Spaghetti Squash Tostadas

I am so sick of school fundraisers. That sounds horrible I know, but also very true. It all came to a head last week with a fundraiser not benefiting the school. I won't go in to details, but since I decided that I didn't want to have my son raise money he was not allowed to enjoy the popsicles and apple juice that all the other kids received for participating. I could have done the fundraising, but I chose not to. It was the 4th fundraiser since the beginning of the school year. During the first fundraiser my son raised 1200 dollars. I feel that that should be more than enough as my contribution for fundraising for the year. Apparently not though, they have had 3 more. Maybe I am getting old, but when I was growing up we had one fundraiser a year. One, nothing more. I understand that times have changed, things cost more money etc. However, I would rather donate supplies that I bought at 90 percent off at Target than donate to 4 fundraisers in 8 months. I joked with my husband that I am going to run for PTO next year with the slogan work smarter not harder. Obviously that won't happen, I'm way too much of a perfectionist to deal with all the fundraising drama. In the meantime I bought my son a whole box of popsicles for the dollar that he would have had to raise to enjoy the one at school.

 I try to incorporate at least one vegetarian or vegan meal into my meal plan every week. If left to their own devices my family would only eat meat (mostly bacon) three times a day. I prefer a more varied diet and have slowly converted them to my thinking. My husband has even started drinking the banana tofu smoothie I blogged about recently for breakfast every morning. Major progress. Last week I tried a new recipe for Spaghetti Squash Tostadas from the March 2014 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 25 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. First, I used homemade beans instead of canned. I prefer homemade beans, they are cheaper and far lower in sodium than store bought. Secondly, my microwave wasn't large enough to fit the spaghetti squash in so I roasted it in the oven instead. It was easy since it could roast the squash while the tomatoes and onions were in the oven. Finally, I make my own chili powder. The flavor is better and it stores for 3-6 months, so it saves money.

With 440 calories and 11 grams of protein these tostadas were a nice vegetarian meal option for my family. My husband absolutely loved the spaghetti squash and ate the leftovers without the tostada shell for breakfast the next morning. Like most kids my sons were thrilled with the spaghetti squash, it's very kid friendly. To cut down on the heat for their servings, I tossed sour cream with the squash on their plate.

For the recipe go to Spaghetti Squash Tostadas. 

Winter Vegetable Dal

Winter Vegetable Dal

I want my kids to fail. That's right I don't want my kids to succeed at everything they try. Why? Failure is one of the most important lessons we should be imparting to our kids. Let me provide a little background to my reasoning. My son came home from school last week and informed me that everyone got a ribbon for participating in a school event. Great, so everyone wins for doing nothing. I know that sounds a little harsh, but good old fashioned competitiveness is not a bad thing. I failed a lot growing-up. I tried basketball, softball, gymnastics and I was horrible at all of them. Then I discovered swimming and I was great at it. The pleasure I got from succeeding was that much better since I knew what it was like to be horrible at something. In college I had a professor inform me that I didn't understand anything about the concept of 'national identity' and that I should avoid a degree in English. I ended up getting my BA in English Literature and wrote my master's thesis on national identity and geography. However, if I hadn't done horribly in that class I might have had a very different life. We remember the times we fail, we need those failures to become the adults we are. It seems that we are now teaching our children that failure should be avoided in order to save our children the pain. Yes failure hurts, but the success that eventually comes is that much sweeter for having the fought our way back. So yes I want my children to fail, I will comfort them from the pain and cheer them on when they find a way to succeed. It's a part of growing-up.

My family rarely eats out, less than once a month. However, we all love various ethnic foods so I try to re-create as many dishes at home as I can. Last week I tried a new Winter Vegetable Dal recipe from the January/February 2014 issue of Eating Well magazine.

Winter Vegetable Dal

 

This recipe has 18 ingredients. It takes 1 hour of total time, 35 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I did make a number of changes to the original recipe. First, I used a bay leaf instead of curry leaves. Curry leaves are very hard to find in my area and I didn't want to have to go searching for them. I thought that I had cumin seeds in my cupboard, but wasn't able to find them when I made the recipe so I substituted ground cumin instead. I cut my potatoes small, but I still found that my dal took longer than the recipe suggest for the vegetables to fully cook, approximately 10 additional minutes.

Winter Vegetable Dal

My husband and I enjoyed this recipe. It was mild enough that my kids loved it while still being flavorful enough for adults. If you like your dishes spicier you can add a small amount of crushed red pepper. The leftovers of this dish re-heated well and it tasted great over brown rice.

For the recipe go to Winter Vegetable Dal.

40 Minute Vegetarian Butternut Squash Posole

Butternut Squash Posole

I would love a weekend just to relax. It never seems to happen in my household. With two very active boys, grocery shopping and household needs my weekends seem to be more hectic than weekdays. Mondays end up being the day I recover from my weekend and start the craziness of my normal weekday routine.

The weekend also seems to be the time that my kids start acting a little crazy. They are decent during the week, but come Friday night everything goes south. By Saturday they are sick of each other and want their space. Last weekend my husband and I tried to enjoy a rare Saturday night out, which ended with a wild Sunday morning. Plus my youngest managed to shut his finger in a hotel door and his finger was more than a little swollen and purple. I'm hoping as they get older that things start to settle down.

Since it's winter squash season I have been using a lot of butternut and acorn squash in recipes. I love butternut squash since it's versatile and adds great flavor to dishes. Last week I tried a new recipe for Butternut Squash Posole from the September 2013 issue of the Food Network Magazine.

Butternut Squash Posole Food Network Magazine September 2013 

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. First my grocery store can be hit or miss with the types of peppers that they carry. There were no poblanos the week I made this recipe, so I substituted an Aneheim pepper since they were available. I bought regular tomato puree, not no salt added, I just added less salt to the recipe. Topping the posole with avocado is a necessary step. It takes the soup from being average to delicious. I really recommend adding it as a topping.

With 9 grams of protein per serving this is a nice vegetarian dinner recipe. My two kids fell in love with this recipe. They ate almost all 4 servings by themselves. I liked that it was easy to put together, while having enough flavor to satisfy everyone in my family. The only change I would make would be to buy 2 avocados since 1 is not enough for 4 servings.

For the recipe go to Butternut Squash Posole.

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40 Minute Vegetarian Butternut Squash Posole

Recipe Type: Main

Summary:

Easy vegetarian soup recipe. Kid friendly and easy to prep.

Preparation Time: 0h, 30m

Total Time: 0h, 40m

Yield: Serves 4

Thanksgiving Recipes - Crustless Pumpkin Pie, Gluten Free Cushaw Pie and Individual Mashed Sweet Potato Casseroles

I love cooking for the holidays. Growing-up our house was always busy during the holidays with my mother cooking, cleaning and hosting. I never really understood how big my mother's family was until I went to other people's houses. My mother was the oldest of 12 kids and I have so many cousins that I would have to sit down and count it out to figure out the exact number. Needless to say, our house was always busy and even though I was technically an only child that was more in theory that actual practice. Every weekend there was either family at our house or we were visiting someone. Growing-up this led to a lot of jealousy on my part. I never really understood why I had to share my mother with so many other people. Now that my mother is gone and I have gotten a lot older I realize that some of my best memories involved growing-up in the constant chaos of a very large extended family. There was never a question of what to do, just who to do it with. You were never alone, which now that I have a family of my own and live far away from home I miss more than I would ever think possible growing-up. Baking and cooking is one way that I keep the spirit of my mother alive and well with my own family and this Thanksgiving I tried new recipes, mixed in with recipes I make every year. Here is a break-down of how Thanksgiving at my house looked.

I hate turkey. I know that sounds horrible, but I think I may be one of the few Americans alive that hates turkey. I have tried to grow to love the poultry over the years, but I just can't do it. It's doesn't help that the leftovers last for days and I have never been a fan of turkey pot pie (I know I seem to not like any quintessiantal American food). So this year I decided to go outside the box. I made individual cornish game hens and my kids absolutely loved them! Here is a pic of the finished product:


The game hens went over very well and my youngest child ate a whole game hen all by himself. Plus the leftovers made for two great pots of homemade stock the next day.

For side dishes I made garlic buttermilk mashed potatoes, seen here:


And Sauteed Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Apples (link to recipe in text).


And last minute I had extra sweet potato puree so I made individual sweet potato casseroles:


I modified a recipe found here. I added extra marshmallows since my kids love them and slightly reduced the amount of orange juice to approximately 1 tablespoon.

For dessert I made two pies the day before Thanksgiving. I was kind enough to be given over 20 pounds of sweet potatoes and cushaw squash from a friend of my husbands. Thanks to this generosity I was able to make two pies and a side dish without spending any money, which I love! For the first pie I made crust-less pumpkin pie. I can no longer eat gluten so this was an easy way to make the pie gluten free. I followed this recipe and here is the photo:


I did let the pie cook longer than the suggestion, I would say closer to an hour. Part of the longer cooking time was due to the fact that I made one deep dish pie and a series of mini pies in small souffle pans.

The second pie I made was a gluten free cushaw pie. I combined two recipes to make this pie. The first recipe was for a gluten free pie crust. Here is the link. Be very careful when working with this crust. It takes time in the freezer to fully set, do not try to over knead it or it will be tough. Additionally, make sure to follow the directions where the crust is set between two pieces of parchment this is an important step and the only way that you will be able to move your crust from the counter to the pan. For the actual pie filling I followed this recipe.

That was my Thanksgiving. I was happy that all my recipes and dishes turned out delicious and I was surrounded by my family. I hope all my readers had a great Thanksgiving! 

Butternut Squash and Tomato Posole

My blog readers are probably getting tired of me expressing my love of butternut squash, but I am going to do it again. I love butternut squash and fall cooking in general. As I have stated before the flavors of fall are comforting and delicious when the weather gets cold. Butternut squash to me is one of the staples of fall cooking. It is extremely versatile and can be used in pastas, soups, stews, chili and baked goods. It is also a great way to hide vegetables for kids in muffins and breads. Stew is a staple in my house during the fall and winter. I am always cold once the weather gets cooler so I make a lot of hot stews and soups in order to stay warm. When I first started cooking stews for my family we all fell in love with posole. It is a satisfying and delicious dinner and I make it frequently. Last week I tried a new recipe for Butternut Squash and Tomato Posole from Eating Well magazine, which looked like a great new vegetarian posole recipe.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes a total of 45 minutes, 20 minutes of which is active and makes 5 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. I normally buy whole butternut squash, but my store was out so I bought already cut butternut squash. The recipe suggests breaking up the tomatoes by hand, I find this messy. The method I always use is to place the tomatoes in a Ziploc bag, squeeze out the air and then crush the tomatoes by hand in the bag. Much less messy and an easy clean-up. I let my posole cook slightly longer than the recipe suggested. At 30 minutes the squash was more firm than I like. Make sure to fully rinse your canned beans. If the beans are under rinsed they will have a metallic taste, which is unappetizing. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

With 10 grams of fat and 9 grams of protein this is a satisfying meal without being high in fat. The fresh avocado and cilantro on top gives the posole a nice well-rounded flavor. I will say that this recipe isn't overly spicy so if you like spicier posole I would suggest adding a small amount of cayenne. This recipe in addition to being healthy is also inexpensive, costing less than two dollars a serving.

For the recipe go to Butternut Squash and Tomato Posole.

Yellow Squash Brownies

I absolutely love brownies. On more occasions than I would like to admit I have eaten an entire batch all by myself. There is something so perfect about chocolatey brownies right out of the oven. Since my oldest son is home from school for the summer I have been baking up a storm. Both of my boys are in major growth spurts and have been eating everything in sight. So I was very grateful when friend gave my 15 pounds of yellow squash a couple of weeks back. After canning, making cake and yellow squash chocolate chip cookies I was still left with pounds of yellow squash. So I thought long and hard about what to bake and came up with the notion of baking brownies. I browsed around the internet until I found a recipe for Squash Brownies, which looked easy and a perfect solution for my squash abundance.

This recipe has 16 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time and makes 20 servings. I made a few modifications to this recipe. Most importantly instead of using oil or butter I substituted unsweetened applesauce. I substitute exact amounts when using applesauce. This recipe would also work and have a richer flavor if you substituted 1/2 cup of applesauce and still used the 1/2 cup of butter. When using applesauce the baking time is always increased. On average my baking times increases 5-15 minutes. I normally check my baked goods frequently to make sure that they are baking correctly and pull them out as soon as they are done. I chose to leave out the nuts, my two boys are not fan of brownies with nuts and will normally turn up their noses. Most importantly with this recipe make sure to adequately get all the liquid out of the squash. I place the shredded squash in-between a layer of paper towels and squeeze it over my sink. There will be a very large amount of water, keep squeezing until no additional water comes out.

My two boys loved this recipe and had no idea that they were eating brownies made with squash. I loved how the brownies were still very cake like even though I substituted applesauce. Spreading the top with chocolate after they were baked made for a delicious and easy frosting. This recipe was a great way to use my overabundance of squash and would also work very well with zucchini or pattypan squash.

For the recipe go to Squash Brownies.

Food and Wine Pasta with Roasted Squash, Sausage and Pecans

Pasta recipes always grab my attention. I read through a ton of magazines every month looking for new recipes to try. I glance over any recipe with impossible to find ingredients or a flavor that I know that someone in my family refuses to eat. Then I look through the remaining and pull out all the recipes for my recipe file (which funny story is now in an old suitcase). I have a ton of pasta recipes in my pile of magazine recipes to try in the future. I can always be guaranteed that my children will at least try a pasta recipe, which is more than I can say for other recipes. I normally make pasta at least once a week, so I try to vary the vegetables and meats that I use. The February issue of Food and Wine Magazine had a recipe for Pasta with Roasted Squash, Sausage and Pecans, which looked easy and a perfect way to use winter squash.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes 50 minutes to prepare and cook, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. I did find that my sage didn't work exactly as the recipe stated. When I added my sage to the butter, it only got partially crisp, which was fine since it was for flavor and none of us would have actually eaten the sage leaves. Be careful when roasting the butternut squash or it will burn. I stirred my squash twice during the cooking time to prevent sticking and burning. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The flavor on this dish is mild. The only flavor comes from the sage and the butternut squash. It is a good basic, pasta dish, but it would benefit from either using hot Italian sausage or adding red pepper flakes. My two boys liked the mild flavor and ate their entire serving. My husband and I added red pepper flakes, which we both thought added a nice flavor to the dish.

For the recipe go to Pasta with Roasted Squash, Sausage and Pecans.

Everyday Food Roasted Squash with Parmesan Herbs

One of my favorite things about the fall is the abundance of inexpensive squash. For many years I only made acorn squash roasted with maple syrup or brown sugar. As I got older I branched out to other types of squash and absolutely fell in love with butternut and spaghetti squash. I love how easy it is to create a delicious pasta dish with roasted squash and how little effort it takes. The squash I use the most is butternut squash and since I use it so frequently I figured that it was time to try other squash varieties. Recently, Everyday Food Magazine had a recipe for Roasted Squash with Parmesan and Herbs, which looked delicious and different than my normal squash routine.

This recipe has 10 ingredients. It takes one hour and twenty minutes to roast the squash,15 minutes to prepare the dish and makes 6 servings. All the ingredients were easy to find at my local grocery store and I made no substitutions. I used flat leaf parsley, which is the only kind that my husband will eat, he doesn't like the texture of regular parsley. The longest part of this recipe is making sure to remove the seeds and scraping out the flesh of the squash after roasting. I actually added more than the recommended 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, my family loves cheese so I added more than twice the amount. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

Getting my kids to try new types of vegetables can often be difficult on the best of days. This recipe was well received by both of my boys, they actually thought the squash was pasta. I liked that one squash made more than enough for my family of four and the taste of the fresh herbs was delicious. A great way to try new squash varieties and very kid friendly.

For the recipe go to Roasted Squash with Parmesan Herbs.

Taste of Home Roasted Butternut Linguine

  My two boys love any type of vegetable that I put on their plates. Oftentimes they will eat all their vegetables and not touch the main dish. I have been trying to introduce them to as many type of fruits and vegetables that I can find at my local stores Most have been a hit, some not so much, but I keep trying. Greens are particularly liked by the members of my family, especially my husband. I was excited when the august/September issue of Taste of Home magazine had a recipe for Roasted Butternut Linguine, which included mustard greens, a favorite of my household

This recipe has 9 ingredients and takes approximately 15 minutes of prep and 45 minutes of baking. The original recipe uses Swiss chard, which I was unable to find at any of my local grocery stores. Therefore I substituted mustard greens. I found that it took only approximately 40 minutes to roast the onions and squash, not the 45-50 minutes stated in the recipe. I followed the remainder of the recipe as stated.

I really enjoyed the roasted butternut squash and onions in this recipe, it gave the dish a pleasant, sweet undertone. My husband thoroughly enjoyed the mustard greens, and my kids enjoyed the whole dish. I appreciated that the dish went together very quickly, with the oven doing most of the work. A delicious, quick recipe, which is a great way to get more vegetables.

For the recipe go to Taste of Home Roasted Butternut Linguine.

Rachel Ray Pasta with Minted Pattypan Squash

A couple of weeks back, I was fortunate enough to receive a large amount of garden squash from a friend. I came up with a number of recipes to use the zucchini and yellow summer squash, but two of the types of squash proved harder to find recipes. Before receiving the squash, I had never even seen pattypan squash, much less used it in recipes, so I scoured the internet looking for possible dishes. Most of the recipes looked to be unexciting or variations on squash bread recipes, which I had already made with yellow squash. Finally, I was able to find a Rachel Ray recipe for Pasta with Minted Pattypan Squash, which looked like a delicious way to use fresh garden squash.

This recipe has 10 ingredients, including salt and pepper. The total time is 20 minutes, with 15 active. I had to make a number of modifications to this recipe. First off, my squash was much larger than the squash used in her recipe. Rachel Ray quarters her squash, my squash was way to large to use in this manner, so I chopped mine, after peeling. The on-line recipe does not peel or seed the squash, but I think the texture would have been tough if the peel had been left on the larger squash, so I peeled and seeded mine, Additionally, the recipe sautes the onion, but leaves the garlic raw. I prefer sauteed garlic in pasta dishes, so I sauteed the garlic with the onion after the onion was almost browned. Finally, I used slightly less pasta water than the suggested 1/3 cup, probably closer to a 1/4 cup.

The taste of this pasta dish was delicious. The sweetness of the pattypan squash worked perfectly with the cheese and the pasta, creating a great tasting dish. I particularly liked how easy to put together this dish was, and that it used fresh vegetables. This recipe is a great way to use seasonal fresh vegetables and is easy enough for a quick weeknight meal.

For the recipe go to Rachel Ray Pasta with Minted Pattypan Squash .