Chocolate Pancakes

Well, three weeks into the new year and I am already behind on my self-imposed goal of weekly updates. . .I did a fair amount of cooking over the long weekend and was planning a post with a fun quesadilla I made on Saturday, but as fate would have it, we were snowed in this morning and sometimes being stuck in the house, unable to go to work can prompt me to try something new.

While I may not have been able to physically drive to work today, I still had a number of calls I needed to attend to, so in effort to keep the kiddies entertained and semi-quiet I decided to make a dark chocolate pancake.

I guess I should back up a little more. . . a few weeks ago, when I was updating my Amazon subscriptions I stumbled upon Hershey's Special Dark coco powder. After doing some reading, I found that its a fairly scarce product that a number of home cooks have had trouble finding. At the time, the only option I could find was a 6-pack. So, as you may guess, I have been making a lot with dark chocolate lately since I have plenty handy.


I don't know about you, but I get asked all the time to make pancakes by the little girl, typically I can only make them on the weekend, but she was eager to take advantage of an extra morning of me being at home.

What you'll need:
1 c flour
1/3 c Hershey's Special Dark powder
1/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp s  alt
1 cup milk
1 TBSP flax seed + 3 TBSP water (OR 1 egg)
1 tsp vanilla
2 TBSP olive oil + more for pan
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Step 1 -Start by combining the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, powder, coco powder, salt)
Step 2 - Combine the rest of the ingredients
Step 3 - Combine dry and wet, add mini chocolate chips
Step 4 - Heat oil in pan, let mix sit for 10 minute to thicken, cook 3 - 4 minutes per side

YUM! These were so good the kids didn't even want anything else on top. And in case you were wondering, having a 4 year old babysit her two brothers only goes smoothly for a few minutes. Sh

How could I say no to this face asking for pancakes???

Graze-ing

I don’t know about you, but grazing between meals helps me make it through the day. My family can attest that you do not want to see me hungry!!! I’ve tried a variety of bars and trail mixes but some bars can be quite high in calories and fat and trail mixes taste great, but I find myself mindlessly pouring out a little more and then over eating instead of just getting a quick snack.

 

Enter Graze. Several months ago I stumbled upon an ad for Graze.com, a subscription snack service. Normally this type of thing wouldn’t appeal to me, but the first month was free with a promo code, so I figured I could give it a try and then cancel if I didn’t like it. Fast forward several months, and I am completely hooked. Graze does several things right, first, they have a large variety of snacks/bars/mixes of both the sweet and savory varieties and while they allow you to offer some input to what you’ll receive through rankings, each box is a fun surprise of tasty snacks.

 

I have gone with the four snack box, so I receive four portion controlled snacks, they come with a sheet that includes nutrition facts and ingredient lists are available on their website. All the snacks are preservative and color free, so I don’t have to worry about chemicals making their way into any of these products. And, best of all, each box is only $6 (including shipping!). So far, I have found haven’t found a snack that I haven’t liked. Here’s a rundown of some of my most recent treats:

 

Olive and Rosemary Bruschetta -  I knew from the name alone this would be a hit, there was a mix of mini cracker type items wonderfully flavored

 

Fruit and Seed Flapjack – Flapjack = bar, I was very surprised by this one, instead of being hard and over processed, it had a softer texture even with a dense oat, fruit and seed appearance, this bar was amazing. I have a Summer Berry Flapjack in my most  recent box that I am anxious to try as well.

 

Dark Rocky Road – For those of you with a sweet tooth, there are plenty of options with chocolate, this snack is a mix of dark chocolate buttons, cranberries and pecans. Sticking with the health conscience vision of the company, I have never received more than one snack at a time with chocolate in it, which I think it good.

 

Tomato and Basil Pizza – This one had a bit of a powdery residue, similar to what you may see cheese flavored chips, I was pleasantly surprised though that it didn’t make a bit mess. I thought I was going to hate eating it at work, but it really wasn’t bad. It tasted great, still wanted to wash my hands afterwards, but it wasn’t a big mess.

 

Texan Corn Salsa – This was another pleasant surprise. The name would lead you to believe it is a salsa, but in fact, it’s a salsa flavored trail mix. The dried corn was really hard, but it had a great flavor. Not one I would want on a frequent basis, but I wouldn’t mind getting it once or twice over the year.

 

Poached Pear – I’m not a big pear fan, but in a dried state, I actually liked it, there were lemon raisins included with it. I raised my eyebrows at first, not sure I would like that, but with the pear and pumpkin seeds it was a nice flavor. I never would have but those things together, but I am already making plans for new ways to use my pumpkin seeds next fall.

 

After eating each snack, I can go in and update my thoughts on the snack on their sight so they can factor that into my future orders. They try to provide a mix of things they know you’ll love, as well as some items designed to stretch your pallet. I definitely don’t find myself getting bored with the graze boxes.

 

This review was my personal opinion, I have no connection to Graze other than being a customer since the fall. If you are interested though, I have a invitation code that is sent with each order, if you enter this,  you will receive your first and fifth boxes free! Happy grazing J

 

Invitation code: YHKXZ95KB

Happy 2014!

Happy 2014! While I am not usually one for resolutions, I am going to make it a goal to get back to posting in this space on a more frequent basis. A lot happened in 2013 that I'm sad I didn't post more for future reference, so, I'm going to try to cram the last 4 months highlights into one post, then we'll get back to normal food posts. . .


Thinking about having teeth someday. . .

In September, I returned to work from maternity leave, which meant in addition to the cooking, hugs, cleaning and laundry that is necessary to keep a family of 5 operational, I was also out of the house for 9 - 10 hours each day. The RLG (Really Little Guy) was very predictable with his night time sleep pattern, so while I was still waking up each night, my body was use to it. I did a great job working out in September, dragging myself out of bed at least 4 mornings a week before work to do P90X, followed by green smoothie when I was done. Surprisingly, Little Girl loves green smoothies too, so I would make  little extra for her. As long as there is some peanut butter in there, she's happy.



Also in September our county hosted a farm day. I believe they have been doing this for some time, but I hadn't heard of it before this year. The two older kids, their grandma and I visited 3 of 14 farms that were hosting events one Saturday. We started off at a Pumpkin Patch going on what could be the saddest hay ride ever. We went about 100 yards and ended up a ground plot not any larger than my garage with the pumpkins pre-picked, placed around the edge of the plot. . .At this point I was thinking I should have just bought the pumpkins from the bins in front of Kroger. . . The second farm was much better, it was a dairy farm, we were able to visit with the cows, learned about every step of the process and even sample ice cream made in an old fashioned wooden ice cream maker. We even say some baby cows, come to find out, they like sucking on fingers just like human babies. Our final stop was at a horse farm. It was quite far away, but worth the extra driving. They had an arena where we could watch demonstrations of different types of show horses and their resident vet would answer questions specific to each horse. I can't wait until next year to visit some more farms, apparently our neighboring county has a similar type of farm day, so I may check that out in 2014 as well.

In October, my Chief Food Critic traveled quite a bit for work, so my work-outs started to struggle a bit, and I didn't have a chance to make many new recipes. I did manage to make the same 3 dishes several times. . .pumpkin soup (I don't know how to survived without a Vitamix before, it makes the soup SOOOOO much better than using the immersion blender), eggplant parmesan (baked not fried), and a vegetable macaroni and cheese. I have made a number of varieties of the vegetable mac and cheese, it's usually quite light on the cheese, very heavy on the veggies, and overall a delicious dish. The month finished with a stormy Halloween, due to the impending fright of a horrible thunder storm, all the kids came to our house in a 40 minute window. It was kinda nice having them all together. The next day we headed to Indianapolis for the Monumental Marathon.

My Chief Food Critic was making his valiant return to marathoning, he's battled a number of injuries that have kept him out of marathoning for a few years. My brother and sister in law were running as well, so I had their daughter, along with our three for spectating. It was chilly, but the we bundled up, packed lots of goodies and found a coffee shop around the 8 mile mark to enjoy some hot chocolate while we waited. I think having good spectators can really help runners make it through, our runners were happy to see us, we saw everyone at least once, with a couple people twice. I had the RLG strapped to me in a bjorn and three toddlers in a wagon, so I was restricted in the speed at which I could get from spot to spot, cow bell, glittery signs and all.

Following the race, we had so much fun swimming in the hotel pool, we decided to take advantage of a free rewards night in Louisville to visit some relatives while partaking in another weekend of swimming. Ultimately, all of the swimming weekends helped get us ready for our 10 day Orlando vacation in December.

Flying with three kids was an adventure, luckily the kiddies were all good flying down there and everyone around us seemed to be "kid people", on the flight back though. . .well first my Chief Food Critic was upgraded, so him and RLG sat in first class, while the other two and I sat in "normal" seats. The flight staff seemed appalled that he would leave me behind, but he ended up with a crying child half the flight and the extra room in the seats and the ability to lounge back more helped out, I didn't mind. We both noticed the flight crew leaving Orlando was not nearly as kid friendly though. I don't have any facts on this, but I would have to think that Orlando sees more kids going in and out than most airports in the country, wouldn't you think the flight crews that go there would be warmer towards kids?



Here they are going on a ride together (without parents!!!), so they held on to each other to make sure they didn't get lost.

Anyway. . .we went SeaWorld, Disney's Magic Kingdom and the Orlando Science Center while we were there. If you go to Orlando with younger kids, I highly recommend the Orlando Science Center for a break from the parks, they have a ton of hands on activities so the kids can play. I was actually looking for more of a museum, but as it turns out, it was  a great fit for what the kiddies needed. They even had a traveling Sesame Street display there, where they could actually play aside statues and pictures of some of their favorite monster friends. We ended up with season passes to SeaWorld, so we went three times! There Christmas shows were a lot of fun, if you have the chance to go there during December, make sure you go one of the days they have their special shows.



One of the many neat things at the Orlando Science Center. . .this area is an Orange production. . .the kids can pick the oranges, put them in the carts, then put them through the packaging machine. ..and then magically the orange tree grows more, even I had more fun with this one.

 

RLG and me enjoying the beach at the Grand Flordian. . .what a view!

 

We came back from Orlando and had only a handful of days before Santa arrived at our house. We had a great Christmas, seeing our family, but it was really nice to come home on December 26 to be able to start putting things away and cleaning up from both trips and Christmas. It took a few days of solid effort, but we got there and the house if finally clean!!!

Now, we are hoping to get back on track for 2014. . .this guy found his first tooth on New Years Eve. . .and then had his first cereal on New Years Day. So far, it's been a great year!

Eggplant Parmesean and Broccolini Pasta

Believe it or not, I made Eggplant Parmesan for the first time recently. I'm not sure how it took this long for me to make it, but I have already made it several more times, and my Chief Food Critic has already declared this as a household favorite that we need to eat on a regular basis.

There are lots of options you can do for sides, you could do a simple steamed veggie, some herbed pasta, or, like I did today, a combination of the two.

You may have noticed that most Eggplant Parmesan recipes floating round require you to fry the eggplant, which adds a lot of unneeded calories to a dish that easily can be made in a healthier way.


Martha served as my inspiration for this dish, to see the original, see here: http://www.marthastewart.com/313564/baked-eggplant-parmesan

What you'll need:

Eggplant Parmesan (serves 2 adults)
1 Eggplant
3/4 cup bread crumbs
2 TBSP Italian Parsley, fresh, chopped
1 TBSP Basil, chopped
1 TBSP finely shredded parmesan
1 Egg
1/4 cup water
1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce, I recommend Whole Foods Roasted Vegetable sauce
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Broccolini Pasta
1 lb cavatappi pasta
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 bushel of broccolini
1 cup diced tomatoes
1 cup loose Italian Parsley leaves, chopped
Olive oil


First off. . .make sure all babies in the vicinity are happy and being held.

Ok, now that RLG is being taken care of, to tonight's entrée. . .start by slicing your eggplant to a half and inch or less slices. Combine the egg and water in one dish, stir and set aside. Combine the breadcrumbs, parsley,  basil and parmesan in another dish.

 

Prepare a cookie sheet by coating with olive oil and preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

 

Take each slice of the eggplant, dip in the egg mixture, turn over, let the excess egg drop off, then drip in the breadcrumb mixture to cover. Place the eggplant slice on the cookie sheet, repeat with the remaining slices of eggplant.

 

Bake the eggplant for 20 minutes, flip all the pieces, bake for another 20 minutes, then remove from the oven.

 

 

 



Raise the oven heat to 400 degrees.

Prepare a baking dish by coating the bottom with some sauce, then layer eggplant slices with mozzarella slices and more sauce, topping the top (sorry, there has to be a better way to say that then "topping the top" but I have baby brain at the moment and "topping the top" is the best I have), with some shredded parmesan.

Bake for another 15-20 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes.

 

YUM!!! But wait. . .we still need our side dish!!!

While the eggplant is baking, bring a large pot of water to boil, add the cavatappi and boil until tender. Drain, set aside. 

 

In a separate pan, heat some oil and sauté the broccolini, add the diced tomatoes and continue to cook until warm.

 

Return the pasta to the pan, add the broccolini and tomato mixture and sprinkle with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.



And now, time to eat!

Introducing RLG - Real Little Guy

Greetings! I know, it's been a while since I have posted, the last few months have been a little hectic at our house, we had a new bundle of joy join our family, so as you can imagine, the last few weeks of the pregnancy I wasn't too energetic where new recipes were concerned. I did cook a lot of our favorites, but nothing post worthy.


Little Girl, RLG, and Little Guy. . .this was taken around 9:30 in the morning, after dragging them out of bed at 3 am, the look pretty good for not sleeping much

The family before we left the hospital

Three kids with three handmade blankies from their aunt

Before we jump back into the kitchen though, let me introduce, Real Little Guy. . .or RLG as we've been calling him. We opted to be surprised this time around since we already had a girl and a boy.  So far, everyone seems to be getting along well, Little Girl and Little Guy enjoy helping out as much as they can.

RLG enjoys an afternoon nap

4 Little Pigs

 

This past weekend marked the 15th Annual Flying Pig Marathon, so while we spent most of the weekend cheering on people we knew running (including our very own head food critic who ran multiple races over the weekend). When we weren't logging miles spectating and cheering, we were having a piggy themed celebration of our own, as Little Girl turned 4 this week!

 

For dinner, I made the Mushroom and Kale pasta I posted last month along with this piggy shaped foccacia bread.

Starting back at Christmas when I made a cute checkerboard cake, I started being given requirements for this weekend's birthday cake. As you can imagine, after planning a cake for 4 months, there were a lot of things, so I started working on the fondant early. If you haven't made your own fondant yet, it's worth it to try, I made a marshmallow fondant, which is a  lb bag of powdered sugar kneaded into a 16 oz package of marshmallows with a dash of vanilla flavoring. It does take some time to knead together and it's definitely sticky work, but if you coat your hands with shortening first (sounds yucky, but Crisco hands are a lot better than the sticky alternative). Once it's combined, you can refrigerate it until you're ready to use it, just bring to room temp and color.

As you can see, I divided mine to use a couple different colors, the background was a light lavendar, the ribbon and bow around the base were plain white, with a dark purple and pink polka dots.

 

 Did I mention there were pigs on top? Back to those in a minute

 Here are the kiddies cheering on the runners, they were troopers getting up early both days and walking all over downtown.

 There's our runner!! Go Daddy go!!!

Here's the top, I could definitely work on my smoothing skills, the base coat of butter cream (pink in case you were wondering) was not very smooth, and I should have thought about the impact that would have on the finished product, but now I know for next time.

On top, you'll see 4 little pigs. . .they're actually made from starbursts!  Each one took about 8, melted in a bowl for about 10 seconds to soften, then kneaded together and shaped to make little pigs. I made them a week before so they would set up and hold their shape.

 

 

Hope you had a great weekend!

 

Mac and Cheese (with veggies)

I have always loved macaroni and cheese. . .not the stuff that starts in powdered form, but the real the real stuff. I don't know why it then took me so long to think to add vegetables in it,it's so obvious and a great way to turn a side dish into a robust entree. Over the last couple months I have made 4 - 5 different types of macaroni and cheese with a variety of vegetables and cheeses. Largely, the variety of cheese has been based on what I have on hand that particular day. Today however,  spent some time with the cheese expert at the Murray's counter at Kroger and ultimately settled on a mix of Dutch Gouda Block and Collier's Welsh Cheddar, I then used a sparse amount of parm for the topping. The right cheese combination definitely makes a huge difference.

By the way, has anyone else noticed that Kroger isn't giving out stickers anymore? It's quite annoying, the kiddies love getting stickers at the checkout counter and gave the little people something to look forward to when going to Kroger. We do most of our shopping at either Kroger or Whole Foods, I tend to have better luck with cheese from Kroger though (the ones with the Murray's counters), for some reason I find my cheese from Whole Foods turns moldy really fast on a consistent basis, I know we have to travel a ways to get there, but the rest of our dairy products always survive the drive. Anyway. . .back to Mac and Cheese!

 What you'll need:

3 TBSP butter
1/4 cup Whole Wheat flour (or AP if you prefer)
3 1/2 cup whole milk
4 oz Gouda (I used the Dutch Gouda Block)
4 oz white cheddar (I used Collier's Welsh Cheddar)
2 TBSP parm
1 cup bread crumbs
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
1/2 onion, sliced and halved
16 oz Mushrooms, chopped
5 Sun dried tomatoes, sliced
6 oz fresh spinach
1 lb rotini pasta, cooked, al dente

Start my heating a large pan over a medium heat, add the butter and melt. Once the butter is melted, whisk in the flour to make a rouxe. Continue to heat for 3 minutes. Add your milk and whisk. Bring to a boil, stirring often, then reduce to a simmer for 25 minutes.

While the milk mixture simmers, roast the mushrooms with a drizzle of olive oil and salt to taste for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.

Meanwhile, cook your pasta per instructions on the packaging.

And further meanwhile, saute the onions until golden brown, remove from heat and spread across the bottom of a rectangular baking dish.

Once the pasta and mushrooms are done, drain the pasta and add the mushroom, spinach and sun dried tomatoes to the pasta and stir to combine. Once combined, add to the baking dish with the onions.

After the milk has thickened, add the Gouda and cheddar, stir until melted, add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the cheese mixture over the pasta mixture, spreading it evenly. Then top with breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Let it sit for 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy!