I
had another great Pinterest find this month: Zucchini Tots. The recipe is from The Curious Country Cook, and was described as a healthy snack for adults. However, I took one look at the recipe and decided that those tots were also the perfect side dish for, well, tots. Tots for tots! They are the perfect size for little hands, and contain just enough cheese and bread to hide their nutritious secret. Plus the recipe can be made in bulk and frozen, and reheated as needed. So basically the Zucchini Tot recipe had everything I look for in toddler food. The only problem? They were so good that I found myself eating half of every batch I made. Oops! Well, at least they are healthy for children and adults.
Some stuff isn't worth making from scratch (in my humble opinion) because it just takes too long or is too complicated. Fortunately, enchilada sauce isn't one of those things. It is surprisingly easy and quick to make, and seriously tastes so much better than the store-bought kind. I used Tide and Thyme's recipe, because it looked both quick and tasty, and I was right. It took about 20 minutes to make 4 cups of deliciously rich enchilada sauce.
Aren't casseroles are just the best? You throw various ingredients into a dish, and BAM, you have your entree & sides all in one place. Plus, for some reason when you serve food together in a casserole dish, the meal becomes comfort food. Eating healthy shouldn't have to mean denying yourself comfort foods, so I decided to try my hand at creating a healthy Enchilada Casserole that doesn't taste healthy. That meant that I couldn't decrease the amount of cheese too much (because honestly, that's the best part), so I saved fat and calories by using lean ground turkey. I made my own enchilada sauce from scratch (surprisingly easy!), but feel free to use store-bought if you're in a hurry. Just remember that the casserole will only be as good as the enchilada sauce you use (it's a large part of the dish, after all), so buy the good stuff.
I recently attended a party at my friend Randi's house, where she served a Southwestern Egg Casserole as the main dish. It was crazy delicious, so of course I had to ask for the recipe. It was such a hit at her party, that I decided to make it for my daughter's birthday party the following month. It really is the perfect casserole to make for a crowd; it's the kind of dish where everyone asks for the recipe. I'm pretty sure it's the inclusion of cottage cheese that makes this casserole stand out amongst all the other egg casseroles; its texture is just incredibly pleasant. It's cheesy, silky, and zesty. Yum!
I am the human Cookie Monster. When I see cookies, my eyes go googly and I literally will yell "COOKIES!" My daughter seems to have inherited my cookie love, so for that reason I decided to make her a Cookie Cake for her 2nd birthday. Since it was a Sesame Street themed party, I didn't just make any old Cookie Cake, I made a Cookie Monster Cake.
I admit it. I have a chocolate addiction. I crave chocolate in the evening as much as I crave coffee in the morning. Thankfully chocolate, in moderation, is not necessarily bad for you. What is bad for you is the heavily processed chocolate that makes up most of the chocolate sold in the United States. Chocolate syrup, in particular, is often filled with ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and and scary ingredients. So imagine my delight when I stumbled upon a Homemade Chocolate Syrup recipe by Kitchen Treaty that proved to be a breeze to make....and was a million times better than the commercially-made kind. In addition to it being a "cleaner" version, it also has substantially less sugar than the store bought kind. I altered the original recipe by reducing the sugar even further, and upped the salt a little. The result? Seriously the best chocolate syrup I have ever had.
As you have likely noticed, I'm a big fan of Pinterest. When it's time for me to do my meal planning for the week, I look at my "Healthy Food" board on Pinterest, and make whatever recipe photo catches my eye. This week, Kitchen Confidante's picture of their Cilantro-Sriracha Turkey Burgers was what made my stomach growl. Since my tummy had spoken, I made these Zesty Turkey Burgers, and they were fabulous. Easy to make, healthy to ingest, heaven to eat. Win, win, win.
