Fall Lunch Salad

Have you ever worked with kids, volunteered or helped out at school? Today was my first "helping parent" day. Mind you it's only 3 hours! But 17 three year olds later, I'm exhausted and hungry! Here's what I made for lunch:

handful each baby spinach and arugula (or whatever greens you have on hand/prefer)
1/2 Macintosh apple diced
1/2 avocado diced
1 small vine tomato
1 handful or less toasted walnuts
10 or so string beans
3 T cooked red quinoa

1T EVOO
1/2 Lemon
Sea salt & Pepper to taste

Tear lettuce in bowl. Add rest of ingredients. Squeeze lemon & EVOO on top. Munch away.

Simple Asparagus Soup

This recipe is adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks, "Seriously Simple: Easy Recipes for Creative Cooks" by Diane Worthington. I've made a few changes:

2 bunches thin asparagus, trimmed and cut in 1/3ds
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, cleaned and chopped
2 T EVOO
S & P to taste (careful with the pepper one time I put way too much on the veggies)
2 - 2 1/2 cups broth (chicken or veggie)
1/4 c sour cream + one finely chopped fresh chives for garnish (sometimes I use Total Greek Yogurt and Basil instead)
Optional: roast additional veggies e.g. 1/2 yellow squash, zucchini or corn).

Preheat the oven to 425. Roast asparagus, leeks EVOO S&P (plus any extra veggies). Roast stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes or until leeks are golden brown and the asparagus is tender.

Transfer to a blender, let cool a bit. Add the broth. Blend till completely pureed. Garnish & serve.

Special Treat - Popsicles

I was just putting away some dinner dishes and thought of another trick I use that you might try. I got some popsicle stick makers for my b-day. I make them with the girls & it's a great distractor when they eat them because it takes about as long as a feeding for the baby. To them it's a special treat - to me it's 5 minutes of sanity and a serving of fruit.

1 banana
6-8 strawberries (frozen organic work as well)
2 c rice milk (or regular, soy, whatever you use)
**Optional: 1/8 t vanilla exract, 1/2 t agave, food coloring (kids love that part), or whatever fruit you like / is in season

Blend
Pour
Freeze

Quick lunch with Leftover Soup

Not feeling like having the jelly sandwich you just made for the kids? Here's a quick riff off the pumpkin soup from yesterday:

Baby spinach- roughly chopped
Leftover cooked pasta (okay if it has sauce on it)
Soup
Pecans

Toss all in a pot. Heat, stir, serve. -- Delicious & nutritious.

Smashed Pumpkin Soup

We never got around to carving our pumpkins this year, so I decided to make pumpkin soup, bread & seeds with the left over pumpkins. Here's the recipe for the soup:

2 cups roased pumpkin
2-3 T EVOO
1/2 yellow onion diced
2 cloves garlic
2 stalks celery
1 large carrot
1/2 c apple cider
4-5 cups chicken or veggie stock
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t parsley and thyme
1 t salt, pepper to taste
optional pinch corriender, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 c vanilla rice milk or sour cream

Roast the pumpkin by cutting into chunks and taking the seeds out. Add salt & pepper then place cut side down on a baking sheet drizzle with EVOO. Roast at 400 for about 1/2 hour or until soft, let cool.

Heat pot. Pour EVOO onions & garlic over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Add celery and carrot for 4 minutes. Add pumpkin stir for another 2-3 minutes. Add stock, cider and spices. Bring to a boil. Then simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Serve room temperature - optional, over diced avocado and with cream/milk. For decoration and texture you can add pumpkin seeds on top.

Roast the clean pumpkin seeds with some sea salt on a greased baking sheet at 375 for 20 minutes or until crunchy. Cool.

Crowd Pleaser Guacamoli

I learned to make this recipe while on a volunteer trip building houses in Mexico. The women who made dinner made this guac every night. It's a really simple recipe. The key is to get perfectly ripe avocados. If you can't find ripe ones don't bother making it. Ripe hass avocados are slightly soft but not mushy when you push in on the skin.

2-4 avocados
6-10 grape or cherry tomato's
1 lemon
garlic powder, salt & pepper
**Optional: cilantro, diced cucumber, diced celery

Chop the tomatoes finely (in half and then in thirds). Put them in a bowl. Slice the avocado in half & pit it. Score the avocado in the skin in a cris cross pattern. Scoop it out with a spoon onto a cutting board. Mash with a fork.

Squeeze 1/2 a lemon over the avocado making sure to catch any pits in your hand. Sprinkle salt, pepper and a healthy amount of garlic powder over the avocado. Scrape it into the bowl and stir. (You can add the optional ingredients here Serve.

(Tip: you can also put the pit back in the bowl to preserve the color of the guac, but you don't have to as the lemon juice does this as well.)

Apple Cinnamon Bread Eggs

This is a great quick yummy dinner or sunday breakfast... Recipe for 2 - double for more:

3 Eggs
2-3 pieces toast
2-3 T butter
2-4 apples (cortland, honeycrisp, brayburn or other sweet baking apples)
1/4 t cinnamon
1 T brown sugar
1 t sugar
1 t vanilla extract

Heat fry pan. Peel and cube apples. Melt butter add apples, cinnamon and sugar. Stir frequently. Fry for 5-10 minutes - depending on how soft you like your apples. Set aside.

Heat fry pan on medium, melt butter. Cut bread into 1in pieces. Toast bread in pan. Wisk eggs, add pinch cinnamon & vanilla. Pour eggs over bread. Cook till eggs are done.

Plate & pour apples over. Serve as is or with maple syrup/whipped cream.

Easy Baby Spinach Salad

Salad tip - if I'm making a salad with a ton of ingredients or for more than just me and my husband I'll throw everything in a big bowl & toss. For just the two of us, I make them right in our dinner bowls. This saves time on doing dishes after dinner and ensures that we're not overeating as well.

Baby Spinach
Chopped baby carrots
Handful of cranberries
Handful toasted walnuts (toast in toaster oven on 250 for ~ 2 minutes, also great with pecans)
Pear or apple slices (I prefer bosc and honeycrisp
Dressing: Annies Goddess Dressing or Lemon & EVOO
Optional: Cheese (e.g.blue, goat, feta or muenster) & kalamata olives

Put a few handfuls of baby spinach in the bowl. Top with other ingredients. Dress & serve.

Comfort food: Mom's Winter Soup

This is a delicious recipe that is mainly vegetables. I make it when I have pesto around & the weather is turning cold.

- Saute few cloves garlic & some leeks, shallots or white onion (whatever you have on tap) on med/low heat for about 3-5 minutes till translucent
- Add diced carrot (2-3 or two handfuls baby carrots), 2-3 stalks celery, 1-2 small/med zucchini, 1 yellow squash - stir for about 2-3 minutes
- Add 1 box/large can - about 5-6 cups veggie or chicken stock, a few heirloom or really ripe tomatoes OR a 16oz can of diced tomatoes
- Add handful orzo (or alphabet pasta for kids)
- Bring to a boil
- Lower heat simmer for 20-30 minutes
- Right at end add 3/4 container of baby spinach roughly chopped + 2-3Tbsp pesto, S&P
- Serve with grated Parmesan cheese

Simple Soba

Soba noodles - pre cooked
handful of spinach
some other veggies (I used green beans from the farmer's market)
soy-vey (or lemon juice, evoo)

Microwave or pan fry for a few mites till hot

Optional:
* sprinkle with sesamee seeds & cashew pieces
** cook with diced tofu & scallions

I was starving & couldn't even wait for Lenny's to deliver something so I whipped this up with stuff in the fridge - hit the spot!

Veggie Thai YumYum

Normally I would make this dish with rice noodles - tonight I substituted spaghetti squash instead.

Cook spaghetti squash, cooled slightly
- saute onion, shallot, wild mushrooms, zucchini in a fry pan
- add squash
- add one each lemon, lime, orange juice (reserve 1/2 + zest) - or whatever you have
- toss in 1/2 large sweet potato cold cubed, scallions (whites & light green only), & ginger
- add 1/2 can coconut milk (or light version)
- stir till warm
- serve
(optional add sliced almonds or cashew halves at end, could also add cilantro)
S&P to taste

So Soba...

Here's an example of what I made for dinner tonight:
- Soba noodles - boil the water 3 min to cook
- Stir fried some onion, garlic, shallot, baby fennel, zucchini (green & yellow), wild mushrooms in evoo
- Added a little SoyVay for flavor, added 1/2 the noodles (saved the other half for later in the week); you could also do lemon & rind or fresh ginger, scallions and coconut milk + cashews for a different flavor

Anyway - it wasn't a phenomenal meal, but fast, easy & healthy.

Welcome any ideas you have. I like a cook book called Seriously Simple by Diane Worthington: http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=seriously+simple+easy+recipes+for+creative+cooks

Summer Quinoa Salad:

Tip - make the sweet potatos at the beginning of the week & use in various dishes.
1 Sweet Potato, cooked cooled, cubed (wash, stab with fork all over, cover lightly w/ evoo, microwave 4 min, toaster oven 350 30 min.)
handful cilantro (or basil)
1/2 T Coconut oil
1-2 ears corn, cooked, cooled cut/chopped
1/2 cucumber or zucchini
2 handfuls arugula or baby spinach chopped
2 in frech ginger grated
1/3-1/2 c quinoa
S&P to taste
1 Lemon, Grapefruit, Orange or Lime (or combo) juiced
1 bunch scallions
handful pecans toasted
1/2 to one avocado cubed
Toss & Serve