Polenta With Spinach & Balsamic Tomatoes AND Asparagus, Strawberry Salad

That's a long title...... and a delicious combo :)

This took a little more prep using all fresh ingredients and making it all fancy looking, but it was worth it. The idea came to me as I was trying to decide what to do with a ton of spinach I needed to use and a pre-made roll of polenta. I wanted something pretty to try out the food setting on my new camera and this was the end result.

Remember that you can easily substitute things here, I use what I have on hand because I'm terrible at menu planning!

Polenta With Spinach & Balsamic Tomatoes

Ingredients:

1 roll of pre-made polenta
2 huge bags of spinach (precise right!)
6 roma tomatoes
about a 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella
3 cloves garlic
Olive oil
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 large lemon
Spices.... I used basil, thyme, cayenne and some salt n pepper.

Put the oven on broil and grease a large cookie sheet.

Wash and dry your veggies, be extra sure the spinach is dry.

Chop your spinach.

Slice polenta into rounds about 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick, season with salt and pepper. Lay on your greased pan and lightly spray the top with cooking spray. Broil on each side 6-8 minutes or until golden.

Remove and change oven to 350 Degrees F.

Dice your garlic and saute it in some olive oil over medium high heat until golden. Add your spinach (if there is any water watch out!) Cover and turn heat down to medium for about 2 minutes. - Hey?! Where'd all my spinach go? I rarely cook spinach, we love baby spinach fresh and eat lots of it. It's amazing how much it shrinks when you cook it! remove it from the burner and squeeze 1/2 lemon over it, season with salt and pepper, mix well.

Dice tomatoes and mix with 2 Tablespoons balsamic, 2 Tablespoons oil and the herbs. I used cayenne to give it a little kick and a slightly different flavor than the salad... it was kinda awesome. Cover and refrigerate until needed.

Top each polenta round with some garlicky spinach and then some cheese. Put them in the oven for about 10-20 minutes, until cheese is melted and starting to turn golden.

Serve tomatoes on the side (I prefer fresh over cooked tomatoes and it keeps the "pizzas" from getting soggy while cooking). Each person can top their rounds with some tomatoes and enjoy alongside some.......

Asparagus & Strawberry Salad

Oh yum.... this was great and so easy to make! You just want to make it an hour or so ahead so the flavors mix up well. I made two versions, the only difference being one was with asparagus and one was with green beans. Both were good, the kids were more likely to eat green beans than asparagus so this way they had a choice. The asparagus was better though and got 100% of the adult votes. It soaked up the flavors wonderfully.

Ingredients:

1 bunch asparagus (or green beans)
1 pint strawberries
2 Tablesoons honey
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar
juice from 1/2 large lemon
2 Tablespoons olive oil

Blanch vegetables in boiling water for about 2 minutes and then put directly into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Dry well.

Wash and dry strawberries and slice.

Chop vegetables into large chunks... about 2 inches long.

Mix dressing ingredients in a small bowl.

Mix vegetables and strawberries in a large bowl and pour dressing over the top. Mix well, salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate for about an hour.

We really enjoyed this meal, so pretty, healthy and tasty! The only thing I'll do next time is make more!! And maybe add some roasted potatoes to the plate.

Meat & Dairy Free Week Menu Plan

This is the menu plan I made for our meat & dairy free week. We are attempting to see if eliminating dairy helps Joshua with his "issues." I'm also curious to see how eliminating dairy effects the rest of us. It's really not something we need in our diets so I'd love to learn how to at least limit our dairy consumption. We generally don't eat a lot of meat so I just threw that one in there.

What I discovered this week (so far anyway) is that we consume more meat & dairy than I thought. Mike and I went out to sushi Tuesday night (thanks Mom and Dad for watching the kids!) Before we went I had already borrowed the excuse of "fish isn't really meat" from many other vegetarians I'd met. I never understood this, but I was willing to borrow it as my excuse to eat sushi. What I didn't realize until I got my sushi roll was that there was cream cheese in it! Oops. The things we don't even think about..... I was not about to let it sit there, nobody's perfect. There are plenty of sushi options that fit in with the meat and dairy free, like the other roll I got which was the avocado roll. I am just so used to ordering the same two rolls, Alaskan ( I think) with salmon, cream cheese and crab and an avocado roll, that I do it without even thinking.

Wednesday we went to a favorite sandwich place of ours for lunch. I got the veggie sandwich on wheat and remembered to ask for no cream cheese. Mike also remembered to ask for no cheese, but it wasn't until we got our order that we realized his had turkey on it.... oops again. Old habits die hard, but we're working on it.

The smoothie recipes I link to may contain dairy, I substituted soy this week.

Monday

Breakfast - Cereal with soy milk & fruit
Snack - Whole wheat toast with peanut butter
Lunch - Split pea soup and breadsticks
Snack - snack tray with almonds, pistachios, fruit and pretzels
Dinner - Quinoa casserole

Tuesday

Breakfast - PB & J muffins with fruit
Snack - Fruit smoothie
Lunch - Pasta salad
Snack - peanut butter crackers & fruit
Dinner - Sushi

Wednesday

Breakfast - Eggs, fruit & whole wheat toast
Snack - Apple & peanut butter
Lunch - Veggie sandwich
Snack - Fruit & pretzels
Dinner - Leftovers

Thursday

Breakfast - Cereal with soy milk & fruit
Snack - Whole wheat toast with peanut butter
Lunch - Peanut butter & jelly with fruit
Snack - Fruit smoothie & popcorn
Dinner - Pad See Ew & Curry with tofu & veggies & Miso soup

Friday

Breakfast - Waffles & fruit
Snack - Whole wheat toast with peanut butter
Lunch - Tabouli salad & fruit
Snack - Fruit smoothie & pretzel/nut tray
Dinner - Vegetarian chili & salad

Saturday

Breakfast - Frittata, pancakes & fruit
Snack - Fruit
Lunch - Leftovers
Snack - Hummus, veggies and fruit
Dinner - Vegetarian spaghetti & roasted cauliflower

Sunday

Breakfast - Eggs, whole wheat toast, veggie sausage & fruit
Snack - Fruit
Lunch - Veggie stir fry
Snack - Hummus, veggies & fruit
Dinner - Leftovers

Creamy Pasta Salad

This was lunch for Day Two of our dairy free, meat free week. It is not vegan, but can easily be made vegan by using vegannaise instead of mayonnaise. The beans add protein where the meat would be for some and the variety of colorful veggies makes this as pretty as it is tasty! Pair it with a side of fruit and you have a perfectly balanced meal with food from all the food groups.

I'm eating this right now.... it's good :) I made it last night and let it chill overnight. I sent some with Mike for his lunch at work and he enjoyed it too.

Ingredients:

16oz. pasta of your choice. I had a mix of misfit macaroni that I used. The ends of the bags of some large macaroni, small & whole wheat.
1 cup chopped baby spinach
1 cup diced carrots
2 tomatoes (seeded and diced)
1 can white beans (any beans really) drained and rinsed
1/2 cup mayonnaise (or vegannaise)
3 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon paprika
salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil pasta according to package directions. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Mix diced veggies and beans together with pasta.

In a small bowl combine mayonnaise, vinegar and other spices. Mix well and adjust as needed.

Pour dressing over salad and mix well. Refrigerate overnight.

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

Split peas are full of healthy fiber, helping to lower cholesterol and stabilize blood sugar. Just one cup of cooked dried peas provides you with over 60% of your daily fiber needs.

Day One of meat and dairy free week. I thought I'd try a vegetarian split pea soup recipe. I found this one on AllRecipes.com. I made some changes and ended up with the following recipe. This isn't your "traditional" split pea soup. Knowing my Father-In-Law would say "This would be great..... with ham" as soon as he looked at it I wanted to wow him with how much flavor this soup could have without ham. I looked at what I had on hand and what the recipe called for, tweaked some things around and ended up with a fantastic soup! Joshua gobbled this up with amazing speed :)

Ingredients:

2 cups dry split peas
1/2 cup barley
1 cup diced carrots (I had baby carrots on hand, this was about 15 of them)
4 cloves garlic (crushed)
1 teaspoon Thyme
1 teaspoon basil
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 cups tomato & roasted red pepper soup
5 1/2 cups vegetable broth (this makes a thinner soup. If you like it thicker start with about 2 cups less broth, you can always add more later if you want to.)
2 cups water

Directions:

Mix ingredients into your slow cooker. Turn on high for 4 hours and then low or warm until you are ready to eat!

Quick Alfredo Casserole

So I'd love to make my own white sauce and all, but it's 4:00PM, I'm tired and everyone is hungry.... NOW.

This is a pretty inexpensive dish, easy and quick to prepare and hey, it's pasta. I Love pasta :)
Most of the sauce is cooked up, but if you use the milk in the recipe there is just enough to drizzle over the pasta as a sort of dressing.

**Tastes EVEN BETTER cold the next day! Yum!

Us grown ups thought this was delicious. The crunch of the veggies against the pasta, the flavor of the different veggies with the Thyme.... good stuff. It is very filling too!

As for the kids: Thomas loved it and even ate what his brothers didn't. As soon as I put Michael's plate in front of him he said "You want us to eat this?" and pushed it to the center of the table. Joshua ate the noodles out of it and that was it. But that's okay.... the smoothie they drank up seconds before was full of spinach, hahaha. Mommy wins.

Ingredients:

2 small zucchini
1 head cauliflower
1 Bell Pepper ( I used about 4-6 mini ones because it's what I had on hand)
1 16oz. package pasta (whatever noodles you happen to have)
1 jar Newmans Own Alfredo sauce
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 cup almond milk (you can leave out the milk if you prefer, see note above)
1/2 cup parmesan
2 teaspoons Thyme

Directions:

Heat oven to 350F and grease a 9x13" pan

Wash all your veggies and cut into bite size pieces.
* I like my veggies barely cooked so they stay kinda crunchy. If you prefer softer veggies steam them first.

Cook pasta 7 minutes in boiling water, drain (don't rinse)

Mix all ingredients except cheese and 1 teaspoon Thyme.

Pour into greased 9x13"pan. Top with cheese and Thyme.

Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes.

Let sit 10 minutes and serve.

Serve with a green salad or fruit salad, yum!

Breaded and Baked Zucchini

We used this as a side dish for a veggie casserole on Meatless Monday this week. It was a huge hit with most everyone (Michael (3) and Joshua (2) preferred to just eat the ranch dip with their fingers instead.... can't win 'em all.

Thomas however begged us to save some for his lunch the next day. Baking is a great, healthy alternative to frying and was much safer for someone like me who hates cooking with hot oil, ouch!

Ingredients:

2 medium zucchini (sliced into 1/4" thick slices)
1 egg
1 Tablespoon milk (I used soy)
3/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/4 cup ground flax seed

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450F

Grease a baking sheet well.

Dip zucchini slices in egg mixture and then cover in crumbs and place on your baking sheet.

Bake at 450F for 10 minutes, flip and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Serve with some ranch for dipping!

Almost Vegetarian Shepard's Pie

I say almost because I'm not entirely sure if there is any actual beef product in beef seasoning... but other than the seasoning it is vegetarian and very good. A wonderful comfort food with tons of texture and flavor.

The ingredients made enough for two casseroles so you can either make two and freeze one or do what I'm going to do and make another casserole in two days (I'll keep the topping and filling separate until then.) I love cooking breakfast on the weekends so having dinner already made makes life easier. And since there were no leftovers of the one I made this will work out nicely.

Ingredients:

Filling:

1 package dry beef stew mix (Bear Creek and some other companies make these).
1 cup barley (soak for 8 hours prior)
1 can chunky tomato sauce
1 cup carrot juice
3 cups beef or vegetable broth (I actually used chicken because that's what I had)
About 3-4 cups Vegetables of your choice - Whatever you have on hand; we used carrots, mushrooms, kale and red bell pepper. I'll leave out the Kale next time as it was really tough, but could've just been that particular bunch.
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon basil

Topping:

6 large yukon gold potatoes (peeled and chopped into quarters)
1 8oz. package cream cheese
1 teaspoon thyme

Directions:

I had all of the filling ingredients cook in the slow cooker all day so all I had to do for dinner was make the topping and bake, but you can also cook your veggies and mix your filling that night.


Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a 2qt. casserole dish.


Cover your peeled and cut potatoes with water and boil for 20 minutes or until easily pierced with a fork. Drain and blend in cream cheese and thyme with a hand mixer.

If you enjoy simplicity like I do and used your slow cooker scoop out half of the filling and fill your casserole dish 3/4 of the way. The other half can be used to make another for freezing.

Top your casserole with half of your mashed potatoes. Use the other half for your other casserole.

Bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes.

Serve with a side of fruit :)