Peanut butter, honey and cashew

Today I made a rather funky sandwich that I anticipate will taste great with th Pacific Foods soup (carrot cashew ginger bisque) that I'm making for lunch.

I started out with graham crackers as the bread and smeared them with peanut butter. I topped the peanut butter with ground roasted, unsalted cashews and drizzled with local raw honey before putting a graham cracker lid on.

Thai broccoli mix

Total cop out dinner. Somehow I keep ending up with empty cupboards...

So tonight I took a head of fresh broccoli and sautéed it in sesame and coconut oil. I then added, directly to the skillet, a carton of Archer Farms Thai curry soup.

I served this over brown rice, with a handful of raw cashews on each portion. Very delightful.

Mixed nut butter

As anyone you read last night's entry will know, I found some mixed raw nuts on clearance at Target last night. I prefer to buy my nuts raw and unsalted so this seemed like a good deal.

The mix includes hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pistachios and almonds so I thought I could make a mixed nut butter.

I started with one cup nuts. Didn't roast them or soak them or anything. Just dumped them in the food processor. Added a generous dollop of local raw honey, about 2-3 tablespoons full, and about 1/4 cup warm coconut oil.

After the initial 5-7 minutes of grinding and scraping, I feared I wouldn't hit the creamy texture my family has been requesting. So I thought it would be a good idea to add about three tablespoons water.

Then I had nut soup.

I added another 1/4 cup and ground another 5-7 minutes until my patience ran out.

So it's chunky nut butter. Tastes fine, but not as perfectly scrumptious as the almond cashew butter last time. But I intentionally wanted something simpler and with less ingredients.

We'll see how it tastes when the family gets home.

Make your own salad

Asian flavored salads tonight.

Mine consisted of:
- organic baby leaf lettuce
- unsalted cashews
- dried peas
- sesame sticks
- mandarin oranges
- Archer Farm lemon ginger sesame dressing

Cheater veggie stir fry noodles

Ingredients:
-Simply Asia sesame noodles
- 1/2 bag frozen stirfry veggies
- 1/2 cup pineapple chunks and juice
- 1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon canola oil
- dehydrated peas
- unsalted cashews

Boil water. Add the Simply Asia noodles.

In a skillet, combine 1/4 teaspoon sesame oil and the canola oil. Add the vegetables and the pineapple (I always cook my frozen veggies halfway in the microwave).

Cook until veggies are hot. Add the sesame seeds from the Simply Asia kit. Sauté on high about two minutes. Reduce heat and add the Simply Asia sauce.

When noodles are done, mix them into the vegetable skillet.

Put on plate and top with a small handful of cashews and dehydrated peas.

Salads for survival

I've been slicing Boca Chik*n patties and putting them in "emergency" salads when I find myself starving for no reason. I hate using so many processed meat analog products, but even with lots of cashews or almonds, I find I'm needing something with some unidentifiable heft to satiate me. I'm going to experiment with avocado bagel sandwiches to see if that helps...

Back on track?

Yesterday I had one of my meltdowns. Between my health (anemia-related issues still kick myass from time to time), the final weeks of school and working too many hours, I was overextended.

And as my psychologist once told me, being overextended makes me crazy.

So I called out sick.

Between the exhaustion, the multiple open wounds on my hands from a fall I took on Saturday, minor babysitter issues AND spilling stuff all over my last clean pair of khakis, I was done. And I was in bed by 7:30 and slept until 7.

Part of my problem stemmed from not eating proper dinners because I had worked 4 nights in a row and of those four nights, the last three I ate dinner on a fifteen minute break. That gets compounded by shifts that start at 3 or 4, meaning even if I eat a good meal before I leave home, it's not enough.
Last night, I let child pick a restaurant and we went out to dinner to celebrate her report card. She selected a franchise based on her desire for chocolate pudding until I pointed out the dairy issue. She selected a kid and ice cream oriented franchise instead, saying she'd forego the ice cream if we gave her a tofutti cutie at home.

Considering the quality of our meal, I should have talked her out of that too. She ordered processed chicken on sticks that was supposed to come with salad, carrot sticks and celery sticks. It came with lettuce. I'll save my other complaints...

This morning I read the label for the apple fritter bread and as I suspected, it has milk. It has more salt than milk, but it does have milk.

Finally, in an act of desperation, I made my famous homemade granola that the child is munching on right now.

The dry ingredients measures about seven cups, with the dressing consisting of 3.5 tablespoons raw local honey, 1/2 cup blackstrap molasses, and 1/2 cup canola oil.

The dry ingredients were about:
- 3.5 cups oats
- 1/2 cup unsalted raw almonds
-1/4 cup dark cocoa dusted almonds
- 1/2 cup unsalted cashews
- 1 cup dried fruit and peanuts from a commercial trail mix
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons tiny chopped candied ginger
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground cinnamon
- 1 box sour peach flavored golden raisins
- 1 cup golden raisins, dried blueberries and dried strawberries

Mix and bake at 300 for 45 minutes in a thin layer on a cookie sheet, turning every 10-15 minutes.

A variation of the Imus Ranch cookbook recipe

Today's Zaatar Lunch

Yesterday's packed school lunch was a huge hit. Every scrap except for three spirals of pasta.

Today mimics yesterday's lunch. One of our new juice boxes, some cashews, some frozen blueberries and a slice of zaatar foccaccia.

Asian inspired salad

Tonight my husband started and I finished these Asian-inspired salads. Bagged salad with carrot, cabbage and lettuces. Cashews. Sunflower seeds. Dried pineapple. Wegmans Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette. Green pepper from the garden. These would have been vegan, but my husband added cheddar and extra sharp provolone.

A surprise gift

A friend stopped by today with several pounds of aged cheddar cheese, some crackers and some nuts. Plus some snack meats and a wedge of Jarlsberg, a small veggie platter and some artichoke dip.

The gift was appreciated and may inspire me to prepare some homemade mac and cheese with the last of my emmental cheese, some boring old monterey jack and maybe some of that fine cheddar... Seems a sacrilege to use such fine cheese for pasta.

My daughter saw the cashews and right away asked if she could have some...

Some things don't last long in this house.

What's fun about giving and receiving food is the adventure in taste. The giver takes what they know about the recipient and selects items that they are familiar with, in hopes that the recipient will also enjoy them. It also gives the recipient a chance to eat and experiment with food items one would never purchase on a whim.

I would never purchase dry Italian sausage on my own. But I tried a hunk: juicier than I expected, with a kick like pepperoni but another note in there of something I want to say unpleasant or earthy, that's almost necessary to counteract this hint of sweetness...

Already the adventure begins... Yummy!

Chicken and mashed taters

Tonight for dinner I'm making chicken in lemon-butter sauce (française) and roasted garlic mashed potatoes, a side salad, and Vouvray.

Except my husband grabbed the Bordeaux instead of the Vouvray.

For the mashed potatoes:

• about 1/2-3/4 cup chicken broth/olive oil/chicken "juices" from frying pan skillet
  
• probably 3 lbs of potatoes, mostly peeled
• About 15 cloves roasted garlic
• About 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 tablespoons butter
• About 1/4 cup sour cream

For the salad:

• greens
• shredded carrots
• raisins
• cashews
• zesty sprouts
• Ranch for him and child, red wine mist for her

And finally the chicken:

• About 1.25 pounds boneless, skinless chicken tenderloin (from the discount pile: $3)
• lemon juice
• extra virgin olive oil
• butter
• unbleached white flour
• four color organic peppercorns
• chicken broth

Place about one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil in skillet. Preheat skillet and oven (to about 250, will be used to keep the chicken warm while we make the sauce). Lightly dredge the chicken, sprinkle with pepper. Add to pan with one tablespoon butter. Cook about five minutes, flip. Cook about five more minutes. Add about 3/4 cup chicken broth. Cook until finished. Move chicken to oven.

Reserve juice in skillet into cooked potatoes for the mashed.

In the skillet, add about three tablespoons butter and about the same amount of lemon juice. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring often. Pour oven chicken and serve.

This looks to be a good guide on mashed potatoes:
http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/mashed.htm

Yogurt

My family loves yogurt. I try to buy it in the 32 ounce containers and I carefully read the labels to find the yogurt with the most nutrition, the least sugar and no artificial sweeteners. But yogurt is a very high carbohydrate food. And I can't get into the plain yogurt, maybe someday we'll get our tastebuds down from that sweetened preference. I try to balance out the sugar with some nuts, for my daughter cashews (her favorite) or by mixing in better foods, like real fruit (ack, more sugar) or my homemade granola... but recently it's been trumped by mixing in reduced fat Daisy Go Rounds. Because that cinnamon flavor mixes so well with yogurt.

Date breakfast

What my daughter has on her plate right now appeals to me as the perfect breakfast. Three sliced dates, some animal crackers, and a hearty handful of cashews with almond milk to drink.

I made the traditional breakfast offers:
"We have pumpkin waffles in the freezer. Bananas. Dates. Those would go well with animal crackers. We have eggs. Do any of those sound good?"

"Dates," she replied. "And animal crackers."

"Okay, but you need some protein. How about cashews or the chocolate dusted almonds?"

"Cashews."

"Would you like almonds too?"

"Just cashews."

"Pick a drink from the fridge: apple juice, grape juice, almond milk or water."

"Almond milk."

Now, I'm off to make myself a platter.

Work snacks

I packed myself lots of snacks for work as I'm expecting to work late. I don't want to pack a meal, because I'd like to be optimistic and think I'll be home in time to eat a meal before bed.

So, I filled my Sigg water bottle. Packed a banana, a Nature Valley granola bar, a Special K meal bar, some trail mix with lots of extra cashews and almonds, one of my daughter's Very Berry juice boxes and some sugarless gum.

Hope it keeps me happy.

Bizarre little breakfast

I already have some multigrain bread (unbleached white, whole wheat and rye flour) rising... My daughter and husband had a special lunch out yesterday to commemorate the end of the semester and the end of "lunch with Daddy" days while Mommy is in class. My daughter ordered a white Sicilian with broccoli and sausage from Pizza Doro. We'll probably have that for lunch (and I'm thinking I'll let her have ice cream after, her kindergarten teacher will love me for that.)

For breakfast I served my daughter a clementine, some cashews and graham crackers. Not standard, but good stuff.

Tuesday morning

Nothing exciting on the menu yet... I'm contemplating some sort of broccoli potato pot pie for dinner...

For breakfast, the daughter had Stoneyfield Yo Kids Strawberry yogurt with graham crackers, bananas, and chocolate soy milk. (I had a banana yogurt.)

I started stressing about lunch, and I do mean stressing, because I spend way too much time thinking about if my kid eats enough fruits/vegetables/colors every day. And her father made pasta with red sauce and Morningstar vegetarian sausage last night so my brain screams, "Have red. Need orange and green. Green for dinner."

Seriously.

So, for lunch I served three Morningstar Vegetarian Chik*n Nuggets with ketchup AND ranch, plus a side of commercial Swiss-style trail mix with a ton of extra raisins and some whole cashews.

Oatmeal Bars

I'm not quite happy with the breakfast selections around here these days and we can always use something quick, easy and nutritious. I love those Quaker Oatmeal Bars (not the breakfast cookies, those don't have much in the way of nutritional content) and thought maybe I could make something similar at home.

I searched "oatmeal raisin breakfast bar" and found the following:

http://mummam.blogspot.com/2006/10/oatmeal-raisin-breakfast-bars.html

Oatmeal-raisin Breakfast Bars

Ever since I discovered this recipe in a Vegetarian cookbook (published by Barnes & Noble), I hav decided to replace my breakfast porridge with these nutritious and tasty bars and a glass of cold milk!

Makes: 14 bars
Preparation time: 30 minutes

1.5 Cups rolled oats
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup dried raisins
1/2 cup melted butter
oil for greasing

Preheat oven to 375F, grease a 11x7 inch tin.
Stir oats, sugar and raisins together in a bowl.

Add the melted butter and thoroughly stir.
Press the mixture into the pan.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden.
Remove from oven, cut into bars and cool in pan for 5 minutes.
Store in air-tight container for 15 days.

Now, this looks frightening similar to my tried-and-true granola recipe from The Imus Ranch cookbook. And of course, I can never stick to a recipe. So, I mixed up the following:

4.5 cups oats
1/3 cup sugar
2 + cups trail mix
some cashew crumbs from the bottom of the container
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 cup butter
1/8 cup honey
1/4 cup oil

Eliminate the butter and the honey and this recipe could easily become vegan...

Mine are cooling now... and I bet I end up with three or four bars and a big pile of granola...

I was right, and the reason my bars didn't maintain their shape is because I didn't use enough butter. You know, good old fashioned butter. And butter is what cools and hardens and makes them keep their shape.

Trail mix, augmented

As I have reported in the past, I make a pretty awesome homemade granola, but with the intense heat and how busy we've been I haven't had a chance to make any.

My mother (Mimi) had brought some huge containers of Swiss Trail Mix that had so much butterscotch chips and chocolate candies that it didn't really qualify as a snack in my mind. It did have some peanuts and some dried pineapple and raisins but nutritional it was more or less dessert.

Normally I mix this 50/50 with my own granola. Today I took a container of it that was 2/3 empty and added a container of White Mountain trail mix from Aldi. This is very similar stuff, just more peanuts and more cranberries, and white chocolate instead of butterscotch and chocolate candies.

Then I added what cashews we had left.

Then I added a sample box of Honey Bunches of Oats I was given.

Now the container is full again, with "stuff" closer to the way I like it.