad (we have made it twice in less than two weeks very good!)

Homemade Popsicles and over 75 recipes!

So here you go - I know it is OCTOBER and I am posting about Popsicles. But, well it is summer all year where I live in Central Florida and pregnant people love Popsicles ;) 

I haven't had the best luck trying to make homemade Popsicles. So here is what I think you need:

1. Some good molds like my Tovolo Blue Rocket Pop Molds - I read everywhere that people use $1 store molds but that never worked for me. 

2. Some good recipes!

My favorite recipe is flavored yogurt + berries cut up + bananas + a little sugar (powdered or granulated) + some honey ... not so exact just till it is almost too sweet. Above is strawberry banana yogurt with strawberries and bananas. 

Here are some more recipes. I have tried several of these already! I totally need a second mold set ;)

Watermelon Popsicles

Cooks.com simple Fudgesicles 

Hostess Blog 11 Fabulous Recipes

Chez Beeper Bebe: Eat This Homemade Popsicles

Tip Nut 50 + Homemade Popsicle Recipes

Zoku Double Rainbow Quick Pop

I really need a Zoku from Santa - Plus look at the awesome recipes on their blog 

You do have time to cook a healthy dinner ... Lasagna Rolls with Herbed Cheese

I am trying really, really hard to make sure we have healthy homemade dinners - I think it is the nesting which is hitting pretty hard now at 33 weeks.

So here you go - delicious,  easy, vegetarian, inexpensive, quick and almost all the time involved is cooking in the oven - which is so nice with a toddler. Oh yeah and it is only 500 calories per serving when served with broccoli or green beans according to the original recipe here from the Today Show. Recipe by Robin Miller.

Lasagna Rolls with Herbed Cheese

Ingredients
12 cooked lasagna noodles (Do this early in the day or the day before, I always make a few extra in case of breaking)
1 6.5 oz container soft herbed cheese (such as Boursin or Alouette - look in the specialty cheese section for the container)
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
26 ounces prepared tomato sauce (a big can or jar of your favorite sauce)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Preparation
Preheat oven to 375º F. Coat a small baking dish with cooking spray, the sides need to be fairly high, a loaf pan will work.
In a small bowl, combine herbed cheese, mozzarella and 1/4 cup Parmesan. Mix well. You may need to pop it in the microwave for 10 seconds or so to make it easier to stir and spread.
Arrange cool, cooked lasagna noodles on a flat surface.
Spoon a thin layer of cheese mixture onto each noodle. Keep in mind when spreading that you will doing 12. I got a little heavy on the first couple.
Roll up noodles.
Place rolls standing side-by-side in prepared pan and pour over tomato sauce. Sprinkle 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese over top. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until cheese filling melts and top is golden brown.

One more recipe to follow - still light although not vegetarian or kosher.

Some stuff I am loving: organic candy, dye-free sorbet bars, and a new toddler leak-free cup!

Snapple Sorbet Bars - No artificial flavors or colors. No high fructose corn syrup and made with real sugar. They are very yummy and since the packages are still colored Ava can still pick out her color and usually mine also ;) We were in a bad place because regular Popsicles leave dye every wear (as in staining Ava's skin!) and Ava would have to be strapped into her booster seat and stripped down in order to eat one. These are just the right size for her to carry around and I am not really worried about her getting them on her clothes etc. since the ice pop itself is dye-free. Oh and did I mention they are 10 for $1 at our grocery stores! UPDATE - ** Several of you have emailed me about where to get these - I got mine at Winn-Dixie but I have seen them at other big grocery stores - at Winn-Dixie they stock them by the Crystal Light and other drink mixes - un-refrigerated & kind of a strange place since they have the other huge boxes of ice pops on big end-caps and in the freezer section. **

YummyEarth Organic Lollipops - Lollipops are totally magical for toddlers and these are very, very tasty! Plus they are - "Organic; allergen-free; gluten-free; GMO-free; egg-free; soy-free; nut-free; casein-free; dairy-free. All-natural with fruit extracts; red cabbage and purple carrots for color; no artificial dyes or flavors." Now doesn't that make you feel so much better about keeping a whole bunch of these in your purse? YummyEarth makes gummy bears and other candy as well.

Finally, these are all the rage in my family! Nalgene Tritan Grip-n-Gulp Bottle - These do not spill (better than any other brand we have tried, and we have LOTS of cups!). You can buy them online or for about $7 at Target in the sports bottle section (by camping) even though I can't find them at Target.com. They come in a bunch of colors, even though the link above is to the pink one. Seriously, do you have a kid under 4 or so? Oh then you need one! I think from about one Ava could have used this cup and since it doesn't look like a baby cup older kids can use it for a spill-free bottle as well. Plus it is so cute with Ava's bumpy name label on it!

I have been meaning to blog about this stuff for a while! Hope it is helpful to some of you!

Dora Party Part 1 or Best Decorated Sugar Cookies and Glaze ever ;)

So Ava had a great second birthday this past weekend. Her family loves her so much that we had 18 out of town guests and no one had a shorter drive than 7 hours and some as long as 12. I will post some pics this week of the actual party but we made some cookies that were so good and I thought you might like my pointers on them and the recipes!

First, ours (I say ours because about 4 people worked on these cookies) were big colored stars with faces that looked like the stars in Dora the Explorer. Second, they were the best hands down in way of ease to work with and also in taste of any homemade decorated cookies I have had. Finally, they were better the second day and they are still good about a week later - which is about when I will stop eating them, but my husband will of course continue to eat them until they are gone!

I used Allrecipes.com to find the recipes for both the glaze and the cookies and followed both of the recipes exactly with the exception of using milk instead of water in the glaze which makes it have a more opaque and less shiny look but possibly tastes a tiny bit better.

Cookie Recipe HERE 

(over 3,000 good reviews)

Glaze Recipe HERE

My Glaze Notes: The glaze recipe only made enough for about 6 of my cookies and if you are really picky about the colors being exact you might want to start with a double recipe to make sure you don't run out and have to re-mix. We used Wilton icing color gel to color the glaze and the purple was a challenge and required lots of color and double dipping. My sister-in-law, Casie, did the faces and she used Wilton decorator gels. We dipped the face of the cookies in the glaze but of course you can paint it on or whatever you want for more elaborate Christmas designs etc. The glaze takes about 4 hours to fully dry before you can do anything else to the cookies, so that is important to keep in mind.

I can't wait to make these for Christmas!

Dora the Explorer Party Part II Here

Nutrition Requirements Toddlers - One to Three Year Olds

I have been worrying about Ava's diet lately and feeling like for the most part she needs more variety and that I might not actually be aware of how much food  and what kinds of foods she should be eating. I found the following info below from IVillage really helpful. Especially the point that a serving of vegetables is 'one tablespoon per year of age'. That doesn't make me feel quite so bad! Also the formula for calories needed based on height is something I have been looking for. 

Daily requirements for a one-to-three-year-old:

Protein: Minimum of 16 grams. For example, 16 ounces of milk plus one ounce of meat.

Fat: Toddlers should get at least 30 percent of their calories from fat for energy and growth needs

Calories: 40 calories/day/inch of height (1000 to 1300 calories/day)

Calorie distribution should look something like this:

16 g protein = 64 calories44 g fat = 396 calories
210 g carbohydrate = 840 calories
Total = 1300 calories

They also need:

Sodium: 325 to 1000 mg.Vitamin C: 40 mgVitamin A: 400 ug (micrograms)*Calcium: 800 mg. Even with two cups of milk a day, toddlers still need another 200 mg. Offer yogurt, cheese, tofu, and leafy greens.*Iron: 10 mg.*Zinc: 10 mg. A mild zinc deficiency in toddlers is common. Symptoms include poor appetite, sub-optimal growth and a reduced sense of taste and smell. The best sources of zinc are meat, eggs and seafood.*Folate: 50 ug.

*The last four are the ones most often deficient in toddlers.

Try to serve the following each day:

• 2 to 3 cups of milk (or yogurt, cheese and pudding)
• 4 servings of fruits and vegetables. (Serving size: one tablespoon per year of age.) One serving should be high in vitamin C and another in vitamin A.
• 4 servings of bread and cereal. One should be an iron-fortified cereal. A serving is about 1/4 to 1/3 an adult portion (1/4 slice toast, 1/4 cup pasta)
• 2 servings of meat, beans, eggs, tofu, or peanut butter. A good serving of protein should be served at every meal. One serving equals 1/2 ounce

Article Source: http://parenting.ivillage.com/tp/tpnutrition/0,,3b1k,00.html

I don't know if this toddler menu link below is totally in line with actual nutritional guidelines but really I like reading these things to give me ideas for incorporating for fresh vegetables into Ava's diet - http://www.wholesometoddlerfood.com/toddlermenus.htm

Love and Smoothies

Chillin on the backporch swing with a smoothie.

The past couple of days have been the first hints of actually living in Central Florida I have felt in months. It has been a cold winter but then now there is warm weather and day light savings time. Even though mother's of infants and toddlers hate time changes - we are all loving this one!

This afternoon when I was pushing Ava on the swing she said, 'I happy. You happy?'
I don't recall ever asking her if she is happy, we do ask her if she is sad when she is whining or not getting her way, so it was surprising. It was also enormously sincere, she was so blissful and serious when she said it. Well needless to say it made my day! You know those butterflies you get when you have a first crush? - that is how I feel about my toddler everyday (ya know in between the time-outs and tantrums of course). After the happy moment, we had smoothies, went to Target to check out the new Liberty of London line, and then picked up dinner and I let her refuse her baked potato and eat only French fries and ketchup and share my Diet Coke and I am pretty sure she was completely blissful again.

Oh and I am not done, before I put her to bed she layed in my lap and we watched the first part of Up - ya know the good grown-up part before they meet the annoying dogs.

So In Love.

Our Smoothies:
Very Vanilla Soy Milk
Bananas (or other soft fruit if we have it)
Any Kind (or Kinds) of Flavored Yogurt
Some Ice
Random amounts of all of the above, let your toddler throw them in the blender and then take them outside to drink it they are going to spill a lot because you can't drink smoothies through a sippy cup.

cleaning out the attic...choices

We have been cleaning out the attic tonight...shed up next. Trying to do a big garage sale in two weeks. We pulled everything down from the attic this time - gross - Florida attics get unimaginably hot in the summer. We did find things we hadn't seen in years and some cool stuff from when I was little for Ava like tons of wooden blocks (resting below in the bathroom sink).

But we also pulled down all my teaching stuff. That was what I went to school for and what I started out in but for four years I have been working in the arts marketing field, and I love it. But, that teaching stuff represents hundreds of hours of work creating and writing and compiling - for something I also loved. The teaching books need to be sold - well most of them. The notebooks need to be thrown away. I guess I have made the decision to at least for now turn away fully from that path. I don't feel sad about it, I am ready. I keep looking through it all and thinking about what I might use for helping Ava. 'Stuff for Ava' is really getting out of control though and we have a very small house.

(boxes of teaching stuff)

I guess it is like this your whole life but ours so far has seemed particularly jam packed with choices - the fork in the road kind.

p.s. Best Brownie Mix Ever - really just try to make them better homemade - you can't give up already and buy the box.

How to make that cool Heart Fondant Cake + Variation Ideas

My sister in law made the cake above for her daughter's second birthday based on a picture she found online here from a retail shop.

There are so many good tutorials on fondant on the web. These are the basic steps she took but if this is your first time working with fondant, do yourself a favor and read up on trouble shooting before you begin. 

First bake all of your cakes, let them cool and ice them. They need to be slightly cool or completely room temperature to apply the fondant. Casie used pans similar to these. I will note here that she used craft store's 40% off coupons for all the supplies. She used box cake mix but made the frosting. The frosting is for helping the fondant stick to the cake and also nice for people who don't like the fondant and peel it off.  

Casie purchased Wilton brand fondant, work with it in as small of sections as possible keeping the rest covered and sealed. Knead the fondant till soft and pliable. Start rolling your first piece out on a little powdered sugar until it is about a 1/8th to 1/4 inch thick and will cover the top and sides of your cake. This is hard work and will be time consuming :)

Using your roller lay the piece of fondant over the cake. Cut off excess. Smooth sides and tops with your hands till you have one smooth surface. Use a little cornstarch or heat and pressure from your hands to smooth cracks. If you have too many cracks you either let it dry out too much or you didn't knead it enough. We had tons of cracks but this is a great first time fondant cake because you can use those hearts to cover the mistakes!

Once you cover all three cakes roll out the red fondant and cut hearts of three different sizes out - this part is easy and fun. Casie used icing color to die the small amount she used for the hearts but it took the whole container and several hours for it to turn a true red. You can also buy red fondant. You need to let the red sit for several hours or a day wrapped up after you color it so it won't bleed onto the white.

 To get the cakes crooked looking she used wooden cake dowels. Two went flush into the cake and two stuck out about 2 inches or so. 

Put round cardboard cake circles under each cake - and just stack them on the dowels - really it is that easy. Wrap red ribbon around the bottom of each layer.

Finally put the hearts on randomly to cover imperfections.

Then put your tissue paper between the layers to hide the dowels. 

Done!

Variations:

Think of all the fun variations to the hearts - letters, numbers, animals, people - anything you can get a cookie cutter for! I am thinking there are some adorable Dr. Seuss themes that would be perfect for crooked cake. If you want something different than tissue paper - paint or decorate your dowels before stacking the cake. 

More on Elliana's birthday here. 

Comfort Food

Comfort food for me is simple and rich. Here are my favorites! Maybe you will be inspired to run into the kitchen and whip up a cream sauce or a batch of cookies ;) We have been making this stuff all weekend! 

Homemade Mac and Cheese 

Just mix up a thick sauce with whole milk, cheese, butter, salt/pepper, & flour. Pour over Pasta - yum! 

Ice Cream

Every since I was pregnant with Ava I have had this addiction to Chocolate Brownie ice cream - even on Weight Watchers I would save points for ice cream every night :)

Homemade Nestle Toll House Cookies

Olive Garden's Fettucini Alfredo and Bread sticks 

Even better if you get it as take-out so can enjoy all the creamy goodness in your cozy home.

Homemade Bread with Dipping Sauce or Rich Spread

Even bread machine bread is homemade enough for me. Top with flavored butter, apple butter, or homemade jams or Dip in seasoned oil with kosher salt. 

Brownies

They have to be just the right, perfect, fudgey brownies though. 

O.K. lets have it - what is your go to comfort food?

Just Say No to Non-Stick ???

We purchased some new pots and pans - the skillets are non-stick but the rest is all copper bottom stainless. The reason was two-fold. First, we have had terrible luck with our non-stick cookware! We had an eclectic original set that included Pampered Chef, Calphalon, Martha Stewart, and Analon - on all eventually the surface started to fail. I know we cook a lot but I think we take really good care of these pans! Second, in 2006 the Environmental Protection Agency asked all makers of Tephlon coated cookware to eliminate a particular chemical they use in the process of adhering the surface to the pan by 2015 - most haven't budged from what I can tell. The little bit of information available makes me nervous - and really I am not a nervous person about these things.  I also didn't want to need new cookware in three years or so. There are all kinds of benefits to copper cooking as well.

Oh and did I mention how good looking copper bottom stainless pots are!

What are you cooking on?

Saturday - cookies, diner, market, library

Very relaxing Saturday! Here are some highlights:

We made Saucepan Oatmeal Cookies and they were chewy and crispy - yum!

We also made one of our go-to recipes from Cooking Light Magazine - Chicken and Rice with Caramelized Onions - put the lemon wedges in the pot before putting it in the oven - so good.

Saturday the whole family had a delicious breakfast at The Daytona Diner (pic below), enjoyed the downtown Daytona Beach farmer's market (the fruit was beautiful see pic) with some ridiculously low produce prices, and then spent some time at the Daytona Beach Regional Library.

While at the library I discovered an awesome cd of Ella Fitzgerald kid's music recorded between 1936 and 1951 - the best song by far is Old McDonald - my 17-month old loves it! I am always on the hunt for not-annoying kid's music. If you know of some let me know please!

3 super simple soups

Three delicious soups, canned ingredients and root vegtables (perfect for such a cold winter when you need to stock up on non-perishable items), all use chicken stock, but they would all be vegetarian if you substituted vegetable stock. All very inexpensive.

I suggest making these all at the same time and freeze two for later.

Serve with crusty bread, drizzle with olive oil, warm in oven till toasted, mix up some salt, herbs, and olive oil for dipping. Roasted chicken is a perfect meat pairing for these.

 Corn Chowder

 1/2 cup butter

1 small onion, diced or food processed

1 small carrot, diced or food processed

1 clove garlic, minced

½ cups all-purpose flour

2 – 14 ounce cans of corn, drained

3 cups chicken stock

2 cups half-and-half OR 2 cups milk and 1 tbsp corn starch to thicken

Salt and pepper to taste

            (Optional Ingredients: Shredded Cheddar Cheese, Fried Bacon, Canned Diced Tomatoes, Ham)

Sauté onion, carrot and garlic in ½ cup of butter until soft.

Add flour slowly stir to make a roux, or thick paste.

Stir in chicken stock first and then rest of ingredients.

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and cook for at least 10 minutes or simmer longer for more flavor.

This is always a major crowd pleaser at our house - hate to say it but we always add the cheese!

 Butternut Soup

(Adapted from a recipe on the Farmers Market Foods Organic Butternut Squash Can & thanks to Naomi for the gift of the organic squash!)

15 ounce can Butternut Squash

14 ounce chicken broth

1 medium onion

2 diced carrots

2 tbsp butter

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp cinnamon (optional, certainly may want to add later if freezing)

2 cups half-and-half OR 2 cups milk and approx. 1 tbsp corn starch to thicken

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté carrots & onions in butter for 2 minutes. Add broth, baking soda, salt, cinnamon (if using) and pepper. Simmer 10 minutes until vegetables are soft. Add butternut squash and half and half (or milk and cornstarch).

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and cook for at least 10 minutes or simmer longer for more flavor.

Farmers Market Foods has great recipes for organic canned squash, pumpkin, and sweet potato.

Lima Bean Pesto Soup

 2 cloves garlic - chopped

3 ¼ cup chicken stock

2 – 14 ounce cans lima beans rinsed and drained

4 tablespoons tomato paste

5 tablespoons pesto (we buy ours at World Market)

(Optional ingredients for a more savory soup: ¼ cup heavy cream; 2 tbsp butter.)

Put all ingredients except one cup of chicken stock into a stock pot. Put half or more of the mixture into a blender and blend until smooth. Return blended portion to pot. Use the remaining one cup of stock to ‘rinse’ blender and add to stock pot.

 Heat at least 10 minutes, simmer longer if you have time. Salt and pepper to taste.

I have made this soup for several years, just makes you feel good, low fat too.

Hope you enjoy these, we did! So are you making any super simple winter soups???

an awesome FREE calendar with seasonal recipes

So you might already know about this - BUT if you don't you'll thank me!
The Cottage Industrialist has designed awesome monthly calendars with seasonal recipes and they are SO COOL! If you fwd this link to a friend they will love you - really!
http://www.cottage-industrialist.com/blog/2010/1/1/resolved-a-calendar-the-seasons-our-food-and-a-plan-of-sorts.html#entry6188180

There are lots of other wonderful printables on her site for free! Like this one for some rad cards: http://www.cottage-industrialist.com/blog/2009/7/8/you-are-a-blue-four.html