Frozen Grapes

Grapes are 88 cents/pound at Sunflower this week.  I just thought I'd remind you all how incredible frozen grapes are.  Stick them in the freezer and eat them as a snack, as dessert, as a thirst quencher.  Yum.

Just be careful to stop yourself before you eat too many.  I always do that!  When will I ever learn?

Molly

Garden/breakfast

In the spirit of sharing pictures of gardens and beautiful breakfasts:

This is Will's "garden" that he designed and planted in his room over the course of several days.  Each ball, frisbee, racket, and helmet is a different plant.  He grew everything from bananas to broccoli to quesadillas.  How I grew a boy with such an imagination is beyond me.  I'm a bit worried that someday when we have a real garden he'll be a bit disappointed.

And here is (a not great, but the best I could do, picture of) the beautiful breakfast Aleks made us one weekend morning.  Roasted almond-crusted french toast with fresh strawberries and maple syrup.  I don't think the strawberries came from Will's garden, but the french toast may have!

Rice redux

Several weeks ago (I've been meaning to post this for a while now!) I tried out the idea for Salmon cakes with rice as the filler that Dad posted.  Mine were okay, but not great - I ended up using a different ratio of rice to salmon than suggested, and they ended up a bit tough.  I'm not completely discounting the effect of using canned salmon though - how many times can you cook fish before it's bound to be a bit tough?  Anyway, I made WAY too much rice for the salmon cakes and 3-4 days later was facing throwing out several cups of dried up cooked rice when I decided to try to make up a recipe to salvage it.  What we ended up with turned out pretty well, so I thought I'd share.  I felt all clever about it for a couple days until I remembered the rice balls Mom used to serve.  There's nothing new under the sun, right?  These turned out a bit different than I remember Mom's being - more eggy/cheesy (fatty?) goodness and definitely more garlic!  My measurements are estimates.

~ 3 c cooked rice (I used white).  Add just enough milk to the rice to create a bit of a slurry.  I set this aside and the dried rice soaked up most of the milk.  I figured this couldn't hurt, and probably contributed a lot to rescuing the rice.

Stir in:
~1 1/2 c grated cheese (I think I used a combination of colby-jack, mild cheddar, and maybe a little parm)
Enough milk to make a slurry again (assuming some of the milk was absorbed by the rice)
2 eggs
5-6 cloves of minced garlic (mmmmm, garlic....!) or to taste if you're not as in to garlic as I am, but seriously, I thought the garlic was a great addition
salt and pepper as needed

Grease a muffin tin, then fill cups with rice mixture.  I filled mine about 2/3 full, but would add more next time.  The egg makes these puff up, but then they collapsed again when I took them out.  Bake at 350 for ~25 min, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean - time will vary depending on the size of your muffin cups and how full you fill them.

We all enjoyed them a surprising amount given how simple they are.  Served with a salad, they make a pretty good meal, and a nice alternative to throwing out leftover rice.  They made great leftovers, too - though I preferred them warmed up to cold.

Molly's Mayo-less Tuna Salad

I just got back from the gym and needed a quick bite before heading off to babysit.  I have recently decided that it's time for me to lose a little weight, so you may be hearing from me more frequently on here to keep myself honest.  I

For lunch I threw together a tuna salad that hit the spot.  If I would have had more veggies on hand I probably would have thrown them in.  However, this is what I did.

Throw some kalamata olives and capers into your tuna.  Done.  If you like your tuna salad to stick together a little more, throw some mustard in there.  I would literally eat mustard off a spoon (the spicy brown, not yellow), so I put mustard in mine.  I then threw that all on a bed of spinach and went to town.  It was delicious and nutritious!

Enjoy!

Greens

One of my new goals is to incorporate more greens into our meals.  During the school year I was pathetic...

It turns out that pretty much no matter what you are making, you can throw some greens into/onto it.  I figure that's a good start.  However, I did find this blog with a HUGE list of recipes with greens.  I thought I'd share for your general perusal.

http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2009/07/cheap-healthy-leafy-greens-246-recipes.html

I haven't tried any of these yet, but it seems to be a good resource and a great place to start!

Molly

Black bean, jicama, and corn salad

I realize I post a lot of recipes of salads.  I can't help myself - I just love trying and eating all types of summery mixtures.

I wanted to give jicama a try, so this was one of the first recipes I ran across.  There's a chance that you can't find jicama outside of the Southwest.  I'd never heard it until I moved out here.  However, just in case, here's the recipe.

I'm of the opinion that you can't go wrong with corn and black beans together, so this seemed like a natural fit.  It's a very summery, Tucsonian salad.  It does taste a little raw but I only got to eat it on the first day, I feel like after it sits for a bit it's better.  Also, next time I'd cut the jicama up in smaller pieces.

• 2 large ears of corn, husked
• 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed, drained
• 1 cup 1/3-inch dice peeled jicama
• 1/2 cup 1/3-inch dice peeled carrots
• 1/3 cup thinly sliced green onions
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/4 cup (packed) chopped fresh basil

• 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 2 1/2 teaspoons grated lime peel
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Brush corn with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Grill corn until tender and brown in spots, turning occasionally, about 10 minutes. Cool slightly. Cut off corn kernels; place in large bowl. Add black beans, jicama, carrots, green onions, cilantro, and basil.

Whisk lime juice, orange juice, lime peel, cumin, and remaining 4 tablespoons oil in small bowl. Mix dressing into bean salad. Season generously with salt and pepper. (Can be made 4 hours ahead. Cover; chill. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving.)

I should also point out that I didn't grill the corn.  I just cut it off the husk and cooked it in a pan with some butter (a la my corn/tomato salad).

Anywho, it's not a bad recipe to give a try if you're feeling different.  It's not perfect, but it gets the job done.

Molly

Stevia?

Has anyone else run across stevia yet?  I bought a plant at Glick's and put it in the perennial herb garden.  This is a substitute sweetener many times sweeter than sugar with no calories.  The other day we bought a bottle of organic, dried, powdered stevia at Echo Hill.  It's priced at $18.75/lb, but a medium sized bottle holds 0.08 lb and costs $1.50.  I tried sprinkling just a bit on some fresh strawberries this morning and it was very effective as a sweetener.  And it's just a powdered leaf.  What's not to like?
Lindsey