Salmon Thursday & Alaska Grown

Salmon Thursday. Can you say Alaska Grown?!

Local lettuce, tomato, cucumber, zucchini, my favorite peanut potatoes and of course the salmon!

June bento

Here is a quick shot of my bento lunch from yesterday. My sandwich is a re-creation of a delicious vegan sandwich I had recently in Ellensburg, WA, but my version has a little turkey. Hummus on one side of the bread, fresh avocado on the other side with sprouts and tomato slices between. Looks like I got a little carried away with the fruits and veggies on the side, but can you really have too many?

Pumpkin Zucchini Bread with Chocolate Chips

I came up with this recipe after looking at several different recipes for Pumpkin Bread and Zucchini Bread but wasn't able to find just what I was looking for.

This is a delicious bread to have with your morning latte. I like mine lightly toasted. Using applesauce in place of the oil cuts down on the fat and the pumpkin & zucchini are just plain good for you! And of course you can't go wrong with the addition of the mini chocolate chips!

Did anyone else over-stock on canned pumpkin when there was talk of a shortage last year? I still have at least 4 cans to use. We'll be making this bread often!

Pumpkin Zucchini Bread with Chocolate Chips
Serves: 32 | WW PointsPlus 3 per slice
2 regular sized loaves* or 4 mini loaves

Ingredients:
1 egg
2 egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour two loaf pans. (I use PAM for baking)

Shred zucchini and squeeze in paper towel to removed excess moisture.

Mix together egg, egg whites, and sugar. Add vanilla, pumpkin, and applesauce. Mix well.

Stir together dry ingredients and slowly incorporate into wet ingredients. Mix well.

Stir in zucchini and mini chocolate chips. Divide evenly between loaf pans. Bake 50 minutes or until done. Cool 10 minutes in pans then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

*once cooled I like to cut each large loaf in 1/2 and keep individually wrapped in the freezer so we don't eat it all at once!
The mini loaves are the perfect size for gifting to friends & neighbors.

I snuck in another August bento!

I made a  couple of quick bentos for us earlier this week. Mine is on the left. Chickpeas, with pepitas. Caprese salad with a bit of cucumber from my mom's greenhouse added in, and an Asian pear. Hubby's bento was heavy on the desserts. He had a sandwich thin pocket stuffed with Laughing Cow cheese and deli turkey and honey mustard dipping sauce, tapioca pudding, cookie, peanut M&M's and some popped bbq chips. We were able to get out and enjoy the sun for a bit too!

Menu Plan Monday #32

Off to another week of menu planning to retain my sanity. Luckily this week will be less busy, but next week - look out! Crazy is coming! (and clearly the crazy came a little early since I didn't get around to actually posting this until Saturday!)

I have already found a couple of recipes I want to make next week and am planning what to do with the fresh ripe contents of my CSA box. I won't receive it until next Friday, but really that works perfectly with my schedule because I'll have the weekend to try out my new recipes!

Monday: Autumn Risotto with Chicken & Cranberries (replace chicken w/TVP for Meatless Monday). Going to try to lighten this recipe  for WW. As written it is 11 ppv per cup! Yay! With revisions I have it down to 8ppv!

Tuesday: BBQ Chicken drumsticks & veggies

Wednesday: picking up a friend at the airport - dinner in Anchorage.

Thursday: Salmon Thursday

Friday: probably out.

Saturday: Gone All Day Dinner - Fix It & Forget It Lightly cookbook

Sunday: Potato Soup


Coming in my CSA box is a batch or 2 of tomatillos! I also made sure to add in a bunch of cilantro. As you know I've become addicted to canning recently and if this tomatillo salsa recipe works it will be canned! I also came across this one for Tomatillo, Black Bean, Avocado, Cilantro & Lime salsa, but I don't think you can can (ha ha the can-can!) avocado, so I would just stir in the avocado when it's ready to serve.

It already feels like fall in Alaska. The leaves are starting to change, the crab apples are almost ripe, and we've turned the heat back on in the house. I'm ready to start making some comforting fall food, and I found several cans of pumpkin in the pantry. This recipe doesn't use much of the pumpkin, Pumpkin Spiced Oatmeal Pecan Cookies, but I can also make Gina's Pumpkin Butter recipe and . . . can some pumpkin butter! I'm going to have to get more canning jars very soon! Wouldn't it be fun to give out jars of pumpkin butter for Thanksgiving?!

I don't think I'll make this one this week, but here is a Marshmallow Molten Lava cake for you to drool over. Sounds decadent and evil! 

Garden Fresh Salsa

What do you do with all the tomatoes that come ripe at the same time? Get creative - use them in this beautiful summer vegetable tian recipe, like i did last night. Put them in your salad of course. Make a caprese salad. Put them on a BLT! Stuff them like I did in this recipe for Ricotta-Basil Stuffed Tomatoes. You still have some left? Make this great salsa! I followed a basic salsa recipe and changed it up a little. I didn't have jalapeno at the house, so I used a can of diced green chilis and went from there. I didn't know how many small to medium tomatoes it would take to get 8 cups of chopped tomatoes, so I used every last one I had picked a few days ago in my mom's greenhouse. She's out of town, so someone needed to tend to the tomatoes, right? And besides there are still a ton over there that will be ripe in a day or so for her. You can even use the little mutant-looking tomatoes that I think are super cute!

Home Canned Salsa
adapted from SalsaGarden.com

8 cups chopped fresh Tomatoes
1 small can diced green chilis (this is where you can adjust your heat level)
1 large White Onion, diced
6 cloves Garlic, minced
1 cup chopped fresh Cilantro, divided
1/2 - 1 tsp. cumin
1 TBS Salt
¾ cup Cider Vinegar
¼ cup fresh Lime Juice

Combine all ingredients, except 1/2 cup cilantro in a large pot. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes. Just after you pull it off the heat add your additional cilantro. Pour hot salsa into hot, sterilized canning jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Seal jars with two piece caps. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. 

The Review: With my changes I thought this turned out great. I was able to can 7 half pints and have another 2 1/2 cups of salsa in the fridge that we are working on. I did use mild chilis because we are really wimps with heat, but probably could have used medium and been okay too. You could definitely up the chilis to a larger can or 2 cans. The chilis and cumin were my changes to the recipe and added a nice smokiness in the background.

Recipe Review: Ricotta-Basil Stuffed Tomatoes

My sweet hubby picked up a Vegetarian Times Farmer's Market Cookbook (magazine) for me as part of my week of birthday this year. It has beautiful pictures, lots of info and ideas, and a ton of fantastic recipes that I'm anxious to try. This is the first of hopefully many that I'll try from this cookbook.

Ricotta-Basil Stuffed Tomatoes
Vegetarian Times

Serves 8

 

8 large beefsteak tomatoes
2 large eggs
1 cup low-fat ricotta cheese
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
2 Tbs. plus 4 tsp. grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1 clove garlic, minced (1 tsp.)
1 cup corn kernels
1 cup diced zucchini plus 24 very thin zucchini slices

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Slice tops off tomatoes, and scoop pulp out of centers to make stuffable tomato shells; set aside. Discard half of tomato pulp; remove seeds from and finely chop remaining half of pulp.

Whisk together eggs and ricotta in medium bowl until smooth. Stir in red onion, basil, 2 Tbs. Parmesan, and garlic. Add corn, diced zucchini, and chopped tomato pulp; stir until combined.
Fill tomatoes just to top with 1/2 cup ricotta mixture. Sprinkle each tomato with 1/2 tsp. Parmesan, and top each with 3 zucchini slices and tomato top. Place in large baking dish.
 
Bake 45 minutes, or until filling is puffed up and tops are browned. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. To freeze and enjoy later: Cool stuffed tomatoes completely, then place in foil-lined baking pan. Wrap tightly in foil, then in plastic wrap, and freeze. When ready to eat, thaw tomatoes completely. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake, uncovered, 20 to 30 minutes, or until filling is hot.

Per stuffed tomato:
Calories: 130, Protein: 9g, Total fat: 5g, Saturated fat: 2g, Carbs: 18g, Cholesterol: 65mg, Sodium: 151mg, Fiber: 3g, Sugars: 10g
4 WW P+



The verdict: I loved this. I did use tomatoes from the grocery store (gasp!) because we just don't have tomatoes ready in Alaska yet. I will definitely try this again with fresh from the greenhouse tomatoes when they are ready. I did omit the onion. I see now there is basil in the recipe (um, yeah, I should have seen that in the recipe title, right?!) - that would have been yummy...but I completely overlooked it. For our preference next time I will lightly steam or saute the diced zucchini as it was a little too crunchy in the filling. Overall though, we loved this recipe. I will make it again and again. This could easily be a meatless entree for a light dinner, but here we had it with a bit of grilled steak and Crispy Parmesan Asparagus.

Full Circle Farm

This week I received my first box of subscription organic fruit & veggies from Full Circle Farm. Full Circle started as a CSA for just Washington, and then added Alaska to it's list of locations for subscription produce.

Subscriptions are on either a weekly or every other week schedule (every other week for me, at least to start), and are delivered to a variety of locations all over Alaska - even the bush communities! The week before the box comes you receive an email detailing what's going to be in the next box and have the opportunity to change out as much or as little as you like, depending on what's available. We don't normally get the best produce in Alaska. Most of it is shipped up by the bigger grocery chains and comes from  California or wherever happens to have some manner of fruit or veggies that appear somewhat ripe.

I was so excited to receive my first box! I've been pleased with the quality of what came in our box - though it's hard to tell from the bad mobile photos.

Photo Friday - Veggies!

A few days ago our Alaska State Fair ended. Sadly I didn't make it back during the last few days to see the giant cabbages and all of the giant veggies. I did go during the first few days and saw these giant veggies, including the new record breaking pumpkin. They said with all the rain and cool weather this summer we wouldn't see many really large veggies and likely wouldn't see ANY record breakers. Well, this guy certainly proved them wrong.

This is the new record breaking giant pumpkin that was grown by a guy in Anchorage. It weighed in at 1,101 pounds! I think the last record was right around 1,000 lbs.

Additional large veggies that were on hand the day I was there. The long thing in front is a gourd. It's 76 3/4" long. The turnip on the right weighed in at 19.6 lbs, and the kohlrabi came in at 20.05 lbs. The far left is a large head of cauliflower but I didn't see it's weight. Pretty cool!

Bento #8 2.11.2010

I finally took a few minutes this week to make a couple of bentos for me & D. :) And I got a couple of cool background papers for Valentines Day so maybe I could enter them in the BOMB Challenge at Hapa Bento. My bento has 100 calorie goldfish, pb&j on a lip shaped sandwich thin (inside out), colby-jack hearts, radishes, carrots, celery, grape tomatoes, pineapple, cucumbers, and apples. Oh, and the blue silicone cup has more roasted eggplant dip.

D's bento has a turkey & cheese heart sandwich (he did not like the turkey showing through the bread like that, next time I'll have to put the piece I cut out back in there inside out so it shows), 100 calorie mini fudge stripe cookies, apples, heart cheese cut-out, carrots, wheat thins & roasted eggplant dip.