Green Cauliflower Macaroni and Cheese

Green Cauliflower Macaroni and Cheese

In my quest for eating more real foods, I've been trying to think of recipes that are colorful, tasty, interesting looking, and healthy.  Since it's almost Halloween, I decided to make something would interest my 3-year old.  My family does not eat a lot of cauliflower nor do we eat a lot of Marconi and Cheese.  In fact, Blue Rock does not like the typical Macaroni and Cheese dinners from a box.  But I thought, maybe if I'm creative, he'll eat my green Cauliflower Macaroni and Cheese.  I first got the idea from Healthy Recipes From the White House to You by Michelle Obama.  However, I changed her cauliflower macaroni and cheese quite a bit.  For example,my green macaroni and cheese does not use milk and has kale and walnuts, and most importantly is green!  This is a great vegetarian recipe.  My family loved it and I hope yours does too!

Green Macaroni and Cheese 

Ingredients

8oz-10oz whole grain pasta (if gluten free use rice pasta)
1/2 cups walnuts (divide into 1/4 cups each)
2.5 cups shredded cheddar cheese, I did a mixture of sharp and mild (or a mixture of your favorite melting cheeses), divided, save 1/2 cup of cheese for the top

1 small head of cauliflower, cut into florets

1 cup fresh kale
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I made mine with one piece of toasted whole grain bread and 1/4 cup walnuts in a food processor). If avoiding gluten, use gluten free crackers instead of bread.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350º. Bring water to a boil and cook the pasta until al dente, drain.
2. Steam the cauliflower until soft, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a blender along with a few tablespoons of the steaming liquid. Add kale.  Puree the cauliflower and kale until smooth.  Add butter and blend.
3. Add 1 cup of water and 1/4 cup of walnuts to the blender and blend with the cauliflower and kale puree.
4. In a medium size casserole dish, combine the pasta and hot cauliflower puree. Add the puree mixture and cheeses. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. In a food processor, add 1/4 cup of walnuts.  Pulse until fine.  If making your own breadcrumbs, add to the food processor.  If not, mix the walnuts and breadcrumbs, should look kind of like sand. Sprinkle across the top of the pasta mixture.  Top with about 1/2 cup of cheese. Place the dish in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the top is crispy and the sauce is bubbling.

Serves 4 to 6.

Yum, looks like slime

Grated cheese, sharp and mild cheddar cheese

Mixed the cheese sauce with the pasta

Top with walnut breadcrumbs

Add a some mild cheddar cheese on top

It's done!

Time to eat!

Gluten Free Oatmeal Cookies

GF Oatmeal Cookies

It seems like when the temperature drops I want to stay in my kitchen and bake.  I'm on my way to no longer eating gluten.  Therefore, I've been trying to find good recipes that are gluten free.  I adapted this recipe from the back of the Trader Joe's gluten free oats.  It makes about 4 dozen cookies, so there is plenty to share!

Gluten Free Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1¼ teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup peanut butter
3 cups rolled oats, I used 2 cups (because that's all I had) and they still turned out great (gluten free)
6 oz chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans, like the original recipe calls for)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars in the bowl until fluffy.
3. Add the eggs, vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Mix. Add peanut butter and mix.
4. Add the oats, chocolate chips and walnuts. Mix slowly until combined.
5. Scoop about a teaspoon of dough onto a greased or parchment-covered cookie sheet.
6. Bake 10-12 minutes until lightly brown at edges. Remove and let cool on wire rack.

My husband and son loved these cookies!  Nobody would ever second guess they were gluten free.

Pre-Writing Activities that do not involve Crayons

It's been a while since I've posted some activities I do with my 3-year old.  Blue Rock is not really into coloring with crayons like some kids are.  This wouldn't matter too much except that I like him to practice holding a pencil the correct way and build his fingers for future writing.  Thankfully, there are a number of activities that don't involve crayons to achieve this. Blue Rock already has great hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.  There are several other mediums he enjoys such as painting and drawing with sidewalk chalk which strengthen his hands and fingers. He also has always loved molding things with play-doh which is another great pre-writing skill.

Here are a few activities we've been doing lately.  The first activity includes a colander and pipe cleaners.  I had him put the pipe cleaners in different holes of the colander.  He did great and sort of liked this activity especially after he decided he could make a hat with it.  We've done this several days this week.  I wish I would have thought of this a year ago because I think very young children would enjoy this as well.

The next activity is beading.  I had him sort the beads by color and place them on the pipe cleaners.  These are just the regular Melissa and Doug beads.I've been very impressed with how well he is able to bead things.  This is something we just started doing and he seemed to naturally know what to do.

I bought this awesome Turtle when he was almost 2 to take with us to church and work on his fine motor skills.  He still likes playing with it from time to time.  He mastered matching the magnetic bead in the correct color slot when he was about 2.5.  Now he will go back and forth between putting them all in the matching slot and trying to get all the beads in one slot.

This last activity he does on his own.  He's taking a part a small flash light.  He loves taking apart things and trying to put them back together.  This is also a fun fine motor, pre-writing activity. 

Freezer Burritos

15 Burritos Ready to Freeze

For the past 7 years or so my husband has wanted me to make and freeze breakfast burritos.  When we were in Germany our freezer was too small to make and freeze anything.  Now that we're back in the States we have a little more freezer space.  

These sausage and egg burritos were easy to make.  I plan on making them again.  My husband raved over them and has become one happy man in the morning.  He can now take a few frozen burritos with him to the office and is satisfied until lunch time.

Freezer Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Burritos

Ingredients

1 lb. ground sausage (if possible, use organic)

12 organic eggs (you don't have to use organic but I highly recommend it, even if you don't use organic sausage or cheese)

12-15 tortillas (I used 15 whole grain and multi grain tortillas)

1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

foil for wrapping the burritos

2 large gallon freezer bags to put them in

Directions

Cook sausage until no longer pink.  Drain and put in another dish.  In the same pan you cooked your sauce scramble and cook eggs, add salt and pepper to taste.  Place eggs in a different dish.

Place one tortilla on about 12 inches of foil.  Scoop some egg, sausage, and top with cheese.  Wrap stuffed tortilla into a burrito and wrap the foil around.  Repeat until you have used all of the sausage, eggs, and cheese.  I made 15 burritos.  Place wrapped burritos into large gallon freezer bags.  

To eat: Unwrap burrito from foil, place on a microwave safe plate and heat for 90 seconds.  If burrito is not cooked all the way, add 30 seconds at a time until heated through.  Enjoy!

Get all your ingredients ready

Fill tortillas

Wrap tortilla into a burrito

Wrap foil around burrito

Place in freezer bags, label, and freeze

Blueberry Pie Recipe

Organic Blueberry Pie

Now that Autumn is upon us, I have been in the mood to bake.  I love Blueberries and have always wanted to try Blueberry Pie.  Given the health benefits of blueberries, I figured a blueberry pie would be healthier than say a chocolate pie...just don't talk about the sugar in it.  Anyway, I have to say that Blueberry Pie is delicious!  Another benefit to making pie yourself is you know exactly what is in the pie and you can use all organic ingredients if you want.

I got this recipe from the book Don't Panic Dinner's in the Freezer.  The beauty of this pie recipe is you can freeze it, if you want.  I, however, wanted to make and eat it right away.  The the book the pie recipe is called Mom's Blueberry Pie.  I made my own pie crust and even though this pie recipe does not call for a crust on top of the pie, I went ahead and sprinkled the other pie shell on top of the pie because my husband loves pie crust.  So you can make it with or without a top pie shell.  Here's my pie crust recipe.  If you prefer to do the top layer the traditional way then roll the pie crust and cut in strips.  I found sprinkling the pie crust on top achieves the same purpose and saves time.

Mom's Blueberry Pie

4 cups blueberries (I used organic frozen blueberries that I bought at Costco)
2 heaping Tablespoons of flour
1 cup sugar (I used about 3/4 cup)
1 Tablespoon butter
3/4 teaspoon lemon juice (I didn't have any lemons so I left this out and it turned out great)

Directions

Rinse berries in colander.  Place berries in saucepan with flour, sugar, butter, and lemon juice, and bring just to boiling point.  Pour in unbaked pie shell.  If you want to freeze it, use foil and plastic wrap to freeze.

If cooking day of, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake 40-50 minutes or until filling bubbles.

If baking from frozen state, preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake 40-50 minutes.

Hint: If pie crust is getting too brown before filling is done, cover lightly with foil and continue baking.

Make your pie crust first

Heat and stir the filling

If you don't want a top crust, bake or freeze just like this

If you want a top crust, add it here

Yummy Blueberry Pie!

Quick and Easy Pie Crust Recipe

Tasty Pie Crust

I finally made my own pie crust and I have to say it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Not to mention the taste was 10 times better than the frozen pie shells I usually use.  This took me only about 5 minutes to make and I knew exactly what was in my pie shell. 

Many pie crust recipes use lard, some oil, but I wanted one with butter.  I don't have any lard and didn't want to go to the store for one thing.  I found a recipe that uses butter here.  I used unsalted Simple Truth Organic butter that I bought at Kroger's.  Although the original recipe calls for Land O' Lakes butter, I don't think it really matters what kind of butter you use.

Butter Pie Crust Recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup cold 

4 to 5 tablespoons cold water

 

Directions

Combine flour and salt in large bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender or fork until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. I used a knife and flaked it off the stick.  Stir in enough water with fork just until flour is moistened.

Divide dough in half; shape each half into ball. Flatten slightly. Wrap 1 ball in plastic food wrap; refrigerate.

For 1-crust pie, roll out 1 ball of dough on lightly floured surface into 12-inch circle. Fold into quarters. Place dough into 9-inch pie pan; unfold dough, pressing firmly against bottom and sides. Trim crust to 1/2 inch from edge of pan. Crimp or flute edge. Fill and bake according to pie recipe directions.

For 2-crust pie, roll out remaining ball of dough on lightly floured surface into 12-inch circle. Fold dough into quarters. Place dough over filling; unfold. Trim, seal and crimp or flute edge. Cut 5 or 6 large slits in crust. Bake according to pie recipe directions.

For baked unfilled pie shell, prepare dough as directed above for 1-crust pie. Prick crust all over with fork before baking. Bake at 475°F. for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. 

 

*Rolling the dough Tip

Place dough between two pieces of wax paper.  Roll dough with rolling pin over the wax paper.  This made rolling and clean up so much easier.

Classic American Goulash

My sister shared this recipe with me.  It was delicious!  She got this recipe from allrecipes.com. This is not a Hungarian Goulash but the typical American Goulash.  I followed the slow cooker directions and it turned out great.  If you cook with organic ingredients, this is an inexpensive organic recipe compared to some.  I buy my organic ground beef at Costco and you can get organic canned tomatoes and tomato sauce for not too much more at most grocery stores and Target sells a number of organic spices.

Classic Goulash Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 large yellow onions, chopped
• 1-1/2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1-1/2 cups water
• 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon and 1-1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon dried Italian herb seasoning
• 1-1/2 bay leaves
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 1 cup uncooked elbow macaroni

1. In a large Dutch oven, brown the ground beef over medium-high heat, breaking the meat up as it cooks, until the meat is no longer pink, about 10 minutes. Drain excess fat, and stir in the onions and garlic. Cook and stir the meat mixture until the onions are translucent, about 10 more minutes.
2. Stir in water, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, soy sauce, Italian seasoning, bay leaves, and salt.  Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Stir in the macaroni, cover, and simmer over low heat until the pasta is tender, about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, discard bay leaves, and serve.

** For slow cooker, preheat a slow cooker to High heat. Make recipe through Step 1; place the ground beef-onion mixture into the preheated slow cooker. Stir in water, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, soy sauce, Italian seasoning, bay leaves, seasoned salt, and macaroni until thoroughly combined. Cook on High for 1 hour.