Healthy Sweet Potatoes

Sometimes there isn't much to say about a recipe other than oh my goodness, please try this. That is the case with these healthy version of twice baked potatoes, which are make using sweet potatoes (so you get your daily intake of beta carotene, vitamin C, and potassium), chick peas (added protein), and spinach (so you get your iron and fiber!).  Sometimes Most of the time twice baked potato recipes frighten me, due to the overwhelming amount of butter, sour cream, cream cheese, more butter and more cheese they contain.  I usually stay far, far away from them....but not these guys.  Just looking at the pictures is making my mouth water.  I think I will make these again this week. 


P.s. If you are like me, you are wondering what wine to drink with these...they pair well Naked Grape chardonnay :) 

Healthy Sweet Potato Skins (http://pinchofyum.com)

Ingredients

2 medium or large sweet potatoes

1 1/2 tablespoons butter

1 shallot, minced

1 bag fresh baby spinach

1/4 cup light sour cream

2 ounces light cream cheese

1 cup chickpeas

1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Bake sweet potatoes at 350 for 45-60 minutes, or until fork tender.

2. Cut sweet potatoes in half and let cool for 5-10 minutes. While sweet potatoes are cooling, saute the shallots with the

butter over medium heat until translucent. Add fresh spinach and heat for 2-3 minutes, until spinach has cooked down.

Set aside.

3. Scrape the sweet potato out of the peel, leaving a thin layer inside with the peel so that it can stand up on its own.

4. Mash the sweet potato with the cream cheese and sour cream. Stir in chickpeas, spinach, and salt and pepper.

5. Coat potato skins with a drizzle of oil and bake for about 5 minutes to get a crispier outside. Remove from oven and fill each skin with the sweet potato mixture and top with shredded mozzarella cheese. Bake again for 10-15 minutes, or

until cheese is melted and filling is heated through.

weekend visitor.

As many of you know, this is my first year living alone.  Most of the time, it works out extremely well.  I love my tiny place, which is commonly referred to as the cottage.  I enjoy coming home to a quiet apartment, where I can have peace and quiet while studying.  My daily schedule is so busy that I would not be a very good roommate and I just don't want to be the bad roommate.
There is however, one major complaint I have: eating meals alone.  Growing up, food often brought my family together.  We shared the majority of weeknight and weekend meals together, talking about the ups and downs of our work, school and sports.   Even now, when I journey home, most of our time is spent together in the kitchen preparing food.  My love of cooking and baking has not changed,  but it just is not as much fun when you make a fantastic meal and sit down to eat it by yourself.  For me, one of the best things about cooking is sharing my creations with others.
This past weekend, my Mama come over for a visit.  We always have such a great time together,  exploring the CoOp, going for coffee, visiting our favorite downtown shops and of course, cooking some great meals.  It's weekends like this that make me wonder if I will move back to be near to my family when I finally finish school.  I never, ever thought those words would escape my mouth, but it's impossible not to think about it when some of my best friends happen to be my family.
On Friday night, we decided to try a recipe that I stumbled upon last week: Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Chick Peas and Orange (from a fabulous website I discovered: www. glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com). This salad was colorful, packed with protein and made a large enough batch to be packed in some of my lunches for during the week.  The best part though? Sharing this meal with someone. 

Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Chick Peas and Orange
Ingredients:
3 cups cooked quinoa 
2 beets, trimmed and quartered
Olive oil
Sea salt
1/4 cup fruity olive oil
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 teaspoons organic gluten-free tamari sauce
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar
1 tablespoon organic raw agave nectar or local honey
1 cup drained rinsed chick peas
2 big handfuls of baby spinach leaves
Sea salt and ground pepper, to taste
1 fresh orange, peeled, trimmed, cut into bite sized pieces

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.  While the quinoa is cooking, roast the beets in a medium size roasting pan, by combining the beets with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of sea salt. Place the pan in the center of the oven and roast until the beets are tender (roughly 45 minutes). Remove the beets from the hot pan and set them aside to cool. When cool enough to handle, rub off the skin. Cut the beets into bite sized pieces. 
***To save on time, I pealed the beets, cut them into bite-size pieces and boiled them on the stove.  This worked well and I would recommend it if short on time!

To make the dressing, combine the olive oil, orange juice, GF tamari, vinegar, and agave in a glass measuring cup and whisk. Set aside.

Combine the warm, cooked quinoa in a mixing bowl with the chick peas and baby spinach leaves. Pour in the salad dressing and toss lightly. Season with sea salt and pepper, to taste.
Gently add in the cut up roasted beets and fresh orange pieces. Do not over mix or your entire salad will turn beet red. I think it's more attractive to keep the staining to a minimum.

Serve with a sprinkle of fresh goat cheese, or slivered almonds, if desired.
Serves 4.

you say tomato, I say tomahto

As I prepared this baked egg in a tomato I could not stop singing that darn song.  The silly lyrics are still stuck in my head as I type this post and I bet you will be singing it too. Whoops. My deepest apologies.
I saw a recipe for a baked egg in a tomato a few weeks ago and have been dying to dry it ever since.  I don't know if this can even be considered a recipe with a mere 3 ingredients; 5 if you count salt and pepper. I suggest using a tomato from a local farmers market; the Wausau Market had some of the most beautiful tomatoes I have ever seen last Saturday! I absolutely cannot wait until I can make this again using eggs from our very own chickens, which will soon be taking over the Warren backyard any day now! 
This is oh so simple, delicious and is a perfect summer lunch.  Here's what you will need:

• 1 large tomato
• 1 egg
• Freshly grated cheese
• Salt and Pepper

The recipe I stumbled upon called for freshly grated Parmesan cheese, however, we did not have any on hand so I used crumbled feta in the bottom of the tomato and fresh Gruyere on the top.  Preheat your over to 400 degrees.  Slice the top of the tomato off and remove the center portion of the tomato.  Place a small amount of cheese in the hallowed out tomato and crack the egg into the tomato.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper, place the tomato on a baking sheet or in a glass pan and bake for about 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and sprinkle with a bit more cheese.  Return the egg to the oven for 5 more minutes.
**make sure you remove enough of the tomato, my egg whites overflowed out of the hole in the tomato and caused me to lose some of the egg to the pan.

Start with a ripe tomato...

Remove the seeds

Crack an egg into the tomato

Add your favorite cheese

Place in a glass pan

Bake and enjoy!

Polenta

oh.my.lanta. Over the weekend, a friend and I attempted a new recipe and it was a huge success.  That is an understatement.  My stomach is starting to growl as I type this post.  I cannot take credit for the recipe, as the polenta dish was created by my lovely sister, Anne. I have never cooked polenta on my own and I must say that the light yellow roll of squishy matter was a bit freaky. Okay, scratch that, I made polenta once last year, but made the mistake of making it from dry corn grits and it was a disaster.  Do not let the looks of polenta scare you.  Much to our surprise, the polenta cooked up quite nicely and the roasted garlic chicken sausage complemented it very well.  It is topped with Newman's Own marinara sauce, mascarpone cheese, and fresh basil.  Like Anne mentions in her blog post about polenta, this dish is one you can make for someone if you want to "wow" them.  The presentation is beautiful and paired well with a Yellow Tail Merlot wine. Do yourself a favor and make this ASAP.  You won't be disappointed.
Please excuse the picture of the polenta.  Clearly I don't know how to focus a camera these days...

The end of the semester seems to be right around the corner, but there are so many papers that need to written and exams that need to be taken. Thursday marks my last day as an intern at La Crescent High School.  It will be nice to have Tuesday and Thursday afternoons free, however, I am completely depressed about leaving the high school.  My experience has been incredible and I have learned so much about human interactions, as well as many things about myself.  My internship supervisor showed me the letter of recommendation she wrote for me for grad school and it brought me to tears.  My entire experience has been nothing but a blessing.
Today I registered for my last semester as an undergrad student, so bittersweet.  I will only be taking ten credits at UWL so that I can take a photography class at WTC.  I will also be working for the Racquet as a photographer, which I am really excited about.  The future holds so many awesome things!
Here's my song of the week: Breathe In by Frou Frou.  Peace.


                            

What's for dinner you ask?

It's Sunday.  I should be working on homework and personal statements, but, well, uh, let's just say those things are out of the question for today.  A day without plans provided the perfect opportunity for me to try a few new recipes that I had been dying to try.  Dinner at 1246 consisted of a turkey burger smothered in avocado, honeyed carrots and oranges, and fresh mushrooms with mozzarella and olive oil. The best part is, all of these things were incredibly easy to prepare.

I discovered the carrot recipe in a Real Simple Magazine:

• 2 pounds very small carrots, scrubbed; or regular carrots—trimmed, peeled, and cut into thin sticks
• 1 orange, cut into 8 pieces
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 tablespoons small dill sprigs

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375° F. On a large rimmed baking sheet, toss the carrots and orange with the oil, honey, 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.

2. Roast, tossing once, until tender, 30 to 35 minutes. Sprinkle with the dill
** I cut this recipe in half due to the fact that I did not feel the need to eat 2 pounds of carrots this evening. I also omitted the fresh dill--and I was pleased with the results.

For the mushrooms (recipe inspired by Molly Wizenberg, big surprise, eh?) I used pre-sliced baby bella mushrooms.  They worked out perfectly!

• sliced mushrooms
• fresh mozzarella cheese
• olive oil
• sea salt

Place mushrooms in a glass pan or a heat proof platter.  Break chunks of the mozzarella cheese and scatter on the mushrooms.  Drizzle with olive oil and salt.  Place mushrooms under a broiler for 4-5 minutes, watch them closely! 

I won't even tell you about the cookies I am going to bake next.  I'll save that for another post. Happy Sunday, Peace.

Forever Young, with a side a pizza please.

On Sunday evening, I had one of those moments that just about knocked me on my butt.  I was babysitting for one of my favorite families, when the little girl asked me, just like she does each time I see her, "are you in college?"  I chuckled, said yes, and then found myself explaining that  I will be done with college in May.  All a fine and dandy conversation, until Natty said "does that mean you are going to be a real grown up soon?"
I replied with "Uh, ummmm, ah, No, I don't think so...well maybe, but I don't really want to be a grown up, I'm planning on being a kid forever." (all of this with a slight bit of panic in my voice) After reading Natty stories and tucking her into bed, I found myself sitting on the couch thinking about our conversation.  What is an adult?  After graduation, do you go through some transformational change, in which you suddenly feel and act differently?  Will people at the grocery store no longer think I am a sophomore in high school and ask me if I have my drivers license yet?  I guess I would be okay with that, however, I think this whole "being an adult thing" is overrated. I'm going to fight off being a grown up as long as I possibly can. In case you were wondering.

Now that you have  read my random, unorganized, crazy babble of the week, I suppose I can write about food.  I am really excited to report that I made my first pizza completely from scratch!  I have made pizza in the past, but I have never started with my own, homemade dough.  I realized how much food really gets me going, I was so thrilled when the yeast started to become "active" and bubble in the bowl. (yes, I took a picture of the yeast, ha)  I made the dough around 11, and then constructed my pizza for dinner.  I wanted to try two NEW types of pizza and they were both a major success.  One was topped with cranberry sauce, chicken, monterey jack cheese, and caramelized red onions. The second was made with olive oil, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella cheese and tomatoes.  Which one was my favorite?  I can't decide. I would make either of them again in a heartbeat.  OOOHHHH. I almost forgot the most important detail.  My mom let me borrow her pizza stone for these pizzas and this made a HUGE difference.  You place the stone in the over while it it pre-heating and it helps to cook the pizza evenly and thoroughly.  The end result was a crust that was crispy and held together nicely.  If you want to make the crust, which I highly suggest you try it, click here for Martha Stewart's recipe.  The directions are a bit lengthy to post on here.