Food Friday: Peach Pie

I've never been a big fan of pie.  Making it, eating it, not my favorite.  I'll eat it, if it's there, but I hate making pie crust.  And to be honest, I don't love the taste of it either.  Are you still reading?  I'm not pleading my case very well, ha!

Adam, being the ever loving husband that he is, bought me 25 pounds of peaches.

He knows I love fruit and cooking.  I made peach jam, froze peaches for smoothies, peach syrup, peaches and cream (or almond milk in my case) and we ate peaches with our lunch for a week!  Also, I made a peach pie.  I don't know what got into my head, but I just wanted to.

It was so good.

Do you know how I know?  My husband asked me later if there was any more.  And he told my brother how good it was.  And he asked me to make it again.  Adam isn't picky, and I appreciate that.  But he also isn't very enthusiastic about food so getting him to rave about my food is a huge accomplishment.

The first thing I did was find a pie crust recipe that I would like and that would be easy.  I decided I wanted my pie crust to be more like a sugar cookie, because the lack of crust sweetness is what bothers me the most about it.  I found this recipe here and decided to use 1 c of whole wheat flour and 1/2 c all purpose.  Oh, and I upped the sugar to a rounded 1/4 c.  I mixed everything in a bowl but then dumped it right into my pie dish and mashed it down.  None of this rolling it out crap.  I hate that.  I made some fork pricks and blind baked it for about 15 minutes at 400 (The recipe says 20 minutes but I figured it would get baked with the pie filling too)

Ever classy with my pictures, you can enjoy the flour that spilled out of the bowl, my glass of water and the fruit from our dinner.

Here is the pie filling recipe I used.  It was so simple and so yummy! 

I don't usually post recipes unless I personally created them, but I wanted to post this one because I liked the combination of the whole wheat sugar cookie crust with this peach pie filling. The original can be found here.

Peach Pie Filling
3 Tbsp. Flour
⅓ C. Sugar
½ tsp. cinnamon
3-4 c. sliced peaches
½ tsp. almond extract

Combine the dry ingredients, then stir in peaches and almond extract. Bake at 375 until crust turns golden brown (about 35-40 minutes). (Unless your crust is already baked like mine!  I think I baked it for 30 or 35 minutes)

Here is my final pie.  Have I mentioned that the lighting in my kitchen is horrible?

Food Friday: Quinoa and Fruit Lettuce Wraps

So you might remember that this is vegetarian month at our house.  So far so good!  I feel great, I'm not just eating junk (like so many vegetarians are accused of I think) and no weight loss, but I blame breastfeeding!  :)  A lot of my the pins on my healthy food pinterest board are vegetarian, but not all of them.  This recipe was inspired by this pin:

Original Pin

I thought about just leaving the chicken out, but then it would be nothing but grapes and apples!  Not very filling for a dinner.  I decided to replace the chicken with quinoa and thus this recipe was born.  Also I changed the dressing.  You can try the almond butter and honey, but I already cut the chicken so I figured going forward with a traditional mayo dressing was still pretty healthy.  Here's mine:

It takes like ten of these to fill me up, but YUM!

Ingredients:
1 c quinoa, rinsed
2 c vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 c of grapes, halved
1 apple, chopped
1/4 c chopped walnuts
1/3 c mayo
salt, to taste
curry powder, to taste
pepper, to taste
romaine lettuce (or your favorite lettuce)

Directions: 
1. Cook quinoa in the broth just like you would cook rice.  Cool.
2. Mix quinoa, fruit, nuts and dressing ingredients.
3. Chill for like an hour or more until dinner time.
4. Serve in lettuce cups, or roll up. (my lettuce was too crisp to roll, it would have just cracked)

I was pleased how much this reminded me of the classic chicken salad so often served at baby showers.  Feel free to add more mayo if that suits you (I would have but we were running low)  You could also eat it wrapped in a tortilla if you wanted something a little more filling.  This was a great summer dinner.

Food Friday: Eggplant Parmesan

We get a basket of produce from Bountiful Baskets once every couple weeks.  Last Saturday we had an eggplant in our basket and on Sunday I changed dinner plans and decided to make eggplant Parmesan.  I was missing a couple ingredients so I made some substitutions and it still turned out great!  I forgot to take a picture, so you'll have to enjoy this little graphic that I made instead :)

Ingredients:
1 eggplant
Salt
1 egg
1 c breadcrumbs (I didn't have any so I put a few slices of stale bread in my food processor)
1 T Italian seasoning (I didn't have any so I used basil and oregano instead)
1/4 c grated parmesan cheese
1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce
1 c parmesan OR mozzarella (the recipe called for mozz and I only had parm, so I went with it)

Directions:
1. Begin by peeling and slicing your eggplant into 1/4" slices.  Salt generously and let sweat for 30 minutes.  Rinse well and pat dry.
2. Wisk egg.  Mix bread crumbs, seasoning and 1/4c parm cheese.  Dip eggplant slices into egg, then bread crumb mixture. 
3.  Bake eggplant slices for 5 minutes at 350 F.
4. Remove eggplant from oven and layer in a 9x9 baking dish: eggplant, marinara, cheese, repeat.
5. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 F.

This fed two adults, one toddler and a lunch for Adam the next day. . . so I would say serves 4 normal people, especially if you have sides.  I served this with fruit salad.  Green salad and french bread would also be good.  Enjoy!

Food Friday: A light summer stew

I bought a lot of frozen tilapia for a recipe that didn't use much and I have so much leftover.  I don't usually care for the taste of tilapia, so I was a little nervous to try this recipe, but YUM!  It turned out so good.  A perfect stew for spring and summer, since its full of veggies and lighter ingredients.  Its not a hearty, stick to your bones kind of stew, its a get ready for swim suit season stew.  My recipe is heavily adapted from this recipe. 

1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 c corn
1/4 c cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic
2 T olive oil
1/2 large zucchini, small dice
1 red bell pepper, small dice
10 kalamata olives, small dice
salt, to taste
salt free seasoning (I used my fajita seasoning, it has no salt)
2 filets tilapia

1. Pulse half can of tomatoes, corn and vinegar in a blender.  It should still be chunky, you don't want a puree.
2. Heat oil on medium high heat in a deep frying pan and cook garlic until fragrant.  Add tomato/corn mixture and remaining tomatoes. 
3. Add zucchini, bell pepper and olives. Season with salt and seasonings.  Stir and cover for five minutes.
4. Add fish and cook 15-20 minutes until fish is flaky and cooked through.

I tried to leave the fish as whole as possible, but it fell apart so easily.  I wanted to add some parmesan cheese as well, but we were so hungry we ate it before I could remember to add it! We also ate it before I could take a picture! 

Friday Food: A simple summer sandwich

I was never a sandwich person growing up.  The first time I remember liking a sandwich was when we had Subway for a picnic lunch when I was a kid (no idea how old)  I think my biggest problem was store bought bread and dry bread.

So basically, I love them now.  I don't make them as often because I like the works.  I want lettuce and tomato, sure.  But I also want olives, banana peppers, bell peppers, spinach, cucumbers and pickles.  That is a lot of chopping for one sandwich!  So I usually stick to Subway for my sandwich needs (which used to be once or twice a week when I was teaching!  Oh the good life. . .)

A few weeks ago I was reading Shay's food blog (she is the sister of Sean the Bachelor!  Check her out!) and she had this simple yummy sandwich.  I was inspired.  So when planning dinner I decided we would have sandwiches one night, but keep it simple.

First, I made this bread.  So easy.  Just try it, it is the best.  The only change I made was using half whole wheat flour.  I put half of the dough in an 8x8 pan and then after it baked, I cut it in half and split it open.  (So my sandwich was 8x4)

I had some leftover pesto and extra cream cheese so I mixed the two together and spread it on the bread.  Then topped it with turkey slices, pepper jack cheese, cucumbers and avocados.  So good, so simple.

Not super photogenic though. . .

This is just the worst picture.  Yes I have dishes in the sink, a cheese wrapper and knife in the background as well! 

Food Friday: Buffalo Chicken Pizza

It was a crazy day last week (psh, everyday is crazy with Olivia living here) and I did not feel like cooking.  I had planned to make pizza for dinner and then I thought maybe it was too much for me on a day like that.  But you know what?  It wasn't. 

Adam had won some buffalo wing sauce from Buffalo Wild Wings (How??? I don't know, I was out of town!) so I decided to go with that.  It was a little spicy so I did 1/3 of the pizza with BBQ sauce for Olivia and the other 2/3 in buffalo sauce.

This picture is not very appetizing, but I promise it was good!  We also like to add a little baby lotion too. . . just kidding, I don't know why there is baby lotion in this picture.

The pizza dough I made is so simple!  But you can always buy dough if you want to make it even easier.  You can find the original recipe here, but this is what I used.

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
3/4 c white flour
1 t salt
1 c warm water
1 T honey
1 packet yeast (.25 oz)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix flours and salt.  
3. Mix water, honey and yeast and let it sit until foamy.  
4. Mix water and flour mixtures.  
5. Let rise for 10 minutes. 
6. Roll out and prick with a fork.
7. Cook for 10 minutes or until desired crispiness is reached.
8. Cover in sauce, cheese and toppings.  
9. Heat in oven until cheese is bubbly.  

My toppings were just mozzarella cheese, chicken and red onions.  Celery would also be fun, but I didn't have any on hand.

Oh yeah, dip it in a little ranch or blue cheese for the full effect :)

Food Friday: Pleasing Pita

I love this recipe.  Its yummy and super healthy.  I look at the list of ingredients as guidelines, you can add what ever you like!  Its called "Pleasing Pita" but I usually eat it like a salad, not in a pita pocket.

Pleasing Pita
3 cans of beans, drained and rinsed (I use small red, white beans and some times black beans, but you can also use kidney, butter beans or any other kind you like)
1 14oz can artichoke hearts, drained
1/4 c prepared quinoa
1/4 c barley pearls
1/4 c cooked wheat berries
1/4 c cooked lentils
1 red bell pepper chopped (or what ever colors you like!)
1/2 c Anaheim pepper, chopped
1 medium red onion, chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

Dressing
3/4 c sweet chili sauce
1/2 c olive oil
2 T granulated white sugar
1 lemon, juiced

Garnishes
Avocado slices
Tomato slices
Sprouts


Mix all salad ingredients and toss with dressing.  Does it get any easier than that!?!?!

When I made it I didn't have barley, wheat berries, or Anaheim peppers so I left them out.  And I had a small amount of quinoa left so I just cooked it all and it was a little more than 1/4 c.  Just add what you like, as much as you like and leave out what you don't. 

This recipe can be found in my favorite diet book, The Wow Diet.