Pinterest Recipes

As a fan of Pinterest, I enjoy trying the recipes I find. I have fallen in love with Quinoa and have a board dedicated to recipes.

One of my favorites is the Quinoa Patty. I  have adjusted the recipe slightly:


1/2 cup rinsed quinoa
1 medium carrot, cut in large chunks
6 scallions, thinly sliced
15 ounces cooked chicken (This is where I tweaked the recipe)
1/4 cup plain dried breadcrumbs
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon ground cumin
Coarse salt
Ground pepper

Directions

1.In a small saucepan, bring 3/4 cup water to a boil; add quiona, cover, and reduce heat to low. Cook until liquid is absorbed, 12 to 14 minutes; set aside.

2.In a food processor, pulse carrot until finely chopped. Add cooked quinoa, half the scallions, beans, breadcrumbs, egg, cumin, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper; pulse until combined but still slightly chunky.

3.Form mixture into four 3/4-inch-thick patties (dip hands in water to prevent sticking). If too soft, refrigerate 10 minutes to firm. In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium; cook burgers until browned and cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes per side.

Aioli Sauce:I use this Aioli recipe! So delicious!!!

½ cup light mayonnaise

1 head of garlic, roasted
1 lemon, zested and juiced
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

For the aioli: Place all ingredients into a food processor, season with salt and pepper and blend until smooth. Pour into a small bowl and serve alongside the warm quinoa cakes.

Healthy Recipes from Pinterest

As a Pinterest addict I have multiple boards of various topics. One of the boards is Healthy Eating. This past week I decided to try two of the recipes. I mean, why not? I had all the ingredients in the house waiting to be used, thanks to Bountiful Baskets, which I just L-O-V-E, love!!!

The first recipe I tried was Pan-Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic Green Beans.

It was a fabulous recipe and the food was, mmmm-mmmmm-Good! I used canola oil instead of Extra Olive Oil, because that's what I had. I'll use a little less next time, but the lemons and garlic added such an amazing zing to the taste buds!

For dessert we had Apple Pie Baked in the Apples.

I used whatever apples I had from the week's basket. I didn't have brown sugar so that wasn't used. And I hardly ever bake or cook with sugar any more; I used splenda. The apples tasted so natural and delicious.

I took extra as left overs to work and they warmed up perfectly. Definately worth the try if you're looking for some new healthy recipes to add to dinner.

Addicted to Pinterest

So I've become an addict to Pinterest. I love that I can create a virtual board of the things that interest me, or ideas to use in my life.

There are some who spend hours and hours on Pinterest, and although, I'm sure I could join them, I can't bring myself to spend my time solely pinning. I want to use the ideas I find, so that's what I've done.

I've even created a board for items I've tried because of Pinterest. As I try new items, I'll add them to my board and blog about them.

One recipe I tried, because of the ease, was a Pumpkin Muffin recipe:

Ingredients:
1 Can pumpkin Pure (not pie mix)
1 box spice cake mix

Instructions:
Mix the can and cake mix well. Do not add water, eggs or oil. It will be thick and sticky.
I added 6 oz mini chocolate chips.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. These are delicious and SO easy!


When we were planning my mom's retirement party, my sisters and I shared a board and placed ideas for decorations and food onto the board. When the time came to start making the decorations, the plan was so easy because we could visualize the decorations to make the theme we wanted. Here are the decorations from the party that were a result (in some way) of that board on Pinterest.
The candles in a jar with salt lit the stairs and pathway:
We created the poofs using plastic table cloths in the color we wanted. We tried tissue paper but it wasn't as good:
We used old maps to make the map garland:
Our theme was based on traveling so we covered boxes in brown paper. We used brown ribbon and rivets to make it look like luggage. We downloaded images of actual vintage luggage stickers and glued them on:
Now you see how I've been using my Pinterest addiction. I will be using it for the holiday treats and other ideas as they get closer. Yay!

Strawberry Banana Muffins

Our Bountiful Basket had strawberries and bananas and I wanted to find a recipe where I could use these in one recipe. A strawberry/banana smoothie was an obvious (and tasty) choice but I wanted to see what else I could find.
I found a wonderful recipe for Strawberry banana muffins at for the love of cooking blogspot.

Ingredients:
½ cup of butter, softened
¾ cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
3 overripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
10-12 fresh strawberries diced
1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees then coat a muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs, bananas, and vanilla then continue beating until well combined.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together, mix well. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir until just combined. Add most of the diced strawberries and most of the chocolate chips then gently mix them into the batter.

Spoon the batter evenly into each muffin tin. Place the remaining strawberries and chocolate chips on top of each muffin.

Place into the oven and bake 18-20 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Once cooled, we ate them without any butter. They were delicious!

Kale Chips

I mentioned that I didn't know what to do with kale when it came in my harvest basket. I looked up recipes and found one that had pretty good reviews so I tried it. I found the recipe at allrecipes.com.

Ingredients
1 bunch kale
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 pinch sea salt, to taste

Directions
1. Preheat an oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
2. Cut away inner ribs from each kale leaf and discard; tear the leaves into pieces of uniform size. (I made my pieces about the size of a small potato chip.) Wash torn kale pieces and spin dry in a salad spinner or dry with paper towels until they're very dry.
3. Put the kale pieces into a large resealable bag (or use a bowl if you don't mind getting your hands oily). Add about half the olive oil; seal and squeeze the bag so the oil gets distributed evenly on the kale pieces. Add the remaining oil and squeeze the bag more, until all kale pieces are evenly coated with oil and slightly 'massaged.' Sprinkle the vinegar over the kale leaves, reseal the bag, and shake to spread the vinegar evenly over the leaves. Spread the leaves evenly onto a baking sheet.
4. Roast in the preheated oven until mostly crisp, about 35 minutes. Season with salt and serve immediately.

The first time I made the chips, I had the oven at 250 degrees and baked them for 30 minutes. They came out perfectly crisp and I thought they were so tasty. I didn't think I would like them, and I thought I would have one or two and that would be it. I ended up eating a ton of them and loved them!
The second time I made the chips, I followed the directions and baked them at 300 degrees. They burned. Eric still liked them, though.

I will make them again, for sure. Kale is SO healthy for you. According to Web MD, kale is one of the healthiest vegetables on the planet. Check out the article here the talks about all that you get from eating kale.

Harvest Basket

Saturday, we picked up our 2nd basket from Bountiful baskets. I have been loving the addition of fruits and veggies to our home and diet. I have had a blast finding and trying new recipes.
Here's this week's basket: I will use all these fruits and veggies. Eric dug right into the black berries, which were perfectly ripe. This basket included two large bundles of kale! Kale! What am I going to do with kale!? (I will find something, right?) And there is a unique melon that I am eager to taste.

Last week I didn't know what to do with the figs that came in the basket, so here's what I did. I made a wonderful appetizer: Figs with Goat Cheese, Pecans and Bacon.

Ingredients
6 figs, halved
6 ounces goat cheese
1/2 cup toasted, chopped pecans
3 slices bacon, cut in half

Directions:
Preheat the broiler.
Stuff fig halves with goat cheese. Press pecans into the cheese. Wrap each stuffed fig half with half a slice of bacon, securing with toothpicks.
Arrange on a medium baking sheet. Broil 5 minutes, or until bacon is evenly brown and crisp and goat cheese is bubbly and lightly browned.

*the only problem I encountered was that the bacon, if uncooked, took too long to cook in this manner and the figs got burned. So I purchased precooked bacon, and then it got over cooked. Next time I will use the precooked bacon, but move the top rack down one level and hope it comes out perfect.

Either way, the figs were marvelous!!! Yum!

Mushroom (Garlic) Bread

So I made this fabulous Mushroom Bread recipe last night that I'd found on allrecipes.com. I am not a mushroom fan. Generally I don't like the texture and will eat them if they are with pizza.

When I saw the mushrooms in our pack from Bountiful Baskets, I figured I would just let Eric eat them his way and not worry about it. Out of curiosity I searched out recipes for some of the other items in our basket and ended up searching for mushrooms. When I found recipe, I thought I'd just try it and if I didn't like it, I'd give it to Eric to finish up.

We had steak for dinner and I made the bread and my taste buds were dancing with delight!! The flavor is fantastic and went really well with the steak. I had some left over steak for lunch, and one piece of the mushroom bread and even reheated, it was oh-so-good!

Salmon and Rice

I love salmon and rice and enjoy trying out new recipes. Tonight I tried out Cuisinenie's salmon recipe. It was a little too much oil, but I have to say: "Yumminess." I didn't make the rice in her blog; I used brown and wild rice, instead.

Here's her recipe:

1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons dry white wine, or water
2 pounds salmon fillet
Lemon wedges, for serving

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. with a rack in the center. Make the glaze: In a small bowl, stir brown sugar, olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, and white wine until the sugar has dissolved.
Cut salmon fillet into 4 equal-size pieces; arrange, skin side down, in a single layer in a baking dish. Pour glaze over the fish, and turn to coat evenly.
Bake until fish is opaque but still bright pink inside, basting every few minutes with glaze from baking dish, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges.

Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've started making various meals, cookies, muffins, etc, on Sundays and then bagging them up to use during the week to come. It's too much to try and make them on the day I want to eat them....so this is another recipe I made today.

A friend of mine gave me this recipe which I have made my own in a few ways. These are healthier than normal chocolate chip cookies and they are very tasty.

¼ C butter
¼ C Pureed white beans (add water to make it the consistency of room temperature butter(aprox. ½ tsp water))
¼ C sugar
¼ C Splenda
½ C brown sugar
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla
½ C flour
½ C wheat flour
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 C rolled oats
1 C chocolate semi sweet chips

1. Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl: the flours, salt, soda, powder, cinnamon and nutmeg.

2. Puree the beans and pour into a bowl. Add butter and mix the two together. Add the sugars (white and brown) and mix. Mix in the egg and vanilla.

3. Add the flour to the liquid mixture. Mix completely.

4. Add rolled oats and mix thoroughly.

5. Add chocolate chips and combine.

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes! (I bake mine for the full 12 minutes and then let them sit to complete the baking in the pan for a couple of minutes before I let them cool)

Super tasty. Thanks, Bethany, for the recipe.

One recipe I made for Valentine's Day was Heart Healthy Apple Muffins. I make them each Sunday and have them through the week. Yummy!

Eggs and Bacon

Eric and I have been working on making more homemade (healthier) meals. This morning I made a new version of eggs and bacon. I found the idea online and it was delicious.

In a muffin tin sprayed with Pam, place an almost cooked piece of bacon in a ring around each of the muffin cups. Open an egg into each muffin cup, season with salt and pepper and top with shredded cheese.
Put into the oven at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes (I did 18 minutes).

They are super tasty. I will be doing this more often in the mornings during the week as we get ready for work. We'll have a something yummy on the drive to work. Yay!

Love is in The Air

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I had fun preparing for the 'holiday' that is Valentine's Day.

I made Red Velvet Cupcakes with the most divine cream cheese frosting EVER! I made them to give to mine and Eric's coworkers! My coworkers loved them! I loved them!
I also made heart healthy Apple Muffins for my one coworker who is on a heart healthy diet due to heart disease. They were surprisingly good!! We all loved these ones, too.
This morning I woke up and shuffled into the living room to find this, lurking in the shadows: Yeah, I was WIDE AWAKE after that! Eric brought me my favorite roses. Thanks, Eric!
Tonight I will make him dinner using heart shaped noodles.