Veggie Burgers

We try to eat vegetarian dinners about 3 nights a week, that's not a hard and fast rule, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. It healthier, it saves money, and it helps us get our daily 5 servings of veggies in. Tonight I made Carrot Burgers and we served them with Baked Sweet Potato Fries. I'm stuffed and the whole plateful of dinner was under 500 calories. These babies beat Bocca Burgers hands down! I found the recipe from Allrecipes, but I made several changes to make them my own. Get your food processor handy and these will come together fast! (If you don't have one, shred the carrots and finely chop everything else)



Carrot Burgers

adapted from Allrecipes



1 1/2 c. shredded carrots

2 eggs beaten

1 stalk celery, shredded

3 Tb shredded onion

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

1/4 tsp. sugar

1 med. cooked and mashed sweet potato

1/2 c. seasoned bread crumbs

olive oil



Combine all the ingredients and cook in a skillet with a little coating of olive oil. Serve on buns and make up just like a hamburger.

I had mine open-faced on a whole wheat bun with dijon mustard, lettuce, and tomato. My photo doesn't do them justice. They were excellent and very filling!
I plugged them in at 13 grams fiber and 86 calories a serving (without the bun and fixings)....can't beat that!

Granola

This is probably the best tasting granola that I've ever had. It's yummy stuff! I ate it topped on some Greek yogurt today and I felt like I was eating dessert!

Power Granola

from Cooking Light

2 cups regular oats

1/3 c. ground flaxseed

1/4 c. chopped walnuts

1/4 c. slivered almonds

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/3 c. orange juice

1/3 c. honey

1/4 c. packed brown sugar

2 tsp. canola oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/3 c. Craisins

Preheat oven to 300. Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Combine orange juice, honey and brown sugar in a saucepan and heat just until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and stir in oil and vanilla. Pour over dry mixture and stir to coat. Spread mixture over a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray and bake for 10 min.; stir well, bake another 15 min. Stir in dried cranberries (I didn't read the directions very well and added the cranberries with the dry ingredients and baked them.....still turned out fine).

1/4 c. = 93 calories

Asian Tofu Salad

Right now I have a serious girl-crush on this woman. She's awesome. Lately, I've been doing a lot of recipes from her blog so I'll probably be posting quite a bit from her. For me, lunch is usually a big ol' bowl of veggie soup, or a monster salad. Now that could get boring real quick. BUT there are so many incredibly tasty and easy soup/salad recipes out there! My taste buds stay happy! Here's one I tried last week and it was so delicious I'm using up the leftover tofu in my fridge and making it again today, I'm going to try it with the Teriyaki and pineapple. For anyone who has never tried tofu I just have to say, don't knock it 'till you try it....my kids even love it. The salad may look involved, but it's not. It can be thrown together in 10 min.....it's worth those 10 min. :-)

Asian Tofu Salad

adapted from Trainer Momma

2 cups spinach (or your greens of choice)

3 oz. firm tofu, drained and patted dry

1 Tb hoisin sauce (or Teriyaki)

1/2 cup assorted chopped bell peppers

1/4 c. green onions sliced

1 orange peeled, segmented, and cut into chunks (or pineapple if you're doing Teriyaki)

1 Tb almonds

1/4 c. edamame (steamed in the microwave)

shredded carrot

1 Tb La Maison Organic Lemon Ginger Sesame Dressing - or your Asian dressing of choice, this is my fav and I buy it at Costco

Spray a pan with cooking spray and put the block of tofu in it when it's hot. Fry until brown and a little crispy. Add the hoisin sauce and cook a couple of more minutes. Take the tofu out of the pan, set it aside and keep warm. Add the bell pepper and cook until tender.... let them soak up any remaining hoisin sauce in the pan (it's good stuff, we can't waste it!). Layer the spinach green onion, shredded carrot, and edamame on a plate. Top with the hot tofu and peppers. Finish of with the oranges and a sprinkle of almonds. Drizzle the dressing over the whole salad and enjoy!

Good stuff here:

13 grams of fiber, 21 grams of protein (this baby keep you full!) and 418 calories for the whole thing!

A Recipe Blog

I've been toying with the idea of starting a recipe blog for a long time. I would love to organize some of the zillions of recipes I make. Also, I'm constantly asked for recipes and I usually never get around to sending them so this is an easy way to share them with everyone!

I love to cook.

I love love love lurrrve to cook.

Being in the kitchen is my zen zone for the day. Once upon a time I even wanted to cook for a living so I attended 18 months of culinary school.....I had no interest in the restaraunt scene, I wanted to work in catering, but I soon realizedthat if I continued on that career path I'd either be earning minimum wage as a prep cook, or if I was lucky enough to own my own business I'd spend the majority of my time supervising before said prep cooks and doing paperwork. Blech.

For some hands on experience I did work as a catering lackey for a couple of summers and realized that when I worked in the kitchen for a job a lot of the enjoyment went out of it. It's no fun to prepare the same ol' recipes day after day for massive crowds......ever cut assorted fruit for 600 people? I have. It's not my idea of a good time. So, I limit my kitchen creations for my lovely family and wonderful friends.

The second part of my cooking journey came a little over a year and a half ago. I decided to cut almost all processed food from our diet (notice I said almost.....moderation in all things, I will never give up graham crackers, they've been a favorite treat since childhood). We don't own any farm animals (thank heavens) so of course we purchase processed dairy (although I've recently started making our own yogurt....more on that later), some bread, pasta, I always have canned beans and canned veggies on hand for a quick throw-together meal. Occasionally I have a busy night where a bottle of Ragu gets pulled out, but 90% of the time I'll put in the time and effort to make a homemade marinara instead. I like knowing what's in my food, I especially like knowing what's in my kids food, so if I have the time I prefer to make it myself. It's been a learning process and I've started getting more creative because I've learned how to adjust recipes to make them healthier and lower in calories. I'm not one of those women though..... you know, the perfect ones who would never let a grain of sugar cross their lips..... I don't cook healthy ALL the time. Sometimes a girl just needs to get her full-fat, full-sugar, full-on-chocolate fix and I definitely have those moments and have made some pretty awesome deliciousness when they hit, so I'll occasionally post some naughty food too....hey, this is MY blog so anything goes, right? :-)

I do create some of my own recipes, but I love to hunt through cookbooks and stalk cooking blogs for meal ideas as well. One pet peeve of mine with the cooking blogs are the ones who don't give credit where credit is due....I will always credit the source of my recipes, or at least link back to where I found it.

One disclaimer I need to throw in is I AM NOT a photographer.....really. I have no talent in this area. None. But everyone likes pictures of food so I'll do my best :-).

Let's get cooking!