Ithaca Hummus Product Demo 4/23/16
Hi everyone
Hope to see you all at Whole Foods in Montclair, NJ today from 11am to 3 pm for Ithaca Hummus Product Demo.
Product Demo on 3/26 at Whole Foods in Montclair, NJ
Join me at Whole foods in Montclair from 11am-3 pm for a product demo for Ithaca Hummus, NY .
Quinoa Spread Pizza!
Tuesdays are always tough since my kids go for ice skating lessons and we end up coming back so late after their class. Tuesday nights – we usually end up making veggie quesadillas or pizzas. Its so much fun as they help me in the cooking process and are so excited to be a part of any small task that I have to offer them.
Yesterday was one such evening and my kids wanted Pizza. Now I knew I had some left over quinoa and some pasta sauce lying in my refrigerator. So I had an idea. I wanted to try a healthy spin and see if my kids would notice a little bit of cheating from my side! to try and get my kids to eat healthy.
I have a 30 minute pizza dough recipe that works wonders when you are hard pressed for time. But if you want to save that trouble you could certainly buy store bought pizza dough.
I tried to mix the left over cooked quinoa with the pasta sauce and also tried to pack it with flavour using some finely chopped fresh garlic and some dried basil. I smothered the flavor packed quinoa spread on the pizza base and topped it with some cheese and onions. I used one half for the kids and the other half i also topped it with some spicy jalapenos for the adults:)
Anyway all of us loved it. It was a big hit. The kids asked for more and i was one lucky happy mom! So i thought of sharing this idea with all of you.
I am also attaching a picture that I clicked before we dug in:)
Enjoy.
Buckwheat Banana Bread with Pecan Cream Cheese.
Buckwheat Banana Bread topped with dollop of cream cheese with Pecans.
One of our favorite comfort snack food is Banana bread – my kids love it and its a great way to use up those ripe bananas that you are ready to throw away.
We went on a trip recently with a bunch of friends and went to this restaurant that served the best banana bread ever. It was also such a coincidence that once we got back home and I was unpacking and cleaning up, i stumbled upon these dark brown bananas that i had left back home which was so ripe and i was a 100% sure that none of us would consume it:)
Instead of throwing it away, I figured that the best use of it would be if I can use them in banana bread!!! Voila!
But the issue I have with the normal banana bread is that its made of all purpose flour and plenty of sugar:( One recipe (-the one from food network) calls for 8 tablespoons of unsalted butter and 1 cup of granulated sugar!!!!!). So i decided to try and spin a healthy version and i think I succeeded. I baked some yesterday and it was all gone by last night:)
I have to share this recipe with you and I PROMISE you will not even know that I used Buck wheat flour and Agave in my recipe. My kids kept asking for more last evening and I was one lucky happy mom:)
Here goes the recipe:
Ingredients
2 eggs
3-4 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cup of Buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon clarified butter
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons of honey or agave
2 teaspoons of low fat cream cheese
5-6 pecans chopped up
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Spray the muffin pans or you could use 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.
Whisk the Honey/ Agave and clarified butter in a large mixing bowl along with the eggs. Add the eggs one at a time gradually while whisking until light and fluffy.
In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon.
mashed bananas with milk and cinnamon
whisked up bananas, milk and cinnamon
whisk eggs along with agave and clarified butter
In another bowl, take 1 1/2 cups of buckwheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix all the dry ingredients well.
Add the banana mixture to the agave-egg whisked creamed mixture and stir thoroughly.
Now slowly add dry ingredients, mixing continuouly until flour disappears. You can use a hand blender if you have one since it helps in mixing uniformly without forming lumps.
mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients
Pour batter into prepared muffin pan and bake 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.
Top up a dollop of the cream cheese mixed and whipped up with chopped up pecans over a slice of banana bread and its heavenly:):)
Optional: Add chocolate chips or any nuts if your family is allergy free along with the batter prior to baking.
baking/ rising in the oven
I hope you enjoy this healthy yet yummy snack with your kids and appreciate all your feedback.
Spinach Soup
When it gets cold during winter, I love to make hot soups from scratch at home for my family. One of my favorites is the fennel soup that i have already posted in my blog. The next one is Spinach Soup. I know a lot of you would not be excited about spinach 🙂
But my kids really like this soup since they dont see the actual spinach lol as its all mashed up and smooth.
So here goes the recipe:
Take about 1 cup of fresh leaves (de stemmed) thoroughly washed and throw it in a pot of salted boiling water for about 5 minutes. Then immediately transfer the cooked spinach onto a bowl of ice or ice cold water. This is called blanching and what does this is two things- 1) Helps to stop further cooking of the spinach and 2) Helps retain the bright green color of the spinach.
Cook 1/2 cup of lentils(yellow dal- Toor or Mung dal).
Blend the lentils with the blanched spinach in a blender.
I also add some Salt to taste, fresh ground black pepper, dried dessicated coconut powder toasted in a pan with few drops of oil along with cumin seeds and mustard seeds.
Enjoy this nutrition packed delicious green spinach soup.
Baked Brussel Sprouts Kebabs or burgers
I am guilty of not having been able to get back on to blogging for quite sometime now for various reasons. But not anymore! Being creative with food and coming up with healthy yet delicious food is what I am good at so here s another taken on a burger. Its my baked Brussel Sprouts burgers or kebabs as well call it in India when you stack the veggies up or in a skewer.
Ingredients:
Brussel Sprouts – 6 of the small ones
Red Bell Pepper- 1 medium sized
Indian Cottage Cheese or Paneer chopped into cubes
(One can also substitute it with any firm cheese of their liking like mozarella)
Olive Oil
Salt to taste
Fenugreek leaves for garnish
Fresh coriander seeds ( or you can use coriander powder)
Preparation:
First step– preheat the oven to about 400 degrees.
Second step– Cut the brussel sprouts in half , chop up the red pepper also in triangles so it is stackable.
Chop up the Indian cottage cheese or paneer into cubes.
Third step– Place all the above chopped veggies on a baking pan.
Fourth step– Drizzle with Olive oil and season it with salt by sprinkling over the veggies in the baking pan.
Fifth step– Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes or so and flip the veggies and bake for another 10 minutes.
You will see the nice char on the veggies and the brussel sprouts turn out to be nicely roasted in the oven.
There is nothing like munching on roasted Brussel sprouts for a snack. It tastes heavenly and delicious.
Sixth step– Once you take it out of the oven the garnish with some freshly crushed coriander seeds and fenugreek leaves. Now mix well.
I have used a white long plate to plate this dish and have used a red pepper paste that I made at home to add a bit of color to the base of the plate.
Place one half of the roasted brussel sprouts at the bottom, stack the cottage cheese on top, then the triangle of red pepper(i like for it to stick out a bit so the color pops) and lastly cover the top with the remaining half of the roasted brussel sprouts.
You can do as many as you please depending on the number of guests if you are entertaining or keep it small if its for a small family dinner at home.
I hope you will try this and let me know your feedback.
Enjoy this healthy yet delicious bite and I shall be back with more:)
