Test Kitchen Tastes & My Weekend Activities

Good Morning!  I hope you had a good weekend.  I sure did.  The weather both days was nice.  Saturday we got out again for another great walk on the local "Rails-to-Trails" path.  We put in a little over six miles in about an hour and a half so that was our cardio workout for the day.  It was a little sunnier than the prior weekend where we were blessed with a chilly fog.  I even took off my gloves part way through!  I'm bummed that I forgot my camera as the shot would have been much nicer than the one I posted last Monday.  There will be many more opportunities for landscape photos, I am sure.

My cooking took a little bit of a back seat this weekend.  I didn't spend hours upon hours in the kitchen because my schedule was a bit busy and I've sort of gotten in a rut where we have about two weeks worth of menu items that just seem to keep repeating.  I do like to keep things simple for the three of us who are at the table day after day.  It's the days that I'd like to have guests for dinner and am stressed about what to serve to people who don't necessarily eat like we do that motivates me to open up the Glaze Family Test Kitchen.  I was thinking about this over the weekend and what the intent of my blog is.  Fellow blogger, Carrie, is so good about creating her own recipes, and I often steal her recipes am moved by her to try something new, but I'm not as creative as she is, nor do I have the culinary expertise to know what ingredients go together to make dishes that may be palatable.

So what is the point of my blog? I asked myself that question and I think I've come up with a good answer.  I am a test kitchen of sorts.  I send out a lot of recipes that I think look good to friends.  I do this with permission of the original author.  Sometimes my friends and fellow nutritarians are a little skeptical to try new recipes for fear of wasting time and valuable ingredients.  I'll do that for you and report what my taste testers say!  Sometimes I create new recipes and I'll post those here too.  I'm still trying to figure out a good-tasting, healthy corn chowder.  I thought I would get to that this weekend, but I will try next week.

Saturday between that invigorating walk and meeting up with a couple of friends of ours, I made these brownies... again!  This time I made a double batch and split the batter between two pans so I could make some with almond butter frosting rather than peanut butter for my hubby, since he really shouldn't eat peanuts.  If you click on the link, you'll get the original recipe.  I will post mine below so you can see how I modified it to remove some of the coconut oil. Unfortunately, the brownies didn't cool enough for me to take with me to share with our friends.  I'm sure they would have liked them.  More for us!

Brownie Ingredients: 

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 1 cup pitted dates
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons almond butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup peanut butter (or 2 tbsp. almond butter & 2 tbsp. tahini)
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon coconut butter (melted)

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350.  Blend up all brownie ingredients in a food processor or blender until incorporated and smooth.  It will be thick.  Using a spatula, spread into a small baking dish (I used one of those little rectangle pyrex containers).  Mixture will be very sticky.  Bake for 20 minutes.
While brownies are baking, stir together the frosting ingredients in a small bowl.  It will be ready to spread on the brownies shortly after they come out of the oven.  Store in the fridge or freezer.

 

Lunch on Saturday started out as black bean wraps, but the romaine lettuce I had wasn't quite large enough to make wraps, so I chopped it up and the bean filling became a topper on the lettuce.  The addition of some chunks of pineapple really gave this salad a tropical feel.  To make the black bean wraps, mash an avocado, add a can of drained/rinsed black beans, 1/4 cup of salsa, 1/2 tsp of cumin, a little minced garlic & the juice of 1/2 lime.  Stir it all together and use as a filling in a few romaine leaves.  A nice cool, crunchy lunch!

All that giggling with our friends made me hungry for veggies when I got home, so I steamed up a huge bowl of veggies and topped it with a red lentil sauce.  The sauce had a little too much cumin (it takes a LOT to make it too much for me).  The next day I added some cranberry pear vinegar to the sauce and it made it much better!  The leftover veggies were served over the extra quinoa that I had from making the brownies.  I'm probably one of the few people who likes to eat leftovers.  I get satisfaction out of having an empty refrigerator.  Success!

Sunday morning came early with our weekly trip for "coffee and connecting." (A ritual my husband and I have been participating in for nearly 10 years).  I really enjoy this time we spend together.  Recently, I think it has become a little more special since we have really cut down our latte/mocha consumption to just one or two a week.  Of course, it's still as special from the standpoint that we get to catch up on everything that each other has done in the past week and what we have coming up. 

I was proud of myself and was quite productive between our coffee date and when I left for church in that I got an all-veggie lasagna made.  This was a recipe that was recently sent out by Dr. Fuhrman.  This is where the test kitchen comes in.  The recipe is posted below and I will tell you... I ate three way too many pieces!  It was delicious!  We don't eat eggplant for a variety of reasons, but I don't think we missed it.  The white sauce really tasted "cheesy" and I might use that base recipe in other dishes as well.  The instructions seem detailed, but it really didn't take long to put it all together and it is definitely well worth the energy to make it.  The layers actually held together better than a regular lasagna with noodles.

Ingredients: For the Red Sauce: 1 carrot, finely chopped 1 celery stalk, finely chopped 1 onion, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, crushed 1 tablespoon tomato paste 1 (28 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, chopped 2 tablespoons fresh basil, divided For the White Sauce: 1/2 cup raw cashews or brazil nuts 1/2 cup water 1 tablespoon arrowroot powder 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast 2 teaspoons onion powder 2 teaspoons VegiZest or other salt subsitute For Lasagna Layers: 2-4 carrots, cut into thin strips 1 large eggplant, cut into thin strips 2-3 zucchini, cut into thin strips 1 bunch rainbow chard, tough stems removed 1/3 cup arrowroot powder
Instructions: Heat oven to 375 degrees F. To prepare the red sauce: Heat 2-3 tablespoons water in a skillet and water saute onion, carrot and garlic until soft, about 2 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and half the basil. Add tomatoes. Simmer for 30 minutes, remove from heat and add remaining basil. If desired, use immersion blender to make sauce uniform but leave in a few lumps. Set aside. To prepare the white sauce: Blend cashews, water, arrowroot powder, nutritional yeast, onion powder and VegiZest until smooth. Pour into a small pan, bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes. Add more water as needed, it needs to be the consistency of very thick pancake batter. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Set aside. To Prepare Lasagna: Blanche carrots in boiling water for 2 min. Pat dry and set aside. Sprinkle arrowroot powder on a large plate. Press zucchini and eggplant slices one by one into the arrowroot, lightly coating both cut sides. set aside. Lightly spray 8 x 8 square baking dish with cooking spray or lightly wipe with olive oil. Place half of the white sauce on the bottom of the pan. Layer half of the chard, followed by half the carrots, eggplant and zucchini. Top with the second half of the white sauce and layer the remaining vegetables. Press down if needed, the chard layer will will flatten during baking Top with red sauce, sprinkle top with roughly chopped nuts if desired. Bake in 375 degree oven until most of the juices evaporate and top is firm, about an hour. Initially, vegetables will produce a lot of liquid, keep baking until it is evaporated.

Before baking -- I made it early in the morning
and refrigerated it til baking time

Served with a green salad, a lovely dinner!

I will wrap up today's post since it's getting a little long.   

Wednesday is the beginning of Lent.  Do you observe Lent?  If so, do you give something up? Attempt to make a change in your life?  It is coming early this year, so it may be a good time to re-affirm a New Year's resolution if you've made one.  It is also an opportunity to make a healthy change in your life.  I've heard that it takes 28 days to break a habit.  Lent is 40 days long, so it's a great time to break a habit or make a change.  Some years I've "given up" things from chocolate to ALL sugar.  In my years of not eating as healthy as I do, I questioned by sanity by about Day 4.  It's funny because during that time of Lent, all I could think about was Easter and eating chocolate (or whatever it was I gave up) as soon as Lent was over!  I don't think I would look at it the same now.  I think this year I'm going to focus my energy on being accepting of difference and to work on keeping an open mind.

Have a great week and I will be back here on Wednesday, maybe with a soup recipe, but definitely with some exercise tips! Toodles.