Roasted Veggies Three Ways

Just a quick post with a few ideas because I wanted to send this off to a friend. I will update later with specific ingredients. You who know me know i am NOT a recipe girl. I'm more a good enough gal... so consider this a canvas for your creative abilities.

My friend J gave me a great tip on how to expand the use of roasted veggies. First, you roast a ton of veggies at around 400-425F for as many minutes as it takes to get them done. Maybe half an hour. I use cauliflower, eggplant, peppers, zucchini, carrots, sweet potato. The list is endless. Then divide it into three batches.

Batch one: Add tomato sauce and italian spices. Freeze. Thaw, heat and put on pasta, or bread sticks or make pizza.

Batch two: Add curry sauce (or spices) and maybe some coconut milk. Freeze. Thaw, heat and serve on rice, or polenta or eat with a spoon.

Batch three: Whirl in the blender or food processor and make a dip. You might add Greek yogurt if you want. I can't recall what else she adds to this batch because I have yet to make it but you get the idea. You could add chick peas and make a veggie hummus. This one you probably don't want to freeze especially if you use a milk product.

Play around with it!!

Favorite Allergy Free REAL food blogs

I admit..I judge a blog very quickly. I was recently looking through a list of REAL food allergy (mostly gluten) free blogs. Here are the ones I found to be my favorites. There are other great ones..and some that are much more well known. But these struck me right off the bat. They are simple looking blogs, not a lot of ads, easy to read and most have beautiful pictures! I 'heart' pictures.

Sure Foods Living

The Whole Life Kitchen

Allergy Free Lunchbox with Brain Power

Glugle Guten Free (Currently has a ton of Halloween ideas.)

The W.H.O.L.E. Gang

My Tartelette

Elana's Pantry

School Snacks: No Milk...No Nuts please.

A friend emailed me asking for ideas for snacks. Her son is milk free and over the summer they worked on increasing his weight through nut snacks. She cooks / bakes with a ton of almond milk. So... when she realized his classroom would be nut free next year she was bummed to say the least. She understood the gravity but still was bummed. But leave it to my facebook friends who tried to convince her to homeschool gave her lots of great ideas. Keep the ideas coming and I will add them.

Here are a few:

• Sunflower butter....for baking and for eating. Still waiting on a friend to tell me what the best brand is.

• Fancy toothpick meat snacks

• Pre-packaged milk free puddings

• Hummus

• Guacamole

• Black Bean Dip

• Various nutrition bars (maybe make them homemade)

• Homemade granola and trail mix without nuts

• Deviled Eggs

• Ham roll ups without cheese..maybe with pickels

• Enjoy Life cereal bars

• Various nut free cereals without the milk

MMmmmm..Zucchini Bread

I combined two friends' recipes last week to make a great zucchini bread. One friend has a great banana bread recipe I have posted before. The other makes the zucchini bread without the banana but with applesauce and uses egg replacer of some kind. Here is what I made and it was delicious. It did flatten so I'll have to work on that. But it was very very moist and wonderful.

Ingredients:

2 cups (more or less) grated zucchini

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 large ripe banana smashed

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups gluten free flour mix (I used Trader Joe's pancake mix)

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I use incredible cinnamon from The Spice House.)

1/2 tsp nutmeg (I have a whole nutmeg and grate a bit into the mix.)

Combine sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla and banana until well combined. Add zucchini. Mix remainder of dry in separate bowl and mix gently into the wet ingredients.

Oil and flour 2 loaf pans. Bake at 325 F for 30-45 minutes (or until done.)

Spreads and Dips! Theme: Cilantro

Cashew Spread

Made this in the Vitamix last week. It was very tasty. You can eat it 'straight' or spread it on a tortilla and bake it like a pizza. Sliced tomatoes on top would be good as well. Sorry I don't really measure stuff! It should be the consistency of a thick paste. For those that don't eat cheese, it makes a tasty alternative for pizza. It is not the same...it is better.

• Cashews
• Cilantro
• EVOO
• lemon juice- fresh squeezed.
• salt and pepper
  

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Black Bean Dip

Today I made a bean spread. Cilantro is the theme. I made it too thin but it was still very tasty. You can use it as a dip, topping for nachos or whatever. I didn't have any canned or fresh tomatoes but I think it would have been a great soup heated to serve in the Vitamix with some corn mixed in at the end.

• Canned (or pre cooked) black beans
• Pitted Kalamata olives
• Cilantro
• Lemon juice- fresh squeezed.
• Salt and Pepper
  

Rebus Recipe of the day

Recipe 1: Presto Pesto

Add Basil (Stems and all)


+




EVOO



+




Cashews



+







Lemons



Whirl until blended in your











Vitamix





YUMMO!!!


Then- before cleaning it out, because you can't possibly get ALL the thick pesto out on the first try,




walk to your garden and grab some





















herbs


add to the Vitamix with some














Lemon and some















Water
and













EVOO

Mix it up. Recipe #2 is Green Dressing for the week!

Lunchables!!!

I have posted before on Bento Boxes but thought I'd whip up a post on some of the more recent 'homemade' lunchables we have done!

These are made from a new Ziplock product I found at Target. These are very re-usable. In this I have gluten free pretzels, a salad and for dessert a smallish amount of cashews and dark chocolate chips. Trader Joes makes a great cf chocolate chip. The salad was so yummy. I do NOT like romaine or 'regular' lettuce and in general am not a lettuce gal but I have taken a liking to arugula and various leaf lettuces. I put pre-cooked chicken (that I pre-cooked), avocado and tomatoes. I love my new Vitamix for many reasons but it makes the best dressings. I make a very creamy cashew dressing with...cashews, oil and some lemon juice. Yummo.

The other lunchable is from Laptop Lunches. Love it! They have no phthalates, bisphenol A or lead. For a school kid I think they are large enough for lunch and a snack. Often times I pack both Andrew and I a lunch in there but wasn't sure how long we were going to be at the zoo so I wanted to pack for a few days ;)



Happy Eating!!