Tag: carrots

zucchini three ways

 

I warned you that all I can think of lately is how to cook with zucchini…  while others are pondering the Hip’s last concert, the end to the Olympics or perhaps the Blue Jays attempts to win the division…  I am solely focused on zucchini…

in fact, I’m already planning the zucchini coconut chocolate cake to make for the men tomorrow night…

anyways, if you are obsessed to use up your zucchini like I am… here are three recipes for you!  happy baking!

the first is a loaf…  coconut chia seed zucchini loaf…

 I’ve told the children that ‘loaves’ or ‘muffins’ are just fancy words for cake…  little cakes…  they all need eggs, sugar and oil to come alive…  so get over it…  and throw healthy ingredients in if possible… but enjoy your little sugar high from your slice of loaf…

 

coconut chia seed zucchini loaf

  • Servings: 2 medium loaves or 3 small loaves
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Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 cup chia seeds
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
  • 1 cup plain greek yogurt, room temperature
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 3 cups shredded zucchini (drained)
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 cups shredded sweetened coconut

Directions:

  • preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • grease (I used Pam spray) 2 medium loaf pans or 3 small loaf pans
  • in a large bowl, combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and chia seeds
  • in a mixing bowl, combine sugars, oil, yogurt and eggs until well blended
  • add zucchini and dry ingredients and blend
  • add vanilla and coconut
  • divide evenly among the loaf pans and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean
  • let it cool in pans for 10 minutes
  • carefully remove and completely cool on a rack

these are the healthiest baking item on the menu today… apple zucchini muffins… and they tasted the healthiest too…

apple zucchini muffins

  • Servings: 15 muffins
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Ingredients:

  • 2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
  • 3/4 cups brown sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 2 tbsp melted coconut oil
  • 1 large egg, room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 granny smith apple, grated
  • 1/2 cup grated zucchini
  • 1 granny smith apple, cut into chunks
  • 2-4 tbsp turbinado sugar
  • 1/4-1/2 cup cinnamon

Directions:

  • preheat oven to 375 degrees
  • line muffin pan with paper liners and spray with a cooking spray
  • in a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt. cinnamon and allspice
  • in a mixing bowl, combine buttermilk, applesauce, oil, egg and vanilla until well combined
  • add dry ingredients and grated apple and zucchini
  • fold in apple chunks
  • using a large ice cream scoop, scoop mixture into muffin tins
  • sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top
  • bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown

lastly, and the kids favourite, carrot zucchini hemp heart muffins…   it is an attempt at throwing healthy items into a very unhealthy recipe… and it worked!

carrot zucchini hemp heart muffins

  • Servings: 24 muffins
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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 2 cups white flour
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 cup hemp hearts
  • 1 cup melted coconut oil
  • 4 eggs, room temperature
  • 2 cups grated zucchini
  • 2 cups grated carrot
  • 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

  • preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • line muffin tins with paper trays and spray with cooking spray
  • in a bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and hemp hearts
  • in a mixing bowl, add oil and eggs and beat
  • add dry ingredients, applesauce, vanilla and then zucchini and carrots
  • using a large ice cream scoop, scoop mixture into muffin tins
  • bake for 20-25 minutes

seeding meal #2 

 

lesson learned…  when you see something on Pintrest or Facebook that looks amazing but doesn’t come with a detailed recipe… keep looking… unless you enjoy wasting your time…

the salad was fine…  basically just added what I had in the fridge to make a carrot salad and the reviews from the 12 and 14 year old were good so I think it was a success…

carrot pistachio salad

Ingredients:

  • 3 lbs carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
  • 2/3 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 6 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground coriander
  • 3/4 cup shelled pistachios
  • 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

Directions:

  • grate the carrots and place in a large bowl
  • in a small mason jar, add dressing ingredients and shake until well mixed
  • add to the carrots
  • add cilantro and using tongs toss the salad
  • top with pistachios and serve cold

and the crockpot Mexican Chicken over rice is an excellent recipe to have kicking around if you have a busy day and want a nutritious supper…  I served it over Basmati Rice which is my favourite type of rice…

crockpot mexican chicken

Ingredients:

  • 1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes
  • 3 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 (14.4 oz) can chicken broth
  • 1 (4 oz) can diced green chiles
  • 2 yellow onions, diced
  • 4 large cloves garlic, minced
  • 5 chicken breasts, cut into chunks
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • salt and black pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped (1/2 a bunch)
  • 1 tbsp fresh lime juice (or put slices of lime beside the dish)
  • optional toppings: chopped green onion, shredded cheese, avocado, sour cream
  • serve over rice

Directions:

  • in a slow cooker, combine tomatoes, black beans, chicken broth, green chiles, onions and garlic
  • add chicken on the top and season
  • cook on high for 4-6 hours (or on high for 2 hours and then low for 6 hours)
  • when the chicken is cooked, add cilantro and lime juice
  • serve over rice with toppings or also great on tacos or in burritos

but…  if you want to waste about 5 hours of your day wasting your time… try doing this…

first of all, you view a video of someone making something in fast forward on Facebook… many of them are called ‘Tasty’ or ‘Little Things’…

then you look for the recipe only to not be able to find it…

so you pause the video and write down the recipe as it flashes up on the screen…

you go buy all the ingredients and proceed to cook it… only to figure out that it didn’t tell you how many cheesecake cupcakes it was supposed to make… or it left out details about cooking time or temperature… or exactly how to make a caramel sauce…

or you buy 4 packages of cream cheese only to find out that you didn’t need that big of a cheesecake recipe for the little muffin tins you are filling…

and 1/3 of it goes to waste…

when you finally get to the last step which only took 20 seconds on Facebook but has taken you 4 hours to get to…  you realize it might be a bit tricky to make a caramel sauce…

this is after you have burnt sugar onto two pots and ran out of pots and had watched two YouTube videos on making a caramel sauce…

you resort to melting a chocolate bar to pour over the top of the cheesecakes because your supper was running late…

they were delicious… so go for it if you so choose… just don’t expect it to go as quickly as the video you saw on Facebook!

salted pretzel cheesecake cups

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups crushed pretzels
  • 4 tbsp sugar
  • 1 1/2 sticks butter, melted (3/4 cup)
  • 4 (8 oz) pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 3 tbsp flour
  • 4 eggs, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 cup pretzels, slightly crushed

Directions:

  • mix the crushed pretzels, sugar and butter
  • press into 24 foil lined muffin trays, around 1 1/2 tbsp per muffin cup
  • bake at 350 for 5 minutes
  • beat cream cheese and sugar until combined
  • add flour and combine
  • add eggs, one at a time, until combined
  • add heavy cream, sour cream and vanilla
  • pour mixture into the muffin cups, filling them to the top
  • there will be left over cheese cake mixture – I greased a pan and poured the mixture into it and baked it separately
  • bake at 350 for 22 minutes
  • chill in fridge for 2 hours
  • to make the caramel sauce, put sugar and water into a pan
  • do not mix with a spoon or whisk, but give the pan a shake occasionally
  • boil until the mixture turns an amber colour
  • using a pastry brush and water, brush down the sides of the pot so the sugar does not crystallize on the sides
  • take off the heat and pour in heavy cream, while standing back as it will react
  • whisk this together and add the butter
  • pour the caramel sauce on the cooled cream cheese cupcakes
  • add some crushed pretzels and serve

pumpkin seed muffins 

these muffins are moist and delish…  I took the photo with a pumpkin I had but opted to use canned pumpkin puree for the recipe… partly because I am lazy and partly because it tastes better in my opinion in baking…  if you are going to use up a pumpkin before it rots, I’d suggest roasted in the oven or in a soup…

  

pumpkin seed muffins

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup nutriblend flour
  • 1 tbsp chia seeds
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/8 tsp allspice
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 3 tbsp coconut oil, melted and cooled
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups grated carrot
  • 1/4 cup raisins
  • 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds

Directions:

  • in a bowl, whisk the dry ingredients
  • in a mixer, beat pumpkin puree, sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs
  • add the dry ingredients
  • stir in carrots and raisins
  • using an ice cream scoop, scoop mixture into lined muffin tins
  • press pumpkin seeds on the top of each muffin
  • bake at 375 degrees for 22 minutes or until done in the centre
  • they can store in a sealed container for up to three days

  

roasted tomato carrot soup

this morning a friend texted me and wanted me to go to Costco with her… I generally never turn down a trip to Costco but I am a tad bit under the weather today and cannot make it…  I took this picture last week when I was there at 9:47 am Thursday morning and the carts where all getting set to make a mad dash when the doors open… it was funny because you’d think we’d all be happy… we all got good parking spots, the weather was nice… but there was this tension in the air… like ‘I’m going to be polite but not too polite…”  and “you better have your membership card ready to go” …

since I couldn’t make the trip to Costco with my friend… I did what any good friend would do and asked her to ‘pick up a few things for me’…  this is a nice way of letting your friend know that your time is more valuable than her time and that you really don’t mind treating her like you are paying her to be your personal assistant…  I just wanted her to pick up a Teddy Bear for me… if she had the room…

so the reason the 13 year old and I were at Costco last week is because he had to get braces… and then the wire on his braces broke off… which I’m now learning from other moms out there who have kids with braces is a common occurrence…  and that not only are braces expensive, your kid ends up missing a lot of school to get them tightened, fixed, tweaked, repaired…

so I told him the upside of him being dumb someday because of all the school he missed is the fact that he’ll be gorgeous with his pearly whites all lined up in a row…

I know I’m not the only one that thinks the world needs more dumb, pretty people…

 

so after-school snacks are now either smoothies or soups…  because the poor guy’s mouth looks like Jaws and he is still on a mainly liquid diet…

roasted tomato carrot soup

  • Servings: 1 pot of soup
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Ingredients:

  • 12 roma tomatoes, sliced in half
  • 4 large carrots, washed, not peeled and cut into chunks
  • 2 white onions, cut up
  • olive oil
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  • ground black pepper
  • 4 cups vegetable stock

Directions:

  • preheat oven to 400 degrees
  • line a baking sheet with parchment paper
  • place tomatoes, skin still on, on baking sheet
  • add carrots and onions and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper
  • roast for 45 minutes
  • let cool and peel the tomatoes
  • pour into a large soup pot and add vegetable stock
  • with a emulsion blender, blend the soup until it is smooth
  • serve with cream


his orthodontic place is kitty-corner to a Starbucks…  so yes, the braces just got more expensive…

meal to the field #9

in the past fifty days or so we have only combined around seventeen of them… this means there has been more days not combining than combining which doesn’t make for happy farmers… in fact my farmer  has lost weight just from the stress of not combining…  I told him fad diets like that never work but he did it anyways…

so this meal I did on Friday and then it promptly rained again so we couldn’t finish up…  we have a lot of canola still out there waiting to get combined… Canadian Thanksgiving is this coming weekend and it looks like it will be turkey to the field… I have done this only one other year in my 15 years of cooking for farmers…

and this is why farmers talk about the weather… a lot…

  

cucumber dill salad

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 4 tsp white vinegar
  • 1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 6 large cucumbers, sliced with a mandolin
  • 6 green onions, chopped

Directions:

  • in a large mixing bowl, combine mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar, dill and salt
  • mix with a whisk
  • cut cucumbers with a mandolin into thin slices and place in bowl
  • add green onions, mix and dish into containers
  • chill in fridge for at least one hour

  

pot roast in beer and onions

Ingredients:

  • 2 1kg cross rib pot roasts
  • salt and pepper on roasts (season well)
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 5 white onions, chopped
  • 14 crushed garlic cloves, roughly chopped
  • 2 bottles of beer
  • 2 cups beef broth
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground thyme
  • 2 tsp herbes de provence

Directions:

  • turn crockpot on high
  • heat oil in a large dutch oven on medium/high heat
  • season the roasts and one at a time sear each roast (all sides) for 2 minutes per side
  • place into the crockpot
  • in dutch oven, place onions and garlic
  • season the onions and garlic with thyme and herbes de provence
  • add beer and broth
  • pour over the roasts in the crockpot
  • cook on high in crockpot for 4 hours or longer
  • take meat out and slice and put back in crockpot and serve


roasted carrot sticks with dijon dressing

Ingredients:

  • 8 large carrots, cut into sticks
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp dijon mustard
  • 1 tbsp minced garlic
  • 1/2 tsp ground thyme
  • 1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves, chopped

Directions:

  • preheat oven to 450 degrees
  • cut carrots into sticks and place on a parchment lined baking sheet
  • toss with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper
  • roast for 15-20 minutes until tender
  • mix up olive oil, vinegar, mustard, garlic, thyme and rosemary
  • pour over the carrots and serve


basically if you are eating a roast or any sort of beef dish that has a gravy, you need to make yorkshire pudding…  the farmer’s family called them ‘pop-overs’ but I grew up knowing and loving them as ‘yorkshire pudding’…  my love for them has never faltered… I love them fresh out of the oven with nothing on them…. or with the meal with some butter and gravy in the centre of them… or later that evening, cold from the refrigerator…  oh I love them so… that’s why you need to make 36 of them even if you are not feeding a whole crew of farmers…

“auntie

Ingredients:

  • 4 eggs, room temperature
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 2/3 cup homo milk
  • 2 cups sifted all purpose flour

Directions:

  • using three muffin tins, place dollops of butter in each well and place in 400 degree oven
  • whisk up eggs and add salt and milk
  • add flour to mixture
  • take out smoking hot muffin tins and pour batter into them, filling each well half way up
  • bake for 20 minutes
  • serve warm, with gravy and butter


  

these brownies are so easy to make and moist and delish… the reason I sprinkled them with icing sugar is because I forgot to put parchment paper in the baking pan and half the cake stuck in the bottom of the pan and it was a bit of a disaster…  so icing sugar covers all wrongs…

zucchini brownies

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup melted coconut oil, room temperature
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 cups shredded zucchini
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

  • in a standing mixer, beat sugar and oil
  • mix flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda in a bowl
  • add flour mixture to sugar and oil
  • beat and add zucchini
  • fold in chocolate chips and pour into a greased 8×8 baking pan
  • make sure the baking pan is well greased and has parchment paper lining the bottom of it so cake does not stick
  • bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until centre of cake is done
  • let cook in pan on wire rack for 20 minutes and then take out of pan and let cool
  • cut into 12 brownies and serve