Pita Pizza

So this was delightful. Check it out. Spinach Pita Pizzas with a tomato salad.

It took not even half an hour to prepare.

It started out with us cranking up the oven to 450 degree Fahrenheit an cutting open 3 whole wheat pitas and placing them cut face down on oven trays. We baked them for 6 minutes.

In the meantime we halved a couple of hands full of colorful tomatoes.

We also washed and sliced up roughly 5 ounces of baby spinach. 

Then we cut up one quarter of an onion and minced two clove of garlic. We sautéed the onion, a few pepper flakes, and salt and pepper for a few minutes and then added the garlic for another minute. About a spoonful of this warm mixture, we tossed with the tomatoes.

To the rest we added the spinach and melted it down half way.

We turned the pitas with the cut side up and spread the spinach mixture. Then we crumbled feta cheese all over them and rounded it out with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

We shoved them back into the oven for another 5 minutes.

To the tomatoes we added fresh parsley from our yard and a little salt and pepper to taste.

That was it. Yummy crunchy pita pizzas with spinach and a tomato salad. A total winner! No left overs.

Stuffed Peppers and Rice

This is a winner. All vegetarian, easy to make, pulls a punch, and yummy as all get-out. Takes but 30 minutes to prepare. Here we go. 

We cranked up the broiler and prepped a pot of rice.

In another pot we started heating a big can of plum tomatoes.

Then we halved 5 red peppers and cleaned them up and out.

Face down, we arranged them on a baking dish, smothered them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and stuck them into the hot oven. After 3 minutes we turned them for another 3 minutes, retrieved them, and turned the oven down to 425 F.

In the meantime we chopped up half an onion and 3 cloves of garlic. We sautéed them in a large frying pan. Onion first for a few minutes and the garlic for another.

A third of it went into the pot of tomatoes with a handful of fresh basil, a dash of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

The rest stayed. We added a big package of fresh baby spinach, a good 10 oz. or so and let it wilt down.

Next we added 1 can of cannellini beans and 2 handful of freshly grated Parmesan, as well as,

 

the juice of one lemon.

Then we whizzed up the tomato sauce and placed it on the bottom of the baking dish. We filled the peppers with sliced small mozzarella balls and the spinach bean mixture. The whole thing got stuffed back into the oven for a few minutes until it all looked melted and ready to eat.

We served the rice with the peppers and sauce sprinkled all over. Yummo!

Slow Cooker - Spinach, Parmesan, and Bean Soup

We forgot to take a picture or the end result. But it doesn't matter. Essentially the bean soup is an excuse to shovel in an obscene load of fresh baby spinach and Parmesan cheese.

First we sautéed half a big chopped onion for a few minutes.  Then we added a couple of garlic cloves and continued to sauté them for another 30 seconds or so.

In the meantime, we chopped up two handfuls of cherry tomatoes (alternatively a big can of chopped tomatoes will do the trick).

We added the tomatoes, 3 cans of cannellini beans, the onions and garlic,

1 quart of vegetable broth, a can worth of water, and a little salt and pepper to the slow cooker and set it on 4 hours high (or 8 hours low).

Then we harvested our herb garden for a couple handfuls of fresh herbs (in our case basil, thyme, and oregano) and added them to the soup.

We washed a good 5 handfuls of fresh baby spinach and looked for the Parmesan. When we were ready to eat, we filled our bowls with soup, loaded them up with spinach to each of our delight, sprinkled the whole goodness with cheese, and dug in. YUM!

Omelette

We brightened today's morning with our first omelettes.

2 eggs were whisked up with a fork. We added salt and pepper and a dash of heavy cream.

Then we sautéed  a good handful of veggies in our cast iron skillet with a bit of olive oil. We used small tomatoes, fresh basil, and spinach.

We removed most of the veggies and replaced them with a chunk of butter and added the eggs. As the eggs were hardening, we shredded plenty of Parmesan cheese on top of them. Then we placed the sautéed veggies on one half of the forming omelette and folded it over.

Oh my! These things melted on our tongues with no remorse. Only good can come after such a breakfast.

Camembert and Ziti

This came from the pages of Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Food Revolution. An easy 30 minutes of cooking that makes you think you are hanging out in the Provence somewhere. (As a matter of fact this asked for such a lazy prep time, we probably should've cracked open a bottle of wine while cooking ... and fruit juice for the girls.)

For starters we turned our oven to 350F. Then we opened a 8 oz box of Camembert, unwrapped the cheese and placed it back into the bottom container. Then we sliced off the top and loaded it up with 2 sliced cloves of garlic, leaves of 1 stick of rosemary, pepper, and olive oil.

We filled a pot with salted water for 1 lb of Ziti pasta, turned on the heat, and stuck the cheese into the oven on a baking tray for 25 minutes.

Now there was a lot of time left with not much to do. All we had to contend with was washing about 6oz of spinach leaves, and grating 5 handfuls of Parmesan.

When the pasta was done we added the spinach for a quick bath, just about ten seconds or so.

We drained the pasta and spinach, catching some of the cooking water. Then we added most of the Parmesan, keeping some for the table fun. We added back a little of the cooking water to thin this thing out a bit.

Last but not least we rescued the Camembert.  Look at it. That's about as much fun as it gets.

We added the cheese to the pasta, and

Voila! It was delicious.

Cajun Alfredo with Shrimp

Shrimp, cream, and pasta. What's not to like. Well the kids said the shrimp. They boycotted it out right. And you know this might just be very nice prepared without the shrimp. But to get it right we did the whole thing, another recipe from Lisa Leake and her blog turned cookbook 100 Days of Real Food. Sure enough at least a few of us loved it. It was fun to make.

First we cranked up the heat under a big pot of water to prepare 1 pound of fettuccine pasta.

Then we diced up 1 half of a big red onion and 1 red bell pepper.

We heated up a pan and melted the onion for a few minutes in 3 chunks of butter. Whaaat?? Yup. A whole bunch of butter, YUM! We call that real and therefore healthy. BAM!

Next we cleaned up 1 pound of shrimp. We had bought it deveined but not peeled. As a compromise between trouble and cost. We got the shells off fairly quickly.

When the pasta was tossed into the salt water and the onion looked good and the aroma was to die for, we added the pepper, shrimp, and

our own version of Cajun spices: garlic salt, celery salt, dried oregano, chili powder, pink salt (how cool is that?), dried thyme, and red pepper. All to taste. Well; and some extra pink salt, since Lena, Lily, and Lucy each had to have a turn. (And as such we real-fooded it up a notch from the original recipe. Mmmmh-huh.)

Then Lily cleaned 3 handfuls of spinach.

We chopped up the spinach as well as 2 cloves of garlic.

They were added to the mix after the shrimp had cooked for five minutes and looked ready.

After a minute or so we added 1 cup of cream and 3 (Lily-) handfuls of freshly shredded Parmesan cheese. We brought it to a simmer and thickened the sauce up for a few minutes.

There it is. Yummy! It looked like the pros had a go at it. 

Thanks again Lisa for a wonderful dish. I hope we did your recipe and love for good healthy food justice. We sure enjoyed this one.