Gourmet from Scraps

Last night I planned to eat watermelon for dinner.  Cut one up before church, ate until I was full, went to church.  When church let out I had to pee, then I was hungry.  Dango watermelon!  It didn't last long. Decided pretty late that I was hungry, but remembered I have extremely limited groceries in the house. Searched the cabinets and the fridge and the freezer, this is what I came up with:

Please ignore the ring on the counter...

Greek-style Green pasta with spinach

From the pantry:  Green spaghetti (made with spinach) and lots of garlic

From the fridge:  kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, last of the pesto, pine nuts

From the freezer:  salmon fillet

Boom!  Gourmet dinner in less than 20 minutes made from either staple ingredients or things leftover from other recipes.  Be creative in the kitchen.  That is one of my most favorite places to be creative.  I like crafty stuff but I'd rather be cooking any day.

What are your favorite kitchen creations lately?

Fiesta Rice and Beans

Last night I finally broke down and cooked something.  I don't always eat dinner when I'm home by myself, but last night I got hungry.  I've been home by myself a lot this summer.  Princess is living it up this summer and spending nights with anyone but her momma and hubs is still out of town.  I haven't been buying groceries much either.  Luckily, I'm pretty good at working with what I've got on hand.  I read a recipe on some website (don't remember which one now) and used it as inspiration.  Here's what I came up with:

April's Fiesta Rice and Beans

1 cup brown rice
2 bell peppers (I had a red and a green)
1 jalapeno
1 onion (I had a vidalia, use what you have)
2 cans kidney beans (I had a dark red and a light red)
2 cloves of garlic
1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 8oz can tomato sauce
fat pinch of chili powder
fat pinch of cumin
fat pinch of salt-n-pep
Saute diced peppers, garlic and onion in a little olive oil.  Add rice and 2 cups water.  Simmer for 45 minutes or until the rice is tender, stir it once in a while so it doesn't stick to the pan.  When water is absorbed, add kidney beans, spices, tomatoes and tomato sauce.  Eat.

Boom.  One pot meal, easy clean up, super healthy.  Squeeze on a little lime juice, top with cilantro from the garden (I would have had to drive to mom's garden across town to get the cilantro so I skipped it this time).  I have an avocado in the kitchen that is going to go bad if I don't eat it soon, but forgot it was there until I had already got to work this morning.  Had enough left over to take for lunch today and eat for dinner tonight.  This is how I cook.  If only my family saw this as a whole meal, too!  Hubs would want to know what kind of meat I was serving with this side dish and Princess would pick all the onions out.  Not sure when she got so picky, but I don't like it.

What are you having for lunch today? 

Vegan Pancakes from Mars

I have been dying to try a recipe I found on Pinterest for vegan pancakes.  They are made with no sugar, eggs, or milk.  This sounds like an adventure to me!  I didn't get pics of the process because I was to excited to eat them.  Here is how it went:

I had used all the dark chocolate chips in the trail mix I made last week so I subbed some frozen blueberries.  Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly.  The mixture turned out pretty thick and didn't pour.  I scooped the mixture into my skillet, but put them to close and they turned into a big blob of pancake.  To save it, I scooped it all into a baking dish and just baked at  350 for about 15 minutes and had one big pancake pie.  The house smelled really good, like baking bread or something.  Ok, so I don't really know what my house would smell like if I were baking bread as I can't remember ever doing such...  Anywho, this is what the finished product looked like. 

Not pretty, but tasted good.  A little maple syrup over the top and voila! Dinner.  I like to have breakfast for dinner, don't you?

I got up a midnight last night because I couldn't sleep.  I realized I didn't have anything for lunch today.  I found another recipe on Pinterest for curried quinoa and had all the ingredients to make it.  I got a big bag of Vidalia onions over the weekend so I diced and cooked one first, then added my quinoa and water.  Boil, reduce, simmer, add seasonings and cover for about 15 minutes.  I added a can of chickpeas because I love them, but the dish wasn't very colorful, so I added a can of kidney beans, too.  It tasted pretty darn good for lunch today.  If I had had any greens I would have cooked them and added them, but I haven't been to the grocery or farmer's market in weeks so I was just working with what I had. 

Come to think of it, I ate like a vegan all day!  Banana for breakfast, curried quinoa for lunch, and veeg pancakes for dinner!  That's pretty good.  I'm not a vegan, or a vegetarian for that matter, but I try and I hope to be a vegetarian someday.  I like cheese, though, and yogurt and honey and lots of other non-vegan things, so I will probably never be vegan.  I just want to try to make an impact in my carbon footprint.  I drive a sports car and don't get 40mpg so I try to make up for it in the food I eat.

Energy Bar Fail

I attempted to make energy bars at home rather than buying them this grocery trip.  Save money, hand pick my ingredients, what could go wrong?



Bag o' energy crumble

I really should have done more research.  No Meat Athlete has a formula.  I've used their smoothie formula and liked it, I should have done the same for the energy bars.  They mostly just turned to crumble.  It won't go to waste, I'll blend it up in smoothies or pour milk over it for cereal or bake it to make crunchy granola or something.  The parts that did stick, didn't stick for long.  I'm eating them anyway because they taste good.

They are full of good stuff.  Oats, natural peanut butter, chia seeds, sesame seeds, dried cherries and dried cranberries.  I will put less chia seeds in next time, I love them, but they get stuck in my teeth and swell up and that is not a pleasant feeling.

What are some of your recipe fails?

Recap

Okay, it's been way to long since I posted anything.  I should probably recap because you are all on pins and needles wondering.  Here goes:

As you know hubs and I were in Branson a couple weekends ago.  While there I forced myself to get up and go for a jog.  One of the reasons I wanted to start running is so I could run in cool places, so why not start with Branson!  The thing is, Branson is in the Ozarks, ya know, like mountains...  Nothing flat and everything feels like it's uphill, even the downhills stuff.

 

 

After meeting some of the fam for lunch on Saturday, hubs and I decided to walk the strip to see some sights (by sights, I mean tattoo shops for hubs).  It was nice to take a leisurely walk with hubs, a great way to spend some time together, burn a few calories, and conserve a few natural resources.

 

 

 

This week I decided to post an 'ad' on Facebook to see if I could find a few local friends to hit the track with me.  We are more likely to succeed if we are in a group, right.  Got a couple to agree to start with me next week.  Wish us luck and pray that we can keep it up even with it gets really cold out.

 

Tonight is Thanksgiving Eve.  I know that isn't a real holiday, but it's fun to say.  I volunteered to make a yummy, healthy cranberry relish.  I didn't get a picture of it, but I'll try to get one before it's all gone.  I also made a Pumpkin Pi:

 

 

Ahha!  Pi!  I know, I'm a nerd...

 

And this beauty:

 

Dark Chocolate cheesecake with Cherries

Crust
8 Low-fat cinnamon graham crackers
1/4 stick butter
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 Tbsp strong coffee or a shot of espresso

Filling
1 10oz bag dark chocolate chips
2 (8-ounce) packages fat-free cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons splenda
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 large eggs
1/2 cup chocolate covered cherry wine
1 5oz bag dried cherries

Preheat oven to 325.

Melt butter in microwave, about 90 seconds. In a food processor add graham crackers. Pulse until coarsely chopped. Add melted butter, cocoa powder, butter and coffee. Pulse until combined. Press into bottom of pie pan or spring form pan.

Melt 1/2 chocolate over a double boiler. Set aside to cool.
Whip cream cheese. Add splenda and cocoa powder until combined. Add melted chocolate. Mix until combined.
Add eggs one at a time until mixed completely. Finally add wine until and mix.
In a food processor, add the remaining chips and cherries. Pulse until coarsely chopped.

Add filling to crust. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until center sets.
 

 

That about sums it up, sadly.  Until next time.

 





It's the shoes!

Wore my super fantastic new stripper shoes today and my calves hurt more on my evening run!  You have no idea how sad this makes me.  I don't know what sensible business casual shoes look like, but I imagine little old lady shoes.  Please, if I'm wrong, post a link to some cute ones in the comments.  I know wearing high heels most days a week isn't really good for my feet and legs, I knew that before today.  It just makes me sad.  I guess I'll keep the heels for days when I don't plan to run and probably hold off on wearing them regularly until after I finish C25K.

I started week 2 today.  This is probably the furthest I've ever made it in this program.  Week two consists of 3 days with 90 second jog/2 minute walk alternating for a total of twenty minutes.  I think all days of the program include a 5 minute warm up and a 5 minute cool down.  I did 1.75 miles on the track today at this pace.  I really dislike that it is so dark when I get home.  I need to organize a group of people doing this at the same time so I'm less terrified of being snatched up by Sasquatch on my jogs.

Okay, enough with my paranoia, I mentioned a recipe coming soon so here we go:



 

Wild Mushroom and Barley Risotto

 

6 cups vegetable broth

1 1/2 cups water

2T evoo

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups mixed wild mushrooms, coarsely chopped

1 1/2 cups pearl barley, rinsed

1/2 cup red wine

6 cups turnip greens

1/3 cup Colby jack

1T butter

2t balsamic vinegar

salt & pep to taste

 

1. Bring broth and water to a simmer in a large saucepan.  Adjust heat to maintain a steady simmer.

 

2. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Add garlic, cook about 1 minute.  Add mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they begin to release their juices, 2 to 3 minutes.  Add barley and cook, stirring, for about 1 minute.  Add wine and simmer, stirring, until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 1 minute more.  Reduce heat to medium.

 

3. Add 1/2 cup hot broth to the barley and cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has been absorbed.  Continue adding 1/2 cup hot broth at a time stirring until the liquid has been absorbed after each addition, adjusting heat to maintain a gentle simmer, until barley is tender and creamy but still somewhat firm, 35 to 45 minutes. (You might not use all the broth).

 

4. Stir in greens and cook, stirring, until wilted, about 2 minutes.  Remove from heat, stir in cheese, butter, and vinegar.  Season with salt and pep.

 

I adapted this recipe from here.  It is a hands-on recipe, but cooking is therapeutic for me.  Original called for arugula, but the turnip greens at the grocery were way prettier.  Also called for an onion in with the garlic, but sil was over and she doesn't like onion.  I know, who doesn't like onion?!?  But I guess there are some out there...  Another change I made was the cheese, I didn't have parm, so I used Colby jack.  I think it turned out great.  VERY filling, I ate it as a meal.  Everyone else had it as a side to the steaks hubs grilled.  I made enough that I will be able to take leftovers for lunch at work for a couple days.  Try it, let me know what you think.

 

 

Green Smoothie

I realize just about everyone has a version of a green smoothie.  I LOVE smoothies.  They are a great way to cram in a bunch of fruits and veggies you may not have eaten otherwise.  I don't usually have an exact recipe for my smoothies, just whatever fresh/frozen fruit I have on hand, maybe some greens if I have them, and a base of either water or Silk.  This time I paid attention to my ingredients because I wanted to be able to duplicate this one:

 

Please excuse my food photog, I'm still kinda new at this

 

 

1 cup fresh, local apple cider

1 gala apple, sliced and cored

1/2 fresh banana

handful of fresh spinach

about 1/4 tsp fresh grated ginger

1/2 tsp chia seeds

 

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. 

 

Tada!  Super healthy, super yummy breakfast on the go, because that is all I have time for in the morning.  When it comes to sleep or breakfast, sleep wins every time.