May 13, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Grilled Smashed Red Potatoes

It is finally grilling season again! I have been offline a lot lately, but am going to try to keep up with the recipes we have been trying. I started doing Weight Watchers in February, and have found and created some awesome recipes that I will like to keep. Since I have been doing this for myself, I am going to add points to the bottom, more for my own reference than anything. That way when I am looking for my own recipes, it will remind me what they are worth. Any questions, please ask.

These potatoes were great! I had some leftovers this morning with an egg on the top. The kids ate them up as well, which is always a plus.

This recipe was originally on grillocracy, but I had to adapt it to my timing (which was less than an hour for potatoes) and grill (charcoal).

Grilled Smashed Red Potatoes

1 red potato per person

Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Garnish, Fresh chopped parsley

Prepare your grill. For me, that means start the charcoal. Get out the number of potatoes you are going to make. I made 5, so we would have leftovers. Wash and dry them, and poke holes all around. Microwave on high for 10 minutes or until tender. Let them rest in the microwave until you are ready to smash them. On a piece of parchment or silpat, smash each potato with the bottom of a heavy pan until they are 1/2 inch thick. Drizzle a little oil or spray with cooking spray and sprinkle with salt. Place them on a grill pan (as pictured) or straight onto the grill and grill for 20 minutes until golden brown and crispy.

Pop them in a preheated oven to keep them warm before you serve.

Plate and top with torn parsley then serve.

Smart points = 2 points for a 1/2 cup serving.

March 5, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Green “Monster” Muffins

I am constantly looking for different lunch options for Finnegan. He loves peas, so I try to incorporate them into most of the green items I bake for him. This is the newest addition to our healthy muffin stash. Finn likes them, Isla is questionable about them and my nephew didn’t like them at all. He doesn’t like peas. So you win some and lose some, but at least Finnegan has something new to take for lunches.

These pictures above have been frozen, but I wanted to include a picture so we could see how green these muffins really are.

Green Monster Muffins

2 cups fresh spinach
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
2 apples, cored not peeled
1/2 cup cooked broccoli (optional)
3 cups flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

1 cup frozen peas

In a blender, mix spinach, eggs, sugar, and 2 apples. Puree until smooth. Pour into a mixing bowl and add dry ingredients. Mix until smooth. Add in frozen peas and mix well. Prepare muffin tins. I use silicone muffin cups, but you can just grease the muffin tins as well. The mixture is very thick and sticky, almost like a dough rather than a batter. Evenly split between 24 muffin cups and bake at 350°F for 15 – 20 minutes. Check them at 15 minutes but back longer if need be.

February 21, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Broccoli Soup

Years ago, a friend of ours came over and made dinner for us. At this dinner, he made a soup that was amazing….amazing and so incredibly simple. I make this quite often, and keep forgetting to snap a picture before we devour it.

Broccoli Soup

1 head of broccoli, florets only
2 oz creamy goat cheese
Salt
Pepper
Kalamata Olive Oil

First bring a pot of water to boiling. Salt it heavily, about 2 tbsp worth of salt. When the water has been brought to a full boil, add the broccoli in. Let them boil about 3 minutes until bright green and just done. Don’t let them boil too long or they will get soggy. Transfer the cooked broccoli into a blender with just a little water from the pot. Blend. If too thick, add more of the cooking liquid. You want the consistancy to be soupy but not babyfood. Put 1 oz of goat cheese in the center of each bowl, and pour the soup around it. Drizzle a little olive oil and pepper to taste. Enjoy immediately.

February 16, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Dutch Babies

Our Valentine’s morning.

These are light and fluffy. The perfect base for a special breakfast that won’t make you feel bad after eating them. Isla insisted on making frosting with these, so we did. She had a little frosting ove her strawberries, I had just fruit, Paul some lemon curd, fruit and strawberry jam and Finnegan just had strawberry jam. These were perfect for what we wanted on this Valentine’s Day.

Dutch Babies

1 cup 2% milk
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
6 eggs
4 tbsp butter, melted
dash of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange zest

Preheat to 400°F. Grease 24 muffin tins and set aside. Blend all ingredients together and pour about 2 tablespoons of batter into each tin, a little less than half way up the muffin tin. Bake for 13 – 15 minutes in a preheated oven. Serve with your choice of fillings. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, sausages, maple syrup, powdered sugar, jams, jellies, curd….the possibilities are endless. Each dutch baby is only 2 points!

February 14, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Heart Activities

The last couple of times when I had my “extras”, we did crafts with hearts. Valentine’s day allows for a lot of different, fun activities for preschool aged kids. These are a couple of crafts we did.

Marshmallow hearts. I printed a heart made of dots online, and gave them a bowl of marshmallows. They had to put a marshmallow on each dot, before they could eat them. This was a real challenge. More because they wanted to eat the marshmallows than anything else. “I’m t’ungry” I heard a lot during this activity.

We decided instead of playdoh one day, we would play with clay. We made different shapes – hearts, circles and triangles (and snakes) this day. Then I baked their creations and glued leftover magnets to the backs of the flat creations.

I cut many hearts out of colorful paper. Some I numbered for the game above, and some I left so that I could play heart hop with the kids. They started by jumping from heart to heart. Then we jumped from color to color. Then we placed our hands on one color and feet on another. It was fun until the babies started eating our paper hearts. After playing heart hop (I didn’t get a picture of this), the kids sat at the table with the hearts that I numbered. Each kid was given some oyster crackers, a numbered heart and were supposed to fill each circle with a cracker and count to that number. My youngest nephew, pictured here, really loved the crackers and didn’t quite understand that I wanted him to “decorate” the heart before eating them. But I let the eating happen this time, as I learned my lesson from the marshmallow activity above.

Here the kids made Valentine’s mailboxes (pictured in their laps), heart dog hats (on their heads) and bead necklaces (on their necks). We also made some Valentine’s, mosiac hearts and ate Heart pasta for lunch. I bought some heart marshmallows from Aldi recently, and they also got one of those as well.

Our experiment had to wait until the end of the day. Finnegan insisted on being included in the science experiment, because he doesn’t get to do science at school yet. So while the kids did different activities, I took white all purpose glue and drew hearts on a paper for each child. While the glue is still wet, I sprinkled each paper with some baking soda and shook it around so the glue was nicely covered.

I let the papers dry for a couple of hours. When it was time to do the experiment, I placed the papers on a baking sheet and gave the kids all a pipette and vinegar in a small bowl. They squeezed the vinegar on each heart to create a fizzing heart. I found this experiment on Pinterest and it looked easy and fun.

There is a lot of love in this house for fun!

Enjoy your Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Muesli

I have made this Muesli more times than I can count. It is easy, and we eat it either with milk, yogurt, or sometimes I will cook it like oatmeal or sometimes even make baked oatmeal out of it. It is hard to think of easy breakfasts that are a little different. I tend to serve a lot of wheat based products to the kids, so this is a great alternative.

Muesli

4 1/2 cups oats
1 cup walnuts (pecans or almonds)
1/2 cup oat bran
1/2 cup milled flax seed
1 cup raisins (golden or red)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Mix all and enjoy.

February 5, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Maple Granola

Along with making Muesli, I decided to make a granola as well. This was delicious. Not clumpy but like a granola cereal you would purchase. I will make this again, but would also like to try a clumpier, crunchier recipe as well.

Maple Granola

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup sweetened coconut
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
3/4 tsp kosher salt

Mix first 5 ingredients through brown sugar together in large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine oil, syrup and salt together. Pour wet ingredients over oat mixture and mix well. Pour onto two baking sheets and put into a preheated 250°F oven. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. Toss every 15 minutes.

I ate mine with milk and strawberries. Paul likes his with yogurt and fruit better.

UPDATE – After starting weight watchers…I am measuring granola and keep to the serving size. It is 7 points per 1/3 cup serving for this granola. It is delicious, so I try to sprinkle it on yogurt and use less now that I know how many points it is worth.

February 4, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Character Patches

Finnegan has been running holes in more pants. I feel like I just fixed his other monster pants. I guess that is how it goes with a 6 year old boy.

So, I grabbed my trusty bag of felt scraps…and threw these together today. New patches!!!

He is obsessed with Legos and Star Wars. So these seemed fitting.

January 31, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Mushroom Carpaccio

I was reading through my recent Cooking Light Magazine and came across a Mushroom Carpaccio that seemed interesting. I put it on the menu board to be made, but somehow we over looked it for a couple of weeks. Then, the other night I came back to that recipe and decided that I would make it. I pulled out the mushrooms and sliced them as thin as could. Set them in the tart plate that I have, and moved onto the herbs. Then I realized, I didn’t have what I needed to make the recipe as it was written. What rotten luck! Oh well, improvising is something we do often here, so instead of parsley, I used cilantro and spinach. This turned out really nicely, and when we made the real recipe days later to compare, we ended up liking our improvised version better.

I didn’t get to take a picture until the salad was half gone, but it was quite delicious and really easy to throw together.

Mushroom Carpaccio

4 – 6 large button mushrooms, sliced very thin
1 cup cilantro
1 cup fresh spinach
1/2 garlic clove minced or 1/4 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp lemon rind (rind of 1 lemon is fine)
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
2 tbsp grana padano or parmesan

Slice the mushrooms and place onto a higher sided serving dish. I use a tart plate. Spread mushrooms around so there is about one layer with mushrooms over lapping. Set aside.

Chop cilantro and spinach and reserve in a bowl. Add minced garlic or granulated garlic and lemon rind and stir to mix well. Set aside.

Juice lemon and add olive oil. Stir in salt and white pepper. Pour this over the mushrooms evenly. Top with cilantro mixture and spread 2 tbsp shredded cheese over the top. Let sit for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Serve 4 for 3 points per serving.

January 28, 2016
by Ashley
0 comments

Winter Cabled Fingerless Gloves

These are some adorable fingerless gloves that I made for a friend of mine this summer. I love knitting with cable stitches, so searched for a pattern that would allow me to “play” with my new cable knitting skills while knitting something useful for my friend. The pattern was from knitforvictory.com and called Winterwonderland Mitts. These turned out to be adorable and my friend seemed to love them.

I changed this pattern quite a bit in order to create the fingerless gloves I wanted. I didn’t change the cable at all, just the length and I used different needles than specified in the pattern. I felt the yarn I chose needed smaller needles and I decided to make a larger rib (2 inches) in the beginning as well. I also didn’t decend for an arm shape because my yarn stretches well (sock yarn).

These turned out adorable and exactly how I wanted them to look.