2 Mexi Options for a Meat Free Monday

Every now and again I like to offer up options for people who are trying to curb their meat intake.

I have previously done posts about Meatfree Mondays, 

an initiative spearheaded by Sir Paul McCartney and his daughters.

If you are looking for the nutritional info on beans (or beans and rice together) - check out this link to my previous post.

Here is another in that series of posts:

Meat Free Burritos

I have posted this recipe before - but its so good, I'm posting it again.

I make a bean and rice dish that was inspired by something husband and I loved in Costa Rica.

Basically its black beans cooked in a little oil with lemon juice, cumin, chili powder, cayenne, coriander, onions and S&P to taste.

Add in rice (I use a mixture of wild and brown rices) and simmer a bit more.

I add the beans and rice mixture to the wraps and top with spinach, tomatoes, 

sweet bell peppers, shredded cheese and plain Greek yogurt.

(Previously I have shown eating these with ranch dressing - but the Greek yogurt is awesome too)

What you get is a delicious, healthy and filling meal!

Pretty cheap too, if you happen to grow yer own veggies!
Beans and rice keep forever (in the proper conditions) so they really are a great investment for your grocery dollar, whether they be canned or dried.


I use the same bean and rice mixture in another dish...

Vegetarian Nachos

I take the same beans and rice mixture and scoop them into the center of a dinner plate.

Surround the scoops with nachos chips (shown here is Tostitos Cantina chips)

I sprinkled the last of my Roma tomatoes, chopped, and some sweet bell peppers, chopped.

Homemade salsa gets spooned around too.

Grated cheese (marble cheddar and hot pepper brick cheeses) on top of the whole mess and bake at 400 degrees C until cheese is melty!

I've been able to find these chips for quite a good deal, so the overall price on these nachos is still way below pub or restaurant rates.

ENJOY!

What have you been making meat-free these days?

Keeping the Kitchen Cool...

It's not much of a news flash to state...the weather is HOT...

Ok...yeah...we knew that already, thank you, Mrs State the Obvious!

Lately I've been posting food pics on Facebook dedicated to keeping cool and not heating up your kitchen.

I thought I would explore this concept a little deeper.

I find it difficult to consider preparing food in weather like this.

The thought of turning on a stove or even a toaster oven makes me cringe.

Especially when it feels like you're melting...

I have posted pics of a variety of salads with a plethora of taste sensations.

...but one can only eat so many salads...

(and I am most certainly a salad FREAK)

So to the grill I go!  We have been BBQ-ing a lot lately.

Even if you live in an apartment that does not allow BBQ-ing, you can most likely find a public park in your area that will allow you to bring grills or coleman stoves.

Check your local by-laws on that one...

When Hurricane Sandy was about to arrive, we made propane and water our first priority.

(we already have a food store in our basement and a fireplace,

so we didn't have to worry about food and heat)

At the time, the storm kind of missed us...so we were sitting one a propane surplus!

We have been experimenting with grilling stuff like peppers, watermelon, peaches and plums.

As well as the usual suspects like steak, burgers, sausages and even a roast!

We also tried our hand at grilling corn on the cob.

Emeril Lagasse swears by it...not that I follow the trendy eating crowd, mind you.

Ches soaked the cobs whole for approximately 1 hr, but the longer you can wait, the better.

He BBQ'd the cobs and we ate them on a 

separate, blazing hot night where the house was sitting at 31 degrees Celsius.

Whatever we grill, I like to grill a large quantity and reserve some for later use.

The pictures included in this post show a dinner we had outside by the firepit one evening.

(A fire?!?!  I know, we still have a fire on occassion to keep the evening bugs at bay,

but only when there is no fire ban)

We BBQ'd burgers and topped them with fresh picked garden lettuce, Old Cheddar cheese from Wilton and previously grilled red peppers.

Complete the meal with cold cervesas and s'mores for dessert.

The grilled peppers gave the burgers a wonderfully different taste, almost sweet.

Like a gourmet burger served in a high end restaurant.

Another way to consume leftover grilled peppers is to use them in a grown up grilled cheese sandwich!

I layer cheese, spinach, cheese, onions and tomatoes, more cheese, the grilled peppers (kept in large pieces) and finally a layer of cheese...muahaha!

Press between 2 pieces of bread buttered on the outside and fry in a frying pan.

**********************

In case anyone was wondering how to make a traditional s'more:

-toast a marshmallow

-press toasted marshmallow between 2 graham crackers and a piece of chocolate.

There are variations and substitutions...but we like to keep it old school.

Also, in case anyone was wondering...the top picture shows our roasting tree...

Anyone how ever toasted a marshmallow or wienie on the campfire will be familiar with a roasting stick...

but our version is a TREE...complete with enough "branches" that you can literally roast a whole meal.

(or a million marshmallows...give or take)

Check out my Facebook page or group for more recipes to keep you

and your kitchen as cool as possible these days.

Take care everyone!

Yummy meaty pasta dish...

Looking for something fresh and hearty for dinner?

Well have I got a dish for you!

This dish was inpired by the Pasta Fasta recipe I make in the summer time using fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden.  I was wistful one day and decided to try something like it mid-winter.

Ingredients List:

ground beef - browned on a skillet

chopped tomatoes

thyme

red pepper flakes

olive oil

short pasta - cooked (any shape will do)

2 (or more) garlic cloves (from Cam & Michelle Mather)

grated cheese (ours was from Wilton Cheese in Wilton, ON)

Cook pasta as per the directions...you'll want a couple of couples worth of cooked pasta to fill a baking dish.

You can also be browing the ground beef while you're boiling the pasta.

Once the pasta is cooked and the meat is browned, you can drain the meat and use the same skillet for the rest of this recipe.

Add meat and a tbsp of olive oil to the skillet.  Warm the skillet and add 2 (or so) cloves of garlic, crushed.  Once the dish gets aromatic you can add the tomatoes, thyme, pepper flakes and pasta.  Turn over the whole mess a couple of times until heated thoroughly.

Add all ingredients to a baking dish and top with as much shredded cheese as you like! 

Bake in oven at 425 degrees F until mixture is bubbly...about 10-15 mins, then broil (500 degrees F) for about 5mins (watch it closely!  you want the cheese to be crispy and brown, not charred and black!) 

Finished product!  Its warm, gooey and yummy!  You can change this dish up if you like, by using tofu, tuna or ground turkey instead of the ground beef.  You can also change the whole flavour of this dish by switching up the cheese type too!  I personally loved that lack of sauce in this dish.  It wasn't too heavy and had a freshness that reminded me of summer.

While this isn't necessarily a dish made entirely out of my garden...it is a yummy, healthy and filling dish that didn't cost a fortune to make.  Beats hamburger helper that's for sure!  No artifical anything...

Plus the kids LOVED it!  (And that's always a winning combination)

A Stir Fry for the Family!

This recipe started off with a question...

"What am I gonna do with this leftover steak???"

I sliced it up thin and then it hit me....STIR FRY!

The above picture shows the sliced steak thrown on top of thin sliced orange and yellow peppers, thin sliced onion rings, several pressed garlic cloves, S & P to taste, a handful of raw, whole almonds (could have used sliced almonds...but this was all I had to work with) and red pepper flakes.

Basically you want to quickly cook the veggies and then heat up the steak (so as not to over cook it).

When everything smells good, you'll want to add in a handful of spinach so it can wilt properly but not melt away.

I served everything on top of brown and wild rice

(which I had made several days prior and needed to eat up)

alongwith my trusty chop sticks for full effect!

I'm pretty sure I didn't add any additional flavours or spices to this dish, attempting to let the flavours of the foods stand on their own.  It was a wonderfully colourful and flavourful meal!  If you find it a bit bland for your tastes, you can try adding in some white wine vinegar for an extra zip.

Owen wasn't a fan of the stir fry...but he did like the chop sticks!  He spent the dinner time trying to manipulate the chop sticks like mum was doing...and in the end just liked stabbing his noodles.

Try making something out of the ordinary...from another culture, another flavour...you'll never know how your kids will interpret the event.  It may just open up a whole new world for your kids!

What weird and wonderful things have you been making in your kitchen?

A Hearty Home Cooked Meal....

I have been away for a week and all I could think about was my garden.  Ok, I did miss the family and the hubbie too.  I was surprised to see the garden as well as Owen had grown visably!  I walked around the garden in the evenings this weekend and gandered at the of the things that had started to peter out...and some other things that are just coming into their perfectly ripened selfs.  

We celebrated being together and the wonderful summer weather with a feast!

Everything we ate came from our garden....except for the chicken.  My husband took the opportunity to remind me, we could have those too in our backyard.  

    



BBQ Roasted Chicken

I grabbed a local chicken and my hubbie spiced it himself.  Paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, S & P, and a dash of coriander before cooking on the BBQ. 



BBQ'd Red Potatoes and a Blooming Onion


Ches chopped some freshly dug potatoes and laced them in olive oil and salt.  Then we grabbed a big white onion and chopped it "most" of the way through.  He added that to the plate which sat on the upper rack of the BBQ.



The complete package



The salad consists of beet greens, washed and rinsed dry, cukes, chopped, red and yellow tomatoes, chopped, and purple peppers, chopped.  A drizzle of home-made balsamic vinegrette on the salad AND the chicken were perfect toppings.  A dollop of butter on the taters and a grind of salt over it all.

YUM!

A low carbon foot print meal that satisfied the whole family.  And boy it's great to be home.  

Flying saucers...not necessarily from Mars

After last year, growing and eating zucchinis became a passion of mine.  I was never a huge fan of the tasteless gourd...but I am a born-again zuke lover.  This year I couldn't resist buying the flying saucer squash plant.  The picture on the tag was not unlike the image above.  I think they an adorable edition to our garden.  The debate between hubbie and I is are they a summer squash like zucchini?  Or are they like a winter squash like butternut or acorn squash?  The plant grows like a central bush like a zucchini plant, rather than vine-like as its winter squash cousins do. 

I have so many stuffed zucchini recipes put aside, that I thought I would try it out on something more fun...like a flying saucer! 



Because it is our first year with flying saucers...I had no idea what was the perfect picking size?  When they are cute and small?  Or do I neglect them for a few days and let them get as big as my hand (as shown above)?

I started browning some ground beef before I chopped off the top of the squash.  I simmered the beef for a few minutes while I dug out the center of the flying saucers.  Hope the martians didn't mind the renovations...

I added some chopped tomatoes, cooked brown and wild rice (I had in the fridge), some purple peppers (the turned green upon being cooked) and since we had no onions in the house, I used frozen wild leeks!  (we picked them this past May)



In the oven they went...at 375 degrees C and baked for 25 min.  Topped with mozzarella, of course.



After almost 35 min, I took them out of the oven, perfectly browned and crisp.  (I added a green zucchini and a yellow zucchini because I made too much filling...and truthfully, the flying saucers didn't look big enough to fill both  my husband and myself in one meal)

This was one yummy, healthy meal...and it occurred to me that the only thing we didn't grow ourselves was the beef, the cheese and the rice.  Pretty low cost meal indeed! 

What's the weirdest thing you've ever grown?  (could be the name, the shape or the colour)

The early birds...

Spring is such a wonderful time of year...and I ache to get back into the garden.  I do have trouble resisting the urge to plant stuff outside right NOW...so what do I do to combat those urges?  I plant indoors!  Its a little tricky, as our cat Buster tries to help himself to the new green sprigs....but we try to keep the seedlings in an area that is tough for him to get to.  When the seedlings are big enough and the nights are warm enough...we move everything outside to our enclosed sun porch.  Finally they reach the garden and stay there until they are ready to harvest.

In case you were wondering, there are several things you can plant earlier than others.  There are also some plants that, if you are starting them from seed, you must start them early.  Peppers take a while to grow to maturity in Canadian weather...so be sure to get those seeds germinating well before you plant them outside. 

Here are a few things that you can plant directly in the ground just before the May 24th weekend:

Peas
Spinach
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Kale
Some lettuce varieties

We like to get some going before that though...so here is the growth update on our spinach!




Pictured taken right before said cat dumped the lot...some lived...miraculously

 We start the seeds in manure or potting soil with a layer of plastic wrap on top.  The plastic wrap acts like a mini-greenhouse, trapping in the heat and moisture.  Use a spray bottle to wet down the soil once a day or so for the first while.  It takes some time, but if you persist, the seeds will sprout.  Once the seedlings reach the plastic wrap, we peel it back and let them soak in the sun!

When we start things like peppers, the package says to start them in a soil-less medium.  If you're wondering, we use a clear pyrite baking dish, 9 x 13".   You wet down a paper towel and line the bottom, then sprinkle in the seeds.  Add another layer of wet paper towel and seal with plastic wrap.  Set in a sunny window for a few days, checking on moisture and spritzing down when needed.  You should be able to see the seeds sprout a tail and then its ready for the soil medium!  Start pepper seeds in March if you have a warm sunny place available.  Keep planting pepper seeds each week to get a full crop that lasts the whole season.  Peppers, sadly don't store well for a long period of time.

Spinach is a great plant for succession planting, as you can plant in cooler weather and  it will still grow wonderfully.  August is tough for spinach though...dry and hot...spinach tends to bolt (go to seed) quickly in those conditions.  Last year was terrible for our spinach...but then again, we were experimenting with location of leafy greens.  Can't always predict what will happen in new conditions. 

What are you planting these days?

Are you itching to turn soil yet?

I am...