Peaches

Peaches are in season! We ventured out to the State Farmers Market yesterday and came home loaded with Freestones and White Peaches.  There are so many wonderful ways to prepare peaches that I could list recipes and ideas like Bubba in Forest Gump listed ideas for shrimp.  Running around in this heatwave yesterday left us all with small appetites, so I just made a quick peach crisp in the microwave for dinner.  We can ignore the butter and sugar and focus on the oatmeal and peaches, right?  I plan to freeze skinned, chopped peaches for making jam (I'll put them in the freezer to make into jam when it's cooler!), freeze some for our Christmas fruit salad, and puree and freeze some for smoothies over the winter. I love Peach Smoothies because they are quick, easy, and make a good breakfast or lunch.  Hmm...  Lunch.  I think I just solved that dilemma...  :-)

Peach Smoothie

4 oz (1/2 cup) orange juice
4 oz (1/2 cup) plain, non-dairy, yogurt, low or non-fat
1/2 banana
1 peach, sliced (with skin, without pit)

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!

Notes:
1.  Reduce juice to 1/4 cup and use 1/4 cup water, depending on sweetness of peach
2.  Add 1/4 tsp cinnamon, which can help lower blood glucose levels

3.  Add some ice cubes before blending to make it cool and slushy
4.  3 fruit servings

The Nature Principle

I'm looking forward to reading Richard Louv's newest book, The Nature Principle!  I enjoyed Last Child in the Woods where he coined the term "Nature Deficit Disorder".  This time he is writing about the importance of nature to adults.  A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to hear him speak at a commencement ceremony.  I could have listened to him for much more time than he was given.   If you have a chance to read any of his writing, I highly recommend it.

Mexican Pizza

Tonight we had Mexican Pizza for dinner.  This has become a very popular meal at our house and it's very adaptable to what is on hand.  We did them with refried beans, cheese, and salsa on toasted corn tortillas.  You can use soft taco tortillas, burrito tortillas (for a larger pizza), and any number of toppings.  I make them on the stove top on my griddle, but they can also be done on a stone in the oven or, for a softer "crust", in the microwave.

Getting started:  warming griddle, cooking refried beans, shredded Monterey Jack, and fresh salsa.

Toasting corn tortillas.

Flipped corn tortillas topped with refried beans.

Add cheese.

Finished off with salsa.

Pinto Beans

We go through a lot of Pintos Beans around here.  We do pintos with rice and cheese, burritos, tacos, refried beans, or, like tonight, Mexican Pizza.  As I have written before, we cook our own pintos from dried beans.  The recipe I use is from The Feast of Santa Fe.  They have a lot of flavor and make excellent refried beans just by mashing them (so much better than canned refried beans).  As usual, I make 2 pounds of dried beans in my crockpot.  I use them for a meal and then freeze 3 containers of 3 cups each.


Pinto Beans

1 lb dried Pinto Beans, soaked all day or overnight in 8 cups of water

Drain and rinse beans (save water and pour it over your garden to save water!).

Put beans in crockpot and cover with water to about 2 inches above the beans.
Add:
1 small onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp whole cumin seed
1/2 tsp cracked pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt (I use Kosher)

Cook on low for 18-20 hrs or on high all day.

This Week's Menu

As I watch the Buckeyes playing Penn State in the Big Ten Ten Tournament Championship, I am working on our menu for the upcoming week and a half.  I usually go to the grocery stores on Wednesdays, but we were out of town this past week, so I'm making this week's trip a bit early and stretching the menu an extra couple of days.  Putting together a menu takes some effort, but there are many advantages to doing this:  1) I don't have to wonder each night what we'll be eating, 2) it saves time because I'm not stopping at the store every day or so to pick up what we need as I plan on the fly, 3) I save money because I know what we need and it's easier to keep track of what I've spent so that we stay on budget, and 4) we eat a much more balanced and healthier diet.  So, here's what we'll be having this week:

Monday
Mac & Cheese
Purple Hull Peas
Carrots

Tuesday
Fish (whatever I get at the store tomorrow)
Quinoa
Broccoli

Wednesday
Mexican Pizza (corn tortillas grilled on griddle and topped with refried beans, cheese, and salsa)

Thursday
Pasta with Meat Sauce (see the Power Cooking Tip, I add this meat mix to homemade pasta sauce)
Salad
Bread
Angel Food Cake, tinted green to celebrate St. Patrick's Day

Friday
Pizza (cheese and veggie)

Saturday
Smoked Polish Sausage
Mashed Potatoes
Sauerkraut

Sunday
Lentil Soup
Rice

Monday
Breakfast (from whatever is on-hand)

Tuesday
Greek Chicken
Potatoes
Veggie (TBD)

Taco Soup, version 2

I have gradually been converting our canned bean recipes to dried beans.  There are several reasons for this.  First, dried beans are cheaper than canned.  Canned beans are a great for the budget, but considering you can get the equivalent of 4 cans of beans from one pound of dried beans for less than the cost of 2 cans of beans, dried beans are even better for the budget.  Personally, I use the savings to buy organic dried beans from the bulk section of our local Whole Foods (it doesn't have to be expensive to shop there).  Secondly, by using dried beans, I control the amount of salt that goes into our food.  Thirdly, we avoid cans coated with BPA.

My goal was to convert the previous version of Taco Soup, but have inadvertently ended up with a whole new version that has received thumbs up from around our table.  So, I'm inclined to not mess with it too much more.  It's taken me a while to post this recipe because I kept mental notes of what I was doing, got caught up with life around here and didn't write it down, and then I had to make it again to refresh my memory.  This happened several times over a few months.  However, I think I have it down now, committed to memory.  At the encouragement of my sister, I made it again this week just to be sure so that I could post it.  I had to laugh late last week when she e-mailed me and asked me to convert the previous version to dried beans - I hadn't mentioned this project to her.  So, Karen, this is especially for you!

This does take a while to cook.  I cook it on low for about 16 hours.  You could also cook it on high for 8 hours.  This gives the beans plenty of time to soften.  Also, you can add the additional ingredients whenever you'd like once you start cooking the beans.  However, I've read that adding the salt too soon lengthens the amount of time it takes for the beans to soften, so I would at least save the salt for later.  Speaking of salt, please adjust as necessary for your palate.  We have gradually been reducing our intake of processed foods (even canned) and have become used to less salt in our food.  Therefore, my recipes tend to not be as salty as most are used to.  I am not the least bit offended by someone who picks up the salt grinder to adjust for this.

Taco Soup

2 lbs Dried Beans (combo of pinto, black, and kidney)
2 Portabella Mushroom, finely chopped
1/2 Onion, chopped
1 clove Garlic, minced
1 28oz can Diced Tomatoes
1 Tbsp. Chili Powder
1 Tbsp. Cumin
Taco or Southwestern Seasoning mix, equivalent to what you would use for 2 lbs ground meat for tacos
1-2 tsp Kosher Salt

Sort, rinse, and soak dried beans in water all day (I do this in my 7 qt crockpot.  I put the rinsed beans in the crockpot and fill it nearly full with water).

Drain and rinse beans and put them in crockpot.  Fill crockpot 3/4 full with water and cook overnight on low.

Cook onion, mushrooms, and garlic on stove until cooked through and crumbly.  Pour mixture into crockpot with the beans.

In the morning, add meat mixture and all other ingredients to the crockpot and continue to cook on low all day.  Soup will be ready for dinner.

Serving ideas:

1. Top with shredded cheese and/or crushed tortilla chips (great for crumbs at the bottom of the bag).
2. Serve over brown rice and topped with shredded cheese.
3. Use as taco and/or burrito filling.
4. Use as a topping for nachos.

This makes plenty of soup for a large crowd or to put away for future meals.  Our family had it for dinner the other night, my husband and I are having it for lunch today, and I put a couple of lunch servings away in the freezer for future use (it's so easy to grab a cup of soup from the freezer and put it in a lunch box for work - saves money and it's healthier than eating out).

Powercooking Tip:  When cooking the meat, I used 2 lbs ground bison, 2-3 large portabello caps, 2 onions, and 4 cloves garlic.  I used one quarter of the mix for the soup and put away 2-3 containers in the freezer for future use in soups or pasta sauces.  Cook once, use several times.  Love the time savings!

Meatless Mondays:  Replace the meat, but use the onion, garlic, and portabella to make it a vegetarian dish.

Family Meal Time

While catching up on current events today, I found this blog series about the importance of eating together as a family.  Eating as a family is something we strive for at our home.  It is rare when we don't sit down together for dinner and then it's usually because either my husband or I (not both) are working that evening.  I know we have a challenging (brief) period coming up when I will have to put more effort into coordinating our family dinners, but I know it's coming and I'm already putting mental notes together - thinking, as I cook, about what comes together easily and what "picnics" well.   Robin Shreeves does an excellent job in her series of addressing the obstacles of the family dinner, how to overcome those obstacles, and why eating as a family is important.  I hope the information she provides is helpful to those of you who would like to bring your families to the dinner table more and encouraging for those of you who do, but constantly struggle with the obstacles.

Getting dinner on the table, part 1: The obstacles
Getting dinner on the table, part 2: Overcoming the obstacles
Getting dinner on the table, part 3: Why do it anyway?