Quinoa Rice Bowl

We actually just call it Quinoa Rice, but it's much more than that.  I love this dish because I can have a filling warm meal in about 15 minutes.  Another thing to love is that my ten year old also enjoys it!

I started making this after having Panera's Baja Bowl and finding copy-cat recipes.  Initially, I always added chunks of avocado, halved grape tomatoes, and feta cheese.  More recently, I have it without those extras and add some Mexican cheese.

The ingredients are

brown rice

quinoa

a jar of black bean corn salsa

a can of rinsed black beans

a tablespoon of salsa verde (optional because sometimes I forget)

My 15 minute prep:

First choose a medium sized glass bowl and fill with one cup of water and one cup of par-boiled brown rice.  Cook in the microwave for 5-6 minutes depending on the strength of the microwave.

In a small saucepan, add one cup of water and 1/2 cup of quinoa, bring to boil, then cook for 12 minutes on low.

While things are cooking, open a can of black beans and drain and and rinse.  Open the jar of salsa and salsa verde.

Once the rice is done, dump in the whole can of black beans, the whole jar of salsa and one tablespoon of salsa verde if you like the added zip.

When the quinoa is done, I add it right into the rice, salsa, bean mixture and eat it right away!  The quinoa instructions usually recommend letting it sit, but I don't find it necessary.  I don't rinse my quinoa either!

With room temperature beans and salsa, the mixture is a little on the lukewarm side, but it's
not terrible.  A quick zap of the microwave can bring it up to nice and warm.

I often eat this in a bowl topped with Mexican cheese and sometimes some corn chips.  The ten year old likes it in a flour tortilla.  This recipe yields 4+ meals.

Quinoa Tuna Salad

After looking around for some new recipes containing quinoa, I settled on this one from Cooking Light.

I made some slight modifications and tried out the dressing which was a delightful surprise.  The Quinoa Tuna Toss is really tastey, fills you up and is healthy.  I will certainly make this again.

I will note my changes next to the ingredients below.

2 tsp of olive oil - I doubled
1 tsp of red wine vinegar - used apple cider vinegar doubled
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard - used yellow mustard doubled
1/2 tsp lemon juice - doubled
dash of salt - skipped
dash of pepper - added

1/2 cup cooked quinoa* - I made 1/2 cup uncooked which fluffs up to much more
1/2 cup canned chickpeas - I used a small 7.5 oz can of chickpeas rinsed and drained
1/4 cup cucumber - I used more, what looked right. It was about half of a seedless cucumber.
5 cherry tomatoes, halved - I used a bunch of grape tomatoes, halved to match the cucumber quarters
1 TB crumbled feta cheese - doubled
1 2.6 oz pouch of tuna - I used a 6 oz can of Yellowfin Tuna
Added 1 medium sized yellow pepper

The recipe says it is one serving, based on my modifications, it yielded 2.5 generous lunch sized servings.  Next time I will measure the total quantity before trying.

*The recipe says 1/2 cooked quinoa, but then in the directions it says to cook 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa with 3/4 cup water.  It's unclear how much they used.  I liked my proportions, though others might appreciate more dressing.

10 year old birthday party

We decided on another small group party at home for my daughter's 10th birthday party.

On the agenda was to play in a photo booth, eat pizza, make lip balm, watch a movie, and make ice cream sundaes.

First we set up the photo booth.  I used a small part of a room and hung a rope with small pvc tubing over it.  On the tubing we hung crepe paper and paper decorations.  I did end up placing an old navy curtain behind the crepe paper for better coverage.  We had a table of hats, glasses, and boas for dressing up.  My camera was on a tripod and my husband set up a photobooth software on his computer and connected the camera.  The kids could then see each other on the laptop screen and it counted down for a series of four pictures.  They had the option to print right away and see their pictures again.  It was lots of fun!  All the five guests and my two girls could all fit in the frame for group shots too.  Another thing we had was two mini chalk boards for writing messages in the pictures.  They were also used in some shots.

Testing out the photo booth - sisters

The next activity was making lip balm.  I had given the process a lot of thought and wanted to make sure the girls could be active participants.  Finally I found this small glass pots at Hobby Lobby on sale for $1 each and thought they would work perfectly in my fondue pot.  It worked well.  Each girl measured out 1 tsp of coconut oil, 1/2 tsp of shea butter, and 1 tsp of grated beeswax.  I had a 1/2 tsp and 1/4tsp spoons so that they just needed two of each thing.  Some had more heaping teaspoons than others. For a couple girls they didn't have enough and needed to add another one or two more scoops of everything.

We tried labeling the pots with rubber bands, but they popped off in the heat.

After the first three ingredients had melted well, I had unsweetened cocoa, beet root powder, peppermint oil, and flavoring oils (cotton candy, pink lemonade, and cherry).  The girls mixed different things together after pouring the warm liquid into their little tins.  We used 1/8 tsp of the powders and 5 drops of the oils.  Each girl ended up with two small tins of different balms.  We also decorated the lids with Sharpies.

The girls went off to watch their movie and I cleaned up the lip balm area to prepare for ice cream sundaes.  My daughter prefers ice cream to cake and loved the idea of making their own sundaes.  We had done this activity for my son's birthday before and it seems to always be a hit.  I provide small bowls of different requested toppings and of course whipped cream.  While the kids really seemed to overdo their sundaes, I was happy to see they didn't eat it all!

The happy birthday girl

Speckled Strawberry fruit salad

 

We visited Red Robin on my daughter's birthday and some of us had their Freckled Fruit Salad. As I was eating it, I thought I'd like to try to replicate the recipe at home. It seems to have four ingredients. I wasn't sure if they just used strawberries or a sweetened strawberry sauce. I decided to try a sauce and think that is probably what theirs is too. 

I could only find cans of light syrup mandarin oranges, not the fruit sweetened variety. 

First I made up some strawberry sauce or topping. I followed a recipe here, but added just 2 tsp of lemon juice instead of the lemon zest. 

Then I put together the canned fruits, pineapple and mandarin organges. 

Next I chopped the apples into small pieces with the skin on. By mixing the apple pieces with the citrus fruits, the apples wouldn't brown. 

Finally I took the cooled strawberry sauce and using a slotted spoon, added the strawberries and most of the sauce. About 1/2 cup of just sauce remained and I saved it for waffles or maybe ice cream. 

After mixing everything together it resembled the fruit salad and tastes great too. 

Ingredients:

Pineapple tidbits - one 20 oz can in juice, drained

Mandarin oranges - two 15 oz cans in light syrup, drained

Jonagold apples - two large apples chopped

Strawberry sauce (16oz strawberries, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cold water, 1 TB corn starch, 2 tsp lemon juice)

Egg Muffins

After seeing eggs being made in muffin tins a few times, I thought I would try them myself.  I'm not a big fan of eggs, but I thought my family might appreciate an easy egg dish.

These are certainly easy and very adaptable.  I loosely followed this recipe.

I ended up with 9 eggs in a big glass measuring cup for easy pouring.  I added pepper and garlic powder to the eggs.

Then I defrosted various veggies.  We had a pepper and onion mixture and also broccoli.

After spraying with Pam, I filled each muffin cup with some veggies and then meat.  This time I added sausage and cheese to the veggies and also made some with only ham and cheese.  I use my kitchen shears over the cups to cut everything into smaller bits.  The first time I made these I used 1 cup of cheese and consensus was that they could use more.  This time I used 2 cups and it felt like a lot, but got very good reviews.

After everything is in there, I slowly poured in the eggs.  The eggs fill in all the spaces and some needed a little more.














These baked at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.  I did use a knife around the edges before flipping them onto a cooling rack.  The clean up is pretty easy too.

After cooling for a minute, they start to deflate.  My husband has eaten them as leftovers warmed in the microwave and they are always good.  

White Chicken Chili

Ground Turkey Chili was part of our regular rotation until the family seemed to tire of it.  I looked around for a white chili recipe.  After considering different recipes, I tried this one by Cooking Classy with minor modifications.

Beginning with a whole routisserie chicken pre-cooked from Wegmans saved some cooking time, but did take some time to prepare.  The whole chicken yielded almost 4 cups of chicken.

Into the pot went a bit of olive oil and minced onion and garlic flakes, then a whole 32 oz box of chicken broth, the chopped chicken, and green chilies.  The only spices I used were cumin, oregano, paprika, and black pepper.  After a bit I added the room temperature Neufchatel cheese sliced.  It did melt in nicely and gave the soup a creamy texture.  Per the recipe, I did mash up about a cup from the 2 cans of rinsed Cannellini beans with a potato masher.  Pre-heated frozen corn was also added.  Once ready to serve, we added shredded Mexican blend cheese.

While the chili was simmering, I started on the cornbread muffins.  I had tried some variations with the Jiffy mix, but tried a new mix, Wegmans Gluten Free Honey Cornbread Mix.  It has no added oils in the mix and also has fewer ingredients.  The instructions are to add one egg, 1/3 cup of oil and 3/4 cup of milk.  I added 1 egg, 2/3 cup of plain Greek yogurt, some skim milk to make up a mixture of yogurt and milk totaling about 1 cup.  I'm guessing it was about 1/2 cup of milk.  The mixture seemed dry until I added a can of creamed corn, then it seemed perfect.  Because of the additional ingredients, it yielded a bit more than the 12 muffins the box states.  I got 12 muffins and 16 mini muffins.  They baked 18 minutes for the regular size and 13 minutes for the minis at 400 degrees.  Everyone loved the muffins.  They came out moist and tasty.

The chili was enjoyed by everyone who tried it. It isn't spicy, but the green chilies do stand out.

1/17/2014 - Tried smashing more of the beans and added more corn ~2 cups.  I liked this version better.

Chicken Marsala Casserole

Baked Chicken Marsala Casserole

I love Chicken Marsala in restaurants and wondered about making it at home.  My main reason for trying this out was to make it as a gift for my parents.  Then I would pack it up in individual meal packets for their freezer to be eaten whenever they needed a quick meal.  I found many recipes and loosely followed one.

Most of the Marsala casserole recipes used rice in them, but I wanted to serve it over pasta.  This recipe yielded not much "gravy" for a whole box of pasta.  Using less pasta is better, or saving some of the box for my picky eaters works too.

Also I ended up doubling the amount of Marsala wine and half and half and that seemed to work better.  Other modifications, I used only 8 oz of mushrooms.

My version:
boil pasta, use about 2/3s of 16 oz box or save some after boiling
 in a small casserole dish

Begin with olive oil and minced onions and minced garlic
add 8 oz of mushrooms, cook for 5-10 mins
add 2 TB of flour
add 1 cup of marsala wine, 1 cup of half and half, stirring constantly until thickened.
add 1 14.5oz can of chicken broth

Place pasta in small casserole dish,
add chopped chicken on top (2 cups is ideal),
add mushroom, gravy mixture on top

bake for 20 mins in 350 degree oven

This was very saucy and tasty.

Leftover pasta for the kiddies

Vegetable Crustless Quiche

Because of the holidays and busy grocery stores, we are left with not much food in the house.  But I had bought a bunch of eggs for baking and just to have around.

I found a recipe that had mainly what I had around the house.  My veggies were mainly frozen.

First I started with a 14.5 oz can of chicken broth and softened chopped potatoes, along with some minced garlic and minced onion in my big skillet.  Once they were mostly softened and most of the broth had cooked away, I added 1 cup of frozen red pepper, 1 cup of frozen chopped spinach, and 1 cup of  frozen chopped broccoli.  I also had a 4 oz can of mushrooms which I added at the end.  As they thawed, I worked on the egg part.

I used 9 eggs, beated until fluffy and added 1/2 cup of half and half (we are out of milk), a 15 oz container of low fat ricotta (recipe calls for cottage cheese), 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1/2 cup flour, a 1/4 cup of dried parsley, and 1.5 cups of a blend of shredded low fat Cheddar cheese and Colby Jack cheese.

A 3 quart container was lightly sprayed with cooking spray and then first the vegetables went in followed by the egg mixture.  I mixed it gently in the dish, then topped with the remaining 1.5 cups of shredded cheese.

Baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then 35 minutes at 350 degrees, then I added quite bit more time because it was still runny in the middle. I think for this quantity, a bigger, shalower baking dish would have worked better.  Being in the 3 quart dish, it was very thick.

It doesn't taste very eggy, which is good because I don't really like eggs much.

Chocolate Cake Ball Truffles

After making the Pumpkin Spice Truffles, I knew more cake balls would be in my future. I especially wanted to try another kind because one of my kids isn't a fan of pumpkin. Chocolate was an easy choice. I hoped that I could make a healthier version of cake and use low fat cream cheese instead of frosting again. It was a great success and my nine year old daughter enjoyed helping out too.

First the cake: I used a super moist Devil's Food Cake mix and instead of the recommended additions, I added a 6oz container of plain Greek Yogurt, one egg white, and a cooled cup of decaf coffee. It baked 30 minutes in a 9x13" glass dish sprayed with Pam. 

After baking, I made some cuts and allowed it to cool. 

The next step was to crumble the cake up (removing the more baked edges) and combine with low fat cream cheese (Neufchatel Cheese).  Many people recommend combining using clean hands. I removed my rings and used my hands too. It is pretty easy to work the cream cheese into the crumbled cake.  The combination becomes a dough.

In trying this again, I used only 2/3's of the 8 oz package of Neufchatel Cheese and it seemed better.*

We then rolled the dough into balls and then chilled the balls in the freezer for about 20 minutes. With our 1.5" balls, we got 45 balls. 

The milk chocolate flavored melts melted very nicely in my Chocolate Pro melting pot and dipping went well. I used a fork along with a fondue fork.  A few did crack due to the temperature difference of the warm chocolate and the cold balls.  For the second sheet, we just left them out a bit longer and didn't have cracking issue

For decoration, I used dark chocolate and drizzled back and forth with a fork. 

Here is the nutritional information for one cake ball and 3 candy wafers which I estimate for each ball.

A lower fat and calorie coating might be a nicer option or using real chocolate.  Here is the nutritional label for one cake ball with the candy wafer coating.

*Using less Neufchatel Cheese reduces each cake ball to 89 calories and 3.4 grams of total fat.