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Happy Anniversary to my hubby!

Thank you for keeping me grounded, but still letting me to live my dreams.

I love you!

9.27.08

Hi Friends!

Here’s a quick easy recipe for you. The other day I found farro in the bulk bins at Whole Foods. I can’t even accurately express how happy that made me. I’ve been looking for it forever and all I could ever find was a tiny package for like $10. Crazy.

So I immediately snatched some up and earlier this week I whipped up a tasty little side dish. I was roasting potatoes anyways, so I while the oven was preheating, I started boiling some veggie broth. While the farro was cooking, I put some tomatoes and garlic in the oven to roast. The combination of all of these flavors, plus a little Parmesan cheese equals deliciousness.

Ready for the recipe?

 

 

It may not look pretty, but it’s darn tasty!

Do you like farro?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

Today is another first day of school for me…so I’ll probably be blog MIA. Have no fear though, my best friend Katharine is here to entertain you! You may remember her from her Fancy Feast guest post! She’s been experimenting with an elimination diet and recently embarked on an adventure in banana bread making! Take it away, Katharine:

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A lot of people seem to have childhood food traumas: they were forced to eat peas until they threw up or they were locked in the basement with rats after they groaned “meatloaf again?!?” Food was pretty much a non-issue in our house. I ate the, more or less, healthy meals in front of me and didn’t get too philosophical about it. My Wisconsin-born-and-raised father cultivated in me an unwavering love of peanut butter, ice cream, and cheese.

Several weeks ago I was on the phone with a dietitian-turned-integrative-doctor and family friend. We were talking about a blood disorder I discovered I have that results in a severely low platelet count. She suggested I try an elimination diet, removing certain foods from my eating regime and slowly reintroducing them one at a time. This seemed like a ridiculous suggestion at first (uh, hello, blood is in your veins…food goes in your stomach…two don’t really mix…) But I masked my skepticism with “uh huhs” as she continued on. She explained that the majority of your immune system is housed in your stomach and GI tract; therefore, problems with your diet/digestion can potentially cause problems with your immune system, maybe even make your body go all auto-immune on itself as in my case.

I’m now in my second week of the elimination diet. (“elimination” and “everything you love to eat but can no longer eat” being interchangeable.) The idea is that you embark on a 21-day stint of eating anything you’d like except dairy, gluten, soy, corn, refined sugars, caffeine, and alcohol. Easy, right?! Actually, there are many substitutes that allow you to cobble together meals that adhere to the diet. The only thing I’ve really missed is cheese (and no, there is no substitute for cheese, especially not a liquified nut), but I’ve discovered many culinary wonders I would have otherwise never considered food: coconut butter, garbanzo bean flour, arrowroot, brown rice pasta, hemp milk (this was one of the less pleasant finds, in my opinion, as it tastes like a dirty foot), and coconut aminos to name a few.

Unlike my dear friend Lindsay, I am no whiz in the kitchen. I make my way through recipes like a three-legged dog makes his was through an obstacle course–slowly and peeing on everything. (Ok, kidding about that last part.) For the past nine days, however, I’ve been doing my best hacking onions, boiling lentils, and mixing dairy-free, gluten-free, refined-sugar free, soy-free banana bread. Sounds gross, doesn’t it? It’s a lot less sweet but the texture and flavor are pretty damn close to the real deal.

To make this “banana bread” as delicious as possible I suggest listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors album, the ultimate goal being to time the bread’s placement into the oven right as The Chain is cuing up. If you achieve this, then you have reached culinary greatness.

(Look closely and you will see Chef Tilly-my cat-presiding over the baking)

So once you’ve got Niki Stix tuned up, preheat the oven to 350. Mix the following:

-1/4 c. walnuts, finely ground in blender
-1 3/4 c. brown rice flour
-1/2 c. arrowroot (This definitely smells like something that would be an ingredient in a homemade bomb. Don’t be alarmed, it is just tapioca.)
-2 tsp. baking soda
-1/4 tsp. salt
-1/2 c. chopped walnuts

At this point I realized I only had one banana. This is kind of a problem when making banana bread…To compensate I used, oh say, about a 1/2 c. ground walnuts. Then, in a separate bowl I mixed together:

-1 mashed banana (I would recommend, well, at least two bananas)
-1/8 c. sesame oil (Recipe calls for 1/4 cup–they are idiots.)

And then I realized I was also lacking another ingredient–apple juice concentrate. No fears, I had unsweetened apple sauce. So I added
-7 tbsp. unsweetned apple sauce (And then later, because the dough was dry, the rest of the jar.)
-2 “eggs” (“Eggs” are nothing like eggs. “Eggs” are made by combining 1 tbsp. flax seed with 1/3 c. water. You let this sit for about five minutes and you’re left with a gooey, liquidy substance that will, in the absence of real eggs, bind your various baked goods together. These “eggs” work surprisingly well until you try to make an omelet.)
-1 tsp vanilla extract

To compensate for the lack of fruit I added a handful of dried cranberries and dried cherries. I take a very Joey-from-Friends approach to cooking. My thinking is that if an ingredient by itself is tasty then surely when mixed with other tasty things it will yield one very delicious thing! That’s math, folks. So at this point add in whatever else you want to, like some agave nectar, then mix all that dough together. And then realize you also lack a bread loaf pan. (There may or may not have been a flurry of swears at this point.) In the absence of a proper loaf vehicle, an 8″ x 8″ ceramic vessel works just as well. And because this is going on Lindsay’s blog–Lindsay who’s never licked a piece of raw dough in her life, Lindsay the most disciplined person I know, Lindsay who is actually a cook with restraint–for this reason, I will underscore the fact that because there are no raw animal products in this recipe, all of you raw-dough-eating maniacs can go crazy.

Now the careful reader might be suspiciously scrolling upward to reread that part earlier about alcohol. Wait a second. I thought she said she couldn’t have alcohol? But you’re using vanilla! That has alcohol in it! You cheater!! Yes, it is true. I cheated. Five days after I started the diet I had already rationalized alcohol back into the diet as long as it was only consumed once a week and as long as the alcohol’s ingredients adhered to the diet. For those of you who know me, I’m sure you’ll agree it’s better for everyone this way.

Depending on the pan you’re using bake anywhere from 25-55 minutes, or until a pointy object of choice inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let the bread cool for about 10 minutes then eat that sucker! It’s perfect for breakfast or for after dinner when you’re craving sweets.

In the end, I have no idea whether this diet will make one platelet of a difference. If it doesn’t, it still proved edifying. One reason I greatly admire Linds is because she thinks about what she eats and in that way respects her body. I used to think that if it was in a grocery store then it must be okay to eat. Reading ingredients labels at Whole Foods is an eye-opening experience–even there I had to search to find a chicken broth that didn’t contain evaporated cane juice or corn starch. I think everything in moderation is a good motto, but every once in a while there’s something to be learned from extremes.

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Have you ever done an elimination diet? Was it helpful?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Over the weekend while we were back cleaning out the house I grew up in, we spent a lot of time in the kitchen. As I was cleaning out cupboards, cabinets and drawers, I found myself lost in the memories of all the times I spent in that kitchen.

The kitchen was definitely the center of our house, both literally and figuratively. It’s where I spent some of the happiest times with my mom, learning to make new things and making things that we’d made together 100 times. It’s where I learned how to bake, how to cook without measuring and how to clean up the dishes as I went.

When I reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out a stainless steel mixing bowl, I immediately thought of monster cookies. They were one of my favorite cookies to make with my mom because there was very little measuring involved. And they could be different every time….and still taste just as good. Whenever we made them, she would let me throw in whatever we had laying around- even cereal- on one condition: There must ALWAYS be M&Ms. You can throw in as many things as you want, but if there are no M&Ms, they’re just not monster cookies.

I didn’t take that bowl home with me. I have plenty of mixing bowls already. But I did take home the comfort of knowing that even when circumstances force you to get rid of your “stuff”, they can never force you to get rid of your memories.

So today, on my last day of vacation before school starts back up again, I made some monster cookies in my own kitchen for a friend’s birthday tomorrow. And as I sat there eating one fresh out of the oven, I made a silent little toast to memories of the past, and to all those memories still to come.

Over the years I’ve healthified these just a bit, cut down on the butter and sugar, used brown rice krispies instead of regular, switched to natural peanut butter and added more oats. In the interest of making a recipe, I’ve given you my best estimation on how much of all the mix-ins I used…but really, it doesn’t matter. Just throw them all into the bowl, mix them around a bit and enjoy.

And NEVER forget the M&Ms.

 

What was your favorite childhood cookie?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

On Saturday we went to the Farmer’s Market and I came home with, among other things, a GIANT bag of basil. I immediately came home and made a batch of pesto. I used this recipe and it turned out great!

Then I immediately made these breadsticks that I’ve been dreaming about ever since Nicole posted them. The only change I made was to use mozzarella cheese instead of Parmesan.

Please ignore my pictures and go look at Nicole’s. They’re much prettier 🙂

Yesterday I continued on my pesto kick and whipped up a little side dish that accidentally turned into dinner.

If you’re a long-time blog reader, you know we’re big fans of roasted potatoes in our house. Last night I kicked them up a notch by tossing them in pesto before roasting them. Then the plan was to enjoy them with some fresh mozzarella cubes….but while they were roasting I took it one step further and added in some corn and tomatoes.

 

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, putting all these ingredients (minus the potatoes) on a piece of naan makes a killer pizza 🙂

So yes we ate the whole bowl of potato salad and the pizza and called it dinner last night. Oh well 🙂

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

In December of 2006, I graduated from college the first time with a BA in Psychology. After working a few jobs totally unrelated to that major, I made the decision to go back to school again. In January 2009, I began taking classes for a Dietetic Technician program. In June 2011, I graduated from that program and this morning I took the national exam to become a Dietetic Technician, Registered…

…AND I PASSED!!

Somewhere in the middle of my last program I decided that I didn’t want to stop at being an DTR and wanted to go the extra mile to become a Registered Dietitian.

So I’m still in school. I have 3 more quarters and getting matched to an internship still ahead of me.

But for now, I have three weeks off (yay!), a mini vacation planned (double yay!) and lots of sleep to catch up on.

And tonight, I’m off to make this happen:

Have a great weekend, friends!
–Lindsay, DTR–

I’m just gonna go ahead and sign my posts like that for a few weeks if you don’t mind 🙂

This could also be called Clinging-to-the-end-of-summer-fruit-and-chickpea-salald.

Last night we grabbed what is probably one of the last watermelons of the season while we were grocery shopping. I used one of my favorite kitchen tools, the melon baller to get most of it ready to eat but I had just a little bit extra that wouldn’t git in the container. I immediately decided I would use that part to make something for lunch tomorrow…I just didn’t know what.

After sleeping on it, I woke up this morning ready to go out on a limb. For some reason, pairing watermelon with chickpeas was stuck in my head and I couldn’t get it out. After a quick google search, I appears that this is not the most popular combo out there…but I went with it anyways. And you know what? I loved it!

I ate this by itself but you could also probably eat it with chips, more like a salsa.

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Hi Friends!

Here’s a little treat to help get you through your Monday.

If you’re anything like me, before you discovered the blog world, the only nut butter you ever ate was peanut butter. Over the past year, I’ve broadened my horizons a bit and tried both almond butter and sunflower seed butter. )

Today I branched out even further- in three ways: 1) I made my own nut butter for the first time, 2) I made walnut butter, which I’ve never even tried and 3) I added mix-ins to my nut butter!

I buy really big bags of nuts at Costco to use in my homemade trail mix but since I’m out of school for a couple weeks, I haven’t been eating trail mix as often as I usually do. This giant bag of walnuts was looking a little lonely, so I thought today would be the perfect day to try my hand at making some nut butter at home.

Quite honestly, I don’t really like walnuts that much. Whenever I eat them, I have to have something else in the same bite (like a raisin or a chocolate chip from my trail mix), so I knew I probably wouldn’t like just plain old walnut butter. I decided to add a few mix-ins to please my palate 🙂 After much deliberation I settled on cinnamon. I love the flavor and knew it would go well with the nuttiness of the walnuts. At the last minute, I decided to add some raisins as well…because really, cinnamon raisin is one of the best combos out there.

I knew from the million previous nut butter posts i’ve read, that I needed to toast the walnuts first so I measured out about 3 cups of raw, unsalted walnuts, placed them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven.

After they cooled, I put them in the food processor with some cinnamon and some raisins. I was too lazy to look up a recipe so I just used my best judgement on the amounts.

On went the food processor for about 5 minutes and voila! I stopped every minute and took a picture so you could see the progression.

I chose not to add any additional sweetener because there were already raisins in it but you could add a little bit of honey if desired. You could also add a pinch of salt.

Store in a an airtight container in the fridge!

So easy and so good! I can’t wait to experiment with more nut butter mix-ins. Can we say Christmas presents?!

What’s your favorite kind of nut butter? Do you make your own? Any combos I should try?!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Happy Bloggy Birthday to The Lean Green Bean! It’s pretty hard to believe that it’s been an entire year since I sat down and wrote my very first post! You can check it out here if you’re a new reader 🙂 hilarious if you ask me!

Since this is how I’m spending the next week:

I didn’t have a lot of time to make a cake.

I did make these… (sneak peak…recipe later!)

So that’s just gonna have to do.

In celebration of this special day, I thought I’d highlight a few of my fav recipes from the past year in a little virtual meal that i WISH i had time to make for myself.

I’d start with some Spicy Salmon Cornmeal Cakes.

For dinner: Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Rainbow Peach Salsa

With a side of:

Farmer’s Market Potato Hash

& a slice or two of Dutch Oven Bread

And for dessert, a Ginger Oatmeal Cookie w/ Cranberries & Reeses

and a few Almond Graham Banana Bites 🙂

So there you have it…a meal for the bean. Now who’s coming over to make it for me?

Tell me, what’s your absolute favorite blog post? (Mine, yours, someone else’s…) Leave me a link!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Hi Friends-

We’re truckin’ right along with veggie month. I feel like the end is going be here before we know it!  When we went to the grocery store last week, I picked up two more packages of tofu to experiment with and last night I decided to use one of them.

A while back, and I do mean a while (apparently it was back in February but it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long), Courtney posted this recipe for Sweet & Spicy Tofu, which she adapted slightly from Caitlin’s Perfect Baked Tofu.

I was intrigued by the idea but wasn’t crazy about the spice mixtures. I don’t really like chili powder, and lately honey has been leaving a bad taste in my mouth (i definitely prefer brown rice syrup)…so I took stock of what I had on hand and whipped up my own little sauce.

 

I had a hard time settling on what I wanted to serve with this…and when that happens, I usually turn to one of my go-to staples.

I sauteed some veggies (onion, baby bok choy, red pepper, mushroom & zucchini) with some garlic, added some orzo and gave it all a squirt of Italian dressing. This is one of my favorite pasta salads. I left the veggies a little bit crunchy to contrast with the tofu and this ended up being the perfect side. I mixed everything together once it was on my plate and it was delicious!

You’ll just have to excuse the terrible pictures. I was pretty tired after work last night and I just wanted to eat. One thing that’s important to note: for some reason, I was expecting the tofu to get crispy. I don’t know how that idea got into my head, but it was wrong. It was not at all crispy. At first I was disappointed….but I gave it a chance and the flavor was so great that it totally made up for it! It’s just the right mix of sweet and spicy. It leaves a little heat in your mouth but it’s not to hot to eat. Since the tofu was not crunchy, I really liked that the veggies were so everything wasn’t the same texture.

I went back for seconds, which RARELY happens and even the hubby liked it. We were both clean platers 🙂

What’s your favorite way to eat tofu?

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

Last night at the grocery store, the hubby bought some cheap beer.

Have you heard of it? It’s like PBR, but with a different name. He’s been seeing it pop up at bars lately and wanted to try it out. The best part about cheap beer (to me) is that I can play around with it in my recipes without wasting a lot of money if it turns out badly 🙂

I’ve been making hummus like crazy these past couple of weeks and last night I made another batch of our current favorite- roasted garlic. Today I decided to try my hand at some crackers to eat it with. I love crispy, crunchy crackers so I settled on a batch of flatbread crackers.

I found this recipe and decided to give it a try! For the flour I used 1 c white whole wheat flour and 1 c AP flour. I probably ended up using closer to 1 c beer. I started with 3/4 c and then added just enough to make the dough stick together so I could knead it.

While the dough was resting, I minced the garlic and added it to the olive oil to infuse! After about 20 minutes, I divided the dough in half, rolled it out as thin as I could and then brushed on some of the oil. I didn’t use even half of the 3 Tbsp….I just like a thin coating to help everything else stick. Then I added black pepper, red pepper, paprika, sesame seeds and a sprinkle of garlic powder. I didn’t measure, just did what looked good to me. I did add extra red pepper because I wanted them to have a bit of a kick!

I baked them at 400 degrees but mine too about 15 minutes. Then I repeated everything with the other half of the dough. Next time I’d divide it into 4 batches so I could roll it even thinner and I’d bake it on a pizza stone.

I used a pizza cutter to cut into cracker sized pieces!

I may or may not have eaten at least 1/2 of these for lunch 🙂

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–

A while ago, Brandi posted this recipe for Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup. I immediately thought about my all-time favorite Chicken Enchiladas and I knew that next time I made them, I wanted to make the cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soup at home. Well, I never got around to making them until last week, and seeing as we’re in the middle of veggie month, I had to make a few modifications….but it all worked out!

Instead of chicken enchiladas, I made a black bean and mushroom enchiladas. I started by making the cream of mushroom soup. I made a few changes to Brandi’s recipe…here’s the recipe I used:

 

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Cream of Mushroom Soup

6 oz. portobello mushrooms, diced
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp flour
1 can (12 oz) fat free evaporated milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Directions:

1. Add mushrooms to a pan with 1 Tbsp of oil and cook until browned. Remove from the pan.
2. Add 2 Tbsp olive oil and flour and whisk together.
3. Slowly pour in the milk, whisking constantly, until mixture is smooth. Add the mushrooms, salt and pepper.
4. Bring to a simmer, then turn down the heat and let cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened.

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The original recipe had 12 oz of mushrooms. Clearly I had no idea how many mushrooms that was…and I felt like 6 oz was enough once I started chopping.

Next, since I was on such a homemade kick, I decided to tackle homemade enchilada sauce. I’d been thinking about trying to make this at home for a while now because the canned versions have so much salt. I looked at this recipe and this recipe and ended up with a mixture of the two.

 

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Homemade Enchilada Sauce

1 1/2 c water
8 oz no-salt added tomato sauce
3 Tbsp chili powder
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp flour
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Mix the flour oil and chili powder together in a sauce pan.
2. Add the water, tomato sauce and the remaining spices and whisk until smooth.
3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until thickened

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The sauce was good, but next time I’d probably only use 2 Tbsp chili powder since the flavor can be a little overwhelming and I’d add a bit more cayenne.

Once both of those were prepared, I was ready to make the enchiladas.

 

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Black Bean & Mushroom Enchiladas

2 cups black beans, cooked
1 c red pepper, diced
1 c brown rice
1 1/2 c chopped Portobello mushrooms
1 1/2 c Cream of Mushroom Soup
3/4 c low-fat Mexican cheese, divided
5 whole wheat tortillas
1/2 c enchilada sauce

Directions:
1. Mix  all of the ingredients except 1/4 c cheese in a large bowl.
2. Pour a thin layer of enchilada sauce over the bottom of a 9×13 pan.
3. Portion the mixture into the tortillas and roll up. Place seam side down in the pan.
4. Top with the remaining enchilada sauce and cheese and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

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Just ignore my sad looking tortillas…I had some trouble with the tortillas sticking together. Also ignore the fact that there are only 4 enchiladas in a smaller pan. I had some trouble with the tortillas sticking together.

So there ya have it, friends. About as homemade as enchiladas can get. Maybe I’ll even make my own tortillas next time!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–