Quinoa Loaf

Quinoa is one of my favorite foods.  It is my favorite because it is very good for you. You often find quinoa on a list of superfoods.  I also love quinoa because it tastes great in every recipe I have ever made.  I make my quinoa in my rice cooker. It does not take long and it comes out perfectly. I make extra so that I can eat it for breakfast or have some on hand to make this loaf or my other casserole I posted a few weeks ago.
Todays recipe is very diverse.
You can sub in and greens you have on hand, spinach, chard, or kale.
If you have sundried tomatoes, those go great in this too.
Do not be afraid to experiment with what you have in your fridge. This is a perfect, use up the leftover veggies kind of meal!
Quinoa Loaf
PAm or 1 TB evoo
one package of mushrooms
1 onion chopped fine
1 can organic chickpeas, rinsed off
3/4 cup rolled oats
2 cups cooked quinoa
1 cup peas, or frozen mixed veggies
spices to taste: minced onion, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper
Saute mushrooms and onion in saute pan with PAM or evoo.
Preheat oven to 350 and grease 8 inch loaf pan.
Add in spices to the mushrooms mixture after a few minutes. Then add in whatever greens you have.  Today I added in some fresh kale, about 5 huge leaves, chopped up small.  Cook down all the veggies till well cooked about 5-8 minutes. Set aside.
In your food processor mix up til smooth the chickpeas, the oats and 1/2 cup water.
In a large bowl mix all the ingredients together, the sauteed veggies, the chickpea mixture, the peas, the sundried tomatoes, and whatever else looks good.  Press into a loaf pan and bake for one hour.  Let rest 10 minutes and then slice and serve.
If you want to try something quicker, press mixture in to a small rectangular pan and cook at 400 degrees for 30 minutes instead.
Enjoy!

Fresh Basil Hummus

So with last week's basket we got a beautiful bag of fresh basil. It smelled incredible. I wish I had a way for you to scratch and sniff this page, but I don't.  Trust me it was so good.  I almost did not want to make anything with it so I could just have it smelling so delicious in my refrigerator.
This hummus recipe is super easy.
I threw all the ingredients into my food processor and Diane pushed ON a few times.
Serve it warm, it tastes best that way.
And also, try not to eat it all in one serving.

Fresh Basil Hummus
1 can chickpeas, organic preferred, rinsed off
2 cloves of garlic
2 T. lemon juice
2 T. Tahini
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup fresh basil, packed
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp parsley
1/4 cup water
Serve with crackers, pretzel crisps, or fresh toasted bread.

Some products live up to the hype and some don't

I follow a lot of food blogs and I love to try new snacks that are healthy. Since the members of this house have very varied diets, it is nice to find foods that are vegan but still taste great.  Therefore, the vegans in the house enjoy it, while the non-vegans don't mind eating it either.
Desserts and snacks seem to be the easiest category to make everyone happy.
I have heard about Sweet and Sara's goodies for a long time.  They are an all vegan natural company that is kosher too!  I follow them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Sara/122809066462 and you should too!  The owner, Sara,  has devoted her life to making vegan marshmallows and recently she has expanded to other goodies.  She runs her business with her parents, and she is dedicated to making our life more delicious one marshmallow at a time.

Yesterday I went to the grand opening of our Mom's Organic Market. It is a wonderful store, with so many unique items you cannot find anywhere else.  I was thrilled to find many of the Sweet and Sara products yesterday.  We have had the plain marshmallows, the coconut covered marshmallows, and the rice krispy treats.  The smores are out of this world.  But yesterday we tried the graham crackers for the first time.

I wanted to include on this post a picture of how cute the graham crackers were, but 12 hours later they are all gone.  The container came packaged with 2 individually wrapped groups of grahams.  The grahams were so crunchy, slightly sweet, and addictive.  They did not really taste much like the regular grahams you are used to. They were so much better.  You try a small bite and there is something in the graham that makes you need to eat more, and more, and more until the container is as empty as mine.
I did not plan to go back to Mom's so soon, but now another trip is in order.
I can't wait to make a 7 layer bar with these grahams, it will be sooooo good.
If you have not tried Sweet and Sara's give them a try!

Another great from the Farmer Delivery

Today's picnic basket delivery did not disappoint.  We have so much delicious foods and we are planning to make some delicious recipes including:
*grilled cheese with tomato rosemary bread, daiya cheese, red kale, and carmelized red onions.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
*strawberry smoothies with the few strawberries that are left, red kale, pineapple, oranges, coconut-almond milk and hemp seeds
*grilled asparagus with almonds
*Crispy Potatoes and Red onions, sliced very thin and cooked at a high temperature til very crisp
*lots of fresh salads with the crisp boston lettuce
If you are interested in having an amazing basket delivered to your front door please email nick@fromthefarmerdc.com

Happy Friday everyone!!

Green Power Burgers!

Sometimes you need to present a new food to little kids in a way that will make them want to eat it.  Today we made a green burger which we called Green Power Burgers. Teenagers do not fall for "this crap" they tell me. But little kids eat it right up.  These burgers were amazingly delicious.  Put them in a fresh bun, add all your regular toppings and you will want to eat another!
Some variations you could do are, for vegans, take out the egg and put in an energ egg or a flax egg. We made them tonight for the non vegan crowd so we put in the egg. Next time I will make them veganized.
I made 5 burgers and then the rest of the batter I made into meatballs that were incredibly good too. I baked the meatballs at 400 for 10 minutes in my toaster oven. Both the burgers and meatballs were perfectly cooked.
Leave me a comment if you try these!
Sara's Green Power Burgers
1 can chickpeas, rinsed well
1/4 of an onion
1 cup fresh spinach, packed
1 TB EVOO
1/2 TB soy sauce
1 tsp Oregano
2 TB sunflower seeds
1 egg
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs

In a large food processor, put in rinsed chickpeas and the onion.  Pulse a little bit.  Add in the spinach, the oil, soy suace, oregano and sunflower seeds, and pulse a little more.  Add in the rest of the ingredients. It all just goes in the bowl of the food processor.

 Mix up till well combined.  It should look like this!

Wet your hands and make into burgers or meatballs.  You can probably grill these too, but I do not have a grill.  These green power burgers go great with a side salad.

 This is what my burgers looked like when they were done. YUM!

From the Farmer Delivery Service

Over the past few years I hear more and more about CSA delivery services, organic pick your own farms, and various other ways to get locally grown fruits and veggies to our house.
About a month ago I saw a deal on Plum District to try 2 weeks of delivery of the From the Farmer delivery service for $40.  This was 50% off the regular price.  For $40 I thought it would be worth trying.  I emailed with Nick a few times before I bought the offer. He was so helpful and I know he was probably flooded with emails on the day his offer came out. But Nick answered all of my questions, and I quickly signed up.
It was easy to pick which weeks I wanted my delivery.  I just emailed Nick, told him which two weeks I wanted to try and then I just had to wait for those weeks to arrive.
Last week was my first delivery.  The excitement began on Thursday. I got an email from Nick explaining what items were going to be in the basket along with suggested recipes to use each item. Also included in the email are storage directions.  The only thing not included with the instructions was someone to cook up a few dishes.  Luckily we enjoy doing that ourselves!
I had trouble sleeping Thursday night in anticipation of our delicious surprise.
My little girl and I were so excited to open the front door at 7 am and see a bright orange picnic basket waiting for us.  From the Farmer delivers all the baskets between 4 and 7 am to avoid traffic and to get you the items as fresh as possible.  On our first delivery day we did not take any pictures. But the images are fresh in my mind.  My four year old brought the basket in herself and carefully opened it.  She took out each item and we talked about what it was, smelled it, thought about how we would use it, and then checked out the next item. 
So this week we remembered to put out our bright orange picnic basket last night.  This morning when we woke up I whispered to Diane, I think our picnic basket is here. She ran out of bed, opened the front door and could not have been more excited.  Today we got a bright red basket and the first thing she said was, there are green smelly things sticking out, what are they????

Diane was so excited that many of my photos are blurry.  I love seeing her excited about fruits and vegetables.  She told me the basket today was much heavier than last week so I helped her bring it to the kitchen.  We began unpacking to discover what we would be eating this weekend.

First we found the huge spring onions. I have never seen spring onions this big!  They were almost as tall as a 4 year old!

Next was a bag of mustard greens. Diane smelled it to see what flavors she could find.
The favorite find in the bag was the fresh strawberries.

The brothers each grabbed a few and declared, sweetest strawberries they ever tasted.
A couple of the sweetest apples I ever tasted were in the bottom of the basket as well.

A few items are not pictured including a bag of lettuce, a loaf of rye bread, and some strawberry lime marmalade. 
The saddest part of the basket is that the strawberries are all gone.  It is only 8 am and yes, they were all eaten up.  Didn't they look beautiful and delicious?

If you want to email Nick I am sure he will hook you up! You must live in the DC/MD area though. Sorry to all of you reading this from far away.
Or check out their website at http://fromthefarmerdc.com/

Quinoa Casserole

Quinoa is one of my favorite foods! It is such a healthy grain. I recently submitted this recipe to a request put out for favorite quinoa recipes.  I love to  cook, bake, and eat it quinoa plain!
My 4 year old loves this recipe. It is a great way to get kids to eat spinach too.  I hope you enjoy it!

Quinoa Spinach Casserole
1 tsp butter
1/2 cup uncooked quinoa
8 eggs or egg beaters
1 and 1/4 cups milk
1 TB chopped garlic
1 tsp chopped thyme
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped
1 cup finely shredded parmesan

Preheat oven to 375
Grease an 8x8 pan with the melted butter. I usually just spray it with PAM.
Set the pan aside.
Put quinoa in a fine mesh strainer and rinse until cold running water runs clear, drain well.
In a large bowl whisk together eggs, all the milk, garlic, thyme, salt and quinoa.
Stir in spinach and then pour into the pan.
Cover tightly with foil and gently jiggle the dish from side to side so that the quinoa settles to the bottom in a fairly even layer.
Bake until just set, about 45 minutes.
Remove foil and sprinkle the cheese evenly on top.
Return to the oven and bake uncovered until golden brown and crisp, about 10-15 more minutes.
Let cool briefly, then slice into squares and serve.