Health Factor MIA and Purple things

I've been kind of disappointed in my cooking entries lately. They aren't exactly the healthiest of foods. Truth is we eat a lot of grilled vegetables and salads, but they aren't really blog worthy. Simple is sometimes best with delicious fresh ingredient. A lot of the recipes I've flagged to try using delicious vegetables, I've realized just add a lot of carbs and unneeded calories already delicious vegetables.

My suggestions is to just take vegetables, chop them, put a little olive oil on them, sprinkle with a seasoning if desired and grill them. Yum! Everything taste good when grilled.

Now that I've said that, I will start adding the other items I've made. Also, expect a fabulous pizza entry from my dear husband soon. He is the pizza making king! His pizzas are more healthy and delicious then your typical pizza.

Picture of Salad. Not interesting enough to right a whole blog about but good. Contains cherry tomatoes from our garden and purple carrots (fabulously colorful: purple on the side, orange and yellow in the middle) and mixed greens and herbs:

John and I love purple veggies. Whether purple carrots, peppers,tomatoes, green beans, cabbage or basil it just adds visual diversity to any dish and makes it special. My suggestions is to go the the Farmer's Market and pick-up so purple vegetables.

Best Pancakes Ever!

Husband cooked, but I was his inspiration (okay, it could have been the fabulous raspberries we picked up at the farmers market that inspired him). These were the BEST pancakes I have ever had! So tasty it would be a crime to smother them in syrup or anything else for that matter. We ate them topped with a light dollop of whip cream (from a can). If the tastiness of these pancakes doesn't convince you (and I feel like a traitor because I've been a loyal Bisquick fan for years), then at least make these because they are whole wheat.

Ingredients:
1 large egg
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon of dark brown sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup raspberries
non-stick cooking spray

1) Beat egg in bowl until fluffy (may want to use hand beater for this). Beat in remaining ingredients except margarine and raspberries. Once batter is smooth, add about 3/4s the raspberries and mix lightly.

2. Heat griddles over medium heat. Spray with non-stick cooking spray.

4. For each pancake, pour slightly less then 1/4 a cup of batter onto the hot griddle. Cook pancake until puffed and dry around the edges. Turn and cook other side until golden brown.

5. Garnish cooked pancakes with remaining raspberries. You may want to add a dollop of whipped cream, or a drizzle of honey or maple syrup to taste. We did a little dollop of whipped cream and it was perfect!

Now for the tasty pictures:


Halfway eaten, these pancakes still look good:

Practical Went Out the Window (a story of my flowers)

Last summer, I worked towards having a relaxing oasis in my backyard. For me, that meant flowers. This year, with the extra expenses of the wedding, we focused more on vegetables, herbs and greens. We take great pride in being able to eat things we grow in our own backyard (not to mention the ease of being able to walk out your backdoor and pick an ingredient as you need it in while cooking). Our flowers were limited to those who grew from 2 packets of seeds and the morning glories which sprout up everywhere in our garden no matter what.

Well, the weekend after the wedding, I started buying flowers. I have stuck to perennials so that I won't have to replant my entire garden every year. I am especially a fan of native plants. Each week I return from the farmer's market with a couple of new plants and I am really loving the flowers that are growing.

Rhubarb and Green Apple Crisp

Nothing says summer like the tart flavor rhubarb. It is sad that for a good part of my childhood I feared this delicious treat do to it's bitter flavor (when eaten fresh picked from the garden) and celery like stringiness. However, it doesn't take more then a bite of it prepared to know that rhubarb is a real treat.

Our first summer in our house, we were pleasantly surprised to discover a rhubarb plant growing in our garden. This summer I am determined to take advantage of this treasure.

Our rhubarb is a little scrawny right now, so I filled out this crumble with some fabulous tart green apples which worked perfectly.

Ingredients:
3 cups cut-up rhubarb
2 small tart green apples
2/3 cup DARK brown sugar
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup flour
1 stick of butter, softened
sprinkle of cinnamon
sprinkle of nutmeg

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Spray 8 by 8 pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Chop rhubarb and apples into small pieces.

Put chopped rhubarb in pan and layer green apple slices on top.

Mix remaining ingredients together in bowl (attempt to not over sample this delicious topping during this process) and sprinkle over apples.


Bake about 30 minutes (until topping is golden brown).


Enjoy. This is a yummy summer treat. It is simple to make and screams homemade, comfort food that will bring people back to memories of their grandmother's kitchen.

Spicy Italian Soup

From the garden, we made a spicy Italian soup, using many fresh ingredients.

1 lb Italian sausage
1 cup onion (chopped)

1 cup Basil (rough chop)
1 cup Celery (chopped)
2 cups zucchini (chopped)
3 small turnips (cubed)

2 cans diced tomatoes

3 tsp salt
2 Tbsp pepper
3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp sugar

Fresh grated Parmesan cheese

In a 4 qt dutch oven, cook the italian sausage and onion until the meat is no longer pink. Add celery, turnips, 1/2 cup of basil, 1 cup of zucchini and turnips. Cook on high for about 10-15 minutes, then add tomatoes. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat. Cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the remaining basil and zucchini, salt, pepper, vinegar and sugar. Return to a boil and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

Garnish with freshly grated parmesan cheese. Serve with crusty bread (Sourdough from Breadsmith).

Garden Zucchini Quiche

The mild taste and soft texture of zucchini melds perfectly with the egg and cream of quiche. This was my first time making quiche and despite a couple of disasters like not having cream, it overflowing because I put way too much vegetables in it, and cooking it at the wrong temperature (correct temperature listed in recipe below) it turned out tasty and delicious. Actually, the zucchini flavor went so well with the quiche, that next time I might try adding even more and cut back on some of the cream and egg as a result.

Zucchini Quiche:
1 pre-made pie crust (I bough mine already in pie pan ready to cook)
1 cup shreaded low-moisture mozerella
1/4 cup blue cheese (left over from blue cheese burger)
4 large eggs
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 small yellow zucchini, chopped
1 green zucchini, chopped
broccoli (not from garden, but left over from veggie tray)


Heat oven to 425 degrees

Fill crust with chopped zucchini until it is a little more then half full (I filled it too full, so maybe less is more)


Then top with broccoli. I like the broccoli on top because the parts of the flower that stick out the top get deliciously crispy while they cook.

Sprinkle the mozzarella and blue cheese over the top.

Mix eggs, cream and remaining ingredients and slowly poor over the top. I say slowly, because I ended out adding to much for the amount of veggies I put in the quiche. It overflowed slowly for 10 minutes on my counter, overflowed slowly on the way to the oven, and overflowed slowly during the cooking process (luckily I put it on a baking sheet in the oven). Sprinkle top with a little white pepper.



Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees (I had it in at 350 by mistake so it took forever).

Reduce oven temp to 300 degrees and bake for about 30 minutes or until you can insert a knife into the middle and have it emerge clean. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.




This quiche was so good! Even my husband, who claimed he wasn't that into quiche loved it. I am for sure going to try this again (mostly because the crusts come in packs of two). I was skeptical about not making the pie crust dough from scratch, but those pre-made ones have come a long way.

Zucchini Galore! (and the beginning of mission zucchini)

I recently discovered that under these giant elephant ear leaves in my garden is an ever growing array of green and yellow zucchini. We honestly thought these were pumpkins! We had planed the seeds long ago, putting the seed packet on the stake. These labels quickly blew away along with any memory we had of what we planted where. Now it is like a zucchini surprise party finding out that we have been growing all this zucchini. I'm glad we caught it, because the little buggers hide along the ground under their big showy leaves.

New Goal: To make use of zucchini in every meal

These are zucchini I discovered on a late night commando mission. My father had informed me to keep a close eye on the zucchini because over night they can grow to almost unusable, seedy proportions. I picked one that was threatening to get a little out of hand out of fear that is would be a bad influence to the other zucchini and possibly insight an overgrowth revolution. Brutus (bulldog, bottom photo) was my backup during this operation.

Here are my seemingly innocent, less rambunctious yellow zucchini in the day light: