Vegetable soup

Posted on May 5, 2011 by ben

Vegetable soup

Date: 5/4/2011

Recipe:

  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 1 celery stalk, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, diced
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 1 cup diced sweet potato
  • 1 handful of baby spinach
  • 1 handful of egg noodles
  • 4 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 tsp oregano

Saute the carrots, celery, and onion until softened, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic for a minute at the end. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Add the sweet potato, oregano, and any other seasonings you want. (I did garlic granules and a little red pepper). Boil for about 5 minutes, until the potato is nearly done. Add the egg noodles for a few more minutes. Ideally the egg noodles get done right as the sweet potato is getting done. Turn off the heat and throw in the spinach and stir it in until it’s wilted.

Time to table: 20 minutes

Modifications: This is an original, but very versatile, you can add any vegetables you have on hand, as well as shredded chicken or pork.

Servings: Two adult servings

Ben: Like

Notes: I had this for lunch yesterday and then as a snack later that night.

 

Posted in carrot, celery, garlic, greens, lunch, onion, pasta, soup, sweet potato, vegetarian | Comments Off on Vegetable soup

Spinach Tortellini Soup

Posted on May 3, 2011 by erin
Spinach Tortellini Soup by erin.kkr
Spinach Tortellini Soup, a photo by erin.kkr on Flickr.

Date: 4/8/2011 and 5/3/2011

Recipe: http://annies-eats.net/2011/02/15/tortellini-soup/

Time to table: 20 minutes

Modifications: None. This is ridiculously easy. We used Whole Foods 365 Organic Frozen cheese tortellini and it was quite good. We just gave Annie the chunks, no liquid, and cut the tortellinis and spinach a bit for her.

Servings: 3 adult, 1 toddler

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Liked once, Disliked once (except she did have some handfuls of just spinach, so that’s a win). Toddlers are but fickle beasts.

Notes: Best paired with bread.

Posted in cheese, garlic, greens, onion, pasta, soup, spinach, tomatoes, vegetarian | Comments Off on Spinach Tortellini Soup

Spinach and Fruit Smoothie

Posted on May 3, 2011 by ben
Smoothie time by erin.kkr
Smoothie time, a photo by erin.kkr on Flickr.

(Testing out posting directly from flickr – posted by Erin)

Recipe:
This is more of an idea than a recipe. The main components are yogurt, fruit, and spinach. Banana seems to mask the spinach best of all, so that’s always included in our smoothies.

2 bananas
1.5 cups frozen fruit (strawberries, mango, blueberries, etc – the pictured smoothie had mango)
1 cup yogurt (typically we use full fat plain greek yogurt)
1/2 cup of water/milk/half and half/apple juice – we use water
2 Tablespoons ground flaxseed
2 large handfuls baby spinach

Place all ingredients in a blending device. An immersion blender works particularly well for this. It works best to blend in spinach a little at a time.

Time to table: 5 minutes

Modifications: Again, this is not a recipe and can be modified to suit your individual tastes.

Servings: 2 adult smoothies (tall glasses) and one toddler smoothie pictured above.

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: LOVE

Notes: As you can see, Annie sucked this down like it was candy. She is normally pretty good about eating vegetables and will for sure eat fruit, but this is a GREAT way to get your kid to eat more vegetables. I’ve heard of people adding carrot and other veggies too. I’m not a huge proponent of “hiding” veggies, but hey, whatever works. A bonus of these smoothies is that I can start my day off with this and then eat like crap the rest of the day and still feel like I got a good start.

Posted in breakfast, fruit, greens, spinach, triple love, vegetarian | 3 Comments

Braised pork

Posted on May 1, 2011 by ben

Braised Pork and twice baked potatoes

Date: 5/1/2011

Pork recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/succulent-braised-pork-recipe/index.html

Twice baked potato recipe:

  • 15 baked potatoes
  • 16 oz cream cheese
  • 2 sticks of butter
  • 2 heads of roasted garlic
  • 1 cup of half & half
  • salt & pepper to taste

Bake all of the potatoes. After baking cut them lengthwise and scoop the potato into a large mixing bowl. Combine the remainder of the ingredients (tons of variations are possible here). Mash all ingredients together. Fill each half potato with the mix. Bake the potatoes again for 15-20 minutes or until heated through.

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 3 hour cooking time. [for the pork – potatoes were baked from frozen and took 1 hr total another day]

Modifications: I used vegetable stock instead of beef stock. I used dried oregano instead of parsley stems.

Servings: The two pound shoulder roast I used gave us about 4 adult servings.

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: This is rated “intermediate” from the Food Network site, but I thought it was incredibly easy. At no point could you really ruin this recipe if you’re following the directions even reasonably close. The tenderness of the pork was amazing and the sauce that results from the red wine and vegetable stock was awesome. Our neighbors appreciated the leftovers.We made these potatoes for Easter dinner at my parent’s house and had leftovers in the freezer. I just put the potatoes in the oven with the pork for the last hour of it cooking. I could have put them in for less time as they were a little dry after one hour.(Notice the empty fork in one hand, while the other hand stuff food into mouth).

Eating pork and potatoes

Posted in carrot, celery, pork, potato, red wine | 1 Comment

Tuna salad

Posted on May 1, 2011 by ben

Tuna Salad

Date: 4/29/2011 (Lunch)

Time to table: 30 minutes

Recipe:

  • 1 can tuna
  • 1 shredded carrot
  • 2 stalks celery, diced
  • 4 garlic cloves, diced & sauteed
  • “some” onion, diced & sauteed
  • 2 large handfuls of spinach, lightly sauteed
  • shredded cheese
  • about 1 cup mayonnaise
  • salt, pepper, other spices to taste (I used garlic granules and red pepper)
  • 1 pound pasta
  1. Combine everything but the pasta and mix together
  2. Drain and cool the pasta with cold water, mix with everything else
  3. Eat

Servings: This makes enough for 4 adult portions.

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: I’m the only one who ate this so far, I just made it for lunch today. I like tuna salad because you can throw whatever you want in there as long as you have tuna, pasta, and mayo. Other options are peas, water chestnuts, grapes, bell peppers, cilantro, green onions, tomato, any other green (kale, chard, etc). I also topped mine with a bit of sriracha.

Tuna Salad

Posted in carrot, celery, cheese, garlic, greens, lunch, onion, pasta, spinach, tuna | 7 Comments

Chicken pot pie

Posted on May 1, 2011 by ben

Chicken pot pie

Date: 3/20/2011

Recipe: http://annies-eats.net/2009/11/11/chicken-pot-pie/

Time to table: 1 hour prep, 1 hour baking time.

Modifications: Erin baked this in pie pans, rather than individual servings, so the baking time was longer, almost an hour. Mushrooms and red pepper flakes were omitted. We had 3 cups shredded chicken frozen that was used for this.

Servings: This made two pie pans of pot pie, one is still in our freezer until we remember to eat it.

Ben: Like

Erin: Love

Annie: Love

Notes: More of a weekend dinner because it was time consuming. The dough was relatively easy if you have a food processor.

Posted in carrot, chicken, peas, potato, red pepper | Comments Off on Chicken pot pie

Pesto pasta with chicken and tomatoes

Posted on May 1, 2011 by ben

Pesto, chicken, tomato pasta

Date: 4/17/2011

Recipe: http://www.erinsfoodfiles.com/2009/07/basil-pesto-chicken-pasta-with-sundried-tomatoes.htmlhttp://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/fresh_basil_pesto/

Time to table: Since the pesto was already made, this took 20 minutes

Modifications: We based this very very loosely on the above recipe, using a frozen bag of pesto we had. We pan fried the chicken, cut it up, drained a 14.5oz can of diced tomatoes and sauteed them for a bit in the same pan used for the chicken, and tossed it all together with the pasta and pesto. Annie’s portion used whole wheat macaroni because she messes around too much with spaghetti.

Servings: 2 adult servings, 1 toddler serving

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: This was cobbled together because we didn’t meal plan this week. It ended up working out great and was super easy!

Annie eating pesto pasta

Annie eating pesto pasta

Posted in chicken, pasta, pesto, tomatoes | Comments Off on Pesto pasta with chicken and tomatoes

Black Bean Spinach Enchiladas and Mexican Cream Cheese Rice

Posted on May 1, 2011 by ben

Black Bean Spinach Enchiladas and Mexican Cream Cheese Rice on Flickr.

Black Bean Spinach Enchiladas and Mexican Cream Cheese Rice on Flickr.

Posted by Erin

Date: 4/17/2011

Recipe: http://ellysaysopa.com/2011/03/07/meatless-monday-chipotle-and-tomatillo-sauced-black-bean-enchiladas/

http://goodthymesandgoodfood.blogspot.com/2011/02/mexican-cream-cheese-rice.html

Time to table: Sauce – 20 minutes, Enchiladas and rice – 30 minutes prep, 25 minutes baking

Modifications: We used whole wheat tortillas and monterey jack cheese. No modifications to the rice.

Servings: 6 adult servings, 2 toddler servings

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: LOVE

Notes: This tasted amazing but felt healthy because of the spinach and vegetarian-ness. Annie ate half an enchilada and some rice, and when her rice was done she reached over to my plate to finish mine too – definitely a huge hit all around!

Annie's portion

Posted in black beans, cream cheese, greens, red pepper, rice, spinach, tomatoes, triple love | 2 Comments

Macaroni and Cheese with Squash and Spinach

Posted on May 1, 2011 by ben

Macaroni and Cheese with Squash and Spinach on Flickr.

Macaroni and Cheese with Squash and Spinach on Flickr.

Date: 4/14/2011

Recipe: http://eggsonsunday.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/mac-amp-cheese-with-squash-and-spinach-recip/

Time to table: 2 hours prep, 30 minutes to cook (roasting the squash takes awhile)

Modifications: We cut out the Gruyere to make it cheaper, and used more cheddar.

Servings: 6-8 adult dinners. We froze half of it pre-baking and gave it to Becca & Joe

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Dislike

Notes: These leftovers, like most leftovers, are very good with some sriracha. Annie does not seem to like this cavatappi pasta. Erin tonight told me that she has never eaten it. Too bad for her I buy it in bulk from Amazon ‘cause I love it 🙂

Posted in greens, pasta, spinach, squash, vegetarian | 1 Comment

Black bean soup

Posted on May 1, 2011 by ben

Black Bean Soup on Flickr.

Black Bean Soup on Flickr.

Date: 4/10/2011

Recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/black_bean_soup/

Time to table: 45 minutes prep, 30 minutes to simmer

Modifications: We added six strips of chopped bacon that we needed to use up in place of the ham hock. We added the bacon after using the immersion blender.

Servings: Enough for about six adult dinners.

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like (amended to LOVE!!!! This is probably Annie’s favorite meal of all time – not sure why it was “like” at first)

Notes: We didn’t blend Annie’s portion so it would be easier for her to eat. I can’t say enough how good this was, the leftovers were fantastic. (amended to say we now blend the whole thing)

Posted in black beans, carrot, celery, red pepper, soup, sweet potato, triple love | Comments Off on Black bean soup