A Week of Salad -Tuesday

Hello everyone! We had another super fun, exciting, energetic, night at VBS yesterday. We apologize if your kids came home soaking wet! Why kids want to get soaking wet I will never understand????? That is the most miserable feeling to me and having to endure the rest of the night like that would make me crazy. But if you are between the ages of 5 and 11 there seems to be this incredible pull just dragging you through the sprinkler and telling you to stay right in it instead of running quickly out like you are supposed to!! They all came out smiling too!

So on to my salad for lunch Tuesday. I really decided to change it up yesterday and eat a kale salad instead of a regular lettuce salad. Kale gets a bad rap sometimes. It can be a bit of an acquired taste, but if you will follow a few preparation steps it will be a million times more enjoyable I promise!

This recipe came from a blog I follow Oh She Glows. It is called Weekend Glow Kale Salad and I absolutely loved it!!

It was filled with this huge portion of goodness! Chopped cucumber, sliced grape tomatoes, diced carrot, chopped red, yellow, and orange mini pepper, raisins, sunflower seeds, red onion, walnuts, and avocado that I did slice up. That is a lot but I loved every last thing in there and wouldn't make the salad without any of them!

It makes such a beautiful salad too. I actually went back for seconds, and thirds, and my husband commented that I must have been famished. I said, "Nope! I just love the salad that much." I even took the leftovers with me to dinner at the church last night.

As I said before there are some things you must do to make your kale taste delicious and not so bitter. First and foremost you must remove these stems. This is where most of the bitterness lies. I just pull the leaves right off. 

The second thing you MUST do is massage or squeeze the kale. Yes she is a little high maintenance. It is quick though so just indulge her.

Just stick your hands in and start squeezing the kale like this. It only takes a couple minutes and you will start to feel the kale get softer. It will even deepen in color.

Do you see the difference in how full the bowl looked above and after you have broken down some of the fibers it looks a little more wilted. It is supposed to look like this. That way it doesn't scratch your throat going down. You can also put a little olive oil or salt in the bowl before massaging it to make it even more silky.

The third thing you can do is pour your dressing over and let it sit for about 15 minutes so it can really soak in. Kale is a hearty green and even after its had a massage it can still handle a little soak which you would really never do with any other green. I used Angela's recipe for Tahini and Lemon Dressing and guess what folks, I didn't change one single thing and I even measured! I poured all of it over the kale and all my prepared ingredients and gave it a good mixing. Don't be afraid to use your hands again and really get that dressing mixed in. It is a bit messy but the results are amazing!

There are other varieties of kale that you might find more enjoyable such as dinosaur kale, baby kale, lacinato, and Tuscan, if you are lucky enough to live where you can buy them. Around here we get curly kale or organic curly kale! Kale is on the Dirty Dozen list so you might want to consider buying it organic.

Lightened Up Tahini- Lemon Dressing

From Angela at Oh She Glows

Yield: Just under 1 cup of dressing
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup Tahini
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast or a bit more, to taste
• 2-4 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
• 1 tsp kosher salt + freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 3 tbsp water, or as needed

Directions:
1. In a food processor, add all ingredients and process until smooth. Makes just under one cup.

Now for a couple VBS pictures from last night. I have troubles narrowing the picture selection down you know!

Getting soaked not just wet of course!

Fun experiments in the Imagination Station Room!

Lazarus coming forth from the tomb! I love the smile on his face.

A little ping pong ball dropping from the upstairs balcony of the youth center for our new class of middle schoolers coming up.

They had to retrieve all the balls as quickly as they could. They were having a blast!

Can't wait to see what tonight will hold!



A Week of Salad -Monday

Hello faithful readers! There are probably only about two of you left. This is VBS week for us. That means that I don't have to cook dinner all week long because a team of people will be doing it for me at the church every night. I love that. I am busy enough with a million other details so I am thrilled that I don't have to think about it. It also means that there will be some things for dinner that I probably wouldn't normally eat and so I will try to eat very healthy for breakfast and lunch and make sure that I get lots of veggies in to both of those meals. I will eat some celery and nut butters with breakfast and perhaps salsa on my eggs and drink V8 at breakfast. The easiest way to do that for me at lunch though is a big salad. I thought it might be fun and get me actually posting again if I did some simple quick posts of the salads I am likely to eat everyday for lunch this week.

So here is Monday...................

Red leaf lettuce, left over rotisserie chicken, sliced mini cucumbers, chopped tomato, diced red onion, and half an avocado sliced up.

For the dressing I used my home made mustard vinaigrette. You know how much I hate to measure but here is a fairly good guess for you.

3 oz. olive oil

1 oz. white wine vinegar

2 large cloves garlic, pressed

2 Tbsp. honey

2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

You might have to add more honey, mustard, or vinegar to your taste.

Yummo! Loved the avocado on this salad.

I thought it might also be fun to have a VBS picture of the night. So here we go for Monday...............

Now you know why I have been too busy to blog or even cook much for that matter. This is a sea of excited children! We had a record 178 kids there last night. Monday night is usually our lowest night so I am anxious to see how the week progresses.

It was a super fun night!

Now I must hit the ground running for the day!

Vegetable Frittata

You know sometimes you just want breakfast for dinner, right? Nothing else sounded very good the other night and I was in a hurry and feeling like I hadn't cooked for my family in several nights. These words might have been spoken to my husband the night before, "I am too exhausted. You figure it out!" I had to leave to run a quick errand for VBS and when I came back he had figured it out. I was still to busy to even eat so I finished my tasks for the night and ate popcorn and celery with Sunbutter for dinner, no lie!

So Thursday night I decided to redeem myself. I thought about making pancakes because the kids would both love that, but I have really been trying to eat a little better amidst my busyness,which = fewer carbs and I had eaten at Qdoba for lunch with the other VBS ladies. Tortilla soup was awesome there along with my perfect portion size quesadilla by the way!

So I clicked on to one of my favorite blogs, Kalyn's Kitchen, for a phase one egg recipe. Three out of four people in this house like eggs and I decided to make the other one eat it anyway! Plus this recipe had a decent amount of veggies in it which made me super happy.

Start by adding these ingredients to the pan; one smaller zucchini diced fairly small, about half a red onion, 3-4 green onions, 2-3 minced garlic cloves, a dash of pepper and some basil and oregano, which I did add after I took this picture. Saute that mixture for about 5 minutes in a bit of olive oil.

Then add one can of diced tomatoes drained very well. I pressed all the liquid out with my spatula. I also picked fire roasted tomatoes because that is all I had but I LOVED the flavor that added and will always do that when I make this now.

Let that cook for about 3 more minutes. My picture isn't blurry. It is just steam.

I should have warned you at the beginning to get your eggs ready so you can just dump them in at this point. I had already cracked 6 eggs and scrambled them in the bowl with a little milk. Pour them in and stir them gently.

While that was cooking I grated some fresh Parmesan into the pan. Just a guess because you know I don't measure but I probably ended up with 1/2 cup of Parmesan. This Pampered Chef grater makes it very, very fine and light though so if you are using pre-shredded you may want to use a little less.

I also stirred in about 1/4 cup of feta cheese at this point making it more Greek of course but also very delicious.

I stirred gently for several minutes as the eggs continued to cook. I think I cooked this on lower heat for about 7 minutes. I am guessing again though. You want the eggs to be nearly finished with not too much liquid left. You can see that it was still pretty liquidy at this point. I just continued to move the egg around trying to let the liquid run down to the bottom of the pan.

A frittata is meant to be cooked in an oven proof skillet so it can go directly from the pan into the oven to finish cooking, but I do not have an oven proof skillet. It is on my list of wants. So I moved it to this Pampered Chef stoneware and pressed it firmly into the bottom. I topped it with a bit more feta and few of the green onions I had left.

Then I placed it under the broiler for about 5 minutes. I would have liked to have left it in there for a few more minutes but my family was sitting at the table waiting to be served already. For goodness sakes I guess this is a restaurant! Next time I will either use more eggs or a smaller pie plate because it was also a bit thinner then I had hoped for using this dish. I think it also needs to sit for just a few minutes to firm up a bit so it is easier to cut into pie shaped pieces.

It was however the best thing I have made in quite some time! I haven't cooked much lately either so that wasn't really saying much now was it? Husband and son approved! They scarfed theirs down and remarked several times how good it was. Daughter actually ate hers and she hates eggs! She said she liked it but she also asked how many bites she had to eat in order to have dessert. She has a one track mind.

I served mine over spinach because you know my rule about eating something green. I didn't make the kids eat the spinach this time though. I guess I was feeling nice. Next time I might just cook the spinach right in there. I did actually eat some toast with this meal but only because it was sprouted grain bread which is pretty good for you.

This one is my very favorite and as you can see it comes from Trader Joe's. We always buy a few loaves and freeze them when we go there. They last quite a while for since we don't eat a ton of bread. I should mention that we do keep it in the fridge after opening. I like this one best because it isn't as dry as some of the others can be so it is great for toast and sandwiches.

Only 8:37am on Saturday morning and I have actually finished a blog post! Now maybe you still have time to make this for breakfast this morning or maybe not by the time I edit all my spelling and actually type the recipe. Perhaps for dinner tonight. You must put it on your to do list if you don't get to it this weekend. The very best part of making it for dinner Thursday night was that I got to eat the leftovers for breakfast Friday morning which = AWESOME!

Here is the link to Kalyn's recipe and my recipe typed below that. I did make a few changes but nothing major. Just the fire roasted tomatoes and Parmesan instead of Mozzarella. I also left out the Spike seasoning and used milk in the eggs instead of cream. Her method was also a bit different.

Kalyn's Greek Frittata

Vegetable Frittata

1 zuchinni, diced into small pieces

1/2 a small red onion, diced

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

4-5 green onions, diced

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 tsp. dried basil

pepper to taste

1 Tbsp. Olive oil

one can fire roasted tomatoes, drained very well

6 eggs, beaten

1 Tbsp. milk

1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan or Mozzarella

1/4 cup feta cheese + more for topping

Directions: In a large oven proof pan saute the zuchinni, red onion, green onion, garlic, basil, oregano, and pepper in the olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add the well drained tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes. While this cooks, beat eggs with milk in a bowl. Add eggs to pan and cook for 5 minutes or so until eggs are barely starting to set. Add Parmesan and feta stirring it gently a few times to let the eggs cook. Watch carefully until most of the liquid is absorbed. Leave in oven proof skillet (or transfer to oven safe dish if you don't have one). Top with remaining cheese and a bit of green onion and place under the broiler for about 5 minutes. Watch carefully. Remove when cheese it starting to brown and let set for a few minutes to firm up. Slice and serve.

A Bit of Life and a Recipe Too- Marinated Pepper Salad

I have worked hard pretty much the entire day on VBS stuff so I would have a moment to actually sit down and give this poor little blog some attention! I am probably losing several of you as followers because I have been so lame. My apologies once again for my lack of blogging. Life has been happening around here too on top of my busyness!
(And it is now Saturday instead of Friday evening when I started this post!)

For example, my hubby turned 40 on Monday!!!!!!!!! I had no intentions of throwing him a surprise party. I told him long ago that I would rather buy him something then spend a lot of money on a big party. So that is what I did. However, I did surprise him with this........

A new road bike for triathlons!

The magic word here is carbon! Carbon = light weight and easier on your body.

I couldn't have put this little deal together without the help of my best friend's husband, Bert. He is a serious triathlete and marathoner and has been so helpful for Miles. I think Bert was almost more excited than Miles. The fact that Bert knew about it for so long and that he was gaining another biking buddy may have had something to do with his excitement. It was an amazing store to be in too. Probably like me at Williams Sonoma.

We also needed the help of Bert's cousin who manages Now Bikes in the Cities. He built the bike for Miles and gave us the best bike he possibly could for my budget. He is teaching Miles how to actually ride this bike above.

Miles had to practice learning to clip in and out with his shoes. This is probably the main reason I will stick to running. Can you say "Big Bike Wreck?" for Pam if I had to remember I couldn't just set my foot down. Plus this is a big boy bike with no kickstand.  He also got a  computer for the bike because of course you need to know how far and fast you are going! The very next day, yes on Mother's Day, I let him go for a ride with Bert. Bert tried to tell me they would start out slow and get him used to riding. Ummm........35 miles isn't really easing into things now is it???

The bike wasn't the only fun part of the day. With my kids at Nana's house we were free to leave for the whole day Saturday with some of our best friends and Bert made us the best CD full of 80's music, Nacho Libre, Napolean, Caddy Shack, and Dumb and Dumber quotes to listen to on the way!

Poor Miles thought he was going to have to endure girl shopping for the day when Bert chimed up from the back that we were in the area of his cousin's bike shop so could we just make one guy stop first? He promised he wouldn't keep us too long in the bike shop! He asked Jeremy, his cousin, what would be a good bike for Miles to start with and Jeremy brought out this winner! Miles looked at us and said, "What is going on guys?" He bought every lie we had told without questioning anything. I was relieved to not have to tell anymore!!!!

After all the bike fun we headed downtown for a few quick girly stops at LUSH and Marshall's before our big dinner! We had planned for quite sometime also to eat at Fogo de Chao for Miles' 40th birthday.

Once again I think Bert was more excited than Miles! He even asked Wednesday if I was thinking about what kind of meat I was going to have first on Saturday as he looked off dreamily in the other direction. He had been there before though so he knew what to expect. We had long conversations a couple times about how this Brazilian steakhouse worked. It was incredible! It lived up to all my expectations. Gaucho's, as they are called, roam the restaurant with their meat on a spindle kind of thing and if you have your special table coaster flipped to green they will be right at your table to slice you off a piece. The meat is cooked over an open flame and the gaucho's serving you have cooked that particular cut. They are meat experts! Sorry to my vegetarian and vegan friends. You would hate this restaurant!

But before we got down to all that meat business we had to take a trip through their incredible salad bar!!! This plate doesn't even do it justice so you should visit their website to see the beautiful pictures and also see how they do the whole meat experience. The salad bar had aged cheddars, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, aged balsamic, giant asparagus, sun dried tomatoes, mixed salads, fresh breads, crispy potatoes, I could go on and on and on!!! I would have been thrilled to have only eaten the salad bar actually. Those red pepper looking things in the middle of my plate were some kind of sweet red peperoncini that was like nothing I have ever tasted before! Unfortunately I was too full after all the meat to go back for a second trip. I really wanted more aged balsamic. I might have to fork over the $28 it costs for a good bottle at Williams Sonoma or put it on my birthday list!

Miles even got a free birthday dessert. He picked chocolate lava cake but he shared with me of course! Did I mention the incredible service at this restaurant? They work as a team so they are fast and incredible. Your dirty plate disappears like magic when you are ready for a clean one and there is always someone around to get you something if you need it. You have to be really fast turning your coaster from green to red to tell them to stop coming or you will have 5 gaucho's at your table ready to give you some of their meat. It was like they had a 6th meat sense that we would turn to green. It was completely packed in the restaurant. People know a good thing I guess!

I can't believe he is 40 actually! When we met we were pretty young. I was actually only 19 and 40 sounded so old back then. Now that he is there and I will be shortly it doesn't seem old at all. I am sure our kids think we are old fuddy duddies however!

Let's flip gears now and talk about Mother's Day! Did you see this funny thing I posted on Facebook that my daughter brought home for me?

Do you know what that says? That's right people. It spells quinoa in kindergarten spelling world! I laughed so hard when I figured this out! I totally love it!

This was maybe not as funny but later we noticed that on the computer screen she wrote, "Like me," Now that is hysterical. She has facebook completely figured out. For the record while I do like facebook it isn't my favorite thing to do! Faith has no idea when I am on facebook, or working on my computer doing VBS stuff, (ugh) or Blog stuff keeping all of you happy!

I also got a few exciting Mother's Day gifts and had a wonderful Mother's Day lunch with Miles' parents and his godmother who came all the way from Mexico for his 40th birthday.

Maybe you saw this on facebook too! I wanted it when it first came out months ago but they sold out right away. I can't believe Miles even remembered this because I had actually forgotten about it.

This is my new best friend! It keeps track of every step I take during the day, the calories I burn based on my height, weight, and movement, and I earn fuel points for moving. It is also a watch. I plug this into my computer (there is a USB when you open that silver part up) at the the end of the day and all my info is downloaded and stored at Nike+. I earn achievements and my fuel points accumulate there and my steps get translated into miles. I can compete with people online as well.

It has been very motivating. In fact I forgot to wear it Wednesday morning when I went to clean and I was so upset. I really wanted to know how many calories I burn when cleaning. So later that day because I wasn't happy with the numbers I had I went for a run so I could meet my 3000 fuel point goal for the day. These were my numbers yesterday at 4:20pm. They are very sad too because I sat in front of my computer most of the day typing VBS stuff. I did run 3 miles yesterday morning though so I wasn't completely lazy. The 8857 is the number of steps I had taken, 655 is the number of calories burned, and 2702 was the number of fuel points I had earned. In comparison, the day before when I remembered to wear it to my other cleaning job my steps were 15,469, my calories burned were 1263, I earned 5209 fuel points all of which equated to 6.35 miles walked. I didn't even run on Thursday. I knew cleaning was a good workout! I burned 900 of those 1263 calories just cleaning!!! I have found it to be pretty accurate in relation to my other Nike+ device I use with my shoe and ipod to track my runs. The calories burned come up pretty similar. Super fun to actually know how much I am moving and my brain likes that it is all stored online for me. It seems very organized that way and I love organized!

 I also got a fun surprise gift from my good friend Ka-Lee. You know the one who stole the blog giveaway basket from you. She was very thoughtful and picked me up a copy of this........

You know I was super stoked when I opened this little gift up! I sat at the coffee bar at church and poured over it with a friend. I think perhaps I should cook my way through it and blog about it like the movie, "Julie and Julia."

It has the best pictures all throughout which is how I like my cookbooks to be!

Plus who wouldn't want to try Salted Caramel Hazelnut Coffee Cake that was actually cleaned up and a healthy way to enjoy a dessert?

Slow Cooked Curried Chickpeas sounds pretty good to me too. This is going to be fun to start using when life slows down a bit and I am not throwing meals together in 2 minutes or less. I have missed being in the kitchen.

Whew, that was long! Now as promised a recipe. For Mother's Day I made several salads because I was meated out after Fogo de Chao and didn't really care for any of the steaks we had purchased to grill for everyone else who didn't eat meat the night before. My favorite was the marinated pepper salad. I found the recipe on Kalyn's Kitchen, which is one of my favorite recipe blogs.

I only have a couple pictures for you because I was doing this so quick Sunday morning but also because it really is a throw it all together kind of thing. Just chop up your peppers and toss them in a ziploc bag with 1/2 cup of balsamic, a bit of olive oil, and about 3 cloves of minced garlic. It is best if they can marinate over night but at least for a few hours if that is all you have. Mine only marinated while I was at church and I thought it was great. Then later or the next day you add 1 can of drained chick peas, some Greek olives, a little feta and some salt and pepper and give it all a stir. The original recipe said to drain all the marinade and just save a few tablespoons to pour back over but I used all the liquid and it doesn't get the slightest bit soggy even after several days. So whatever is your preference will be just fine. It makes a beautiful salad! I made it again this week with yellow and orange peppers too for even more color. Give it a try. It makes a great salad to share at a potluck for the summer time!

Hooray! I am done and it only took me two days to get this finished. Now I must go earn some fuel points and get back to the VBS planning again!

Marinated Pepper Salad

from Kalyn's Kitchen

3 cups of sliced sweet mini peppers (or bell peppers)

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp. olive oil

3 large garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

Place in a bag or glass dish to marinate over night or for several hours.

1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed

1/2 - 1 cup black or Greek olives, drained and sliced in half

1/4 -1/2 cup Parmesan or feta cheese

reserved marinade

olive oil if needed

If desired drain the marinade reserving a few tablespoons and add all the ingredients together. Add a little more olive oil if needed and the reserved marinade. Alternately, do not drain the marinade and just combine ingredients. (personal preference prevails!)