Green waffles

So my older boys and husband are gone to scout camp.  It makes it hard for me to be motivated to make a big dinner for myself and the little boys.  Yesterday was supposed to be egg rolls, but when I asked what the kids wanted for dinner, they said waffles.  How could I object?  I didn't have buttermilk to make my regular waffles so I started looking in my new greensmoothiegirl.com readers' favorite health recipes book for a waffle recipe and found this one for pancakes.  I added a bit extra spinach because I didn't feel like making a green smoothie, and just a handful and a half in because that is what I had left in the box.  These made some very green  waffles.  They would be awesome for St. Patrick's day. I can't wait to get a picture of them but alas my camera is at scout camp.  :(
 They did turn out soft and would probably be better suited to pancakes as the original recipe stated.  They were a bit hard to get out of the waffle iron because of their softness.  They were tasty though.
In the future, I don't think they need the honey, especially if you plan to put syrup on them.  If eating them plain, by all means, add the honey.  It is a nice sweetness, but we had ours with maple syrup and peanut butter, and I felt they were a bit too sweet for that.
Here is how I made them. (Which was totally not following the directions - I lazily just made the entire batter in the blender.)

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3-4 grinds of pink himalayan pink salt (or sea salt)
• 3 Tablespoons honey (I will probably omit this next time -or lessen it to 1-2 teaspoons)
• 1 1/2 handfuls baby spinach
• 1/2 banana
• 2 Tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil
• 1 1/4 cup milk
• 1 egg

Directions

1. Place milk, spinach and banana in blender and pulse a few times to blend.  Add the egg, coconut oil and spinach and pulse a couple more times to blend.
2. Add flour, baking powder, and salt.  At this point I just pushed batters on my blendtec.  If you don't have a batters button, just pulse or blend until combined.  
3. Bake in a waffle iron until desired done-ness.  (Or make as pancakes - probably preferred with this dough, but my little boys LOVE waffles.)

Enchiladas (with hidden veggies)

I made so many changes to this original recipe that even with my notes, I'm typing it up as it is cooking in the oven.  (course I may not finish because it only had 15 min to cook and I just took half of that time putting ingredients away.)  But, at least I hope to get the ingredients down.
The original recipe came from The sneaky chef every day, BUT - I have only purees in single veggies not her colorful mix of veggies, AND her sauce looked like it would be bland, especially with the added veggies.  So I combined my own mix of veggies, and my sister's red enchilada sauce, with the recipe in the book and this is what I came up with.

So I did get the ingredients down before serving this, but not everything.  Just ate it and it tasted great.  I'm pretty impressed because of all the combining and the many different veggies I threw in there.  Tomatoes, cauliflower, carrot, sweet potato, yellow squash, spinach, and the tomato from tomato sauce.  Not bad if you ask me.  Aaron at 1/2 of his, which is pretty good considering #1 he is always super picky, #2 he actually has strep.  I'm not complaining at all.  :)



Ingredients

• 1 container of pre-cooked beef (or 1 lb lean ground beef, cooked with onions, salt, and pepper and drained)
• 3 8 oz containers of tomato sauce
• 3/4 cup orange or lighter color pureed veggies -book called for "orange" (carrot and sweet potato) or "white"(cauliflower and zucchini).  I used 3 T carrot, 5 T sweet potato, and 1/4 cup cauliflower = 3/4 cup (*see note)
• 1.5 Tablespoons chili powder
• 1 Tablespoon cumin
• 1 Tablespoon sugar (I'd probably leave this out - I forgot that the carrot and sweet potato would sweeten the sauce and I don't feel it was needed with the additional veggies)
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup green or darker pureed veggies -I used 5 T spinach and 3 yellow squash
• 1 1/2 -2 cups shredded cheese - I used sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack
• tortillas -I used 7 flour and 7 corn 

* I froze my veggie purees in 1 Tablespoon (ice cube trays), 1/4 cup (muffin tins) and a couple 1/2 cup (plastic kiddie cups) increments.  I just happened to have 3 ice cubes of carrot left, then added the rest.  Same with the spinach.  If I had still had some broccoli I probably would have used 1/2 broccoli and 1/2 spinach, but I was out of broccoli.  In other words, feel free to add whatever puree you have handy.  The dark color hides well in the beef, and the orange or light color can hide anywhere.  The flavor will be covered by the sauce.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 and spray a 9 X 13 pan with cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, combine tomato sauce, orange/white/light colored veggie puree, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, sugar, salt and pepper.
3. Toss pre-cooked beef into a skillet.  (or cook and drain beef in a skillet)  Add green/darker veggies puree,  1 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce, and 1/2 cup of cheese to the beef.  Heat through.  Simmer for 5 minutes.  
4. Meanwhile, heat tortillas.  Coat the bottom of the 9 X 13 with red sauce.  (I used about 3/4 cup)
5. Fill each tortilla with about 1/4 cup meat mixture (total guess there)  Roll up filled tortilla and place seam side down in the sauce.  (I actually rolled mine a little in the sauce, adding a bit more to the bottom as necessary, but I can't say that was necessary.  I'm sure I could have coated the sides and top with the left over sauce.)  Pour remaining sauce over the top of the filled tortillas.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes until cheese is lightly browned and bubbly.  (This really only took 15 minutes)

Cheese Nachos (with hidden veggies)

Update 11/13 -yes I realize this is my very last post and I just posted it 2 days ago but I just made this cheese sauce again today - I used it for nachos and put it over noodles to make "mac and cheese" for my 3 year old.  Lunch for 4 people and it had veggies in it.  Posting to say that after making this the first time I got the idea to use bean flour in this instead of regular flour.  I think my first thought was just plain adding beans to the nachos, but then I though - hey why not use bean flour to thicken the sauce.  I tried that today.  Worked great, so definitely an option to make it gluten free, or add a bit of fiber and protein.  :) I was also lazy and just tossed in frozen carrot puree, let it thaw/heat, and then threw in the cheese.  Also worked fine.

This week I have checked out the hidden veggies books.  -Deceptively delicious, double delicious, and the sneaky chef.  Yes I've done this before in an attempt to get any type of veggie into my youngest, no it didn't work well then because he also doesn't like many things with any kind of texture I could hide something in but lately I've been feeding him a macaroni and cheese with hidden carrots (sold at costco) and he loves that so these nachos really caught my eye.  They have cauliflower hidden in the meat sauce and carrots in the cheese.  (couldn't get him to try the meat, but he loved the cheese.)  I did have to do some editing on the cheese sauce.  The way it was made in the book was super sweet from the carrots and didn't taste anything like cheese, so I had to add more cheese.  (hence actually coming and blogging the day after I made it.)  I did really like the flavor of the meat.  Could use this for tacos as well and it would be very tasty.  It had just the right amount of spice for me and my kiddos.
I almost rated this 4.5 star, but bumped it up because all of the kids liked it.  Tavio typically doesn't like a cheese that starts as a white sauce, but liked this one.  Both Benjamin and Aaron ate the cheese and loved it.  Even Brandon liked it.  Not too often to I find something that everyone will eat and enjoy, so this definitely moves up the scale to 5 stars.
Here is my adaptation of the original found on page 119 of double delcious.

Ingredients

• 1 lb lean ground beef (I used 93% lean)
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder, divided (original called for less but I didn't pay attention that it got divided. :)  I ended up using 2 teaspoons but really loved the flavor.  Not sure I'd change it.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 cup cauliflower puree (cooked and pureed cauliflower)
• 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 Tablespoon oil (I used my healthy blend this time)
• 2 Tablespoons flour (white, wheat, or bean)
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup carrot puree (cooked and pureed carrot)
• 1 1/2 -2 cups grated cheese (I used a mix of sharp cheddar and Monterrey Jack)
• 1 Tablespoon chopped pickled jalapenos.  (I did choose ones with no seeds)
• tortilla chips (I used some food should taste good multigrain chips. (also found at costco) those were tasty.  Kiddos had regular tortilla chips.)
• any other desired toppings, salsa, sour cream, more jalapenos,...   We just ate them with meat and cheese -some of the kiddos with just cheese.

Directions

1. Cook beef with the cumin, chili powder, 1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, salt and oregano until cooked through.  Drain fat.  Take off heat and add cauliflower puree and tomato paste.  Stir in until well combined.  Set aside.
2. Heat oil in a small saucepan over medium high heat.  Add the flour and stir until it forms a paste (this happens pretty quickly so have your milk measured and ready.)  Whisk in milk until smooth.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and whisk in carrot, cheese, jalapeno and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder.  Heat until the cheese has melted.
3. Serve with chips.  

chicken pasta salad

Here is yet another recipe from recipe shoebox.  This one was OK.  I think I would have liked it better if there were less pasta.  It was better the first day than as left overs, and it made a lot, so I may 1/2 the recipe next time.  The left overs seemed like they absorbed the dressing and were a bit dry.  Of course I did cut the oil way down.  Certainly more oil would have helped.  :)

Ingredients

• 1 container pre-cooked chicken
• 1 pound rotini noodles
• 2 heads broccoli, finely chopped
• 1 cup diced red, yellow and orange bell peppers (I use the baby ones -it would be about 2 regular size)
• 1/3 cup diced onion
• 1 can sliced olives
• 1 cup shredded cheese (optional - I did not use it)
• 1/3-1/2 cup ranch dressing

Dressing ingredients

• 2 envelopes dry Italian dressing mix
• 6 Tablespoons cider vinegar
• 6 Tablespoons water
• 6 Tablespoons oil  (you may want to use more - original was 3/4 cup, but a bit less water too)

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.  Rinse with cool water to cool.  I did this while chopping all of the veggies.
2. Combine chicken, chopped vegetables, and olives.  Set aside.  Whisk together dressing ingredients and pour over vegetables and chicken.  Mix together.  Add ranch, cheese if using and pasta.  Fold together.  Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving if desired.  (I did not.) 

Creamy curry cauliflower and broccoli soup

So, this week I tried something new.  I actually went to dealstomeals.com and did their free trial and let them plan my menu and do my grocery list.  I'm apparently a big goober because somehow I never found the link for the grocery list.  I'm not sure if I'll continue to do that, but for this week, it was simple -even with making my own list.
I ended up checking out the site yet again because she had a sun oven giveaway going on. That is definitely worth checking out.
So the first recipe I tried out this week was a curry cauliflower broccoli soup.  I did worry about the curry, but had the 2 children at home for dinner that evening smell it and they said they would like it so I went ahead and threw it in.  I liked it just fine.   I don't think either of them did.  I think you could make this soup and omit the curry, but maybe add a bit more garlic and onion.  Maybe some oregano??  Something to give it a different flavor.  DH came through and sampled a bite (he was eating elsewhere with DS1.)  He definitively didn't like it with the curry, but he is not a curry fan.
I found the directions on the site a bit hard to follow - like it wanted you to combine flour and milk but never said how much flour. I actually used white bean flour to thicken it a bit.  That worked well and hey, it added some protein and fiber.  :)
Here is my version of this soup

Ingredients

• 4 cups chicken stock (1 32 oz. container.)
• 1 cup finely diced onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (I was out and used 1/2 teaspoon garlic minces.)
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 head cauliflower, finely chopped (It seems like a ton finely chopped but it works.)
• 2 broccoli crowns, finely chopped
• dash cayenne pepper
• 1 cup milk
• 2 Tablespoons white bean flour (or regular flour - although I may start with less on the regular flour)
• 2 cups (or handfuls if you measure like I do) cheddar cheese plus more for serving.

Directions

1. Melt butter in a large stock pot.  Add onion and garlic minces and saute until onion is tender and starting to brown.  Add salt and pepper and the chicken stock.  Add the cauliflower, broccoli and cayenne pepper.  Simmer until vegetables are tender.  
2. Mix in milk and white bean flour (If using regular flour, whisk it into them milk first then add it to the soup.  Cook and let thicken slightly.  At this point I also stuck in my immersion blender and blended up maybe 1/3 of the broccoli/cauliflower.  That made the soup thicker. 
3. Add the cheese and stir until combined.  Serve in bowls.  Sprinkle with more cheddar cheese if desired.