Banana Bran Molasses Muffins

Here's another healthy recipe that our son enjoyed this past weekend and which also came from a "box." We had Bob's Red Mill Wheat Bran in our cupboard, which is technically not in a box but a bag. The original recipe was for Moist Molasses Bran Muffins. I replaced the applesauce with mashed bananas, and the result was yummy! There isn't a grain of sugar in this besides what is contained in the fruit and molasses.

Other adaptations of ours for our kid include putting in walnuts, finely chopped, and cooking the muffins in a mini muffin tin.

I also experimented with two different kinds of paper muffin cups, and I highly recommend If You Care Baking Cups. They are unbleached, greaseproof, and they don't stick to your muffins. Amazing!

Original Recipe

1 cup Wheat Bran

1 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 cup Raisins (Unsulfured)

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1 cup Milk

1/2 cup Blackstrap Molasses

3/4 cup Mashed Bananas

1/4 cup finely chopped Walnuts

2 Tbsp. Oil

2 Eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 400F. Combine wheat bran, flour, baking soda and baking powder. Stir in nuts and raisins. In a separate bowl, blend bananas, milk, molasses, oil and egg. Add to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Spoon into greased muffin tin (or paper muffin cups) and bake for 15-20 minutes. Makes 12 marvelous muffins.

Success! Creamy Tomato Soup with Alphabet Pasta

Do you moms or dads out there ever feel like you slave away in the kitchen to make something special for your little one just to find out that they hate what you made? I try not to get mad, sad, or as my husband says, "butt hurt," but it's very difficult! It would be easy if we just made cakes, sweets, and processed foods full of sugar and salt, but I can't bring myself to feed him unhealthy food every day.

So, I've been searching for good recipes that are easy enough that I won't get "butt hurt" if he doesn't like them. The Cooking Light Mac & Cheese using butternut squash instead of butter was a failure (I liked it, but it didn't pass the texture test for our 2 year old, and he loves mac and cheese). But, here's one recipe that my son liked so much that he ate 3 toddler-sized bowlfuls, and he still wanted more!!

Yes, this recipe is from a box. This is something I try not to do because I guess I associate these kinds of recipes with convenience and processed food. But, this recipe comes from a box of organic vegetable alphabet pasta from Eden Organics, and reading the recipe, there really isn't a processed component to it other than canned tomatoes and pasta. My husband dislikes soup, and he also really liked it!

Here is the original recipe, and the following is our adaptation. Try it. Do your toddlers like it, too?

Creamy Tomato Soup with Alphabet Pasta

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 cup onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup carrots, diced
1/3 cup celery, diced
1 1/2 cup homemade chicken stock
28 ounce can organic crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon fresh basil (the original calls for 1 teaspoon dried, but we have so much fresh basil right now that we used fresh)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup Eden Organic Vegetable Alphabets (our son really likes the letter and numbers, so having more than 1/2 cup was good for us)
1 cup 2% milk (the original called for soy milk. We are not vegan, and I am allergic to soy, so milk worked better for us)

Boil water in a medium pot, and cook the pasta for 9-11 minutes. Rinse, drain and set aside, covered.Heat the oil in a medium soup pot. Sauté the onions and garlic for 2 minutes. Add the celery and carrots. Sauté for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the basil, oregano, black pepper, sea salt and tomatoes. Mix, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the flame and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Puree the soup in the pot with a hand blender. Mix in the milk, and bring almost to a boil, but do not boil. Reduce the flame to low and simmer 1 to 2 minutes. Spoon over pasta in a bowl and serve warm.
If feeding to a toddler, tell them which letters or numbers are on their spoon before they eat each spoonful. "N" stands for "nincompoop!"

This week's menu

Hello folks, I'm back! I'm not sure how often I'll get to post with a new little one in the house, but I'll try. Our baby was born on October 1st, 2009, and it's been quite a ride! We had some amazing friends bringing over their homemade food for the first couple of months which helped us immensely, and we've recently started cooking food that's typical for us instead of just take out or prepared stuff. I started up our CSA again so have had to think about a menu for this week. Here we go!



This week's box:
Navel oranges
Fuji apples
Savoy cabbage
Collard greens
Leeks
Red leaf lettuce
Yellow onions
French fingerling potatoes

And the resulting dinner menu:

• Pan-grilled chicken & fingerlings with saffron aoli and side salad
• Feijoada (with sausage instead of tofu) & collards with rice and oranges
• Farmer's market ravioli with Pasta Cosi roasted garlic sauce (a gift from a friend from the holidays)
• Beans and cabbage with shrimp (Joy of Cooking)
• Fish in a bag over greens with country bread
• Pappardelle with cabbage, prosciutto and sage

Garden Vegetable Polenta Lasagna

We recently joined another CSA, called Farm Fresh to You. What I really like about it is the choice of boxes from small to large, from mixed, fruit only, to quick and easy to cook fruits and veggies. Since it's only my husband and myself for now, we're currently getting a weekly small box, and it is working out well. They send wonderful recipes with the box, and the vegetables are adequately cleaned before arrival. The best part is that they deliver to your home or workplace. These are all things that I missed with our last CSA.

So, I'm back to getting creative to finish off the veggies. This week, we had an assortment of cheeses left in the fridge, as well as some herbs and veggies. I had made an heirloom tomato sauce earlier in the week. Not only was this simple to make, it was actually quite delicious. I recommend serving it with a simple, green salad and some fruit for dessert. Sorry, there are no pictures -- we dug in too fast!

Garden Vegetable Polenta Lasagna
Serves 4-6

2 tubes Trader Joe's Polenta, sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1/2 recipe heirloom tomato sauce (I added small bits of smoked ham at the beginning of cooking the sauce)
15 oz. container ricotta cheese
1/3 cup chopped basil
1 egg
pinch nutmeg
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion (I used a white spring onion...not a green onion, but a young onion with the green tops still attached), chopped
8 oz. blue lake green beans, washed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Heat olive oil in a skillet and add onions. Cook until soft. Add green beans and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook until the beans are crisp-tender.

Combine ricotta, basil, egg, nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste in a small bowl.

Pour 1/4 cup or so of tomato sauce on the bottom of an 8 by 11 glass baking dish and swirl to coat the bottom. Layer slices of polenta from one of the tubes. Top with ricotta mixture, followed by the cooked green beans and onions. Top with the rest of the polenta. Pour the remainder of the sauce on top and sprinkle the mozzarella cheese. Cook for 35 minutes in the oven.

This Week's Menu

Early spring is about to hit, and we've had a mixture of rainy vs. very sunny days. I'm inspired to eat the fresh, young fruits and veggies that are starting to show up in our farmer's markets, like asparagus and artichokes.

We also recently found out that we're expecting a baby in early October, so my goal is to eat as healthy as possible, with as many fresh fruits and veggies that I can fit into my diet.

Here's the goal for the week (I don't plan a dinner for every night since we tend to have leftovers or something comes up. We always have standbys, like risotto or pizza to use up leftover veggies and ingredients):

Breakfasts
Whole wheat english muffins with egg, cheddar cheese, and tomato slices
Nut cluster cereal with milk and orange juice
Berry shakes

Lunch group
Artichoke phyllo pie with side salad of spinach and oranges

Dinner
Sun: Artichoke phyllo pie
Mon: Fresh pasta
Tue: White fish with baby bok choy
Wed: Feijoada with greens and rice
Thu: Chicken milanese with side salad of tomato, cucumber, and avocado and bread

Chestnut Stuffing

This is my version of my paternal grandfather's Chestnut Stuffing. It's meant for stuffing the turkey for Thanksgiving (18 pounds of turkey, in fact, which is why I halved the recipe and why you'll see the smaller recipe here), but I love it on its own. I've updated the ingredients a bit and wrote out in more detail the sequence in which I think things should happen. The original recipe is written on a small index card and is very short-hand. For example, the original recipe called for two pounds of chestnuts, to be shelled and prepared, page 780. The other day, on a whim, I looked in the oldest published cookbook I have, which happens to be the cookbook that my father recieved from his parents when he went off to college, and the page did correspond to preparing chestnuts. Check out the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook, original copyright in 1948. Fortunately, the book has been recently republished, so we can all see what Americans used to eat in the 1950's and what techniques were recommended for the housewife. Anyway, I guarantee you that once you try this stuffing based on rice instead of bread and with the earthy flavors of chestnuts and mushrooms, you'll never want to eat another stuffing again!

This is the picture from our Thanksgiving dinner this year when my father made the recipe his way:



Chestnut Stuffing
Inspired by my grandfather
Makes 8 servings, or stuffing for a small to medium turkey

1 pound sweet Italian sausages, casings removed
1 pound crimini mushrooms, sliced
5 stalks celery, finely chopped
Same quantity chopped onion as the celery (about 1 medium)
1 1/2 cups cooked long-grain rice
1 pound chestnuts with shell or 8 ounces pre-peeled chestnuts (Trader Joe's is currently selling vacuum-sealed, peeled and steamed chestnuts)
2 tablespoons Bell's Seasoning (or more to taste)
Salt and pepper to taste

If you bought chestnuts with the shells, peel and cook the chestnuts until they are chewy. I followed the advice in the Joy of Cooking for peeling the chestnuts, which involved scoring the chestnuts on the flat side with an X, bringing water to a boil in a pot and boiling the chestnuts for 5 minutes. Then, you turn off the heat, and leave the chestnuts in the hot water. Take only a few chestnuts at a time and peel away the top layer, as well as the finer, papery layers. If the peels resist, toss the chestnuts back in the water. Reboil the water if it cools before you are done. This takes patience. After peeling the chestnuts, be sure to boil them again in salted water or broth until they are chewy. If you bought the prepared chestnuts, making this stuffing is much simpler!

Fry out the sausage in a large pot or pan and pour off most of the grease. Add the celery, onions, and Bell's Seasoning and cook until they are clear. Add the rice and heat through. Add the mushrooms and chestnuts. Bring to a boil and simmer, adding water if the mixture starts to dry out. Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or until the mushrooms are cooked. Allow to cool if it will be used as a stuffing for turkey. Otherwise, dig in! I find that the stuffing tastes better the next day after it has time to sit and meld flavors. Hope you like it!

Bell's Seasoning

If you live in the Northeast, you probably have easy access to this seasoning, but back in the Wild West, it isn't stocked often. In fact, I've never seen it. My grandfather once wrote down a recipe for chestnut stuffing, and the seasoning he lists is Bell's Seasoning. Having grown up in South America and the Midwest, and having been born after my grandfather died, I think my family assumed it was just a brand of some old seasoning that no longer exists. My dad rightly assumed that this was a poultry seasoning, so he would always just make up his own combination of spices to do the chestnut stuffing. Well, as a librarian, I am a researcher by nature, and I had to at least check to see if I could find any information about it. To my surprise, the company still exists, and you can still buy the seasoning! Bell's Seasoning. In addition to the corporate site, I found mention of this seasoning on many forums, and it seems that folks consistently agree that Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without this seasoning. I had to give it a try! Unfortunately, we can't buy it here (as far as I know), and I needed it soon for a company potluck. So, I found a simple recipe on a forum that seems accurate according to the corporate site (although, I'm not sure how the original tastes). All amounts call for dried herbs rather than fresh. Someday, I'll try out chestnut stuffing with a fresh version of this with similar proportions.



Bell's Seasoning
Makes 1/2 cup

4 1/2 tsp rosemary
4 tsp oregano
3 3/4 tsp sage
3 1/2 tsp ginger
3 tsp marjoram
2 3/4 tsp thyme
3/4 tsp black pepper