So this year I tried a bunch of new Christmas Cookie recipes….but none of them were really my own, so I thought I’d just do a quick little round-up post so you can see all the goodies I made 🙂

As you can see, I was a busy little bee 🙂

1) Peppermint Shortbread- I used this recipe and subbed peppermint extract for vanilla and added crushed candy canes.

2) Reese’s Stuffed Peanut Butter M&M Cookies-  I used this recipe and subbed m&ms for chocolate chips.

3) Cinnamon Roll Cookies- I used this recipe and subbed plain almonds for the nuts and left off the glaze.

4) Chocolate Caramelitas- I made these for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. I used this recipe with skim milk, chocolate chips, m&ms and pecans.

5) Molasses Cookies- I used this recipe and left out the cloves.

6) Peppermint Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies- I used this recipe and subbed applesauce for 1/2 the butter, decreased both sugars by 1/4 cup, used m&ms instead of white chocolate and added extra oats.

7) Toffee Chocolate Squares- I used this recipe but used half the butter, left out the nuts, added m&ms and spread the chocolate chips out when they melted.

8 ) Fudgy Cookies w/ Reese’s- I used this recipe but subbed skim milk for yogurt and added chopped Reese’s.

Put them all together and you’ve got one heck of a cookie plate to give to people!

This year, I was also looking for ideas for Christmas presents that I could make at home. I decided I wanted to make some homemade gift baskets.

Several weeks ago I started searching for ideas. The first one I decided on was homemade vanilla extract! As I kept searching, I ended up with a decent sized list and I was ready to get to work.

Here’s what I ended up putting together:

Included in the baskets above, which I made for my managers at work and a couple friends:

-A loaf of homemade bread
-A loaf of quickbread (either pumpkin or banana) in a cute disposable miniloaf pan
-A ball jar full of homemade granola
–Homemade chapstick
–Homemade Moisturizing Lemon Hand Scrub
–Peppermint Bark in a Cookie Cutter –Homemade Vanilla Extract

These turned out to be a huge hit! They were relatively inexpensive AND they were fun to put together 🙂 A few  pieces of ribbon that I had laying around, some scrapbook paper cut with fun scissors for labels, cardboard boxes covered in wrapping paper and stuffed with tissue paper, some ball jars I had in the basement and a few $1.00 plastic containers.

Do you give homemade gifts?

Happy Holidays!
–Lindsay–

Today’s Workout:

I hopped on the treadmill this morning and walked another 3 miles. For the first 20 minutes I walked and read at 3.5 mph, incline 7.0. From minutes 20-25 I bumped it up to 3.7 mph. Then I put the book down and bumped it up to 4.0 mph. When I hit 2 miles, I increased my speed to 4.2 mph and finished 3 miles in 47:05.

After a short break for lunch, I headed back to the basement and did a new 100 workout. I modified the one I’ve been doing on Mondays: http://www.healthywithheather.com/2011/11/100-workout-strength/

And made it all legs.

Here’s what it looked it:

100 Workout-Legs

This took me 23 minutes. I used weights for the 100 squats, deadlifts and calf raises but did the rest with just bodyweight. My goal was to finish in under 25 minutes.

Hi!

Has anyone told you lately that your actions make you beautiful?

That there’s no magic number to tell you how healthy you are, or how much you’re worth?

That your mind should be your best friend not your worst enemy?

That there’s more than one way to be beautiful?

That you should spend your time focusing on how amazing you are instead of how much you want to be like someone else?

How important it is to live in the moment?

That just waking up every day and staying true to who you are is a huge accomplishment?

That everyone makes mistakes, but that doesn’t mean you have to let them define you?

That strong is beautiful?

That there’s somebody out there that wants to be just like you?

That you can always, always, always

No? Well then I’m glad I took the time to remind you.

Love,

Me

Today’s Workout:
I didn’t have much time before I had to be ready to go out to dinner but I still wanted to get some weights in, so I put together a 20 minute circuit with one minute intervals. 10 minutes legs, 5 minutes arms, 5 minutes abs.

2o Min Circuit Workout

Do each exercise for one minute and move immediately to the next.
To make it slightly easier, take a 15 second break between each exercise.

Hi Friends!

I’ve got an awesome company to tell you about today! Have you heard of Lollihop? It’s essentially a program where you pay a monthly subscription fee and in return, they send you a box of healthy snack samples each month!

——————————————–

From their website:

The membership.

Over the past month or so, Lollihop reviews started showing up on a few of the blogs I read…Not one to miss out on the fun, I asked them if I could see for myself what all the fuss was about. They immediately offered to send me a box and about 2 days later it was sitting on my doorstep!

On the day I got my box, I had just gotten home from a super long day of studying and taking a really hard test. Seeing it on my steps totally made my day! I was STARVING and immediately dug into the box!

They send you a little card that tells you about the theme of the box. This month was whole grains, so it shows you whether each item is a good source of fiber, vitamins and minerals and/or healthy fats.

I immediately grabbed the Food Should Taste Good Chips! Love them 🙂

Later that night I tried the Popcorners and lemme just say: ADDICTED. They might be my new favorite snack. In fact, I had just so happened to have a larger bag of them sitting in the pantry from Sarah Smart Kitchen that I had yet to try. After trying the sample bag, we opened the big bag the next morning. I went to work and when I came home, the whole bag was GONE! Hubby ate them all. I think it’s safe to say we both liked them.

Next up, the Somersaults!

Like I mentioned in my last WIAW post, these were a bit too salty for me. But now that I know they exist, I’m definitely going to try out some of the other flavors!

The larabar made a great post-workout snack and I threw the Kind bar and the Gnu bar in my school bag to eat during class.

Best of all, I still have some stuff I haven’t tried yet!

Overall I was really impressed with my Lollihop box. The only downfall is that they’re a little bit expensive (in my opinion). I can’t afford to subscribe myself, but here’s the cool thing…you can give gift subscriptions! What a great Christmas present these would be!!!

If you’re able, I’d highly recommend subscribing to Lollihop! It’s the perfect way to learn about some fun, new healthy snacks. If you subscribe, tell them I sent you by using the referral code LINDSAY-LEANGREENBEAN.

Have you tried Lollihop? What’d you think? If you haven’t tried, is this something you’d consider subscribing too??

Happy Saturday 🙂
–Lindsay–

Today’s Workout:

3 Set Legs/Arms/Abs Workout + 1 mile run

Took 30 min.

Every year since I was little, my mom has made stuffing for Thanksgiving. And I’ve never eaten it.

A couple years ago, she made it and the hubby LOVED it. The following year, it was our year to stay here for Thanksgiving and even though we didn’t see my parents, the hubby requested my mom’s stuffing. So she froze some for him, and he ate it when we visited them for Christmas.

This year, I decided to surprise the hubby and try to make my mom’s stuffing for him. I asked her for the recipe and she said there wasn’t one! But she  gave me a list of ingredients and a general outline of what she did and I decided to give it a whirl.

The only thing was, her version was not vegetarian. BUT, with just a couple substitutions, I adapted it to our current dietary needs. Instead of regular sausage, I used Morningstar vegetarian breakfast sausages…and instead of chicken broth, I used homemade veggie broth! Piece of cake!

The good news: The stuffing was a big hit. The hubby immediately said, “you gotta put this on The Bean!” So there you have it.
More good news: I actually tried the stuffing…and I liked it 🙂 Although I don’t really have anything to compare it to because I never ate my mom’s, I’ll definitely be making this again.

The hubby has already requested another batch!

Check out yesterday’s post to see what I did with all the extra wild rice I accidentally made!

Have you ever adapted a family recipe to make it fit your dietary needs or made it healthier?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Today’s Workout:

5 x 50 Supersets Workout

It’s time again for another Foodie Penpals reveal day!

This month, I received my package from my girl Jordan over at Food, Sweat & Beers. Jordan is HILARIOUS and I look forward to reading her posts because they usually make me laugh out loud at least once. Plus, she writes about beer…so that’s awesome. Also…she’s so fun to follow on Twitter!

Check out some of the awesome stuff she sent me!

{A box that was stuffed to the brim}

{A sweet card & a fun little painting!}
{Jordan did you paint that?! I love it}

{Precision Packing- tetris style}

{Blueberry Granola that was great with my Lemon Chobani}
(Two new flavors of bars that I had never tried!}
{I’m saving them for finals week snacks}

{Candied ginger, which I’ve heard such good things about}
{Spicy chocolate = AWESOME}
{A fun new flavor of gum!}

{Spiced Apple Cider- the perfect drink for cold winter nights}
{And some fuel to fight off the inevitable winter sickies!}

So there you have it! Big thanks to Jordan for hooking me up with some great stuff!

And now it’s time for some details about Foodie Penpals.  In case you’re a new reader, here’s a reminder of what the program is all about:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. *US Residents only please at this time- hopefully we can expand soon!*

If you’re interested in participating for December, please send  an email to me at [email protected] and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)

I will need to hear from you by December 4th as pairings will be emailed on December 5th!

*You may have noticed that today is only November 29th…which is not in fact the last day of the month, but tomorrow is Wednesday and I didn’t want to interfere with Jenn’s WIAW party!!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

Sorry about my brief little blogging hiatus over the holiday weekend. I needed some time away from my computer 🙂 I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Let’s play catch-up shall we?

I spent the Wednesday before Thanksgiving going crazy in the kitchen! I started my morning at the grocery store. I got there around 9am and I was super impressed with how well-stocked everything was! They had everything on my list, lots of helpful employees working, everything was neat and organized AND there was no line to checkout!

When I got home, I put everything away and got to work.

First, I cooked up a bag of dried black beans because I noticed my freezer stash was running low.

While those were simmering, I got to work on some homemade vegetable broth.

I wanted to make my Grandma’s Turkey Dumpling Soup, but obviously needed to make some modifications this year. I decided to replace the turkey with chickpeas and potatoes, and make some veggie broth instead of turkey broth. It turned out great!

I also cooked some wild rice for the stuffing I was planning to make! (Recipe coming Thursday). Then I started running out of timers and burners!

While all of that was simmering, I made some strawberry jello and stuck it in the fridge to set so I could make Grandma’s Jello.

Next I got a small batch of Mimi’s Cornbread in the oven for the hubby and I to enjoy 🙂

I also made  a batch of my mom’s cranberry sauce….and after making it a bit too liquidy last year, I nailed it this year!!

Around this time I needed a break from all the traditional Thanksgiving foods, so I got to work on my bars for the The Great Food Bloggers Cookie Swap! Stay tuned for the recipe.

And finally, after enjoying all of the above for Thanksgiving eve dinner, I made some of Jessica’s Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls.

Best idea ever! They were amazing. Just like store bought…except better!

I brought the jello and the rolls to Thanksgiving, along with a vegetarian entree for hubby and I to enjoy instead of turkey. Stay tuned for that recipe on Wednesday!

What were you in charge of making for Thanksgiving this year??

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

After much anticipation, here begins the long awaited Hubby guest post. Today, I’m the boss, and I’m taking over the Lean Green Bean. Lindsay has been asking me to contribute something for about a year now, and inspiration has struck!

I’m a bit of a renaissance man. I’ve always enjoyed figuring out how things work, and spent most of my childhood taking things apart and almost always successfully putting them back together. This interest persisted as I majored in Physics- the most GPA-damaging method of learning about how stuff works- and has carried on to this day, manifesting itself as a large collection of power tools, and a near constant stream of projects and hobbies going on around the house. One of these hobbies seemed to be a perfect fit for a guest post, creating the perfect marriage of cooking and ultimate renaissance-person pursuits: Home Brewing.

I’ve been brewing beer for about a year now, and Lindsay has had a front row seat, acting as taste tester and victim of the occasional hostile kitchen takeover. At this point, I’m hooked. Here’s what I enjoy about brewing, and what you might like too should my post inspire you to try it yourself:

1)      I really like beer- this is probably a prerequisite
2)      There’s a lot of Science and History behind the process- NERD ALERT
3)      You get to engineer and build a lot of your own equipment
4)      There are only 4 basic ingredients- but total creative freedom with infinite recipes to create
5)      When you’re done, you get to drink delicious beer of your own concoction while astonishing your friends

That should be reason enough to immediately run out to your local homebrew shop and get started, but in case you want to know a little more, I thought we would walk through the creation of a batch. I promise to keep it both fun and informative, while trying to suppress nerdy scientific tangents.  Added Bonus: Lindsay will play the role of Assistant TO THE Regional Brewer for the first time!

The Ingredients

Fundamentally, beer only has four ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, and Yeast (as defined by the Reinheitsgebot aka German Beer Purity Law of 1516). Many beers deviate from this, like Wheat Beer or Spiced Ales, but we will be purists and just focus on the core four. I’m assuming you already have some familiarity with Water, so let’s quickly look at Barley, Hops, and Yeast.

Barley: Barley is a grain/member of the grass family/topic of an annoying Sting song, and is similar to Wheat. Before if can be used for brewing beer, it must be malted. Malting is process of partially germinating the grain by soaking it while controlling temperature and humidity. This starts to break down the starch reserves to create sugar, then heat is used to stop germination and save that sugar for the brewer. Malt gives beer it’s color and sweetness. Darker beers are produced with Malts that were cooked for longer, carmelizing some of the sugar.

Hops: Hops are a vine plant in the mulberry family that produce a cone-like flower. The cones are very aromatic and boiling them adds the bitter finish to the taste of beer (by isomerizing the alpha acids found in the pollen-like Lupulin of the cone- NERD INSERT). There are many different varieties that have unique tastes that they bring to the beer.

Yeast: Yeast are really cool, so don’t be put off by the fact that they are technically a fungus. Lucky for us, they can live without oxygen by a process called fermentation. When they eat sugar – which we get from the Malted Barley- they produce both CO2 and ethyl alcohol. Obviously, the ethyl alcohol is more exciting outcome of this process. The more fermentable sugar in your batch, i.e. Malted Barley, higher the alcohol content.

The Process

Now that we’ve met the main players, let’s make a batch. Grab a buddy and let’s get to it! Brewing is mostly boiling things together in a pot, but there’s a little more to it than that. Here are the basic steps to outline the journey:

1) Mashing- Essentially getting the sugar out of the Malt, and dissolved into a pot of water.
2) Boiling
3) Adding hops during the boil to add the bitter element
4) Cooling the liquid down
5) Add Yeast to start making that sweet alcohol

Now then, Lindsay and I woke up this past Sunday to brew a Black IPA. This is robust, bitter, and dark beer.  Delicious, but not for the timid. We were up 8AM and moved the party out to the garage- the home base for my brewing operation.

Mashing:

For the beginner, this process is skipped altogether. I recommend that first time brewers use a Malt Extract, where the sugar has already been extracted from the Malts in a syrup or powder form. Just dissolve the syrup in your boiling pot of water and you’re off to the races. However, there’s a slight drawback that extracts are more limited in the range of flavors that can be achieved.

Once you graduate, you get to start with the malted grain like an actual brewery, dial in your own recipes, and build some of your own brewing equipment. AND- have way more fun making your neighbors think you’re distilling moonshine on your driveway…

Meet the Mash Tun– A converted 10 gallon igloo beverage cooler designed to extract sugar from the grain. You’ll notice two key features, a wire mesh filter (that allows sugary water through and keeps grain out) and an upgraded ball-valve spigot to control flow the flow of liquid. This is a favorite design in the home brewing community (trust me, I didn’t think of this thing on my own) and requires many entertaining trips to the hardware store. The “filter” is actually the outer stainless steel casing you find on a toilet water supply line. Don’t worry, I bought it new and cleaned it before making it part of this apparatus.

So what do you do with this Mash Tun?! Glad you asked. The goal is to extract the fermentable sugars from the malted barley, and this is done by soaking the grain in hot water for around an hour. Prior to mashing, the grain has been cracked open by running it through a roller mill. This maximizes the water contact with the grains to dissolve the sugars. I don’t have my own mill yet, but lucky for me, my local home brew store has a big self-serve powered mill that is very fun to use.

The two things that need controlled during the mashing process are the Water to Grain Ratio (which is typically in the range of 1-2 quarts of Water per pound of Grain) and the Temperature. Ideal extraction occurs around 155 degrees, but knowing that the grain will steal some of the water’s heat, the water is typically heated to about 165 degrees.

The recipe I created had about 12 pounds of grain, so we started with 4 gallons of 165 degree water in the Mash Tun. My lovely assistant Lindsay is shown below, mashing in our malted barley. We were using three kinds – about 10 pounds of lightly roasted Pale Ale Malt (where the majority of the sugar will come from), 1.5 pounds of “60L” Caramel Malt (caramel describes the caramelization of the roasted grain and the “L” is the Lavibond color scale- the higher the number, the darker the grain), and about 1 pound of Chocolate Malt (darker still, this one is around 300 Lavibond, and does not contribute much sugar, but provides a smoky flavor).

Once the grain has been adequately mixed around in the water it will look something like this!

The next step is to let this sit at a constant temperature for about an hour. That’s why an igloo beverage cooler is so ideal. Pop the lid on, and fast forward.

[Fast forward complete]. Spoiler Alert- It’s all going into the big stainless steel kettle. The next step in this process is Lautering (and Sparging).

Lautering (and Sparging):

Now that the mashing is complete, the next step is to separate the sugary liquid (called Wort) from the grain and get it into the brew kettle for boiling. This process is called Lautering. We begin by slowly draining the liquid out of the valve at the bottom of the Mash Tun, while pouring more hot water into the top to continually “rinse” the grain. The “rinsing” is called Sparging. The liquid is transported through food grade tubing to better control its destination, i.e, not splatter sugary liquid all over the place.

In the picture below, Lindsay is starting the flow of wort. The first runnings will be cloudy and have some bits of grain, so we catch it in a pitcher and pour it back into the Mash Tun. this recirculation process is called vorlauf (aren’t these words fun?).

Once the first few quarts have come out, the grain bed starts to act like a giant filter and the wort will have more clarity. At this point, we start draining the wort into the brew kettle while simultaneously sparging the grain. In brewing terms, the sparge water is delivered from a “hot liquor tank”, meaning a vessel that holds hot water. In my operation, this is simply a plastic bucket with a valve I added. Not exactly hi-tech, but it’s effective. Also, you’ll note that gravity is our friend with this stair step set-up.

The water in the mash tun starts to clear as the wort drains out. And yes, that’s a plastic lid in there- I think it was from a package of bleu cheese crumbles. It helps to disperse the water as not to disturb the grain bed…again, cutting edge technology.

 After about 20 minutes, we have a brew kettle full of wort.

Now we get a roaring boil going on the giant propane burner. This is called a “Bayou Burner” (presumably it’s normally used for crawfish). It was a great purchase, mostly because Lindsay was ecstatic that I was out of her kitchen and not making the house smell like a brewery.

Boiling the wort helps to kill any bacteria, coagulate proteins suspended in the liquid, and bring the heat up high enough to extract bitterness from the HOPS– our next step!

Adding Hops (getting bitter):

No beer would be complete without that crisp bitter finish. We achieve this by boiling hops in the wort. The duration of the hop boil and the type of hop are what determine the taste/effect they will have on the beer. A long boil will simply extract bitterness, a short boil will add more of the aromatic elements of the plant. For this reason, hops are generally added several times during the brewing process. Don’t be fooled my Miller Lite’s “triple hops brewed” nonsense. Pretty much every beer you’ve ever consumed had hops added multiple times.

So here go the hops…

In this batch I used Warrior, Amarillo, and Cascade varieties. I grew the Cascade myself (I told you I’m a Renaissance man), and bought the other varieties at my local brew shop. I boiled the Warrior for the whole hour for bitterness, and added the Amarillo and Cascade near the end to get the aroma elements. I also threw in some Irish Moss (which is actually dried seaweed) which helps to clarify the beer and prevent “chill haze” when we eventually cool it down and drink this stuff at some point. Weird yes, but apparently it works.

Now that we’ve got a bitter wort, we’re ready to cool this bad boy down (and explain those metal pipes sticking out of the kettle in the previous picture.)

Cool it Down!

As I nerdily mentioned earlier, the boiling coagulates proteins suspended in the liquid. These make the beer hazy when cold, but if we cool the wort fast enough, they drop out of the liquid and make the beer more clear (the irish moss helps with this as well). Also, the prime time for bacteria to grow is when the beer is “warm” in the time between it’s boiling and cool, so we want to minimize that window.

Enter the HEAT EXCHANGER (ER…ER…ER- that was an echo). This is another fun toy to build, made out of flexible copper tubing.

Inserting this into the pot and running cold water through it rapidly cools the beer. You can actually get burned by the water coming out the other side- it’s physics in action! The reason I put it in while I was still boiling the hops was to give it a chance to sterilize.

After 15-20 minutes we’re back down to room temperature and ready to put the wort in a fermenter and feed it to the yeast.

 Fermenting Time.

Now we transfer the wort to our fermentation vessel. This is a plastic bucket with a sealing lid- glamorous as most of the equipment in this process. A strainer is used to separate the hops out and splashing is encouraged in this stage. We want to get as much oxygen in the wort as possible to help activate the yeast cells as they start fermenting.

After properly sloshing the wort around, the foamy top shows that we have adequately aerated the wort and are ready for the yeast. We had already started activating the yeast in a malt solution the night before, so now we just dump them in.

Next, we seal up the vessel and let those yeast start doing what they do best- munching on sugar to make CO2 and ethyl alcohol. The little air lock inserted in the top acts as a one way valve to let the CO2 out while keeping the container air tight. The yeast will work on this feast for about 7 days, and then we’ll have beer!

Once this is done, we still have to bottle and carbonate the beer, but we’ll save that for another post (?- only if you’re intested). However, to prove that this actually works, here’s a picture of a previous finished batch I’m enjoying as I write.

Summing Up:

Thanks for taking this detour from your normal Lean Green Bean content. I encourage you to give brewing a whirl- nothing like treating a friend to a beer you brewed yourself.

If I’ve been successful in inspiring you to try “getting your ‘brew’ on”, I would find a home brewing store in your area and have them set you up with starter kit. You can also find kits online from sites like Northern Brewer.  There’s also a great (and free) on-line book by a home brewing guru, John Palmer, at the aptly named “howtobrew.com”.

It’s been real Lean Green Bean readers, but now I’m going to relenquish control back to Lindsay for regularly scheduled programming. We’ll let you know how the finished product tastes (and just maybe I’ll be invited back for another guest post in the future!).

Cheers!!

The Hubby

A few months ago, I made this couscous and never told you about it. THEN, this weekend I came across this recipe:

and THEN, I had the brilliant idea to do a combination of sorts. So, I headed to the kitchen and got to work. Ok, that’s not really what happened.

What actually happened was I spent an entire day debating whether or not to add cheese, or make it more like a pasta salad like the first recipe. It was a long, intense mental debate…and finally I settled on cheese. Then I went to the grocery store, changed my mind, and headed home with no cheese.

Confession, I added 1/4 c shredded Mexican cheese when I made this. And I didn’t like it nearly as much as I did when I tasted it prior to adding the cheese. So don’t add the cheese.

This was a fun twist on a side dish. Thanks to the Old Bay, it really reminded me of corn chowder. The Greek yogurt makes it nice and creamy and the extra veggies I added help boost the nutritional value even further.

We enjoyed ours with black bean burgers and green beans.

But let’s be clear. I’m working on a recipe for mac and cheese that involves Greek yogurt AND cheese 🙂

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Over the weekend I made a little challenge for myself. I have this binder:

I get a lot of cooking magazines and I’m constantly tearing out recipes and ideas that I want to try. Occasionally (read: about twice a year), I sit down and actually organize my huge pile of torn out pages into categories, cut the recipes down to smaller sizes and put them in my binder. This is all well and good…except that i RARELY ever actually make any of the recipes.

So, this week, after I had everything all organized, I spent some time looking through the binder and made a list of some things I wanted to try this week. This is the first week in a while where I finally have some time to cook so the timing worked out pretty well! I pulled out a few recipes that I’m planning to try this week and stuck them in the front cover of the binder for easy access.

Today for lunch I tried out the first recipe- Risotto Cakes. It’s a tiny little scrap, not even really a recipe, that explains how to turn your leftover risotto (or orzotto in my case) into risotto cakes!

This is a fun way to transform your leftovers into what feels like a completely new dish! I served mine on a bed of spinach…modeled after my all-time favorite crab cake salad that I can’t get any more because the restaurant that served it closed 🙁

These are quick and easy enough to make for lunch, and hearty enough for dinner.

[print_this]
Risotto Cakes
Makes 6-8 cakes

2 cups cold leftover risotto/orzotto
1 egg
1 c breadcrumbs (panko or regular), divided

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, beat the egg.
2. Add the risotto and 1/2 c breadcrumbs and mix well.
3. Pour the remaining breadcrumbs onto a plate.
4. Form the risotto mixture into patties and coat with breadcrumbs.
5. Heat a large skillet (cast iron or nonstick) with vegetable oil. Pan sear until golden brown on both sides.
[/print_this]

Add a little of your favorite salad dressing and a few extra veggies if you want!

What’s your favorite way to transform leftovers?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

PS…Hubby told me these were the best risotto cakes he’d ever had. I told him he’d never had risotto cakes before…He told me not to split hairs 😉

Hi Friends!

It’s that time again! Time for another Secret Recipe Club post. This month I was assigned another new-to-me blog: The Keenan Cookbook. Chris and Rachel are totally cute blogging couple with an ADORABLE baby boy. I had so much fun going through their recipe index and looking at all of their tasty recipes. Several of them caught my eye, but the one I picked jumped out at me and sounded especially delightful for a cold fall night: Spinach and Tomato Orzotto. I’ve made risotto a few times before, and I’d heard you could make it with orzo, but I’d never tried it!

I followed their recipe pretty closely, but I did make a few changes:

-1/4 c onion instead of shallots
-added 1/2 c diced sweet potato and 1 c diced red pepper at the same time as I added the onion and garlic.
-used water instead of white wine
-added some extra spinach
-used two fresh tomatoes instead of canned
-only used about 3 1/4 c vegetable broth instead of 4 cups
-used 1 tsp paprika and some black pepper instead of herbs de provence

I was surprised by how similar this turned out to risotto using arborio rice. I guess I expected it to be more “pasta-like” but it was still nice and creamy and tasted great!

We enjoyed our orzotto with a side of sweet potato soup and it was a perfectly hearty meal.

So tell me, have you ever made orzotto? Did you like it better than risotto?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

I think the thing the hubby hates most about me having a food blog is that sometimes old favorites get lost in the shuffle as I try to come up with new recipes for the blog. So, I think it’s important that each season I take some time to revisit some of those tried and true favorite recipes that we enjoy eating year after year.

Here’s a couple of our Fall Favorites:
Click the links to see my original posts from last year. Try not to laugh at the miserable photography 🙂

Curried Sweet Potato Soup
I grew up eating this recipe. My mom made it all the time. I never really liked it when I was younger but now it’s a favorite of the hubby’s and mine!

Crockpot Applesauce
A great way to use up all those apples that are on sale this time of year! I made it this year without any added sugar and didn’t miss it a bit.

Pepitas!
My absolute favorite part of carving pumpkins 🙂

And of course I couldn’t leave you with a few Halloween pics 🙂

Yes that is a Pillsbury Doughboy snuggie 🙂 That’s how I roll.

What’s your favorite Fall recipe?
–Lindsay–