Rice and Beans

I'm back! I'm back! My computer is all better (I hope!) and I have sooo much to share with you. Here is one of my new favorites...

This was a reader request. She wanted a good rice and beans recipe. I have to be honest here. I have never had rice and beans before, so I had no idea what the flavor profile is, what it's supposed to taste like, or even what kind of beans are usually used. So, I raided the pantry and started dumping stuff in a pot. The end result was pretty tasty, in my opinion, and I ate it for dinner that night, and lunch the next few days until it was gone. Then I made it again a few days later, and again the week after that. I don't generally repeat recipes in the same month, so to make something 3 times in less than 3 weeks, well that's saying something. For me, anyway. I don't know if it was what my reader had in mind, but I hope she likes it!

Eggplant Parmesan

The first thing my mom taught me how to make was pancakes. The second thing she taught me was breaded chicken. I remember many, many nights standing at the counter and double-dipping chicken breasts into egg and bread crumbs. This turned out to be one of my all-time favorite dinners. As I got older, I learned that the egg and bread crumb combo could be applied to pretty much anything, like pork chops or zucchini, cube steak or eggplant. Now, I'll be honest. I love eggplant but the boys aren't really into it. But if you have boys that are anything like mine, if it's fried, they'll eat it. The first batch usually doesn't even make it to the sauce-and-cheese phase of the meal prep.

Bangin' Black Bean Burgers

We LOVE burgers in our house. Beef is definitely our first pick, but I've been working on getting the boys to branch out. They didn't mind the Very Veggie Quinoa and Bean Burgers, and they recently started liking turkey burgers. I figured I'd push my luck a little more and see how far I could get. I snuck a can of black beans into the kitchen and got to work. The smell won Andrew over before he even tasted it (they smell amazing) and the fact that they look very beef-like had K diving in without a word. All in all, they were a total success!

Peanutty Udon Noodles with Veggies

Andrew loves pasta. K is obsessed with peanut butter. I am all about the veggies. This recipe marries all three. The best part? You can customize it any way you want. Switch the veggies up, use regular pasta, try a specialty flavor of peanut butter. Make it your way - don't forget to come back and tell me all about it!

Garlic Bread Spaghetti Calzones

I am very into the new My Plate eating guidelines. You know, the ones that tell you half your plate should be fruits and veggies. It doesn't bother me any because this is how I ate long before it became the cool thing to do. The boys are a little less receptive, but they are catching on quickly.

Almost every meal we eat is planned according to this outline. But every now and then, I am in the mood for an all-out carb-fest. That's how recipes like this one are created. The boys love it because spaghetti is one of their favorite foods. I love it because the garlic bread is the only thing that makes the spaghetti worth eating in the first place. I just ignore the whining the next day when I am serving up double doses of veggies to make up for it.

Easy Triscuit Appetizers

A quick and easy, down and dirty, 5-minute snack that is perfect if A) your dinner guests arrive inappropriately early, B) your house becomes an impromptu football watching hub, or C) you're having one of those days where you are so busy you realize you forgot to have lunch and if you don't eat something RIGHT THIS SECOND, you're going to get hangry. And no, that's not a typo. Look it up - you know who you are :-)

Confetti Burritos

Tortillas are such a perfect little thing. They come in all different sizes, made of all types of grains, and you can stuff absolutely anything inside them and have a fun, portable meal for the whole family. Most kids will eat anything that's wrapped up taco or burrito-style (hint, hint). Whether you are making peanut butter banana roll-ups for breakfast, turkey and hummus wraps for lunch, or chicken enchiladas for dinner, tortillas are the answer to every time-crunched mom. Try these super-stuffed burritos out on your picky eaters - they just may surprise you. Mine sure did!

Tortilla Pizza

When I was a kid, we had take out once a week. It was usually on Friday and we usually got pizza. This sounds great in theory, but there were six of us and we all wanted different things. Pizza is expensive, and obviously my parents weren't going to buy six different pizzas, so we usually ended up with plain or some various meat-topped pie. Today, pizza isn't any cheaper and I simply can't justify dropping 12 bucks on a glorified version of cheesy bread. These tortilla pizzas are so quick and easy, each one can be made to suit everyone's favorites (kids love this!), and they offer built-in portion control for those of us who lose all willpower before the delivery driver has even finished counting his tip. Score!

Very Veggie Quinoa and Bean Burgers

Meatless Monday has been such a success around here, I'm thinking of adding another meat-free day later in the week. I always seem to have tons of dinner ideas that use alternate forms of protein, like these burgers. Andrew and K can't stand store-bought veggie burgers, but I love them. What I don't love is the price - they are super-expensive, but I bought them for years because I was too intimidated to try it on my own. 

I think I hit the jackpot with these. Not only are they easy to make, but they use ingredients that I always have on hand and the boys finished them in minutes. I was actually quite impressed.

Veggie Stew with Biscuits

It's 21 degrees out. It's Meatless Monday. It's a perfect day for Veggie Stew.

Before you yell at me, I know there's chicken broth in it. And yes, I know that chicken is a meat, but that was all I had. And when you make it, you will use vegetable broth and make it totally meatless because you're awesome like that.

Pizza Quesadillas (or is it Quesadilla Pizza...?)

We are big pizza eaters around here. And by we, I mean the boys. I eat one slice and I'm happy but they can kill a whole pie by themselves in under 20 minutes. This can get expensive if you're ordering in and time-consuming if you're going the DIY route. I like to mix it up with French bread pizzas, English muffin pizzas, and lately, quesadilla pizzas. Andrew is a purist so he isn't a huge fan, but K loves them. Sometimes he even asks me to send them to school in his lunch box. (I'll take that over the school's cardboard-pizza Fridays any day!)

White Bean Patties with Garlic-Lime Sauce

Let me start by saying this... If you had told me a year ago that I would be throwing around words like "Garlic-Lime Sauce", I would have laughed you right out of my under-utilized kitchen. Fast forward to today. Not only do I talk about sauces like this - I actually make them! And then I serve them with things like these white bean patties (fritters?) that I made this morning.

Coconut Crusted Tofu

We had a massive hurricane come through our area last week (Hurricane Sandy). To prepare, we took the standard measures such as stocking up on water and non-perishables and cleaning up our flood-prone basement. We have a tendency to lose power fairly easily and have lost lots of fridge food on more than one occasion, so once our home was weather-ready, we started eating all of the perishable food.

There were some leftovers, milk, cheese, and the like. We emptied the fridge until one thing remained - a package of extra firm tofu. We have never had tofu before, but it is on my foodie bucket list and it was on sale, so I had grabbed it. Apparently it has a long shelf-life and bore an expiration date well beyond a month, so I figured we'd have lots of time to warm up to the idea. Thanks to Sandy, that plan was about to change.

Cheesy Chunky Veggie Soup

I love broccoli. I love cheese. I love broccoli and cheese. Unfortunately, one cannot live on broccoli and cheese alone, so I figured a few extra veggies could help balance things out in this super-yummy soup. Perfect for chilly nights!

Refried Beans / Bean Dip

We love mexican food, so bean dip and refried beans are pretty common around here. Unfortunately, the store-bought varieties of these classics tend to leave a lot to be desired. Determined to make an easy version that could double as either, I came up with the following recipe.  We use it on our tacos and fajitas, in our chimichangas, and straight up with tortilla chips. The best part? You can use whatever beans you want. Love this stuff!

6 Veggie Spaghetti

I grew up eating pasta - a lot of pasta. And I like it in a lot of ways, but a bowl of white spaghetti with some plain tomato sauce thrown on top is just depressing to me. So I came up with this easy alternative, which cleverly disguises tons of veggies for even the pickiest of eaters, husbands and children included!