Green Farro

I had a lot of green veggies that needed to be used up so I decided to cook them up and mix them in with some cheesy farro. The results were super delish. This is my own recipe.

Cheesy Farro
1 cup farro
1 cup white wine
1 cup water
Fresh grated parmesan cheese
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil or butter

- Combine farro, wine, and water in saucepan. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 12-15 minutes or until most water is absorbed. Remove from heat. Add freshly grated cheese (I like lots of it), lemon juice, and butter or olive oil. Mix together. Season with salt and pepper.

Green Veggie Mix-In
One bunch Fresh asparagus (locally gorwn)
2-3 cups Fresh spinach leaves (from my own garden)
Fresh Dill, I used A LOT (from my own garden)
2-4 Fresh scallions, chopped (from my own garden)
Olive oil
Salt

- Add oil to pan and heat. Add scallions. Cook for 2-3 minutes. Add asparagus. Cook for 2-3 minutes. Add dill and spinach leaves and cook until spinach leaves wilt. Season with salt. Serve over cheesy farro.

SPICY Bean Tacos

These were good, not great, just good. If I make them again I plan on cutting back the amount of chipotle peppers in adobo (the flavor was good but they were too spicy for Jake's taste) and replacing that flavor with taco seasoning spices (cumin, chili powder, garlic, and a little cayenne pepper)

Instead of sour cream (which we love), we used plain yogurt and it tasted almost as good as sour cream, I'm not kidding. :-)

Spicy Bean Tacos (wholeliving.com)
8 whole-wheat tortillas, 7 inches each
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 scallions, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic , minced
2 cans (15 ounces each) pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo, finely chopped, plus more for serving (optional)
Coarse salt and ground pepper, to taste
1 cup store-bought green salsa, plus more for serving (optional) - I omitted this
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed - omitted this
1 to 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
2 cups shredded romaine lettuce
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wrap tortillas in foil, place in oven, and warm while you prepare the filling.
-In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add scallions and garlic; cook 1 minute until fragrant. Stir in beans, chipotle, and 1 cup water. Bring to a simmer, season with salt and pepper, simmer 5 to 7 minutes until slightly thickened and hot. Add salsa (if desired), corn, and lime juice; cook until heated through.
-Unwrap tortillas; spread yogurt over one side. Top with the warm bean mixture, cilantro leaves, lettuce, and cheese. Fold tortillas over and serve 2 per person with additional salsa and chipotle, if desired.

I couldn't resist posting this pic of Grace. How cute is she?!

This Evening Rocked

This weekend has done an amazing job of lifting my spirits and awakening me. The temperatures soared to the mid-60s and beckoned many Iowans outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. I went for a jog with Alison in the morning, enjoyed an Irish meal at my employees house in the afternoon, and relaxed with my amazing husband this evening. Jake and I cooked up some sesame encrusted tuna steaks and garlicky green beans with almonds. We enjoyed our meal outside and lingered for a bit while drinking wine and beer over great conversation. Does it get much better than that? I don't think so.

Pictured above is the really tasty sauce we put over our tuna steaks (see recipe below)

Searing our tuna over white hot flames.

The finished product was quite beautiful and really tasty.

Sesame-Crusted Tuna with Carrot Ginger Sauce(Wholeliving.com)

1 medium carrot (2 ounces), peeled and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons minced fresh peeled ginger (about a 2-inch piece)
2 scallions, thinly sliced (white and green parts separated)
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 to 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon tamari or soy sauce
4 tablespoons canola oil, divided
Coarse salt
1/2 cup sesame seeds, preferably mixed black and white
4 tuna steaks (each 6 to 8 ounces)

-In a blender, combine carrot, ginger, scallion whites, vinegar, sesame oil, tamari, 3 tablespoons canola oil, and 1 tablespoon water. Blend until smooth, scraping down sides of blender jar as necessary (add up to 1 tablespoon more water, if necessary, to adjust consistency). Season with salt.
-Place sesame seeds on a rimmed plate. Season tuna steaks with salt, then press both sides of the steaks into seeds to coat.
-Heat remaining tablespoon canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook fish in skillet 1 to 2 minutes per side for medium-rare (if steaks are particularly large, cook them in two batches).
-Serve fish topped with sauce and sprinkled with reserved scallion greens.

CHEERS! to an amazing evening.

Filling (and really darn good) Pasta

A few weeks ago I whipped up a lunch with some random things I had in the refrigerator and pantry and I came up with a tasty little pasta dish that had kale, chickpeas, olive oil, and garlic in it. Tonight, I recreated the dish but added a spicy/zesty red sauce to it. One word: AWESOME!

That bowl of goodness you see above contains:

Whole Wheat Penne

Chickpeas

Kale

Crushed Red Tomatoes w/ olive oil, crushed red pepper, crushed garlic, salt and pepper

Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese

- Boil penne noodles.

-Sautee kale and chickpeas in olive oil with garlic and salt.

-Combine crushed tomatoes with olive oil, red pepper, crushed garlic, salt and pepper and cook over medium heat.

-Toss everything together with the pasta and grate fresh parmesan cheese on top.

Beware: This is a very filling meal!

Awesome Tuna Salad and a 20k Run

I have officially signed up to particpate in a 20k race on May 30! My friend Alison and I are doing it together. and we're using a 12-week training plan that officially starts tomorrow. I'm excited, nervous, and a tad bit crazy for spending money to run 12.4 miles!! I can't wait to share my training journey with my blog readers.

On to supper....

This tuna salad was WOW! I got the recipe inspiration from a shape.com recipe.

This is a protein-packed meal containing both northern white beans and tuna. Served over a bed of spinach leaves, it's a filling yet really healthy meal.

Tuna and White Bean Salad

1 package tuna

1 can northern white beans, drained

2 stalk celery, finely chopped

1/2 red onion, finely chopped

1 cup green beans

fresh basil - to taste

~1-2 tablespoons olive oil

~1 tablespoon white basalmic vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Spinach or another yummy green

Cook green beans in boiling water for 5 minutes; drain and rinse with cold water then chop into bite size pieces.

Combine all ingredients and mix together. Serve over a bed of fresh greens.

Ribollita

I have managed to catch the sick germs that have been floating around work and I feel miserable. When I feel miserable all I want is as big bowl of healthy soup. A couple years ago my Aunt Connie and Uncle Mike gave me a recipe book called The Cook's Encyclopedia of Soup. All of the recipes in the book look amazing and it was hard to choose one to make. I finally settled on a classic Italian Ribollita.

"Ribollita is like minestrone, but includes beans instead of pasta. In Italy, this is traditionally served ladled over bread and a rich green vegetable."

This soup is full of good for you veggies and lots of flavor. The recipe calls for pesto and lucky for me I had a few pesto cubes left in my freezer (you can see the little guys in the picture above) You can find my pesto recipe here.

I sauteed some arugula and spinach to serve the soup over. The arugula added a great peppery taste. Kale would also be a great addition. Rather than serving over bread, I just served the bread on the side.

The soup was perfect and made me feel better (at least for a little bit).

Ribollita (Adapted from The Cook's Encyclopedia of Soup)

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions, chopped

2 carrots, sliced

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 celery stocks, sliced

1 large zuchini, thinly sliced

Green beans, trimmed

14 oz. can crushed tomatoes -- I used fire roasted

2 tablespoons pesto

3 cups vegetable stock

14 oz. can Northern White beans or Cannellini beans

Salt and Pepper to taste

- Heat oil in large saucepan or dutch oven. Add onion, carrots, garlic, celery, and onion and fry slowly for 10 minutes. Add the zuchini ad green beans and fry for 2 minutes longer.
- Add the crushed tomatoes, pesto, stock, and beans and bring to a boil. Lower the hear, cover and simmer for ~ 25 to 30 minutes until all the vegetables are tender. Season with salt and pepper and serve over greens.

All By Myself

Jake's in Iowa City for the annual Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice (the journal he was on in Law School) symposium so I have the house to myself tonight; it's taking me back to the days of living on my own and having to cook supper for only one person, which, in my opinion, is hard to do. I had quite a collection of veggies in the fridge so I decided to roast some up (my favorite thing to do with veggies) and throw them over a bed of spinach, arugula, and quinoa. I really love arugula but have a hard time finding it around here. Luckily, Dole began making a really great arugula and spinach mix that is now available at my local grocer! I don't think I've mentioned arugula in any previous posts so here's the down low on the stuff: high in vitamins A and C and contains barely any calories (2 calories/half cup!) PRetty SUPER! P.S. It's a great addition to pesto!!

After posting, I realized I've never given a good SHOUT OUT to quinoa (quickly becoming a kitchen favorite in our household). While doing my food research I found that quinoa is a seed that is a relative of leafy green vegetables. Who would've thought? We always have a bag of quinoa on hand. It's easy to cook, it taste wonderful--nutty, and creamy and crunchy at the same time--best texture ever! Find out more about this magical little seed by clicking here.

Honey Bears, Mac and Cheese, and Soup

This little honey bear always makes me smile.

He was a perfect compliment to Whole Wheat Flax'n 'Nana Muffins.

I found the recipe for these muffins on the back of my Hodgson Mill Flax Seed box. They are really, really, really, really, really good. Doesn't hurt that they are really good for you.

Smear the muffins with some peanut butter and drizzle with honey and you are in for a treat.

Whole Wheat Flax'n 'Nana Muffins (Hodgson Mill Recipe-altered)

1/4 cup flax seed

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg, beaten

2 bananas, preferably brown, mashed (the recipe suggest using apples, which would be good too)

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/2 cup milk (I ended up using about 1 cup for more moisture)

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Blend dry ingredients together in a bowl. In a seperate bowl; combine egg, vegetable oil and milk. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture and stir until just blended. Fold in banana and nuts. Fill well greased muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until top springs back when touched.

I made this soup for supper tonight. Tonight I altered it by adding Indian spices (curry powder, cumin, and cinnamon) and it tasted even better than the first time I made it.


Last night I had a major craving for mac and cheese (the best comfort food EVER!) I used this recipe and this recipe as inspiration and came out with a bowl of this:


Mac and Cheese with a healthy kick! The spinach and mushrooms were a great add-in and the recipe I followed for the cheese sauce was made without butter. I also used the Barilla Plus pasta.

I <3 Kale

"The beautiful leaves of the kale plant provide an earthy flavor and more nutritional value for fewer calories than almost any other food around."

"Although there are over 100 different glucosinolates in plants, only 10-15 are present in kale and other Brassicas. Yet these 10-15 glucosinolates appear able to lessen the occurrence of a wide variety of cancers, including breast and ovarian cancers. "

SOURCE -- check out all of the benefits of Kale here.

I threw in a cup of kale leaves to my leftover spicy Thai noodles and tofu. The earthy taste of the kale blended well with the Thai spices.

FIND SOME DELICIOUS KALE RECIPES TO COOK UP IN YOUR KITCHEN:

Heidi at 101cookbooks.com has some amazing recipes for kale that can be found here.

This is also a great link to kale recipes.

Eat your kale, people! It does your body good!

Beef Barley Soup for a REALLY Chilly Night

Sub zero temperatures. Wind reaching 45 miles per hour. A flat tire on the Subaru. Three reasons to have a hearty bowl of beef barley soup. I substituted ground deer meat for the beef and threw in random veggies we had in the freezer. I love soup because it's a great way to "clean" out the freezer and fridge.

Beef Barley Soup (my own creation):

1 large can diced tomatoes

1 cup water

2 - 3 cups beef broth

1 small onion, chopped

2-3 large cloves garlic, chopped

1 cup pearled barley, uncooked

1 1lb ground deer or beef, cooked

1 cup frozen lima beans (or whatever you have in the freezer or fridge)

2 cups frozen carrots

1 bay leaf

Thyme

Salt and Pepper

Splash Hot Sauce

Bring tomatoes, water, and beef broth to boil. Add in the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 1 hour in dutch oven. This would be easy to do in a crock pot too.

I had an awesome weekend with my in-laws! I miss them already. :-(

Healthy Black Bean Soup

Another recipe from our belated wedding shower. This recipe is from my Mom who found it in one of her Rachel Ray coookbooks. It must be a Rachel Ray week for me.

The soup was really easy to make, full of veggies, and perfect for a chilly fall night. Cornbread was a perfect accompiniant. Only bummer thing about this soup was that I accidently bought black soy beans instead of real black beans! Black soy beans are not that good.

Black Bean Soup:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), 2 turns of the pan
1 sprig fresh bay leaves or 1 large dried bay leaf
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3 ribs celery with greens, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3 cans black beans (15 ounces)
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons coriander -- I omitted this and used fresh lime juice in its place
Salt and pepper
2-3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons hot sauce, divided
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 can diced tomatoes, diced tomatoes with peppers and onions or stewed tomatoes (15 ounces)

Heat a medium size soup pot over medium-high heat. Add EVOO to hot pot then bay leaves, jalapeño, garlic, celery and onions. Cook 3-4 minutes, then add red peppers and continue to cook. Drain 2 cans of beans and add them. With remaining can, pour the juice and half the beans into the pot. Use a fork to mash up the beans remaining in the can. Stir the mashed beans into the pot and season with cumin, coriander, salt and pepper and 2-3 tablespoons hot sauce. Add stock and tomatoes to the stoup and bring to a bubble. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes over low heat.

Asian Noodle Salad and Pot Stickers

WOW! I just got done with supper and it was sooooo good I couldn't wait to sit down and blog about it.

I made the Asian Noodle Salad off of the famous Pioneers Woman's blog. I've drooled over her recipes for awhile but had never made one of them up until tonight. It was amazing. The flavor, the texture, the color, the presentation, all of it! The only bummer thing about the salad was the fact that I had no bean sprouts ( I wasn't about to use nasty canned ones) and I was too lazy to run to the Asian market on the other side of the city.

The pot stickers were flavorful but something went wrong in the cooking part of it. They were a bit gooey. I had made pot stickers once before these and I really enjoyed them--I don't know what I did differently this time. I don't think I browned them enough before adding the water.

Asian Noodle Salad:
1 packages linguine noodles, cooked, rinsed, and cooled -- I used 1/2 package

1/2 to 1 head sliced Napa cabbage -- I used half

1/2 to 1 head sliced purple cabbage -- I used half

1/2 to 1 bag baby spinach -- I used half

1 red bell pepper, sliced thin

1 yellow bell pepper, sliced thin

1 orange bell pepper, sliced thin -- I omitted this

1 small bag bean sprouts (also called “mung bean sprouts”) --- I omitted this

3 sliced scallions

LOTS of chopped cilantro—up to one bunch

1 can whole cashews, lightly toasted in skillet -- didn't have any so I used almonds instead

DRESSING:--THIS IS AMAZING!!!
Juice of 1 lime

8 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons sesame oil

6 tablespoons soy sauce

1/3 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons fresh ginger, chopped

2 cloves chopped

2 hot peppers or jalapenos, chopped

More chopped cilantro—LOTS

Mix together salad ingredients. Whisk together dressing ingredients and pour over salad. Mix with tongs or hands and serve on platter.

Pot Stickers:

1/2 lb. ground pork

1 cup napa cabbage, chopped

3 scallion, chopped

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Freshly grated ginger

1 tablespoon seasame oil

1/2 teaspoon sugar

Soy sauce

Salt

15-20 wonton wrappers

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

3/4 cup water

Mix pork, cabbage, scallions, cilantro, ginger, seasame oil, sugar, salt, and soy sauce together. Lay out wonton wrapper and place 1 tablespoon (or a bit less) in the middle of the wrapper. Fold wrap in half over mixture and seal together with water; repeat until meat mixture is done.

Heat vegetable oil in deep fry pan. Place pot stickers into heated oil and brown both sides (approximately 30-45 seconds per side) Add water and bring to gentle boil for 8 minutes. Remove from water and serve.