So you found a 2.5 pound bag of spinach in your fridge that's about to expire....don't fret!

Whoopsies! I meant to post this yesterday through the blogger app but it just saved as a draft.

Have you ever bought a bunch of produce, and a week later realized you have exactly 1.4 days left of use out of it? If you haven't, stop being my friend. Just stop, you are too perfect. 

I REALLLLLLLY try to make an effort to eat what I have and buy what I need, but every once in a while, I get super excited at the 13 pounds of snap peas and mushrooms at costco and what can I say? I go a little overboard. 

I have a green smoothie for lunch just about every day.

This was the first thing I did when I got back from Italy. Charlie promptly responded with "sweetie if you want I can just cut the grass and you can have it for free". Whatever, I love them, and I think they taste fruity and delicious.

Anyway, this week, I may or may not have found 2.5 pound bag of spinach in my fridge. Unopened. Expiring relatively soon. Two Point Five Pounds. Is this real?

Well, I can't have enough green smoothies to finish that off, so I decided to make "sag aloo" - an Indian dish for spinach and potatoes. Except I didn't use potatoes. So I made sag. I think. Or aloo. Whichever one means spinach.

Our players:

I sauteed a small/medium onion in some olive oil and salt, added the ginger, a teaspoon of each spice, and then about a pound of the spinach in batches. I didn't measure, but it was about half the bag, or less than half the bag. A lot of spinach - use your judgement, and if you don't want to, use a pound. As I added in the spinach I stirred it to get it "wet" with the oil, and then used my immersion blender to chop it up.

Add in more spinach, and do it again.

My pound of spinach significantly shrunk down to a size I could fathom a family of 4 eating.

Funny side story about my ginger:


I buy a hand of ginger, and I chop it up like shown above, and keep it in the freezer. I mostly use it in my smoothies but sometimes add it to whatever. Well, a couple of weekends ago I was sewing a valance for upstairs at my parents' house and my mom decided to make a smoothie. Unfrotunately, she thought my ginger was bananas, and had a not-so-great experience with ginger. Was pretty funny though.

My version of "sag aloo' minus the "aloo" is great alone, with rice, topped over salmon, or even used as a "relish" for burgers.






Ingredients:
-1 chopped onion, sauteed in olive oil
-1/2 inch of minced fresh ginger
-1 pound of spinach
-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
-1/2 teaspoon turmeric
-1 teaspoon cumin
-1 teaspoon garam masala
-1/2 teaspoon coriander

You can also add a can of chopped tomatoes to this, or some red kidney beans, or lentils. Yummmmm. You can also toss some chicken in it if you wanna please your man (well my man, who thinks no meal is complete without chicken).

Anyway, I am off to get an easy night. Charlie is finally off midnight shift and I get to watch tv in bed with him. A perfect Friday night!

Shabbat Shalom Y'all!

PS - the challah was so good tonight! Recipe soon.

Peanut-Teriyaki Green Beans

Craving: A twist on regular green beans!

This recipe is yummy and can be made with fresh, frozen, or canned green beans (although I really recommend fresh or frozen).

You can add spice to it with some sriracha or your favorite heat-provider (cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, etc). I eliminated this because someone I was eating with did not eat spicy food.

Ingredients (approximations, I never measure exactly when cooking)


1 pound fresh or frozen green beans
2 tbs creamy peanut butter (low fat okay)
2 cups teriyaki sauce
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tbs sesame seeds (black or white or combination)
1 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp minced garlic (I forgot to photograph this)
sriracha to your taste
1 tbs sesame oil to top
peanuts to top (optional)

Directions:
1. Steam or boil your green beans. (Steaming is better from a nutritional standpoint).
**Tip**: You can put them in a microwavable dish and seal with plastic wrap to "steam" the beans. This retains more nutrients than boiling.
Drain your beans and rinse with cold water to shock them.


2. Spoon peanut butter into a bowl and stir in the teriyaki sauce and water. Add the rest of the ingredients except sesame oil and peanuts. Stir together.


3. Put the beans in a pot and cover with the sauce, cook on medium-high for 10 minutes so the sauce thickens and sticks to the beans.

4. Top with sesame oil and peanuts and stir together. Serve and enjoy!

I made this recipe up and we had some extra sauce to green bean ratio when I made it, so adjusted it for this recipe. However, the extra sauce would have been really good with rice or noodles, or even to marinade chicken!

Mom's spinach/strawberry salad

Craving: Mom's spinach salad, of course

My mom is such a creative cook. In Israel you have very creative ideas for vegetable dishes and salads, and salad is basically served with EVERY meal. We would always have about 4 creative veggie dishes at a table. I get so upset with pot lucks that are all pasta based. Let's get creative people! It's not too difficult to make a side dish that is nutritious, creative, and delicious.

 A typical dinner at my house growing up was a fish or chicken, a whole grain, and let's say, 3 veggie side dishes. 

These are examples of dishes we had every night for dinner:

-sauteed green beans with spicy sauce

-broiled broccoli with soy sauce

-apple cider cabbage slaw with toasted pine nuts

-watermelon, feta, and mint salad with raspberry vinaigrette

-red cabbage slaw with pineapple

-steamed sweet carrots with sesame seeds

-"waldorf" salad - aka apple, celery, walnuts, pineapple

-roasted beets with balsamic vinegar

-eggplant with tahini sauce

-sweet potatoes stuffed with roasted grapes and goat cheese, topped with honey

and many more! Please be creative with your veggies, it's not that difficult.

This weekend Charlie has some of his best friends in town visiting for a bachelor party weekend. One of his best friends, Anthony, is having a baby in August, so he wanted to do the weekend before then. I cooked up a bunch of food for them and decided to make some healthy stuff as well (and then I ate a burger myself!).

I made two salads, both of which were delicious. When you have 4 big guys and you have one burger left but you finish a salad, you know it's just that good!

I forgot to snap a picture until we had already devoured some of it, but it still looks okay:


Here is her recipe for strawberry spinach salad:

Ingredients:
-1/2 lb spinach leaves
-1/2 pint of strawberries, sliced
-1/2 cup (i just eyeballed this and used handfsuls) of candied pecans
-2 tbs sugar (you can use splenda)
-2 tbs white vinegar
-1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
-2 tsp sesame seeds
-1 tsp poppy seeds
-1/4 medium onion, grated (you can chop it finely)
-1/4 tsp paprika (optional)

Directions:
1. wash the spinach and mix with the strawberries.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients except the oil. Slowly whisk the oil in so it emulsifies.
3. Mix the dressing into the spinach/strawberry mix, and toss with the pecans.

Enjoy!


Sidenote: do you have an ingredient that you always seem to buy, and then one day you find you have 4 open versions of it? One day my mom and I found like 4 bottles of white vinegar in her house!

Well, yesterday my mom went to fresh and easy and asked if I needed anything and I told her hamburger meat (for the guys...and me), and candied walnuts. Well after I made the salad, I went to put the walnuts in the pantry and found three packets! Woops. Katy is over and I just had her take a picture, in front of my finished wreaths!




Questions:
1. What creative foods will you challenge yourself to make this week?
2. Is there a food you always tend to overbuy?

The best brussel sprouts EVER recipe

Several months ago my good friend Haley had me over for dinner. She made these green beans wrapped in bacon. They were seriously the best thing ever. Charlie hates green beans and when I made these, he couldn't stop eating them. Now I know, bacon=not so healthy. But really, the trick to this recipe wasn't just the bacon, but the butter/brown sugar you drizzle on top!

So I started thinking, how can I healthify that? Well, instead of butter I used smart balance, and instead of brown sugar I used splenda brown sugar. Results? Just as good!

I had brussel sprouts yesterday and wasn't sure what to do with them.


One surefire trick to brussel sprouts, is peel the top layers off! I HATE brussel sprouts and think they are so bitter when the top layer is on. Peel them? Delicious.

I searched around on some blogs including http://afterdinnerdance.com/ and http://www.pbfingers.com/ and then decided to combine several things I saw, including Haley's trick of butter/brown sugar. I didn't have smart balance but a different low fat margarine spread, so any would work (including butter if you want the real thing, but nobody could tell the difference).

 The result? The best brussel sprouts EVER recipe. They compete with my "oh my g-d" cookies!

Ingredients:
1 bag of brussel sprouts, top layer peeled, and quartered
1/2 cup of cashews
1/2 cup of dehydrated shitake mushrooms (NOT rehydrated).
2 tbs vegetable spread
1 tbs splenda brown sugar mix

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Prepare your brussel sprouts so they are evenly cut (halved or quartered, and PEELED). Mix them with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Add your cashews and mushrooms to the mix.
3. Microwave your margarine/butter/spread for 30 seconds, add the splenda brown sugar, and mix in. You may need to nuke it for another 30 seconds. Spread it all over the brussel sprouts mixture and mix so it is even.
4. Transfer your mixture to a glass dish and cook for an hour, mixing it up every 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Recipe: tricolor pasta with veggies and chicken

Usually pasta dishes are super simple, and this one was, but for some reason, it took me forever to get all the veggies ready. I am sure there are people who are quicker in the kitchen who could get it done in no time.

Ingredients:

1 package of tri color spiral pasta

1/2 bag of frozen broccoli

2 cups of chopped kale

1 cup of mushrooms

1 yellow pepper

1 zucchini

1 jar of low sodium tomato sauce

1 chicken breast

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Meanwhile, chop your zucchini and pepper and put it in tinfoil with a little bit of salt and olive oil.

Seal up the foil and cook for about 45 minutes. When this is complete, open the bag and broil for 10 minutes. It should look like this or more browned (I got impatient).

2. Cook tri-color spirals as indicated on box. The last 5 minutes of cooking, add the frozen broccoli to the cooking water. Drain, and put back in the pot with half of the jar of tomato sauce. Add the pepper/zucchini mix.

*Note* I used dehydrated shiitake mushrooms since I have a big jar of them. I added them to the cooking water as well. If you are using fresh mushrooms, I recommend adding them to the zucchini/pepper mix.

3. While the oven is on 400, cook a chicken breast for about 25 minutes. I didn't marinate it, but cooked it with salt and other dried herbs.

The chicken won't be cooked through. In a small saucepan, cook the other half of the tomato sauce on medium heat. (I also added a bit of water). Cut up the chicken into bite sized pieces and add into the tomato sauce. Cook for ten minutes on medium. Add to pasta mix.

4. Steam your kale (you can do this in the microwave by putting it in tupperware with a tiny bit of water and sealing with saran wrap. It takes about 2-3 minutes in the microwave. Chop it up really small and add it in. 

5. Stir it all up, and serve yourself a bowl!

This pasta is FILLED with veggies, and everything is bite sized, so you are getting in a lot of nutrients, as well as eating less calories per bite because of the volume the veggies take up. Enjoy!

Spinach Smoothie with ginger and lime and other things I did on Wednesday

Cravings: An overall healthy day, plus a donut :-)

Yesterday I woke up and had a spinach smoothie. It was delicious! I added fresh ginger and a squeeze of lime, which I did not picture in the ingredients. Next time I will add a handful of fresh parsley or mint (whatever I have on hand, but I had neither).
Ingredients:

2 handfuls of spinach
1 can of pineapple chunks in juice (pour the whole thing in)
1.5 cups of no sugar added vanilla almond milk
1 cup of frozen strawberries
1 tbs chia seeds
half an orange pepper
1heaping tablespoon of greek yogurt

I blended all of it and then added the ginger and squeeze of lime:

Roughly peeled and sliced ginger.

Squeezed the lime in.

Re-blended. Poured into a cup. Put the rest in the fridge for later!

Yum..... (excuse the extremely tired/puffy eyes and no make up, I woke up with a massive headache).

After I made the smoothie I was in a cooking/healthy mood so I decided to do some cooking. Charlie said that he had been craving pasta since I made the beet gnocchi, so I whipped up a big pot of tricolor spirals with tons of vegetables and chicken.

Recipe coming soon.

I also started a batch of sweet potato gnocchi, but I decided to refrigerate it before rolling it and cutting it. Recipe and pictures when it's complete.

I also made a batch of brussel sprouts that are seriously the best thing I've ever had. My mom came over for a moment and couldn't stop eating them, and Katy came over and liked them, and she doesn't even like brussel sprouts!

I'll post the recipe later today.

After lots of cooking, I went to the gym with my friend Haley. I did a short cardio workout and then bodypump. Bodypump is my favorite class. I try to do it 2-3 times a week, although I had been slacking and hadn't been in a few weeks. Haley and I are both sore today. But I love it!

I realized I hadn't gotten an oil change or anything checked on my car in far too long, so I called the mechanic and he told me I could drop my car off in the evening. My dad then met me and drove me home. I was going to drop him off and take his car to go to a DG alumni event at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art but by the time we left the mechanic it was 7, and the event started at 7, and I would have been at least 45 minutes late. 

My dad suggested we go to the farmer's market on Rampart and Vegas drive. I see it every Wednesday and can you believe I haven't gotten? I was in Heaven! My dad definitely got irritated that I was taking so long and waited in the car. I did get him to snap a picture first:

I bought yummy strawberries, amazing apricots, some white peaches, parsley (for my smoothie, and some fish I have in the fridge), and beet hummus. The beet hummus is slightly sweet and delicious.

Speaking of apricots, my sister and I would eat them constantly when we were little, when we would visit Israel for the summers. Every time we had one (and I am talking at least one or two a day), we would open it first in half and check for worms. For some reason, we believed that worms often lived in apricots. I guess this was before pesticides if we were that paranoid about worms!!!

After the farmer's market my friend from the DG alumni group texted me that they were having snacks and drinks at FIX at Bellagio after the gallery, so I took my dad's car after all and joined them. I had a glass of red wine, and then we ordered fresh donuts and I am SO glad I had one - it was definitely worth it!

We had two for the table :-)

It was so good to see some of my friends that I hadn't seen in a while. I am actually meeting up with my friend Jodi who was there to work on a red/white/blue wreath for Memorial Day!

I dropped my dad's car off at my parent's house and Katy picked me up. We stopped at the store and I bought HUGE avocados and made more chocolate/berry avocado pudding. This batch is definitely the best so far! It's also really filling.

avoca

Recipes and other fun stuff to come!

Pizza success (and laughing so hard you may tinkle)

Pizza was a success! I made two different kinds, both Vegan. The crust was REALLY good, although next time I would like to add one more tsp of salt and one tablespoon of honey. I'll post the recipe after this in a separate post.

I rolled it out into two smaller pies, and baked it for about 20 minutes at 425 degrees.


Pie number 1: Onions caramelized in balsamic and zaatar, topped withs sliced tomatoes. I added the avocado the last 2 minutes.



Pie number 2. Not as visually appealing. Caramelized onions with sliced pear and "vegan" mozzarella cheese. I usually would use fresh mozzarella but I made this at my parents house.


Oh! Their neighbor brought sushi and I ate about 4-5 pieces. It was SO GOOD! I asked her if I could come over and have her teach me and she said she'd be glad to.


Here is some of the food from last night:


Adina made a salad, and then a platter with different salad toppings - it had jicama and just awesome things. It was such a cute idea and I am definitely replicating it. I really want to do the same thing but almost like a "seder plate" style, where the different salad mix-ins are in small little dishes.

Here is Maya, the Sal's youngest, with Maya, our youngest:


I went over to Jaren's after dinner with Jessi and she was hanging up her American flag wreath since her husband comes back from deployment this Wednesday:


Clara's new favorite thing is playing with credit cards from your wallet, so I cleaned mine out and brought her a bunch of cards. I also brought her my license that expired forever ago - Clara has a fake id! She was SO happy to get her presents and every few minutes would turn to me and smile and hold one up and say "presents"!




We then made signs, aka Jaren made a sign for Clara (yes there was a joke about why wasn't Clara doing this, 2 year olds these days), Jessi made a work of art for Joe (who comes back in 3 weeks) and I sat on the couch and drank a coke zero and a bag of bugles. I actually did help out by getting different things so Jaren didn't have to get up. Poor thing couldn't lay on her belly to work on the poster. I have quite a hilarious picture of her attempting to but I will not post.

Last night was definitely reminiscent of making signs for big/little week during my sorority days. It really felt like I was with old friends and we could not stop laughing. When a pregnant woman thinks she may pee herself laughing its not that big a deal, but when I almost do, it means you're having a good time!

Jaren will probably kill me but I had to snap a pic of her at one point because her face was bright red from laughing. I don't think you can tell in this pic, but trust me it was.


Hope you all had a weekend that made you laugh so hard you thought you'd pee yourself!

Spring Cleaning

Spring cleaning has been going on. And by that I mean I spent many hours attempting a wreath and about one cleaning. Charlie did drain the pool:


Apparently you're supposed to do this every like, 8 years, and the prior owners hadn't done it once. So we rented a pool pump/drain (no idea what it's called) and did it.

Doggies, don't fall in!

They don't seem too interested. (whoa, I almost typed to instead of too).

Last night while eating a batch of fresh kale chips (literally off of the pan I made them on) I had the idea to keep the pool empty since we will be in Alabama for June and July, so we could save a huge water bill! My mom and Katy were over but since my mom was sharing the kale chips with me and Katy hadn't dug in yet, I made Katy e-mail Charlie from my mom's computer. The e-mail said something like: Hey sweety, I have an idea, why don't we keep the pool empty until we're back and save a huge water bill? By the way, what the HECK is all the stuff in the gym room?"

Well let me show you what I found in the gym room, interspersed througout granola bar wrappers, silverware, and paperwork:

It was NOT in the laundry basket, just all over there. I guess I did do spring cleaning beyond the hour of organization. When my mom saw it she asked if I was sure I wanted to marry him. What a ridiculous question. I just need to make sure to go in there more often to clean it. If I don't go into the office for two days it looks like a frat house.

I forgot to take a picture of the kale chips but it was super easy and delicious. I literally just took precut kale, put it on a sheet pan with about a tbs of olive oil, then took a lemon wedge and sprinkled it, a tiny salt, and fresh parmesan cheese. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes (although I think next time I"ll do 15 minutes). I don't usually do parmesan but the Moutnains left me some when they left.

I also roasted brocolli and brussel sprouts in some balsamic and olive oil. Katy and I ate almost the whole batch for dinner. I was STUFFED off of vegetables.



This was already dug into. You don't use etiquette at the Maddox household, just dig on in!

The living room (and kitchen area) is a wreck because I am organizing everything. Mom came over to help but first we ran to hobby lobby to get the finishing items for my wreath (almost done!!!!). Mom had an MRI done and she did not have a tear which is good and bad. Good because it's not a tear, bad because there's no surgical solution. Just needs to endure the calcium until it dissipates.

We sat her down on the couch with a heating pad and Katy and I started working on the bookshelves in the living room. Katy and I both have one of our degrees in psychology (my other is math and her other is premed I think), and we were laughing because we were like mice that go and do something inefficiently several times before realizing what the quickest route is. We kept going around behind a couch side table before realizing we could go the other way (duh!), before realizing we could just move the original side table! We have lots more to do and she's coming over soon to finish the job.

Charlie came home from work early and he kissed me hello and proclaimed "you smell like kale" and I proclaimed "you smell like alcohol". Thank GOODNESS he went out and had a little fun (I know he only had one drink but still!). He has been working nonstop and so he and Rob went and had a drink after work. He seriously comes home most nights and this is what happens:

This is from a couple nights ago. Odge loves his daddy and his favorite spot is to crawl on top of your legs right in the crack between them.

So if you're wondering why on earth the wreath is taking so long, ask yourself: would you be able to work on it when this little bubba crawls right in?

Mom can I sit there?

I looked over to Charlie to help me but Maya was taking all his attention:

(notice the ladder in the background? For our bookshelves)


The dogs nicknames have changed to Lazy, Stubborn, and Annoying. Can you guess who is who?

Lee - help me out here, get up!


No mommy I'm comfortable. Go watch Big Bang Theory.

I guess I'll finish the wreath another day.