Cabbage Roll Casserole

I bought cabbage last weekend with the thought that I can chop it up and add it to a salad.  None of the recipes appealed to me though, for some reason.  Maybe because unless it's in coleslaw, I wasn't all that fond of the taste of raw cabbage.  In any case, I went to allrecipes.com, and searched "cabbage."  I decided to try this as I had most of the ingredients.  And it was SUPER EASY.  After cooking the meat, onions, and garlic in my dutch oven, that was it.  I put the rest of the ingredients in and let it bake away.  If you don't have a dutch oven, follow the directions below. 

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef (or turkey...I mixed mine)
1 C chopped onions
1 (29oz) can tomato sauce (I used a jar of spaghetti sauce)
3 1/2 pounds of chopped cabbage
1 C uncooked white rice (I used a mix of brown and red)
2  cans (14oz) beef broth
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). 
2.  In a large skillet, brown beef in oil over medium high heat until redness is gone. Drain off fat 
3.  In a large mixing bowl combine the onion, tomato sauce, cabbage, rice and salt. Add meat and mix all together. Pour mixture into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Pour broth over meat mixture and bake in the preheated oven, covered, for 1 hour. Stir, replace cover and bake for another 30 minutes. 

I did all of this while heating up food for my kids.  And now we will have a yummy meal for the remainder of the week too!  If you don't want rice, my guess is that you can use cooked quinoa to mix in at the end to substitute for the rice. (I did not try putting uncooked quinoa into the recipe).

Benefits of Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes are yummy.  Growing up in a Chinese family, this root was not in our typical food fare at home.  In fact, the only time it came up (and only when we were in college) was during Thanksgiving meals, when my mother would make yams with some marshmallows to "try" to be traditional.

In any case, with a family of my own, I'm trying out different ways to get my kids to eat different veggies.  I was roasting butternut squash for them recently, and thought to do the same with sweet potatoes.  Yes I know...duh.  But it's not in my repertoire of I-don't-need-to-think-about-how-to-make-Chinese-food-recipes, so that's my excuse.

There are multiple sites out there that will explain the benefits of sweet potatoes up the wazoo.  I'll just summarize them here for you.

1)  A medium sized sweet potato contains more than your daily requirement of vitamin A, nearly a third the vitamin C you need, almost 15 percent of your daily dietary fiber intake and 10 percent of the necessary potassium.

2)  The natural sugars in sweet potatoes are slowly released into the bloodstream, helping to ensure a balanced and regular source of energy, without the blood sugar spikes that can make you tired and gain weight.

3)  They have anti-inflammatory agents that may help with arthritis, stomach ulcers, emphysema, and your digestive tract.

4)  And most importantly, they are versatile.  You can roast, puree, bake, or steam them.  Put them in stews or in soups. Easy to use and yummy too.

Quick and Easy Mini Vegetable Egg Cups

Some times we just need quick and healthy breakfasts that we can chew.  (You know I love my Shakeology!).    These mini egg cups were super easy to make ahead of time and they have spinach to boot. Just pop them in the microwave for 20 seconds and you're good to go.  Yum! 


Nonstick cooking spray
12 large eggs
sea salt and ground pepper to taste
1 (10oz) bag baby spinach, finely chopped. (I eyeballed my amount)
1 medium red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 green onions, finely sliced (I opted out of this)

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Lightly coat a twelve-cup muffin tin with spray.
3. Place eggs in a large bowl; whisk to blend. Season with salt and pepper if desired.
4. Add spinach, bell pepper, and onions; mix well.
5. Evenly pour egg mixture into muffin cups.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread/Muffins

 Have you noticed that a lot of my recipes consist of breakfast foods?  Why do I post so many breakfast-y foods you may ask?   Because our mornings are go-go-go and I want my kids to have as healthy a meal as they can even when we're rushing out the door.   Another go-to in our family is Zucchini bread baked in muffin tins.  Here's the recipe with my tweaks in parentheses. ‪

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 1 hr (if in loaf pans). ~30 minutes in regular sized muffin tins. ~20 in mini sized muffin tins

Yields about 18 muffins.
Ingredients:
- 3 C all-purpose flour (I made mine with 2 C whole wheat, 1 C white flour)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3 tsps ground cinnamon (I used 2 tsp)
- 3 eggs
- 1 C vegetable oil (I used 1 C coconut oil, melted)
- 2 1/4 C white sugar (I used almost 2 C)
- 3 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 C grated zucchini (about 1 medium and 1 small)
- 1 C chopped walnuts (I opted out as I didn't have any)

Directions:
1. Grease and flour 2 8x4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. (I greased two regular sized muffin tins).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. If you're making muffins, bake for ~30 minutes or until tested in center comes out clean. Cool in muffin tins for 10 minutes. Remove and completely cool on rack.
If you're baking bread, bake for 40-60 minutes. Cool in pan for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Chocolate Chip Cookies I'm OK with giving my children

Sometimes you just need a treat. In this case, it was my son's 5th birthday last month and the teacher asked if I was going to bring something in for them to celebrate in preschool. I thought I could get away with not bringing anything (since we had a party which included his classmates), but I felt the mommy guilt. I didn't want to buy pre-made small cupcakes, as I always think there's way too much sugar in them, and the frosting itself can verifiably leave your kids on a sugar high for hours. So in comes #100daysofrealfood and me tweaking the recipe slightly to make that recipe even healthier. Here's the recipe for Whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies per the website. I have notes on where I changed things. You can definitely taste the lack of butter in these cookies. But you also get that wonderful coconut-ty flavor instead. 

 


2/3c whole wheat flour
1/2c white flour (or use all whole-wheat instead)--that's what I did
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter (8 TBSP), slightly colder than room temp. (I substituted with coconut oil-- see here to read all the great benefits of cooking with coconut oil)
1/4c brown sugar
1/4c white sugar (I used mostly brown sugar)
1 tsp vanilla
3/4c choc. chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
1) In a small bowl, mix together the dry ingredients with a hand-held whisk including the flour, baking soda, and salt.
In a large, separate bowl use an electric mixer to cream the butter. The butter is the KEY ingredient in this recipe and for best results it must be “slightly” colder than room temperature.

2) Add the egg, both sugars, and vanilla to butter until well mixed. Scrape sides of bowl as necessary.

3) With the electric mixer on low, add the flour mixture (in batches) to the butter mixture.

4) With a large spatula stir in the chocolate chips.

5) If you have time, and for the very best results, it is recommended that you chill the batter for 10 – 15 minutes before putting the cookies in the oven (even if your butter was the perfect temperature!). {Since coconut oil is room temp, I did chill the cookie dough by putting the whole mixing bowl into our deep freezer for 5 minutes. I would've kept it there longer if I wasn't pressed for time.}

6) Put spoonfuls of batter on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 7 – 9 minutes. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack.
Enjoy!

  

Spinach Banana Smoothie Pancakes

YUMMY!

Another staple in my household, Spinach Banana Smoothie Pancakes. I'm always trying to find ways to get my kids to eat more veggies. I found this recipe online a few years ago when I was trying to get my son to eat green things, and have tweaked it here and there. I made a double batch of these over the weekend, so I could freeze them for the kids' breakfasts. I just placed them between wax paper, put them in a ziploc freezer bag, freeze, and voila! Easy breakfast. The great thing about spinach is that it's super healthy, and when blended, there's no taste to it, especially when you have ripe bananas in there too.


Single batch...makes about 22 pancakes, using scant 1/4 cup to pour batter.

1 C almond milk, unsweetened
1 very ripe banana
2 C fresh baby spinach
1 C flour (I did 1/2 wheat and 1/2 white)
1 TBSP sugar (I already reduced this from the original 2 TBSP)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 beaten egg
2 TBSP butter, melted  

Syrup and butter for topping, or whatever you'd like. My kids get a few chocolate chips on top.

In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a blender, add milk, banana and spinach and blend until there are no flecks of spinach seen in the mixture. Blend in the egg and butter.

Pour green mixture in with the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Preheat griddle on medium low. Using a 1/4 measuring cup, drop batter onto the griddle. Cook until the tops are bubbly and edges are dry (darker green). Flip and cook another minute or so. 

Benefits of Using Coconut Oil

I am by no means a nutritionist at all, but I do try to be educated about some topics.  Of course, if you ever have any questions about whether something is healthy for YOUR particular diet/health, always check with a medical professional.  Here's what I found about cooking with coconut oil.

1) Digestion

Cooking with coconut oil can benefit your digestive system because it contains saturated fats with anti-microbial properties, which help eliminate parasites, bacteria and other causes of indigestion.  What does all that mean?  It means it may help prevent stomach-related problems because it is easy to digest.  Coconut oil is also healthy because it helps your body absorb nutrients, vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

2) Weight loss

Cooking with coconut oil can be helpful if you are trying to lose weight.  Woot woot!  According to www.organicfacts.net, coconut oil naturally increases your metabolism.  Coconut oil also has short -- and medium -- chain fatty acids, which can help you keep weight off.  Easy to digest, you will also find that coconut oil helps keep your thyroid healthy, too.

3)  Heart Disease  

Cooking with coconut oil is also now considered to be good for your heart. The oil contains 50 percent lauric acid, which is known to help control conditions like high cholesterol and high blood pressure. The saturated fat in coconut oil, unlike other vegetable oils, is not harmful and won't increase your LDL levels.

Now these are just a few of the benefits.  I've only used coconut oil so far with baking but will be thinking about using it more often now.