Breads

I'm posting these here so I don't forget the recipes. I like to bake and keep these kinds of breads around to snack on.

I'm going to give you the recipes exactly how I make them. However, you can omit the nutritional boosters and the bread will still taste great. I'll put asterisks next to the ingredients that are optional. If you are interested in cutting down on fat, use unsweetened applesauce in place of the oil - equal portions. And, you can always use 100% all-purpose flour or 100% whole wheat flour instead of both. I use a mix because the bread will turn out really dense when using 100% whole wheat flour. I use 'Super Flour' from the book Super Baby Food.

Super Flour
Combine following ingredients into a 1c measuring cup
1 Tbsp wheat germ
1 Tbsp soy flour
Fill rest with whole wheat flour

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:
1 cup Super Flour
1/2 cup All-purpose flour
2 Tbsp Brewer's Yeast*
2 Tbsp Flaxseed Meal*
2 eggs
1/2 cup refined sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 to 2 cups grated zucchini (small to medium zucchini)
1/2 cup chocolate chips or raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup sour cream

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
2. Beat together eggs, sugar, and oil. Blend in the grated zucchini, and then the sour cream. Mix in the flour, brewer's yeast, flaxseed meal, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake for 70 - 80 minutes.

Sweet Potato Bread

Ingredients:
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup Super Flour
1/4 cup Whole Wheat flour
1/2 cup All-purpose flour
2 Tbsp Brewer's Yeast*
2 Tbsp Flaxseed Meal*
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground all-spice
1/3 cup water
1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes (about 2 large to 4 small potatoes, steamed or baked. If you have a little more than 1 cup, that's OK! You can used canned, too)
1 cup raisins

Directions
1. Combine sugar and oil; beat well. Add eggs and beat. Combine flour, brewer's yeast, flaxseed meal, baking soda, salt, and spices in separate bowl. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture alternately with water. Stir in sweet potatoes and raisins.
2. Pour batter into greased 9x5 inch loaf pan (or 2 small loaf pans). Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about one hour.

Peruvian Baked Quinoa

I think I'm going to try this recipe tonight (I'm going to make half the portion). I'll let you know how it is.

From Vegetarian Times:

Think of this recipe as a protein-packed, gluten-free alternative to mac ’n’ cheese.

Ingredient List

Serves 8

2 tsp. olive oil
1 medium leek, white and pale green parts halved and sliced (1 cup)
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup diced green bell pepper
1 1/2 cups quinoa, rinsed and drained
2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.)
2 large eggs
1 cup nonfat milk
1 1/2 cups grated Cheddar cheese (4 oz.), plus more for sprinkling, optional

Directions

Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add leek and bell peppers; cover, and cook 5 minutes, or until tender. Stir in quinoa and garlic, and cook, uncovered, 3 to 4 minutes, or until quinoa grains turn opaque.
Add 3 cups water, and season with salt. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 3 to 4 minutes more, or until most liquid has been absorbed. Remove from heat, and let stand 5 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 13- x 9-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Whisk together eggs and milk in large bowl. Fold in quinoa mixture and cheese. Transfer to prepared baking dish, and bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until browned around the edges and on top.

Nutritional Information

Per SERVING: Calories: 241, Protein: 12g, Total fat: 10g, Saturated fat: 4.5g, Carbs: 27g, Cholesterol: 72mg, Sodium: 295mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugars: 3g

Hit and Miss Recipes

First, the hit: Vanilla-Scented Tofu Oatmeal. I know it sounds kinda weird, but it's good! I've been looking for a way to add more protein to our breakfast in the morning and this is perfect. I've only made it once (this morning) and it got me through yoga. The real test will be tomorrow morning when I do cardio and weights. I've been having difficulties with crashing before I'm done with my workout.

The miss: Gnocci & Spinach Bake. I was hoping this would be a hit with the boys, but Mal wouldn't even try it and Tony said, "It's not my favorite" which translates to "I don't really like it but I'll eat it." Mal usually will try everything so I was thrown off by him not even willing to take one bite.

Food Love on the Internet

I often wonder how I lived without the Internet. Well, I know how I did, but I also know that it was much harder to find Answers. The Internet has all of the Answers. One of the things I love most about the Internet is finding recipes. I really enjoy cooking and trying out new foods & recipes. Before the Internet, I would say, "I want to cook something with kale in it" and then look at the handful of recipes in my short stack of cookbooks. It was limiting. Now, if I want to cook something with kale, I just type it into Google and have thousands of recipes to choose from. Typically, though, I start my recipe search at my favorite recipe websites. I *love* the fact that there are recipe websites. My newest obsession is reading people's cooking blogs. I find them so inspiring.

Right now, I have Jamaican Pumpkin Soup cookin' up in my crockpot. Earlier this week, I made Apple-Chard Quiche which is always a hit in this house. As a matter of fact, said recipe was the one that convinced me that onions are not evil. Before making this quiche, I never, ever cooked with onions. I hated them! It wasn't until after I ate them in this quiche that I realized onions are lovely when cooked. I still hate raw onions. I also hate cutting onions. They make me cry terribly.

Last night, as I was laying in bed trying to get to sleep, I was thinking about our upcoming trips next month to visit family (San Diego AND Naples!) I then remembered that my mom has never had fresh cranberry sauce. I never had fresh cranberry sauce until 5 years ago. For reals! I grew up thinking cranberry sauce came out of a can. I think the canned shtick is a southern thing. Now I am really excited to make my mom cranberry sauce for Christmas dinner. I'm thinking of trying out this recipe. I'll test the tastiness of it first at Thanksgiving. My mouth is drooling already.

My Newest Reading Obsession

I love to cook and I love to eat. I love cooking in my crock pot because I can start dinner during Malcolm's nap and it's ready by the time Tony gets home. I also love using the crock pot because I never know when Tony's going to be home and he always wants to eat *right away*. How can you time a meal to be done at moment's notice? Use a crock pot.

A tip from a reader has created my newest reading obsession: A Year of CrockPotting. I am going to try her sweet potato recipe for Thanksgiving this year (sorry, Mom!) and have also decided that I need a mini crock pot. I make oatmeal for breakfast at least 5 days a week and have started doing steel-cut oats. Thing is, those take 30 minutes to cook and Mal gets cranky from hunger on those mornings. I would love to be able to start breakfast before bed and come downstairs in the morning to a yummy-smelling kitchen.

The one thing I dislike about the crock pot: cleaning it. It's heavy and big and I just can't seem to get the inside perfectly clean. There is bean residue that will just not come off. Yuck.

I'm going to be breaking out the crock pot tomorrow to start on the soup I'm going to make for the soup swap I'm hosting next weekend. I'm drooling just thinking about all of the yummy soups!

What we eat

Something my mum said when she was visiting inspired this post. She said that she would have no idea of what to cook for us since I'm vegetarian. This past week, I made Mexican Bean and Polenta Stuffed Peppers and Creamy Rice and Spinach Casserole. The stuffed peppers came out well but definitely needed more salt. They've also reheated well. I made the casserole with orzo pasta and a variety of greens (broccoli, spinach, green beans and edemame). It was a bit disappointing - especially since it got such high ratings on VegWeb. I ended up adding parmesan cheese and it made it better. It was also better the next day. I also made a batch of chili and froze half for later. For quick meals, we eat a lot of wraps. Essentially, we just put random things in tortillas and eat. It's easy, quick and usually healthy.

Now that we have a limited income coming in, I'm trying to get us on a food budget. This has proved more difficult than I thought. It's easy for me if I'm just buying for myself, but Tony often doesn't like what I buy. It's too healthy and not convenient enough. He's also been on a meat kick lately and prefers to make his daily trips to the store to buy food he wants to eat that day. We have quickly found that meat is expensive!

A Very Nice Sunday

As Tony was helping me with my Calculus homework last night, we discovered why it seemed so hard to get the correct answers: my lovely Mac OS was not displaying the equations correctly. Bah! If my score is low, I'm going to email my instructor. We reinstalled Windows on the laptop so I won't have this problem any longer.

A coworker brought in very ripe bananas into work on Friday. I grabbed them and am currently baking banana bread. I've never made it from scratch before. The recipe got very high ratings on VegWeb so my expectations are high! I do have to admit - I used eggs instead of egg substitute. If any of my vegan / egg allergic friends come for a visit, I'll make it without eggs for them :)

We received large baking potatoes and leeks in this week's produce box. You know what that means: potato leek soup! Still have to squeeze in the soups before the warm weather is upon us. It will serve as a few tasty lunches this week. Last weekend, I made a vegetable soup that was quite tasty if I say so myself. I should go check on the status of my boiling potatoes.