Cilantro lime quinoa salad

April 25, 2013 by

quinoa salad mexican (1)

This salad completes me. It is everything I love about mexican food with an added boost of protein and that guilt about eating a flour tortilla, GONE. This will surly take care of those mexican cravings of yours without all that extra calorie and gluten nonsense. Oh and the dressing. Don’t get me started on the dressing. Tangy and fresh with a little kick.

quinoa salad mexicanAlong with my quinoa veggie salad with lemon basil dressing, this salad will definitely be on repeat throughout the warmer months. It keeps in the fridge for a good week, you may just have to add a little squeeze of fresh lime to moisten it up a bit. I added a little extra cumin myself because I like it spicy. I also added a bit of extra cilantro to my individual serving because I am the only heavy cilantro lover in my family.

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Cilantro lime quinoa salad
 

Ingredients
  • 1 cup uncooked quinoa
  • 1 (15oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1½ cups frozen corn, thawed
  • 1½ cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
  • 1 red bell pepper, diced
  • 5 green onions, diced
  • ¾ cup chopped cilantro
  • ⅓ cup olive oil
  • 1 tsp. cumin
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • Juice from 1 lime
  • ¼ tsp. salt

Instructions
  1. Cooke quinoa according to package.(add 2 cups of water per 1 cup of quinoa, bring to a boil, and simmer until quinoa is tender or about 20 minutes)
  2. While quinoa is cooking make your dressing.
  3. In a bowl whisk together olive oil, cumin, garlic, lime juice and salt. Store in fridge.
  4. In a large mixing bowl combine the cooked quinoa, peppers, green onions, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, corn and black beans.
  5. Pour dressing over ingredients and stir to coat.
  6. Store in fridge for at least an hour and serve cold for best results.

 

And the sun is still hanging on over in our neck of the woods! Yesterday we played outside all day with some friends–boy do I appreciate the days we get to play outside, bedtime is such a breeze! Tonight we are heading to a cook out and this weekend is supposed to be sunny and in the high 60′s….we’ll take it! I like to really get excited about little victories, being a stay at home mom of 3, and right now the weather is one of them! Happy weekend to you all!

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Filed Under: appetizers, gluten-free, It's What's For Dinner, meals, sauces Tagged With: , ,

Frosted white chocolate lemon bars

April 22, 2013 by

lemon bars (1)Lemon has just been my jam lately when it comes to desserts. I am obessed with Tastefully Simple’s new Lemonberry Cake & Icing Mix, but I was determined to find a good bar recipe to use this cake mix for. Found one! This cake mix is great when used as a cake as well, it’s full of juicy blueberries and is extremely moist.

lemon bars (2)I think it is just eaiser to grab a bar from a pan and continue what I am doing during the day while I nibble, rather than cut a slice of cake, get a plate, get a fork and sit down and eat it. Wow talk about laziness right?! But really I don’t have time to sit down and eat a piece of cake during the day, I kid you not. These are perfect and refreshing and go great with my afternoon cup of decaf.
 lemon bars (4)I am also really digging these because they are light but still creamy and chocolatley. I think that is hard to find in a lemon bar.

lemon bars (5)And this recipe only makes an 8×8 pan so you won’t have these scrumptious bars lingering around your kitchen for 2 weeks waiting for you to eat them.

lemon bars (6)Also this recipe is easy peasy lemon squeesy. See what I did there? And who are we kidding I don’t really make any recipes that are super challenging. So just whip these up in a few minutes and your desserts for the week are taken care of!

So what are you waiting for?! Snatch up the Lemonberry cake mix while you can!

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Ingredients

Instructions
  1. Combine packet 1 of lemonberry cake mix with butter, egg and white chocolate chips in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Stir just until all the batter is combined.
  3. Press dough in butter greased 8×8 baking dish.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
  5. Mix packet 2 with cream cheese for the frosting.
  6. When bars have cooled frost and garnish with lemon zest.

 

Attention*today it was 60 degrees and we played outside, ate outside, did some yard work. my energy is slowly returning and we are beginning to see the light at the end of the long long tunnel that is winter. and yesterday it was snowing so today is happy happy day.

lemon bars

 

 

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Spiced honey glazed pork chops

April 17, 2013 by

pork chops

You know I feel like I never got pork right until I tried this recipe. Do you know what I mean? I always stray away from pork because it just never turns out moist and tender enough for my liking. The only other way I have cooked pork and really liked it was in the crock pot for shredded pork sandwiches or crock pot pork chops. But me cooking pork in the oven is always a catastrophe, until this recipe. I really think the marinating makes all the difference and heating them at such a high temp, for a short amount of time. These are so tender and flavorful, a great recipe to impress dinner guests. My advice: turn on your broiler and broil these for a few extra minutes because let me tell you, a little burnt honey on top is super tasty. The pork serves beautifully over cooked red quinoa with a dash of fresh squeezed orange juice.

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Ingredients
  • 2 lbs. pork tenderloin or pork chops
  • ½ cup of French Dressing, divided
  • 2 tsp. chili powder
  • 2 tsp. garlic powder or 1 tablespoon Tastefully Simple Garlic Garlic
  • 1tsp. dry mustard
  • 1tsp. paprika
  • ½tsp. dried thyme leaves
  • 2Tbsp. honey

Instructions
  1. Brush pork with 2 tablespoons of french dressing and store covered in fridge for at least 2 hours to marinate but up to 6.
  2. Mix dry seasonings together and rub onto both sides of pork.
  3. Mix together remainiing french dressing and honey.
  4. Brush dressing mixture over pork.
  5. Place pork in a greased baking dish.
  6. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes or until meat thermometer reads 145 degrees F.
  7. Heat oven to 450ºF. Brush meat with 2 Tbsp. dressing. Mix dry seasonings; rub onto meat. Place in shallow pan. Mix remaining dressing and honey; set aside. Bake 20 to 22 min. or until meat is done (145ºF), brushing with dressing mixture after 10 min. Transfer to cutting board; cover. Let stand 3 min. before slicing.

 

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In totally unrelated news: My sister-in-law had her baby and we have ourselves a new nephew! Oliver Hebron is so perfect and makes 5 BOY grandchildren in our family! Boys are just the best aren’t they? As much as it pains me to take back all the cute outfits I bought for my new niece (I really thought it was a girl!) we are looking forward to all the memories that will be made with all of the boy cousins! My boys are really excited to have a new cousin named “Oliber” and they say they never want any girls in our family! In fact Jack has told me that he would like 2 more brothers, and wants to know when he can get them. And to that I say, how about we get you a new 3DS game and call it a day? Well Jack, I think you will get your wish because I don’t think anyone in this family is capable of making any girls and you know, we are ok with that! Bring on the bug hunting, never ending energy, mud tracking, lego building, and most importantly, MOMMY LOVING boys for life!

 

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Filed Under: It's What's For Dinner, meals, sauces Tagged With: , ,

Sloppy Joe spaghetti bake

April 14, 2013 by

sloppy joe bake (1) sloppy joe bake

Did you ever start to make sloppy Joes and halfway through realize you didn’t have hamburger buns on hand? Yep. Totally happened to me you guys. And so sloppy Joe spaghetti (what??!) it was. I was weary that this would just end up tasting like a BBQ flavored spagetti, but it didn’t. It is everything you love about a sloppy Joe along with the comfort of a big dish of noodles. I made this for my family one night when I had to leave at supper time to be at church for a meeting, so I didn’t even get to taste it until I got home. Sometimes my boys can be picky so I crossed my fingers and left the house a little worried about this last minute creation. Well the boys just thought it was spagetti with cheese so naturally, they loved it. Let me tell you that this is one of those dishes that may even be better the next day warmed up in the oven, so there is that too. Yum. It kind of has a spaghetti/lasagna feel to it with the taste of a sloppy Joe, and by that I mean it cuts in nice little squares like a good lasagna. So give your body a break on those carbs and use gluten-free rice noodles to make this dish gluten- free if you’d like, without compromising the taste of a real good and messy sloppy Joe.

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Ingredients
  • 1 lb ground sirloin
  • 1 packet sloppy joe seasoning
  • ⅓ cup water
  • 2 tablespoons BBQ sauce
  • 2 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 1 box prepared spaghetti noodles
  • shredded cheddar cheese
  • ¼ cup diced green onions

Instructions
  1. Heat ground beef and diced onion in a skillet on medium heat until meat is no longer pink and onions are translucent.
  2. Drain grease from beef and onion mixture.
  3. Add sloppy joe seasoning, BBQ, ketchup and water. Mix to incorporate.
  4. Turn heat to low and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, cook your noodles and drain.
  6. In a greased 9×13 pan, lay the noodles.
  7. Top with sloppy joe mixture and then sprinkle with a generous amount of cheese.
  8. Sprinkle green onions on top and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Notes
*use organic ingredients and grass-fed beef whenever possible.


 sloppy joe casserole

sloppy joe casserole (1)

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Filed Under: gluten-free, It's What's For Dinner, meals, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Quinoa patties with Greek yogurt sauce

April 10, 2013 by

Quinoapatties

Quinoapatties (1)

I know I say this a lot but this is SERIOUSLY one of my new all-time favorite recipes. These are so refreshing and light but filling at the same time. The flavor is incredible! And the sauce is that of a gyro yogurt sauce with a garlic flare. Ugh that sauce! Quinoa patty recipes always made me run the other way in fear of them being really bland because quinoa can be very bland in the wrong recipes. But that is why this recipe with the yogurt sauce appealed to me so much, I knew I could spice it up with some garlic. So far from bland! These have even more flavor the next day re-heated. And can you even imagine all the protein that is in these puppies, with the Greek yogurt and the quinoa? You guys we are never getting enough protein in our daily diets, in fact to get the right amount of protein we need daily we would need to eat about 20 eggs, in one day! I anticipate these being a hot menu item over the summer in our house. They are really pretty simple too, it sounds like a lot when you look at the recipe, but it really isn’t. And you can mix it all ahead of time and store it in the fridge if you’d like, because if your weird like me you will need to have supper just about ready around lunch time (or what I call “oven ready) to eliminate dinner time stress and mess.

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Ingredients
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 3 large handfuls of spinach, washed & chopped
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil (plus more for frying)
  • ¾ cup uncooked quinoa
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • ½ cup cheese of your choice (I recommend feta, gouda or mozzarella)
  • 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • ⅛ of a teaspoon fine grain sea salt
  • ½ cup whole wheat bread crumbs
  • black pepper to taste
  • 2 cups plain greek yogurt
  • 1 tablespoons Tastefully Simple Garlic Garlic
  • 1 tablespoon fresh dill, finely chopped
  • ½ tablespoon fresh mint, chopped
  • ½ tablespoon olive oil
  • ½ tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • ½ teaspoon salt

Instructions
  1. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet.
  2. Add onion and garlic and heat on medium until onions are translucent.
  3. Stir in the spinach and heat for 3 minutes.
  4. Transfer mixture into a large bowl.
  5. Cook quinoa according to package and let it cool.
  6. While quinoa is cooking mix together yogurt, garlic garlic, dill, mint, ½ tablespoon olive oil, lemon juice and salt and store in the fridge until ready to serve.
  7. In your large bowl of spinach and onions, add your eggs, cheese, parsley, lemon zest, salt, pepper, and quinoa once it has cooled.
  8. Finally add the bread crumbs and let the mixture sit for a few minutes to soak in the moisture.
  9. Scoop about a tablespoon of the mixture to make your patties.
  10. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil on a hot skillet or pan and press quinoa patties on the skillet.
  11. Heat for about 5 mintes on each side or until slightly brown.
  12. Serve warm with yogurt sauce. (remember when reheating always use your oven or stove top instead of your microwave because the microwave will kill all the nutrients in your food)


 Quinoapatties (2) Quinoapatties (3)

 

 

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Filed Under: appetizers, gluten-free, It's What's For Dinner, meals, soups Tagged With: ,
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