Breakfast Baby Meals

One of the greatest gifts during a time of transition - especially after having a baby - is food! When bringing food to a family with a new baby, I do my best to bring breakfast. It can be enjoyed at any time of the day and often stored for later.  Today I brought a family yogurt, strawberries, Vanilla Crunch Granola (will last many days), and waffles (can easily be stored in the freezer for a quick snack or breakfast). I've used the linked Betty Crocker recipe for years, and it never fails me. We top ours with whole milk yogurt and/or greek yogurt and fruit. Today, I loved fresh peaches and frozen wild blueberries on mine.

Waffles are a great option for a savory breakfast-for-dinner. Here'a post I wrote five years ago about pairing it with a fresh spring salad and new potatoes. This also offers a vegan adaption of the Betty Crocker waffle recipe.

Thinking of Resuscitation...

I haven't blogged in years. Years! However, I continue to find myself sharing recipes with friends and family, and this is by far the most simplest way. Most of what we eat continues to be adaptions of recipes that I have been making for years, as well as random things I create in order to use what we have. Tonight's dinner was just that. We had Rice and Bean Casserole (scroll about halfway down) from Cathe Olson's Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook with a randomly whipped up Kale and Swiss Chard Salad (kale and swiss chard from our garden!).  The picture is my plate; the children put their rice and beans in hardshell tacos and enjoyed!

Kale and Swiss Chard Salad

12 small to medium leaves of kale, rinsed, dried, then chopped
6 leaves of swiss chard, rinsed, dried, then chopped
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
salt and pepper to taste
a few handfuls of alfalfa sprouts

In a large bowl, add olive oil, garlic, and salt and pepper. Gradually add kale and swiss chard while tossing in oil. Toss in a few handfuls of alfalfa sprouts.

Vegan Paht Si-Yu

I make Vegan Paht Si-Yu (listed as the last recipe) at least every other week.  Suuuuuuuuuper easy.  I make a larger batch by using a whole pound of spaghetti. I just toss in more veggies and make a slightly larger batch of the sauce. Cathe Olson has this in her The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook which seems to be out of print. This is a total bummer, because it is one of my all-time-favorite cookbooks and I'm constantly recommending it to moms.  Many pages are falling out of my copy from lots and lots of love and use over the past six years. Hope you give it a try and enjoy!

Springtime Crockpot Minestrone

I recently made this dish while we had dear friends visiting. This was an incredible hit for the entire table of eight, which included my six, four, and two-year-old sons and our three-year-old friend. They all gobbled it up! I found the recipe on Pinterest, and it comes from how sweet it is. I made some changes due to what I had on hand, and it was absolutely fantastic.

Here are my edits to the recipe:
- Upped the garlic to 6 cloves...I always up the garlic.
- Rather than 28oz can of diced tomoates, I roasted 4 cups of baby tomatoes until they were soft and had burst. To do that, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast at 400 for 20-40 mins. Depends on how roasted you like them. I also crushed all 6 garlic cloves and roasted them with the tomatoes.
- Upped the asparagus to about 18 spears. I just chopped the entire bunch I bought at the co-op.
-Kale rather than spinach.
-Cut the cheese, ha, ha. I just placed grated parmesan on the table for those that wanted it.

I've never used ditalini pasta but went to Target to get this specifically (it looked so great in the pictures, and we don't have it at our co-op). Glad I did. It was a fun, thick noodle that held up well.

Enjoy!

Rice, Beans, and Greens

From time to time, I struggle with headaches. I awake with either a dull or intense pain around my right eye that trails down the the right side of my neck wrapping around my right shoulder blade. They've become few and far between...but every so often by day begins this way. Being mother of three incredibly high-energy little boys, the easiest way I can self-medicate is with caffeine and food. Almost always my food of choice is greens and brown rice. If I can throw some protein in like chickpeas, even better! This is inspired by Mississippi Market's deli staple of Rice, Beans, and Greens which you can buy very cheaply by the pound every day. When the headache is so bad that I can't bare to cook myself - I head directly to MS Market for my food meds.

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups short-grain or long-grain brown rice
olive oil
cumin seeds
2 cups cooked chickpeas
greens (spinach, kale, chard, bok choy)
garlic (optional)
tomatoes (optional)
salt and pepper

Combine 2 cups of rice and 4 scant cups of water. Drizzle some olive oil and 1 tsp of salt over the top. Cover. Bring to a boil. Leave cover on and turn heat all the way down for a low, gentle boil for 40-50 minutes until rice is done. A great test is to remove cover and tip the pot to the side. If water surfaces, continue to cook. If water does not surface, it is done!

While rice cooks, heat 2 Tbsps of olive oil in a saute pan. Sprinkle 2-3 tsps of cumin seeds. Heat until seeds begin to sizzle and become wonderfully fragrant. Add greens. Cover and cook until wilted. Add chickpeas. Cover again until chickpeas are warmed. Add chopped tomatoes and minced garlic, if you're interested in a little flare. Salt and pepper to taste.

Above, I've rounded it out for dinner with some roasted carrots and avocado slices. Enjoy!

Roasted Tomato Summer Spaghetti

Tomatoes, tomatoes, and MORE tomatoes!!!! They are everywhere. Pouring out of our CSA box. Growing beautifully on our unruly sweet 100 tomato plant. I'm trying my darnedest to keep up! I was nervous to bring out a new recipe, because my five-year-old is being outrageously picky. He ate this!

INGREDIENTS:
2-3 cups sungold tomatoes or sweet 100's, rinsed and stems removed
4-6 kale leaves, remove stem and roughly chop
one small onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
8 fresh basil leaves, minced
2 cups great northern beans (or other white bean), drained (rinse if canned)
1 lb whole wheat spaghetti
1 cup reserved of pasta cooking water
s&p to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Bring pot of water to boil. Cook spaghetti for 7 minutes. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. Meanwhile, place tomatoes in baking dish. Drizzle with olive and salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes, stirring once halfway through. Add chopped kale and roast an additional 7 minutes. While tomatoes are roasting and pasta is cooking, heat 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil in a medium/large sauce pan. Add onions until they soften. Add beans to warm. Add garlic and basil, stir. After 30 seconds turn off heat. Add tomatoes and kale when finished roasting. Add s&p to taste. Drain pasta when finished cooking. Add back the 1 cup of water to keep the pasta from being sticky. Top with sauce and serve!

Millet, Carrots and Kale

Odin enjoyed this meal so much he showed us his sign for "more" for the very first time! What a brilliant boy we have. :) I made the millet using this same process I've blogged about before. The carrots were roasted at 400 degrees for 30 minutes with olive oil and salt. The kale was chopped and added to the carrots to roast for the last 8 minutes. Pureed some of the veggies for Odin to enjoy with his millet, while the rest of us threw the veggies into our burritos. Enjoy! Odin did.