This day three years ago I was ridiculously pregnant and yet desperately praying that I would NOT have a Leap Year baby! 

Today was spent with my two children massacring the house while I figured out a bunch of tax mess, some grocery shopping (which ended with a big OOPS!) and finally some nice downtime.  Here is what our afternoon looked like:

What I am calling No Name Salmon recipe from NieNie here.  (Cause No Name Salmon is easier to say than Brown Sugar Soy Sauce Lemon Glazed Salmon.)

(My links seem to be broken so here it is again:  http://cuisinenie.blogspot.com/2011/02/salmon-with-pineapple-rice.html)

Coconut Rice recipe from Our Best Bites here.

(http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/06/sweet-and-savory-coconut-rice.html)

So  I made my first sorbet.  YUM!  I forgot I had frozen some blackberries a few weeks back and saw them in the freezer while getting out my ice cream machine yesterday.  ( I know!  Coldest day of the year so far…maybe of the winter!…and I made ice cream!  But it was GOOD!)  Anyway, I figured there had to be a good recipe in the book Clint got me for my birthday – The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz – and there was!  Sorbet is SO easy to make and definitely worth it!  YUM!!  Ryan, who usually wont eat my homemade ice cream, LOVED it! Apparently, its more fun to eat with you hands.

Blackberry Sorbet Recipe

from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

4 cups blackberries, fresh or frozen

1 cup water

2/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

Puree the blackberries, sugar and water in a blender.  Press the mixture through a strainer to remove the seeds.  Stir in lemon juice.

Chill the mixture thoroughly, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to instructions.

I have been experimenting the past few days.

Experiment #1: Homemade Sourdough Bread done two ways.  First following my friend Berta’s advice, then, trying my own method.  Berta’s bread came out beautiful.  Whole wheat sourdough with a great crust and crumb.  I used it for a breakfast sandwich this morning.  YUM!  My own method produced this:

Not all experiments end well.  Wish I had a picture of my other loaf for comparison, but I ate it too quickly! (P.S. to Berta.  If you try my method of just throwing it on your stone and using steam in your oven, the dough WILL rise and it WONT ooze all over.  However, it will also BURN about halfway through the cooking time!  Just thought I would pass it on in case you were thinking of trying it out!)

My other experiment included all of these ingredients:

Ideas?  Anyone?  I made….drumroll please…

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Chocolate Tofu Popsicles!

You know you want one!  You can come visit me, OR make them on your own by following the recipe here.  Let me tell you, if you want a non-guilty, rich chocolate-y experience, make these babies!  They are so rich I could only eat about half a popsicle.  And my popsicle monster of a son could only eat a few bites and then needed water to wash it down.  They are good though.  Very, very good.

Did I make my child spinach popcicles this morning?

Oh yes I did!

Okay, so they weren’t JUST spinach, but its so much more shocking than “Apple-Pineapple-Carrot-Spinach Popcicles” and a lot less mouthful to say. 

Other than being a kinda gross-looking puke green color (appetizing, huh?)  they taste just like fresh squeezed apple juice, but with way more goodness in them!  After juicing 4 large apples, a small pineapple, a few carrots and two handfuls of spinach, I poured the juice into molds and stuck them in the freezer.

Ryan hasnt tried the popcicles yet, but after making them I gave him some of the leftover juice for breakfast.  His response?

“I wan mo!  I wan mo!”

Two and a half cups full of more to be exact.  (The other half cup ended up on my kitchen floor.  It wouldn’t be a complete morning otherwise.)

In other food-related news…

We had our friend Tara LaRue over for dinner last night!  It was so nice to hang out and chat with such a lovely woman who brings us treats (yummy Trader Joe’s peanut butter and TO DIE FOR homemade brownies), entertains and loves on our kids, and is just fun to talk to.

For dinner we had a delicious Honey Balsamic Chicken breast with new potatoes and a delicious spinach/strawberry salad that Tara made.  (With this YUMMY dressing!)  The chicken recipe I got from a friend who had us over for the 4th.  It is sooooo good and sooooo simple and soooooo healthy!  Cant beat that!

To make it, just marinate your chicken overnight in a combination of balsamic vinegar, honey, fresh crushed garlic and fresh rosemary, then grill!  The best, most tender chicken I have had in a long, long time!

Whew!  I think I’m all good fooded out!

(Did I just say good fooded?  My English teachers would DIE if they ever saw how I write sometimes!)

And actually, that’s not possible.  I am ALWAYS up for more good food.

So the other day I was browsing through The Pioneer Woman’s latest recipes when I came across this one.  Her favorite pizza topped with fresh mozzarella, and roasted eggplant and tomatoes and Parmesan.  I decided to give it a try as it looked absolutely DELICIOUS and happy to my mouth and mind.

The verdict:  Okay pizza – TO DIE FOR crust!  The tomatoes, in my opinion, made the pizza too watery, and if it hadn’t been for the pesto I added there wouldn’t have been too much flavor to the pizza.  EXCEPT, of course, in the crust.  Boy, oh, boy was that crust good!  You can get the full recipe here, or below are the ingredients and instructions for just the crust.  YUM-O!

Best Pizza Dough Ever (Ever, Ever…Really)

INGREDIENTS:

(MAKES TWO CRUSTS)

1 teaspoon Active Dry Or Instant Yeast

4 cups All-purpose Flour

1 teaspoon Kosher Salt

? cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil

DIRECTIONS:

Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water.
In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour. Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined.

Coat a separate mixing bowl with a light drizzle of olive oil, and form the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge until you need it. ***It’s best to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance, and 3 or 4 days is even better.  (It’s worth the wait!)

I wanted to share a few good recipes I have found (or rediscovered) lately.

First, a recipe for Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies.  If cookies can be healthy, this one would probably be in that category.  It uses whole wheat, oats, and oil instead of butter or shortening.  It does use white sugar, but I am sure there is a way around that if you really wanted to go the extra mile in making them healthy.  They are super moist and full of flavor.  Even Clint, who usually turns up his nose at anything I make and call “healthy”, loves these cookies.  I want to eventually experiment with white chocolate chips added in or maybe even some coconut!  YUM!

CRANBERRY OATMEAL COOKIES

INGREDIENTS:

2 c whole-wheat flour            1 c nuts, chopped  (I like walnuts.)

1 1/4 c sugar                              2/3 c raisins or Craisins

1 t baking powder                    1 c oil

1/2 t baking soda                     2 lg eggs

1 t salt                                           1/2 c milk

2 t cinnamon                              1 t vanilla

3 c rolled oats

DIRECTIONS:

Sift dry ingredients.  Add rolled oats, nuts, and raisins/Craisins.  Mix.  In a separate bowl, mix together oil, milk, eggs, and vanilla.  Add to flour mixture and stir thoroughly.  Drop by spoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 400 degrees for 7-10 minutes.

Another good recipe I just stumbled across was on Stephanie Nielsen’s recipe site, CuisineNie. It is a recipe for Whole Wheat Pasta with Fresh Artichokes.  If you think that artichokes are weird, you would be right.  However, they are weird and DELICIOUS!  The dish is fresh and full of flavor for having so few ingredients.  (Love it!)  If you are wanting something a little more substantial, you might add some chopped chicken to the final dish.  I personally found the dish perfect as is, and plenty filling even without any meat.  (NieNie is a vegetarian you see.  While we are not vegetarians ourselves, we do eat meat-less dishes probably more than the average American.)  These are Nie’s instructions from her website.  I have also linked to it so you can find it there.  For a more detailed explanation of how to remove an artichoke heart, visit this site. (Seriously took me a while and one ruined artichoke to figure it out!)    Once you know how its super easy and will go quickly.

Pasta With Fresh Artichokes

1 box good whole-wheat spaghetti*

2 – a gazillion cloves garlic, crushed and chunked

4-5 medium or 2-3 large fresh artichokes, prepared (instructions below)

Handful fresh parsley

2 fresh lemons

½-1 cup vegetable stock or pasta cooking water

Olive oil, butter

Parmesan cheese

1) Prepare the artichokes.(FOR BETTER INSTRUCTIONS, GO HERE.) This is the hardest part of this recipe, and the only real work. Set up a bowl of ice water and squeeze the juice of half a lemon into it. Cut the stem off the artichoke (if you are willing to take the extra time, take a good peeler and peel the stem of the dark green until only the light green remains, toss the light green stick into the bowl.) Remove the leaves from the artichoke by working around it in concentric circles. Once you get toward the inside, cut off the top, cut in half, and then scrape out the choke and remove remaining leaves. Put the heart in the bowl, and continue with remaining artichokes. Set aside.

2) Chop garlic and parsley, and start the pasta to boil.

3) Put a large pan over medium heat, add oil. Drain the artichokes, dry carefully (water in oil spits) and then chop into bite-sized chunks. Sauté until there is a nice dark glaze on them.

4) Add the garlic, salt and pepper, and a dash of butter and cook until you can smell the garlic and everything is good and hot. Add broth or water, scrape to deglaze the pan, and cover to let steam, 7-10 minutes.

5) Check the artichokes for doneness. They should be fork-tender, but not mushy. I like them with a bit of crunch. When they seem done to you, add the juice of one, to one-and-a-half lemons, add parsley and a thumb-sized chunk of butter. Toss.

6) Drain pasta, reserving a bit of cooking liquid, put back in the cooking pan, put artichoke mixture over, toss to mix. Serve with fresh parmesan cheese.

*Whole wheat pasta can be gummy and is not always the best flavor for a particular sauce. This recipe is actually best with whole-wheat, it compliments the artichoke beautifully.

Does loving good food – the smells, the tastes, the sounds and colors and textures – make me silly?

I may sound like a broken record, and this certainly isn’t news to anyone who knows me, but I LOVE FOOD!  Good food that is.

After restocking my fridge with fresh fruits and veggies from our local farmers market and grinding my own wheat the other day, I was just reminded about how much good food is not only good for your body, but good for your soul.

There is nothing better than the smell of homemade bread…unless that homemade bread is made with your own freshly ground whole wheat flour.  The difference – in both smell and taste – is AMAZING!

And when my body is feeling sluggish and yucky, nothing beats a fresh meal packed with veggies.  Like last night’s dinner – Chinese Orange BBQ Cashew Chicken over Rice.

And right now, the smell and first taste of my homemade granola are putting me in seventh heaven.

I may be silly, but I am so grateful for good food from the Lord that not only feeds our bodies but our spirits.

Bon Apetit!