New Recipes

I've been using my kids as my guinea pigs lately as I test out new stuff. Mostly its on the fly recipe adapting. I've been adding in lots of extra veggies that need to be eaten. Some stuff they'd probably eat anyway, but then there's things like squash and zucchini and sweet potatoes that they "don't like".

Soup has been big on the menu since they've been sick and its been cold. One night was chicken soup. This consisted of pureed squash, zucchini, onions and garlic added to some chicken stock, chicken, corn, sweet potatoes and red potatoes. I think I may have thrown in some peas or beans for good measure. Heated everything through and topped it with some cheese. They ate a ton of it and loved every bite.

Another night we had tostadas with rice and beans on the menu, but they said they wanted soup so I just put all the ingredients into a pot and made soup instead. Browned my ground turkey with peppers (diced as small as possible) and onions. Then added a packet of cilantro lime rice that I picked up for $0.25 after my coupon. Used extra water, added in a can of refried black beans and some velveeta at the end. Topped with sour cream and crumbled tostadas.

Tonight we went off the meal plan for some breakfast for dinner. Sydney requested waffles so I took that opportunity to try something new. Found a recipe in a healthy food cookbook that I should probably be using more often... Brown Rice Waffles. I just happened to have about 1 serving of brown minute rice left in a box so that worked out great. They were quite tasty and very healthy.

Here's the recipe:

1c. sifted whole wheat flour
3/4 c. sifted all purpose flour

2t. baking powder

1/2 t. cinnamon (optional)

1/4 t. salt

3T honey

4T veg. oil

1.5 c. low fat milk (I used 2%)

1 c. cooked brown rice

3 large egg whites

1/4 t. lemon juice

Stir together dry ingredients (flour-salt). In a small bowl mix honey and oil until well blended. Add milk and beat until well combined, then pour into dry ingredients. Beat just until incorporated. Fold in brown rice.

In a clean medium sized bowl, beat the egg whites and lemon juice with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Gently fold the whites into the batter. Now get to makin' those waffles!