Bountiful Baskets Haul 7-25-2015

I ordered two baskets (which means I got 2 baskets of fruits and 2 baskets of vegetables). It was quite a haul. The produce is amazing with great flavor. The romaine lettuce had some slimy parts on one of the heads, but that was easily cut off.

The carrots are huge! Great for slicing in half length-wise and putting on the BBQ or for juicing.
I think I will do a little of both.

 The small peppers are delicious. We've been dicing them and using them in salads.

Loving the strawberries out of California. So sweet and not overripe.

You can check out the video I shot of this haul here.                                                                                    

Vegetarian Pinto Beans and Brown Rice

 Vegetarian/Vegan Pinto Beans and Brown Rice

When I cook beans or rice, I usually put some aside in the freezer to use another time. Today, I pulled some pinto beans from the freezer, and decided to make a quick lunch from them. I already had left over brown rice with chopped kale in the refrigerator. 

I started with 4 cups of cooked pinto beans ( you could use 2 cans ready to use), and defrosted them in the microwave. At the same time, in my dutch oven, I sprayed some coconut oil cooking spray. If you are avoiding all oil, then just put a little water or vegetable broth in the pan.Turning the heat to Medium high, I added a chopped onion and 2 diced carrots and let them get wilted/cooked while stirring. I then added 3 TBSP of chopped garlic and an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce. I found some frozen corn that I then added to the mix, 1 cup or so and put in some honey mustard and some Dijon mustard and a little ketchup. While all of that was simmering, I scooped out a half cup of rice, microwaved it and put it in my bowl. You'll notice that I chopped up some romaine lettuce and put that in the bowl and put a cup of my pinto beans in as well. I love balsamic drizzle (you can find it at Trader Joe's and I just saw some at my local Albertson's) so I drizzle some over everything. It Tasted great and was quick and easy!

Ingredients:

1 yellow or white onion
2 diced carrots
2-3 TBSP of minced garlic
4 c. or 2 cans of pinto beans
1 c. corn, canned or frozen
8 oz. can of tomato sauce
2 TBSP honey mustard
1 TBSP Dijon mustard
2 TBSP ketchup or tomato paste
1 TBSP brown sugar (optional)
balsamic drizzle (as desired)

Saute the first two ingredients for 5-6 minutes on medium high heat or until onions are translucent. Add garlic and stir for 30 seconds. Lower heat and add pinto beans, corn and tomato sauce. Add all other seasonings. Let simmer for a few minutes to incorporate flavors. Serve with rice.

Zucchini Pizzas with Basil

I was able to buy a round zucchini at the local farmer's market. A friend had told me that she was going to grill pizzas from the one she got, so I thought I'd give it a go as well. In case you haven't seen a round zucchini, they look like this:

....kind of like a pumpkin, but green! So fun and so many possibilities in cooking with them.

First, I cut slices about 1/2" thick. I coated each side with a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil so that when I put them on the grill, they wouldn't stick. Unfortunately, my zucchini pizzas didn't make it on the BBQ (starter wasn't working and I couldn't get the dang thing lit). I used my George Forman to cook the already coated-with-EVOO zucchini discs. Four to five minutes was all that was needed. I then put them on a cookie sheet, smeared a little pasta sauce on them, sprinkled with grated mozzarella cheese, and then baked them at 350* for about 10 minutes until the cheese melted. After cutting some fresh basil from my garden, I sliced it up and sprinkled it on the baked "pizzas."
 

I served these with a large salad with plenty of greens and sprouts, and some rolls. Delicious!

Yellow Squash Chips

Do you have more yellow or zucchini squash than you need? I'm always looking for different ways to use summer squash. Making seasoned chips is an easy way to use up the squash, and have a healthy snack at the same time!

Yellow Squash

After washing the squash, and cutting off the ends, I use a mandolin to cut uniform slices from the squash. When the slices are the same thickness, they dry in the same amount of time.

Mandolin and summer squash slices

Next, arrange the slices on your dehydrator trays. Don't overlap. You want them to dry at about the same time.


Yellow squash slices on dehydrator tray

The next step is to season the soon-to-be-chips with whatever seasoning sounds good to you. I made some with BBQ seasoning, with dill, and the ones pictured below are seasoned with a  Mediterranean blend with salt. A light amount of salt/seasoning is preferred. I would use a little less seasoning on the next batch I make (see picture below).

Dry these at 115* for 5-6 hours until paper thing and breakable. You don't want any flexibility in the chips. They will be crisp and easily broken.

Mediterranean seasoned squash chips

As usual, we ate this finished product before I got the last picture! They were delicious and they went fast! So next time you have a bunch of extra squash, don't leave it on the neighbor's door step and play doorbell ditch! Make yourself these healthy and delicious squash chips. These are best eaten within a couple of days of dehydrating.

Mung Bean Sprouts

Mung Bean Sprouts from Freshlife Automatic Sprouter

This week I've been harvesting zucchini, tomatoes and Swiss Chard from my garden. I also grew some mung bean sprouts in my Freshlife Automatic Sprouter.

I made spring rolls one night, and a stir fry another night. It's always fun to eat them right from the refrigerator as well!

Green Bean, Cucumber and Cherry Tomato Salad

Hopefully, like me, you have plenty of cherry tomatoes growing in your garden. I love eating them just picked from the garden, so it is amazing that any make it back into the kitchen! I'm not growing green beans this year, but I got some locally grown for this recipe.

This salad is a perfect side dish, or can be eaten as a main course. I like to include it as one of several salads for our evening meal.

Green Bean, Cucumber and Cherry Tomato Salad

1-2 cups green beans, blanched and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1 large seedless cucumber, chopped

1/2 c. chopped flat leaf parsley

3 TBSP balsamic vinegar

1 TBSP lemon juice

4 TBSP extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Assemble all vegetables in a bowl. Mix balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper into a small bowl and whisk until blended; pour desired amount of dressing over the vegetables.

Dr. Hyman's UltraBroth Recipe

Dr. Hyman is best known for his book, The Blood Sugar Solution.  I came across a recipe on his website for UltraBroth.  I decided to give this recipe a try, as I had most of the ingredients on hand. I only had to purchase the shitake mushrooms (found them at my local Harmon's).  I have to say that the flavor of the broth is really quite nice. I did strain the broth but used the vegetables up in a stirfry later. What I like about this recipe, other than the fact that it is low in calories, is that it is vegan.

Here is a picture of the broth that I have stored in a quart mason jar. The recipe produced about 2 quarts plus another cup worth of broth.

UltraBroth in Quart Mason Jar

UltraBroth

For every three quarts of water add:

1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
1 cup of daikon or white radish root and tops (ideal, but optional)
1 cup of winter squash cut into large cubes
1 cup of root vegetables: turnips, parsnips, and rutabagas for sweetness
2 cups of chopped greens: kale, parsley, beet greens, collard greens, chard, dandelion,
cilantro or other greens
2 celery stalks
½ cup of sea weed: nori, dulse, wakame, kelp, or kombu
½ cup of cabbage
4 ½-inch slices of fresh ginger
2 cloves of whole garlic (not chopped or crushed)
Sea salt, to taste
1 cup fresh or dried shitake or maitake mushrooms (If available; these contain powerful immune boosting properties.)

Add all the ingredients at once and place on a low boil for approximately 60 minutes. It may take a little longer. Simply continue to boil to taste. Cool, strain (throw out the cooked vegetables or blend them into broth using an immersion blender), and store in a large, tightly-sealed glass container in the fridge. Simply heat gently and drink up to 3–4 cups a day.


Nutrition Facts Per Serving:
STRAINED: Cal: 5 Pro: 0 Fat:0 Carbohydrate: 0
BLENDED: Cal: 60 Pro: 0 Fat: 0 Carbohydrate: 14

Kale Slaw

I had the opportunity to get my hands on a copy of Tana Amen's Cookbook, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body Cookbook.  I came across this recipe for Clever Kale Slaw, and it really tastes great. I have three large containers of Swiss Chard in my garden, and I used the Swiss Chard in place of the Kale in this recipe.

I started out shredding the cabbage (I just used green cabbage) and used a chiffonade technique on the Swiss chard to make it fine enough to resemble the cabbage. Here it is in the bowl, below. Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Next, I grated a carrot into the mix, and added the chopped raw cashews:

For some reason, after that I stopped taking pictures :(.....

So here is the final picture, and I'll add the recipe after that!

Clever Kale Slaw

3 c. shredded kale or Swiss chard

1/2 c. shredded green cabbage

1/2 c. shredded purple cabbage (or use 1 c. prepackaged coleslaw mix)

1/4 c. shredded carrot

1/2 c. chopped raw cashew

1/2 c. Veganaise (or, use mayonnaise or miracle whip)

1 TBSP apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp allspice

1/8 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp fresh thyme (or 1/2 tsp dried)

1 tsp fresh thyme (or 1/2 tsp dried)

1/3 tsp curry powder

1/4 tsp Real Salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 c. raw sunflower seeds

1/2 c. dried cranberries

Combine kale, cabbage, carrot and nuts. In a small mixing bowl, combine Veganaise, vinegar, and spices. Whisk until mixture is blended well.Toss with salad mix. Allow salad to refrigerate for 30 minutes prior to serving if possible so flavors can "marry." Top with sunflower seeds and dried cranberries.



Recipe: Swiss Chard, Tomatoes and Sprouts

I've been making a lot of vegetable dishes for dinner lately.  This is one of my favorites. I usually improvise, but I share the recipe to get you started on your own creations. I serve this with brown rice and fish. Fantastic!

Begin with a couple of chopped tomatoes in a skillet along with a Tablespoon of olive oil, a couple of cloves of minced garlic (or equivalent frozen/refrigerated). Cook for a few minutes on medium.

Next, I went out to my garden and harvested some Swiss Chard. I love fresh chard. It has a great texture and wonderful taste.

I also added sprouted mung beans, spinach, chopped red pepper, cilantro and chopped celery...

Let it cook down for 3-5 minutes...

I added some walnut pieces for some crunch toward the end of cooking.  Sorry, but no final picture on this one. Everyone must have been hungry!

Recipe: Sauteed Vegetables with Lentil Sprouts

Here are the lentils I sprouted to use in my stirfry. You can see how to sprout lentils, here and buy lentils for sprouting here. Sprouted Lentils are a wonderful addition to stirfry, chili, or garden burgers. Put the lentil sprouts into the large frying pan/wok, along with ginger, garlic and 1/2 c. broth. I like to steam the lentils first so that they are nice and tender.

After the lentils have steam cooked for about 3-5 minutes, add the rest of your chopped/diced vegetables. Next I added some fresh, peeled and chopped water chestnuts. They were in the Asian pack from my co-op, Bountiful Baskets. Awesome!

Then, add the rest of your chopped/diced vegetables. I like to get a huge gallon sized bag of vegetables prepared in advance of the meal. Then, it is easy to add to the pan. Below, I have included Swiss Chard, snap peas, celery, pre-cooked green beans. This is about 6-8 cups of chopped/diced vegetables.

Here it is in the frying pan. I cook just until everything is tender, but not overdone. Stir and turn constantly. Add additional small amounts of broth during the cooking process so that it doesn't burn

Sorry I didn't get a picture of the completed dish. It was served with fish and brown rice.

How to Sprout Lentils

I decided to go ahead and sprout some lentils. I have several sprouters, but I'm especially fond of the Easysprout sprouter. It is truly the best manual sprouter on the market. Anyway, the nice thing about the Easysprout sprouter, is that it takes up so little space, and it is very easy to use.

Recipe for growing lentil sprouts. Decide how much to sprout. A good place to begin is 1/4-1/2 cup.

1. Examine lentils for dirt or small rocks. Pick out anything that isn't a lentil and discard
2. Rinse thoroughly. You can do this right in the Easysprout sprouter. Place lentils in the inner cup. Run water over the top and let it run through the inner cup.
3. Place inner cup inside of outer cup, and fill with water. Have water come several inches above the lentils. Leave to soak for 12 hours. Overnight works great.
4. Pull inner cup out and drain. Discard soak water. Great for watering your plants!
5. Rinse every twelve hours. Continue to do this until the lentils are sprouted to your satisfaction.

Here are some pictures:

sprouted lentils 24 hours past soak

sprouted lentils 48 hours past soak

I like using the lentils at this point. I don't want them to form leaves. These are perfect for garden burgers, chili or stirfry. See my post on using sprouted lentils in stirfry here.

Chili with Sweet Potatoes

I decided that today would be a great day to make chili. There are lots of recipes out there that use canned pumpkin. However, I'm using canned sweet potatoes in the recipe, mainly because I need to use it up. Canned food does go bad. I try to rotate my food storage every year, especially the canned items. The great thing about chili is that it is so easy. I just get my crock pot out, and start dumping the canned items in. I do add diced onion, garlic and seasonings. Today I added some things from my freezer as well. Here is what I added. You can add cooked ground beef if desired. We're not big meat eaters, so this will work fine for us.

15 oz. can kidney beans (rinsed)
15 oz. can small white beans
2 c. pinto beans (from freezer)
2 cans Rotel diced tomatoes with green chili
1 large can sweet potatoes (rinsed)
2 tsp cumin
1-2 tsp chili powder
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. cooked whole grain cereal (from freezer)

It's cooking away on low. I'll make some cornbread in my cast iron frying pan and serve them with some cheese, chopped green onions and sour cream.

Eggplant Tomato Pasta Sauce Recipe

My friend, Trish, created a similar recipe to this. We received eggplant in our Bountiful Baskets, but neither of us enjoy eggplant parmigiana. It was Trish's idea to roast the eggplant and puree it for a sauce. I thought it was such a good idea, I decided to try it out.. I think that cooked eggplant is the perfect starting point for a pasta sauce!

Begin by cutting off the ends of the eggplant (like I did, above), and then peel it. At this point, you can cut it up into 1-2" pieces.

Put it in a large skillet with about an inch or so of salted water. Boil until fork tender. The next step is to puree or mash it. I used an immersion blender in the pan. I drained part of the water off first. This is what it looks like once it is blended (below).

I cut some beet greens from the garden yesterday. Don't they look pretty?!

Beet greens take a little more time to cook than spinach. So, if you want to boil them first (2 minutes) to soften them, do that first. I just chopped mine up and put them into the mix. You can blend them with the tomato sauce if you think your kids will fuss. They'll never know they are in the sauce!

Above is a picture of everything tossed in. In addition to the beet greens, I added baby portobello mushrooms, fresh basil, diced tomato, canned tomato sauce, oregano, crushed garlic (I used 2 cubes of Dorot) and a pinch of salt.

I served it over some rigatoni with a little Parmesan.  This has a wonderful taste and is a nice thick sauce. A perfect vegetarian meal in my book! Leave off the Parmesan for a delicious vegan dish. You'll never miss the meat!

Here is the recipe:

Eggplant Tomato Pasta Sauce with Beet Greens

1 large eggplant, peeled and cubed
1 small can tomato sauce
2 cloves garlic, mashed
1 large tomato, diced
10 baby portobello mushrooms, chopped
1 c. chopped beet greens or other greens
1 c. fresh basil, chopped
2 tsp. dried oregano
grated Parmesan cheese to taste

Peel and cube the eggplant. In a large frying pan, cook the eggplant in salted boiling water until fork tender. Drain off half of the cooking water (or leave if you want a thinner sauce, or if you intend to let the sauce simmer for awhile). Using an immersion blender, food processor or potato masher, make the eggplant into a sauce. Add tomato sauce, garlic and dried oregano. Add other ingredients and allow to simmer until desired consistency. Serve over cooked pasta.  Add grated Parmesan to taste.

Recipe: Hummus, Tomato, Spinach and Sprouts Sandwich

Today for lunch I looked in the refrigerator to see what I could create. It was slim pickings let me tell you! Husband and I were in California all week, and we just stopped by the little market in town on the way home for a few things. However, I still had some sunflower greens left (they keep for a week or two after picking if you put them dry into an airtight container in the refrigerator). I had just picked up the tomatoes and the Sara Lee Thin Style Buns (honey wheat) at the market. So, I spread some hummus onto the bun...

I used the Athenos Roasted Garlic Hummus that I had on hand.

Here is a picture of the sunflower greens that I grew a couple of weeks ago.

From there, it was just assembling all of the ingredients.

It was really very delicious. I put some spinach on (see it peeking out under the sliced tomatoes?).

For under 200 calories, this is a very delicious sandwich, full of flavor and nutrition.  Here's the recipe (copy and paste it to a word document, and then print it out):

Hummus, Tomato, Spinach and Sprouts Sandwich

Sara Lee Thin Style Buns  100 calories

2 TBSP Hummus, 50 calories

Sunflower sprouts, Spinach, Sliced tomatoes, 25 calories if that

Open bun. Spread 1 TBSP of hummus on each side of bun. Place spinach, sprouts and sliced tomato on either side of bun. Carefully put tomato side on top of sprout side to form the sandwich. Enjoy!

Try it and let me know how much you enjoyed it!

Creamy Avocado Salad Dressing or Dip Recipe

I've been trying out a few homemade salad dressing and dip recipes over the past week. I want a nice variety of recipes so that I can make my dressings, and have more control over the ingredients that go into them. Also, I want to keep the calories low. There is nothing more wasteful when you blow your calorie allotment on salad dressing. Do you agree?  I found this recipe over at Kitchen Of Health. 

This is a nice tasting dressing. I made some yesterday and took it to a book club. Everyone liked it. I served it with sliced cucumbers and carrot stips. I love it with the carrot strips!

Creamy Avocado Dressing

2 avocadoes, peeled and pitted
Juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime
1 tsp. lime zest
1 peeled cucumber
1/2 c. water
1/4 c. chopped cilantro
1/2 to 1 tsp chili powder
dash of sea salt

Blend all ingredients together in a food processer or blender until smooth, adjusting water to get desired consistency. Refrigerate unused portions. Yield 3 cups.