Today wound up being a day of cooking. I got a whole new box of produce from Backyard Produce this past Tuesday, so I jumped in with both feet - butternut squash french fries, sweet potato, spinach and peanut butter soup, carrot and celery soup, and meatless crumbles. My freezer is now stocked and successfully keeping me away from the grocery store for at least another week.
First off, butternut squash french fries. This gem actually came from last week's produce box and I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I started looking to pinterest for ideas to use it for. In the past, I've made butternut squash soup, that I wasn't that impressed with, and butternut squash mac n' cheese, that was very good, but the scale is creeping up so I wanted to keep it a bit lower calorie - enter butternut squash French fries.
Butternut Squash French Fries
(original post)
Needed:
-butternut squash
-salt
1. Take a potato peeler and peel off all the skin on the squash, then cut off both ends
2. Slice it lengthwise, and scoop out all the insides (if you want you can keep the seeds to roast them!)
3. Cut up the sections into fry-looking pieces. It won't be perfect, just wing it
4. IMPORTANT take the pieces and lay them on a paper towel, sprinkle with a bit of salt and let them "sweat." Let them sit for about 10 minutes you can preheat the oven to 425 during this time. This draws out all the moisture so your fries can get nice and crisp. Once the 10 minutes are up pat the fries dry
5. Place the fries on a lightly sprayed cookie sheet, then give the fries a little spritz of cooking oil and sprinkle a bit more salt on them
6. Bake for about 40 minutes, turning halfway through
I seriously devoured this in less than 2 minutes...and oh yeah, ZERO Weight Watcher points! Say what!!
Next off, I got my meatless crumbles going. This was a recipe from my mom that she gave me in a cookbook for Christmas with all her favorite recipes. She uses it all the time and I can definitely see why. It makes a huge batch of crumbles that you can use in place of the Morningstar Farms meatless crumbles, for a fraction of the price. Awesome.
Meatless Crumbles
Needed:
-2 cups brown rice
-2 cups lentils
-seasoning (I used tandori because that's what I had)
-1/4 cup olive oil
-1/2 cup wheat gluten
-1 cup rolled oats
1. Boil rice and lentils with seasoning until tender. Drain any excess water
2. Add all the rest of the ingredients and give it a good stir. I also added more seasoning
3. Add to a baking pan and bake at 300 for 1 hour, stirring about every 20 minutes
It says it makes 10 servings, so I separated it into 5 freezer bags and tossed them in the freezer and I'll just pull them out as needed. Too easy.
Moving on to the soups...
Sweet Potato, Spinach and Peanut Butter
(There is no real original post for this one, I just kinda winged it and it turned out great!)
Needed:
-2 medium sweet potatoes
-2 1/2 cups veggie broth
-1 1/2 cup spinach
-garlic
-olive oil
-seasoning (I used tandori again)
-3 tblsp PB2, prepared
-3 tblsp pasta sauce
1. Heat up 1 Tbsp of olive oil and cook spinach in it for about 5 minutes, or until completely wilted
2. Peel and dice sweet potatoes
3. Add sweet potatoes, broth, pb2, pasta sauce, seasoning, and garlic
4. Simmer for about 20-25 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are soft
5. Pulse in blender until it reaches desired consistency
I cooked lightlife italian sausages, cut them up and added it to the soup. It kind of reminded me of an Italian Wedding Soup. It was delicious.
Finally, my faithful carrot soup. I got carrots and celery in this last produce box, so I decided just to go ahead and cook them up. It goes along the same lines of this carrot soup just with celery instead of zucchini. You can really make a soup out of any veg you have. It's a beautiful thing!
Beautiful!
First off, butternut squash french fries. This gem actually came from last week's produce box and I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I started looking to pinterest for ideas to use it for. In the past, I've made butternut squash soup, that I wasn't that impressed with, and butternut squash mac n' cheese, that was very good, but the scale is creeping up so I wanted to keep it a bit lower calorie - enter butternut squash French fries.
Butternut Squash French Fries
(original post)
Needed:
-butternut squash
-salt
1. Take a potato peeler and peel off all the skin on the squash, then cut off both ends
2. Slice it lengthwise, and scoop out all the insides (if you want you can keep the seeds to roast them!)
3. Cut up the sections into fry-looking pieces. It won't be perfect, just wing it
4. IMPORTANT take the pieces and lay them on a paper towel, sprinkle with a bit of salt and let them "sweat." Let them sit for about 10 minutes you can preheat the oven to 425 during this time. This draws out all the moisture so your fries can get nice and crisp. Once the 10 minutes are up pat the fries dry
5. Place the fries on a lightly sprayed cookie sheet, then give the fries a little spritz of cooking oil and sprinkle a bit more salt on them
6. Bake for about 40 minutes, turning halfway through
I seriously devoured this in less than 2 minutes...and oh yeah, ZERO Weight Watcher points! Say what!!
Next off, I got my meatless crumbles going. This was a recipe from my mom that she gave me in a cookbook for Christmas with all her favorite recipes. She uses it all the time and I can definitely see why. It makes a huge batch of crumbles that you can use in place of the Morningstar Farms meatless crumbles, for a fraction of the price. Awesome.
Meatless Crumbles
Needed:
-2 cups brown rice
-2 cups lentils
-seasoning (I used tandori because that's what I had)
-1/4 cup olive oil
-1/2 cup wheat gluten
-1 cup rolled oats
1. Boil rice and lentils with seasoning until tender. Drain any excess water
2. Add all the rest of the ingredients and give it a good stir. I also added more seasoning
3. Add to a baking pan and bake at 300 for 1 hour, stirring about every 20 minutes
It says it makes 10 servings, so I separated it into 5 freezer bags and tossed them in the freezer and I'll just pull them out as needed. Too easy.
Moving on to the soups...
Sweet Potato, Spinach and Peanut Butter
(There is no real original post for this one, I just kinda winged it and it turned out great!)
Needed:
-2 medium sweet potatoes
-2 1/2 cups veggie broth
-1 1/2 cup spinach
-garlic
-olive oil
-seasoning (I used tandori again)
-3 tblsp PB2, prepared
-3 tblsp pasta sauce
1. Heat up 1 Tbsp of olive oil and cook spinach in it for about 5 minutes, or until completely wilted
2. Peel and dice sweet potatoes
3. Add sweet potatoes, broth, pb2, pasta sauce, seasoning, and garlic
4. Simmer for about 20-25 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are soft
Tag team it and get both of those soups simmering!
5. Pulse in blender until it reaches desired consistency
I cooked lightlife italian sausages, cut them up and added it to the soup. It kind of reminded me of an Italian Wedding Soup. It was delicious.
Finally, my faithful carrot soup. I got carrots and celery in this last produce box, so I decided just to go ahead and cook them up. It goes along the same lines of this carrot soup just with celery instead of zucchini. You can really make a soup out of any veg you have. It's a beautiful thing!
No comments:
Post a Comment