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zucchini

Veggie Pizza

Garden veggie pizza

Date: September 2, 2012

Recipe: http://annies-eats.com/2012/08/16/garden-veggie-pizza/

Modifications:  Couldn’t find a “soft garlic herb cheese”, so just used mozzarella. Spread roasted garlic on the crust instead of using the garlic infused oil.

Time to table: A million hours, it felt like. Pizza is supposed to be fast and easy. This one was not. Or it wasn’t FAST, I guess nothing was particularly difficult, but that’s only because I have a mandoline. If I had to chop all those veggies by hand? No thanks.

Servings: We made 2 and it served 6 adults and 3 toddlers.

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like (the crust and cheese at least. I told her to eat the toppings too, and she took the veggies off and said “there’s still toppings on there!” Sigh.)

Notes: As I said above, this just took really long. Quite the putzy recipe for pizza, but it WAS really good, and quite the beautiful pizza if I do say so myself. It was fun to prepare and all, so I still liked it but this certainly wouldn’t work well as a fast weeknight meal unless you had everything prepped in advance. I’ve said this before, but I do just love that pizza dough recipe – turns out great every time and is so easy!

Garden veggie pizza
Ready to assemble

Garden veggie pizza
Before baking (grilling in our case)

Garden veggie pizza

Garden veggie pizza

MJ Mia and Annie eating pizza
Toddler table!

Disappearing Zucchini Orzo

Disappearing Zucchini Orzo

Date: July 17th, 2012

Recipe: http://lizscookingblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/disappearing-zucchini-orzo.html

Modifications: I used zucchini and summer squash, and unfortunately we didn’t have any fresh basil left so I just used fresh thyme. I didn’t use as much zucchini as she calls for, just used maybe one very large one – but it was plenty. As usual, more parmesan that is called for. We ate this warm (not cool or room temp as directed)

Time to table: 30 minutes

Servings: 4 adults

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: We made this several years ago, and I liked it a lot then. Great way to get some veggies into Annie as it is really impossible to pick them out of this one. She didn’t eat a ton, but that is her way lately. Very similar to this dish.

Drama Queen

Annie taking a bite of the zucchini orzo
Proof that at least one bite made it in!

Farfalle with Zucchini and Tomatoes

Farfelle with Zucchini

Date: July 16th, 2012

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/07/farfalle-with-zucchini-a-yummy-summer-meal/

Modifications: I used zucchini and summer squash, not quite as much veggies as she calls for (maybe 3/4 of an onion, and half a very large zucchini and summer squash, and about a pint of tomatoes). She does not specify an amount of noodles – I used half a box of Farfalle. Thyme and basil were the herbs we had. Did not use arrowroot to thicken the sauce. I also used probably 2 cups of parmesan :)

Time to table: 30-45 minutes

Servings: 4 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: We made this last summer too and it totally sucked – 3 dislikes.  I had liked it the other several times I’d made it, so I needed to try again. The keys to success of this dish for me are ensuring the zucchini/squash gets browned, as well as the onions – I just left them in the pan without stirring for quite awhile to get them nice and browned, which left lots of tasty bits to get into the sauce. Also, cheese. Just lots and lots of it. And, not too much pasta so that there is enough sauce to coat everything – add the pasta at the end bit by bit so you know you don’t have too much.

We’ve fallen off the meal planning wagon lately (100+ temps and 2 kids don’t make us want to run to the kitchen, apparently) but it felt good to have 4 good meals planned this week. Glad we’ve gotten into enough of a routine with 2 kids now that making dinner doesn’t feel too daunting! We aren’t doing our CSA this summer, so we can just go to the Farmer’s Market on the weekends and get the exact veggies we want/need which is a nice change, although I do miss the variety of the box – but the last few years it got to be a bit too much for us to handle without feeling too stressed, so I’m glad for a break. All the veggies/herbs in this except thyme were from the Farmer’s Market.

Love Farmer's Market shopping this time of year!

Crockpot chicken and veggies

Crockpot Chicken and Veggies

Date: 1/18/2012

Recipe: http://mamaandbabylove.com/2011/04/05/freezer-cooking-with-slow-cooker-recipes/

Modifications: We halved the amount of chicken from 2lbs to 1lb, just because it seemed like a lot of chicken.

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 8 hours crockpot

Servings: 2 adults, 1 toddler

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Dislike

Notes: This dish was meh. The original recipe calls it “barbecue” chicken, but I hesitate to use that word because it doesn’t taste like barbecue at all. We found this recipe to be oddly bland, and when we make it again we’ll for sure add more spices and salt to it. We have another bag of this in the freezer that we’ll most likely use when Erin is on maternity leave in a couple months. I DO like this method of prepping dishes though, as all you need to do is chop your vegetables, mix everything together, and freeze it – no cooking at all. We’re going to try this method with chili and see how it goes.

Annie was in a MOOD tonight and had none of this.

Crockpot BBQ Chicken freezer meal

Crockpot BBQ Chicken freezer meal

Crockpot Chicken and Veggies

 

Veggie cobbler

Veggie Cobbler

I put sriracha on mine.

Date: August 8th, 2011

Recipe: Source: Simply Organic Cookbook

Crust:
1 1/2 Cups Unbleached All-purpose flour (used bleached all-purpose flour)
1/4 cup whole wheat flour or cornmeal (used cornmeal)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped Italian parsley
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, grated
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup buttermilk

Filling:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large shallot, minced
3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour (again, used bleached flour)
2 cups milk or vegetable broth (used milk)
1/4 cup Madeira wine (did not use this)
2 tablespoons chopped sage
3 cups cooked vegetables - we used eggplant, zucchini, and sweet peppers, cut into bite size pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

To make the crust: in a large bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal or whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, cayenne, and parsley. Add the butter and cheese and stir in the buttermilk just until blended. Refrigerate while you make the topping.

To make the filling: Prehat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly oil a 3 quart baking dish. I do not own a 3 quart baking dish, so I used a 2 quart dish. It did end up bubbling over just slightly at the very end, so we put a cookie sheet under the dish.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallot and whisk in the flour. Cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes, or until the mixture turns golden brown. Slowly whisk in the milk or broth and wine, if using. Whisk until slightly thickened. Add the sage, vegetables, salt, and pepper.

Transfer the creamed vegetables to the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with the cheese. Drop the crust mixture by the tablespoon on top of the vegetables. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the crust is browned. Remove from the oven and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Time to table: 90 minutes

Servings: 4 adult dinner, 2 toddler dinners

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Love

Notes: I have to admit that this was better the last time we made it, which makes me sad because I remember it being so damn good. Still used up a lot of CSA veggies and it was a hit with Annie, so this was still a winner in spite of it taking a long time to make. I actually made the crust and filling on Sunday night and kept them separated in the fridge overnight and then assembled it (5 minutes) and cooked it (45 minutes) on Monday after work. We had the leftovers on Tuesday night for dinner, and they were even better than the first day!

Veggie cobbler

Precooked cobbler

Veggie Cobbler

Finished product

Veggie Cobbler

Annie eating it up!

Pasta with vegetables

Pasta w/ veggies in a cream sauce

Date: July 19th, 2011

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/07/farfalle-with-zucchini-a-yummy-summer-meal/

Modifications: We used a zucchini and a summer squash because that’s what we got in our csa box.

Time to table: 30 minutes

Servings: Enough for 4 adults and 2 toddlers

Ben: Dislike

Erin: Dislike

Annie: Dislike

Notes: This didn’t turn our nearly as well as the last time we made it. Annie was NOT A FAN. I think I used too much pasta which diluted the creaminess of the sauce, so it just kind of tasted like pasta with veggies and no sauce, not very tasty at all. I’m making spaghetti sauce tonight and we’ll use the leftovers with some red sauce. Better than chucking them :)

Pasta w/ veggies in a cream sauce

Vegetable Lasagna

Veggie Lasagna

Date: July 1, 2011

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/04/vegetable-lasagna/

Modifications: The veggies I used were: one eggplant, one zucchini, one summer squash, and one red pepper. I realized halfway through that I only got 15oz of ricotta cheese, but it still seemed to be plenty. I used no boil noodles. I didn’t use the wine because there was none up at the cabin.

Time to table: Nearly an hour prep, and an hour to bake on the grill

Servings: probably 10 adults

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Love (yes!! I just love it when she willingly eats something with this many vegetables.

Notes: It was hotter than hot that day, but we had all the ingredients and this was our last night up at the cabin so I still wanted to make this lasagna. My dad offered to try grilling it on the charcoal grill using indirect heat instead of turning the oven on and heating up the already scorching upstairs of the cabin, so we gave it a whirl! I think we did around 40 minutes covered in foil and maybe 20 uncovered, and he rotated it a few times. It worked surprisingly well! (I’m tagging this with CSA, even though we only used our parsley in this because it’d be a great dish to use up a lot of late summer veggies)

Veggies for lasagna

Veggie Lasagna

Veggie Lasagna on the grill