Food In Many Forms

This week from the farm, we received: - Eggplant - Yellow squash - Fresh onion - Tomatoes - cherry, grape, peach, indigo, roma - Cucumbers - Carrots - Salad greens - Watermelon It's near the end of summer and that means all of the good stuff is coming in season! We got a beautiful little watermelon this week, and all the different color tomatoes are ready to pick. The heirloom tomatoes these past two weeks has made one of our favorite Chinese comfort foods extra delicious -  https://thewoksoflife.com/stir-fried-tomato-and-egg/ . The peppers and onions went into some enormous bean quesadillas. Then the leftover peppers went into a salad for lunch. The watermelon got sliced up for snacking and muddled into cocktails, like this one  https://leanneray.com/fresh-watermelon-mint-fizz/ . Hopefully, I can pickle some onions this week and snack my way through all the baby tomatoes.  Despite my best intentions to make zucchini muffins last week, I waited too long, and some of the z...

I took a week off for my friend's wedding, but I am back in the kitchen this week, prepping foods from my farm share. Our half of the share included: - Cucumber - Salad turnips - Fennel - Yellow squash - Zucchini - Carrots - Pointed Cabbage - Broccoli - Salad greens - Herbs We still had greens left over, so the first thing I did was prep the cucumber, turnips and carrots for a salad. We have used those cut up veggies for multiple salads this week. The yellow squash and basil we sliced up and put on 2 different pizzas - 1 with red sauce, 1 with pesto. The broccoli will probably be frozen for later, and the zucchini will end up in a fried rice. The fennel was my biggest question mark this week. I went to Martha Stewart to tell me how to use this uncommon vegetable, and she had a roasted tomato, fennel, and basil relish. Initially, I wanted to cut the recipe in half because it makes 3 cups, but I also wanted to use up all the fennel, so I left the quantities as they we...

I think the "Cupcakes" turned out pretty well, but they really look and taste more like muffins. They would be great for a quick breakfast and are a lot better than some of those oatmeal breakfast bar recipes I've tried. I ended up doubling the recipe, which made 26 muffins. I ended up using almost an entire zucchini, two small apples, shredded carrots and chopped raisins, and I definitely recommend using some kind of dried fruit to add some sweetness. It seems like a lot of people just use the leftover fruits and vegetables from their juice smoothies, which I think is a great idea! 

I always tell my patients, the worst thing that can happen to their diet is complacence . When you stop working to improve your diet, it will inevitably go in the opposite direction . So I recently set some goals for myself to improve my own diet. 1) Eat more meals at home 2) Cook more meals at home 3) Use more home-cooked meats , rather than processed/packaged meats 4) Bulk up on vegetables at lunch and dinner 5) Use only whole grain products at home A lot of this has to do with finding products and recipes I enjoy, but also making time to prepare meals ahead of time. At first, this meant using a lot of frozen vegetables and microwaveable rice, and cooking meat in large batches for several days. But eating 90-second brown rice and frozen broccoli everyday can get a little boring, even if it does help me meet my goals. So now that I have a regimen that I am comfortable and happy with, it's time to shake it up a bit . Asparagus is going to be in season in Maryland ...

I learned recently that Americans eat an average of 28 pounds of cheese every year . I think I am giving America a run for its money this week with all my cheesy nachos, cheese-filled quiche and cheesy zucchini. I just need to make cheesy grits and I'll have covered breakfast, lunch and dinner with delicious cheese.  This recipe is what I would call and "fiber and fat" recipe, because if I was making this for food service class, 70% of the calories would come from fat and I would be in trouble. Luckily. I am not in class, and I can drizzle olive oil and sprinkle cheese to my heart's content ! Slice up pre-cooked polenta and zucchini . Get the polenta slices nice and crispy, cooking it on medium with olive oil, Italian seasonings , and garlic powder . Cook the zucchini separately in the same way, until soft. Place the crispy polenta slices on the bottom of a casserole dish. Layer zucchini on top. Sprinkle  Parmesan  and Mozzarella cheeses on top. Bake at ...

I was really buying into the Clean Eating Diet  - a diet of unprocessed, unhydrogenated, simple foods, full of whole grains and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The  magazine   called to me, as food magazines do in the grocery store, but it was not until now that I had the opportunity to test any of the recipes out. Maybe I picked a really boring recipe or something - Squash and Chicken Casserole - but it really needed a lot more "Oomph". Of course, I ate it anyways, but I really wish I could find that dish that everyone loves, is healthy,  looks marginally impressive and I can get right every time. Just compare the recipe from Clean Eating -  a healthy version of a "Georgia Church Picnic" Classic - to a version of the real thing: Healthy Squash & Chicken Casserole Chicken Yellow Squash Casserole 10 slices whole wheat bread Olive oil cooking spray 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced 3 medium y...

A few weeks ago, I made up a recipe for squash casserole. Today, I made it again, except this time I used 3/4 of the milk it asks for and I used a much smaller casserole dish. Now that I think I have finalized the recipe I am going to officially post it, and it's nutrition info - of course! Zucchini Casserole Serves 2 Hungry people Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 25 minutes Ingredients 1 Zucchini, sliced 2 Cremini Mushrooms, sliced 1/2 onion, diced 1 celery stalk, diced 1 can of condensed cream of potato soup ~1 cup 2% milk 2 cups pepperidge farm stuffing 1 cup vegetable broth 1/2 Tbsp butter Directions 1. Saute onions and celery until brown, add zucchini and mushroom 2. Heat up cream of potato soup (in the microwave or on the stove, see the directions on the can), adding only enough milk to fill the can 3/4 of the way 3. Pour veggies into casserole dish, preferably small and deep 4. Pour soup over top of the veggies, and bake at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes while the stuffing is ...