This salad is super yummy and super quick. I'm working on the house today and don't have a ton of time to cook, but I wanted something warm and super healthy. That's where this salad comes in. And I love the way sugar snap peas sound when they're snapped, more of a round "pop" than a snap, so that's what I'm calling them -- popped snap peas! Using pre-washed greens and washing your tomatoes when you bring them home from the store makes this a super quick meal. Also, these pics are bit bit blurry because of the whole, not a lot of time today thing. But, you get the idea, and I'll retake them eventually!
Warm Salad with Popped Snap Peas
3 cups greens -- I used baby spinach and mixed spring greens
handful of canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
drizzle of olive oil
several turns of fresh pepper
handful of grape tomatoes
juice and zest of one lemon
handful of sugar snap peas, "popped" in the middle
Tear your greens into a bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients except the lemon juice to a warm skillet, cover and cook on high just for a couple of minutes until your chickpeas are a bit browned. Add the lemon juice and let cook for a minute to reduce the acidity and increase sweetness. Pour contents of skillet over your greens and top with more olive oil and pepper, if you want. Enjoy!
Here's another one out of Cooking for Isaiah. I've modified it quite
a lot to replace the eggs, and what I've ended up with is a deliciously
hummus-y florentine tart that both me and Sam can eat! Yay!
1 can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 T tahini
1 tsp egg replacer powder (optional, I think)
1/2 tsp garlic powder or onion powder
juice of one lemon
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper, to taste
1 package spinach, thawed
1 T olive oil, to grease the pan
2 small tomatoes, thinly sliced and lightly sprinkled with salt
1/2 cup rice cereal crumbs
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 clove garlic, grated
more olive oil, for drizzling
Add everything from the first list except the spinach and oil to a blender. Blend for a couple of minutes, until thick and smooth. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix spinach with bean mix. Grease a cast iron skillet (a pie plate would probably work too) with the olive oil. Use the whole tablespoon, to create a nice crust.
Spoon the mixture into your skillet, top with the tomatoes, and place in the oven for about 50 minutes.
Process a bunch of rice cereal (Chex), into a breadcrumb texture. Reserve 1/2 cup, and save the rest in an airtight container-- trust me, you'll want some more later, the topping is the best part! Put the 1/2 cup back into the food processor, grate a garlic clove in there, and add 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes. Pulse. When your tart is finished, and looks golden around the edges, take it out, top it with the crumb mixture, and drizzle pretty liberally with olive oil. Broil for about 3 minutes. You can totally eat this hot from the oven, but it will slice and serve much better if it cools to at least room temp and can be served cold. Enjoy!
Oh how I love to read blogs. I could (and have) spent days reading other people's blogs. I just fell in love with Girl of Cardigan after reading her viral post on new mommyhood. She's awesome. But sometimes I neglect mine, almost all the time-- I'm sorry, I really do like writing! I haven't been writing about Meatless Mondays in a couple of weeks, because we've been going to the store last minute or not at all on Sundays and I don't like to feed Sam whatever weird combo I threw together in 2 seconds that I'm eating. Raw tofu on hotdog buns dipped in store-bought salad dressing might do it for me (I actually like it, sshh, don't tell) but I'm not feeding that to my brave hubby who is trying so hard to be healthy and try new things. I don't want to scare him off.
So today, I'm making a chickpea tart for dinner, that I'm trying out way before dinner, so I can make sure it tastes ok for my sweet, healthy, husband, so I don't scare him off being healthy forever.
Also, we're scraping all of the popcorn ceilings in our new house and skim-coating the drywall for pretty, pretty, smooth ceilings. And painting the house. and buying furniture. And light fixtures, and a fireplace grate, and you get the idea. We were talking yesterday, and it seems that home ownership isn't what gets expensive, or takes sooo much time. It's making your new home not feel like a rental property. We could leave the ceilings, the light fixtures, the taupe-y paint, and our broken armchair and futon that didn't really fully survive the move, but we don't want to. Every room that I get the ceiling half done in, I'm like, "Even if I were to stop here and not sand and patch and paint, it'd still be better than popcorn, I love our pretty ceilings!" And that makes it so worth it. I bet it'll feel even more worth it when we're finished, because wow, there's a lot of dust, and I'm getting muscles I didn't know I could have, and our walls are still taupe. I can't wait for colorful walls! And I can't wait to look up in any room I'm in and not see goopy, messy, dusty, shadowy popcorn, but smooth, calm, pretty smoothness! Is this weird? Does anyone else share my distaste for popcorn? On ceilings I mean, the food is delicious.
So, I don't have a picture for this quick post because Sam took this smoothie with him to work this morning. Sam is trying to eat more fruits and vegetables -- I'm so proud of him! I'm hoping it goes well, since he has allergies to many fruits-- we're just kind of trying to ignore that for now and see if he can eat them. Maybe we'll get a better plan in the future, maybe digestive enzymes or go organic? I don't know if either of those would help. This morning I sent him off with a cup of coffee instead of an energy drink, and a smoothie instead of a breakfast sandwich. The smoothie was darn tasty, too, if you ask me. When I texted him to ask how his new breakfast was he responded that it tasted "grown up...in an ok but I'll have to get used to it way." I'm deciding to take that as a compliment!
Makes about 10 oz.
- 1/2 small gala (or other) apple
- 1/2-2/3 cup frozen strawberries
- 1 medium banana, peeled, broken in half, and frozen
- 1/2-2/3 cup orange juice
- 2 large spinach leaves
- If you have a high-powered blender, just put everything in and blend it up.
- If you don't, let the banana and strawberries sit out of the freezer in a bowl for a few minutes and add the orange juice, apple, and spinach to your blender. Blend until as smooth as it'll get and then add the frozen fruit. Blend until no longer chunky. Pour into a glass or blender bottle and enjoy!
This is a perfect beginner smoothie, it doesn't look green or taste funny. It's mostly just orangey-fruity tasting. Sam actually eats spinach really well but he's never had any sort of green drink so we're going slow on that end. Who knows, this time next year, he may be taking a green juice to work in the the morning!
