Dinner and Dessert

I didn't actually make these the same day, but you could! I made Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares for a party but ended up taking these Magic Bars (a classic but also good!) instead. The lemon squares are really good but the topping is a little crumbly so I'm glad we didn't take them to the party, they're more of a sit down, use a fork type dessert. The second picture is Walnut and Rosemary Oven-Fried Chicken. If I had realized how good it was going to be I probably would have put a little more effort into taking a nice picture but at least it was documented so I wouldn't forget it!    

Blueberries!

Owen proclaimed blueberries to be his favorite fruit a couple months ago but he hasn't had much chance to eat them plain because we've been putting them in all of our baked goods. Like these Perfect Blueberry Muffins. I don't have a picture of them because we ate them so fast but I used greek yogurt and subbed some wheat flour for the plain and they were...perfect (Of course. The name didn't lie). Then we made this Blueberry Zucchini Bread and it went almost as fast but I knew to grab my camera this time. I left out half the sugar and subbed applesauce for half the oil and it still baked up just fine.    

New Food

Crispy Breaded Tofu



Italian Meatball Sliders




Strawberry Balsamic Pizza



We've Been Eating...


Meatball Subs: These didn't really seem noteworthy enough to put on the blog even though they were really tasty but while we were eating Owen said, "Can I have another one? Because this is sooo good, even better than pizza! Well...it's on the top of my list...they both are." That sounds like a recipe we should keep...right? I halved the recipe and we still had enough for meatball subs for two days and to eat with pasta later in the week.

Meatball subs!

  Apple-Pecan Dessert Squares: This was a dessert I made for Pat to bring to work. The overall opinion was that they were very good but a little too sweet. A small piece was enough!

Apple Pecan Dessert Squares


Enchiladas: I did not make these but don't they look good? They actually look like crazy breadsticks. As I said before, they weren't very well-received by anyone but me so we won't be getting them again but I'm still glad we tried them.




The Market

Paige and I had some rare time alone to spend together when Owen went on a field trip with his preschool so we headed to the West Side Market. We had so much fun wandering/getting lost and looking at everything they had. It took a few laps around the place for Paige to get comfortable but once she did she strolled around like a pro while we narrowed down our options. We ended up going home with an apple fritter (yum!), some enchiladas (I was the only one that ended up liking them!), and some purple peruvian mashed potatoes (we still haven't tried those...). 



This photograph took an immense amount of control on Paige's part because we had just bought a giant apple fritter and I made her pose before we ate it :)



See? Like a pro.



So casual.




Eating more apple fritter on the way home!



Chicken and Spinach Burritos!

I was given some vouchers for free yogurt in exchange for doing a super easy kid yogurt sampling party and for some reason I redeemed a good number of them at the same time... Anyway, I needed something creative to do with my yogurt surplus and found this burrito recipe on the container. They turned out to be really tasty although they were more well-received the first day we had them as opposed to the leftovers the next day. I halved the recipe because I figured we didn't need eight burritos but it still made six and I didn't put in as much cheese as it suggested (what's with the exorbitant amounts of cheese in recipes?!). I would also argue that it doesn't need the chicken because it has black beans in it. 

What We've Been Eating...

Tuscan Tuna and Bean Sandwiches - I already have a tuna melt recipe everybody loves but I found this recipe because I was looking to use up a can of beans I had opened. I pureed the white beans instead of mashing them and I don't think we would have enjoyed these as much without it (also, left out the olives and watercress). Everyone liked them!



Cheesy Tex-Mex Rice - I made a few changes to the recipe but it's hard to go wrong when the first word in a recipe is "cheesy." Sooo good!




Marshmallow Banana Bread - It was Owen's idea to add marshmallows to our banana bread! They ended up melting into the batter so you couldn't see them but it did taste good!




Best homemade cake ever! - This will probably be the cake we make from now on when birthdays roll around! Super easy and soooo good.




A slice!




Pineapple Upside-Down Pancakes for Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Day



Quinoa Bites

I made this recipe by combining a little of this recipe and a little of this recipe and what I had and what I thought the kids would be willing to eat. I thought these were really good and Pat enjoyed them too but the kids said they did not like them (Owen ate all of his though so can we really trust what he says...?).  

They look like tater tots. They are not anything like tater tots.

Ingredients: (I sort of just threw stuff in so this is my best guess!)

• About 1 cup of cooked quinoa
• 1 egg
• 1 egg white
• 1 cup shredded carrot
• 2/3 cup shredded cheese
• 1-2 Tbsp parmesan
• 1/4 cup onion

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients. Spray mini muffin pan with non-stick spray and put about 1 tablespoon of mixture into each cup.Bake 15 -20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes before removing.

Pie Day!

Yesterday was Pi(e) Day! We made this Chocolate Covered Strawberry Pie and it was delicious. It was difficult to cut the pieces because of the chocolate drizzled on top but the messiness was worth all the trouble. We omitted the white chocolate and I'm glad we did because I think the pie would have been too sweet with it! If you click on the link for the recipe you will see a picture that does not accurately represent the recipe for this pie but looks just as yummy.

Veggie Burger Success!

When I went to look for my veggie burger pictures I realized that I had twenty pictures of food on the camera and zero pictures of people. I don't know where all of my excitement about food is coming from lately but I'm certainly having fun with it! That means even more food coming in the next few posts! Perhaps I will also sneak a picture of my lovely family into the blog.

I told Pat I was giving homemade veggie burgers one more try before I gave up completely so I'm very excited I liked this last recipe! Pat was probably not so excited...These were really good but the burgers do have bread crumbs in them so putting them in a bun was a bit much. I liked it better the next day just wrapped in some lettuce. As always, I changed a couple things around (no sunflower seeds, pecans instead of almonds) but I'm pretty sure the taste was similar to what was intended.

Veggie Burger!



Slice of Apple (Pie)

 I have a new helper around the kitchen...it's Paige. I think she was drawn in by the appeal of standing on the stepstool but stayed for the fun baking times. Paige and I put together these Apple Pie Bites because I had an extra pie crust from those Mini Cannoli. They were really good but Pat said, and I agree, that next time we'll take the skin off the apple.

Winner! (and a loser...)

I knew by looking at the ingredient list which one of these dishes below would be more popular but I tried them both anyway. I have been searching for veggie burger recipe for a long time and have never found a good one! So let's move on from the Quinoa Burger and focus on the Mexican Stuffed Shells. So good. We will make these many more times in the future. You should too! I do want to add that the recipe calls for an exorbitant amount of cheese that I did not agree with and they definitely didn't need it all!

Mexican Stuffed Shells! Yay!

Quinoa Burger. Bleh.

Oatmeal and Frittata

I was hoping the flavors in Creamy Cardamom Pear Oatmeal (I made mine with apple instead) would mimic the flavors from the Apple Cheesecake Coffeecake I made a couple months ago and it did a little bit. But not enough; next time more spices! I also made a Spinach and Lemon Spaghetti Frittata last night. See if you can guess who I'm describing in the next sentence. Two of us liked the frittata, one of us tried it and spit it out and the last one refused to try it at all. Now the big reveal! Owen and I liked it, Paige spit it out and Pat...sigh...I'm still working on him :) I actually found out that I liked the leftovers even better today with some salsa on the side. Even more impressive is that I got the frittata out of the pan in one piece! In the past I've had some trouble getting things out in one piece...like here...and here.



Even  you oatmeal haters out there have to agree that this is one of the better oatmeal pictures I've taken. Just needs a little garnish...



One piece! High five!



This picture makes me realize that I missed an opportunity to cut the frittata in the shape of Pacman.  



Mini Cannoli

I am not a big fan of cannoli but I do like dessert, and mini desserts are especially adorable, and I did have some ricotta leftover from my lasagna... so...I made these mini cannoli for Valentine's Day! They were actually very tasty but the flavor from the shell (actually a premade pie crust) was a bit strong so if I make them again I would roll the dough thinner.

Lasagna For Me!

I often think I'm going to make something new for dinner and everyone will thank me for exposing them to new and exciting flavors. That hardly ever happens...so when I came across a picture of this Butternut Squash Lasagna I decided I wasn't going to worry about whether or not anyone would like it. I just made a half recipe for myself. Luckily the pictures I saw on the website are way better looking than mine because mine looks weird. It was soooo good though (and way easier to make than the lemon lasagna)! And because I didn't offer the kids any they both wanted to try it and Owen liked it! (Alas, Paige did not...)  

Foods

Apparently we've tried quite a few new recipes recently so I thought I would post them all at once.



Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili - Pat and I thought this was really good but next time I would make it with less chicken or maybe even try without! The kids were not impressed...





Pasta and White Beans with Broccoli Pesto - I thought this was mediocre but Owen gobbled it up. It tasted a bit bland to me.



Applesauce Muffins - This was a Deceptively Delicous recipe and I thought it was pretty good. I had half of a butternut squash to use up that I had bought for another recipe so I used that as the puree.



Texas Caviar - This was a recipe we made for New Year's day because it had black eyed peas in it. We ate it as a salsa but I think it would hold its own as a side dish too.    




Breakfast Cookies - This was voted yummy by everybody! I actually ripped this recipe out of a magazine a loooong time ago and finally got around to making it because I was looking for something to do with some dried figs I had.



Turkey and Potato Meatloaf - I substituted ground turkey for the pork the recipe called for and since a picture of meatloaf is never going to look appetizing I'm putting up this picture of the kids eating it instead



Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies - I made these for Pat to take to work and they were fantastic and super easy!



Desserts!

I let myself get behind on posting and now I'm all backed up! I'll be posting things randomly and out of order to try to catch up. I'm going to start with a post just about some of the treats we made this month.

Spiced Apple Cream Cheese Coffeecake (sidenote: this recipe calls for cardamom which is so expensive at the grocery store I almost skipped putting it in (even though it's one of the major flavors in the recipe) until we found it for a cheap price at World Market. Get it there!)

A slice of the coffeecake! This recipe was so good and even though it had three layers and lots of ingredients it wasn't actually that hard to make.

Meatball cookie-this is not a very good picture but I forgot to take a picture until we had only one left and my camera battery was so low I had to take it while the camera was plugged in to the wall.

Peanut Butter Cup cookies-not sure of the official name of these but these are super minimal effort for a super tasty result. I ran into my neighbor at the grocery store one day and she convinced me to make them. Just a pouch of peanut butter cookie mix and a bag of peanut butter cups.

Sugar cookies-we needed more cookies for Santa so we decided to make these with the kids. Next time we'll make them first and let the kids decorate them...Paige just munched on the dough and Owen spent the whole time trying to roll it out. We had fun though as you can see by the mess!