Spaghetti Squash Casserole (and how using what you have can turn into amazing!)

I've been playing a game lately that has really challenged me creatively. It's called use up all the food in your freezer and garage (I have squash hanging out in the garage from my farm share this fall. Thanks to the freezing winter we've had, it has all kept really well! And a ton of soup frozen in my freezer.) I don't want to wait until summer to try and get through this stuff. If we are being honest here, soup in the summer is kind of awful! And I want to make the most of what I have -- less clutter, less storage of stuff. I am adopting a use it up or donate it to someone who can use it mantra this year. And it starts with my freezer (and helps lower my grocery bill!)

Last nights dinner was made with spaghetti squash from the garage, spaghetti sauce from the pantry (yes I use jarred spaghetti sauce - total cheater and a little bit lazy) and some frozen ground beef from a half a cow my mom bought and had butchered this fall. (But you could totally leave out the meat and serve this as a side dish too!) Using-up-what-I-have success! Of course the cheese and other veggies I grabbed at the store. Here's what I did:

SERVINGS: 6

1 spaghetti squash, halved lengthwise and seeds removed
1 Tbsp coconut oil (or olive oil)
1 lb ground meat (I used ground beef but turkey would work too!)
1 sm onion, chopped

1 tsp dried basil1 tomato, chopped1 pepper, diced1 carrot, shredded1 c feta cheese2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (I also reserved a little bit for on top!) 16 ounces tomato sauce1/4 c chopped parsley (used dried)

Directions
1. PREHEAT the oven to 400°F. Coat a 13" x 9" baking dish and a baking sheet with nonstick spray. Place the squash, cut side down, on the sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, or until tender when pierced with a sharp knife. With a fork, scrape the squash strands into a large bowl.



2. MEANWHILE, warm the oil in a medium skillet set over medium heat. Cook the ground meat until cooked through. Drain and place cooked meat in bowl. 

3.  Add the onion and basil. (Add a little more oil if necessary.) Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, or until the onion is soft. Add remaining veggies. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the mixture is dry.

4. ADD the feta cheese, mozzarella, parsley, sauce and veggie mixture to the bowl with the squash. Stir to mix. Pour into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with the Parmesan and bread crumbs.

5. BAKE for 30 minutes, or until bubbly and heated through.

You can also top it with some fresh grated parmesan cheese for a little zing! Yay dinner! 

Amaranth to the Rescue (well not really but I learned a lot anyway)

It is still technically summer in Western PA (even though everyone is gearing up to head back to school!) and with summer not only comes a surplus of sweet corn but a surplus of zuccinni. This is another what in the world do I do with all of this ____________ (insert vegetable here) recipes that came to the rescue. My CSA has been loading me up with zucchini. And I like some zucchini in a salad or to munch on raw but I could not possibly eat all of this zucchini by myself (because of course my daughter licks it and tells me its yucky.)

I decided to cook up some fun zucchini boats to try and trick my 2 year old with the novelty of what we are eating and to free up some space on my fridge. (It totally didn't work. She still licked the zucchini and told me it was yucky. At least I tried.)

I found this really awesome looking quinoa stuffed zucchini recipe and was psyched to make it. I get really excited about plant based protein and quinoa is a great one to have on hand. Most of the recipes I found at first called for some sort of meat stuffing. Yay plants! Until I looked in my freezer (yes I keep my opened grains in the freezer for freshness) and I had zero quinoa and it was the 11th hour. A trip to the store was not happening.

So I got creative. Quinoa is technically a seed and I had some amaranth from my field trip to Bob's Red Mill (best. day. ever.) which is also technically a seed. Sounded good to me and I started to cook it up. Well as it turns out it wasn't the best substitute I ever made. It tasted good but the texture was off. (And I added turmeric so that is why it is yellow - Yay for anti-inflammatory foods. I can use all the help I can get in that department!)

The amaranth cooked up kind of runny and it stayed really small. It doesn't fluff up when it cooks like rice or quinoa. I do think it would make an awesome (and protein packed) sub for oatmeal in the morning -- with a little cinnamon and some blueberries. (Yum!) But it was not the best choice as a sub for a stuffing in my zucchini boats. It kind of oozed out every where. It tasted really good it was just goopy looking (and kind of freaked me out.) So while I will never make that sub again I am excited to try it in other things especially after looking into what amaranth is all about.

Here are some things I learned about amaranth (thanks to http://wholegrainscouncil.org for the lesson!)

• It is a complete protein (Yay!) and for those of us who don't eat meat or would like to cut back on our meat consumption this is a great thing. A protein is considered complete when it contains all 9 essential amino acids that our bodies don't create. In this case amaranth contains lysine -- an amino acid that is typically missing in most grains. 

• It is also good for your heart and studies have shown it to be a cholesterol lowering whole grain (for more information and links to these studies please visit http://wholegrainscouncil.org)

• And it's gluten free -- and with all they hype around gluten right now that seems to always be a plus. 

• It also has a ton of magnesium and iron

I also read that it can be popped, like corn. How cool is that -- I am super excited to try that out and see if it can satisfy when my crunchy munchy cravings hit. Or to throw on top of salads. Or soup.

So if you have a chance pick up some amaranth and try it. Leave any recipes in the comments below. I would love to know what you think and am always on the lookout for killer recipes (that may get my kid to eat something other than fruit and cheese-- but it could be worse.) I used Bob's Red Mill brand as I (indirectly) mentioned above. Because I am obsessed with Bob's Red Mill (it may be my very favorite place in the Pacific Northwest second only to Cannon Beach -- but seriously the corn grits may have been life changing. Not kidding.) 

Gooey, Yummy Orange Sauce (the way Chinese food is supposed to be sauced)

I love Chinese food. So much. But since being exiled to to the Pacific Northwest, I have found that there aren't any crazy good places to get Chinese food out here. So I started googling and Pinterest-ing (is that a verb yet?) and have tried scads of stir fry and other supposed "takeout fakeout" recipes. Nothing has come close to even touching my Chinese food want. The sauces are too runny and thin or they have a blah flavor or they call for way too much spice (probably to mask the fact that there is no real flavor in there in the first place.)

Well I have a huge announcement because I have found a sauce that makes me jump up in down in happy circles (or maybe hum to my food while I eat it and chair dance.) And it was toddler approved, which is a big deal in this house these days.

What I like about this recipe is that it is for a sauce. It is super quick and easy and I can throw in there anything I want. This time it was with a bag of frozen veggie stir fry plus some extra peas for B and whatever veggies I had in the fridge that needed eating (or tossing soon!) I was due for some seafood so I cooked up some shrimp for in there too (easily swapped with chicken, beef or tofu.) Then I threw it all over some brown rice. Done. Dinner in 20 minutes or less. My kind of cooking.

So the origin of this recipe was an article on Yahoo Voice by Natalie Ivette. I made some changes to clean it up and it was awesome. It got thick and yummy and made everything kind of goo together in the best possible way. For the juices, I squeezed my own. There wasn't a ton of juice called for an it only took a few minutes. The recipe called for brown sugar and I subbed honey.  I also used the soy sauce. I have read conflicting things about soy sauce. Some say it's not clean. Some say it is okay in small amounts. Again I use it probably less than once a week so I'm not going to sweat it. If it was something I used all the time, I would be more concerned. I did read the labels and try to find one without scary ingredients. (The one I found had six ingredients and they were all things I could recognize - like soybeans and vinegar.) I have also read conflicting views on cornstarch. Again, I barely use it so I wasn't worried (and that was what I had in my pantry.) In the future, I will probably switch to arrowroot as a thickening agent.

Orange Sauce for Chinese Stir-fry 

- 2/3 cup orange juice (I squeezed some oranges)

- 1 teaspoon lime juice (again from a lime not a bottle)

- 1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce

- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar

- 1 teaspoon honey

- 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic

- 3/4 teaspoon grated ginger

- 1 tablespoon cornstarch (or arrowroot)

- 2 tablespoons water

Directions:

1) In a small bowl, combine orange juice, lime juice, soy sauce, vinegar and honey. In another, combine cornstarch and water - stir until the cornstarch is dissolved.

2) In a skillet, heat sesame oil over medium-high heat. When really hot, sautee garlic and ginger for 1 to 2 minutes- do not let stick. (I might have skipped this step and it all turned out fine.)

3) Give orange juice mixture a stir and pour it into skillet. Bring to a boil for a minute or so.

4) Reduce heat to low and add dissolved cornstarch, while stirring. (You want to be sure to stir constantly, until completely combined, or the cornstarch could clump while adding to hot liquid!)

5) Turn the heat back up to medium and stir continuously until sauce thickens considerably. It should thickly coat the back of the spoon. 

At this point I set the sauce aside and cooked my veggies, shrimp and rice. I wanted the sauce to get extra thick (I was paranoid it wouldn't thicken as I haven't had much luck in the past.)

Full is Equal to Happy (Meat and Dairy free Veggie Lasagna Yummy-ness)

Sometimes I crave a big plate of heavy food that is going to leave me feeling full, fat and happy. Gross, right? But really sometimes I just want a giant sandwich or something that has some major substance to shove in my pie hole. Yesterday was on of those days for me. Beans and greens just weren't cutting it. Typically I am really happy with a nice big plate of greens, a grain and some mushrooms or beans, but not yesterday. Maybe because I have been pushing myself extra hard to end this Insanity journey with a bang or maybe because I might be a little homesick. I knew I needed to address this craving before it got worse, I got angrier and picked a fight with everyone around me.

And boy was I craving some good old Italian food like it was my job. So I decided to try some vegan stuffed shells. I took this recipe from Oh She Glows and modified it a bit to look like the stuffed shells my Mom used to make. She used to add in carrots and broccoli and other veggies to make it crunch, give it tons of kick ass texture and overall make them pretty awesome. And it gets all those vital veggies in there the doctors are always talking about. Yay veggies!

But to thwart my plan, the grocery store out here didn't have giant shell pasta (seriously, they have bee pollen but not shell pasta. I can't even handle it.) So I did some creative swapping and switched it up with lasagna. And they had whole wheat no bake noodles so the decision was made.  (And really what is the difference besides the pasta shape?)

So I took the tofu ricotta recipe, added a ton of fresh basil and garlic and it was awesome. I skipped cooking it since I pressed it forever. I also skipped the onion since it was in my veggie layer and the celery. (The idea of celery in something that is supposed to sub ricotta kind of made me gag.) It's not ricotta but it is some good stuff. I would also double it for sure next time. I couldn't get enough of it.

I cooked up some broccoli, carrots, onion and I had some zucchini I forgot to throw in (oops!) But I used this as what would traditionally be the "meat" layer. Although I think I could have thrown the veggies in with the tofu and they could have all had a party. It would have been easier than trying to spread out the tofu onto the noodles/pasta sauce. I also think I might skip using sauce next time too. God knows I don't have an Italian bone in my body and clean jarred sauce is so hard to find. I think some ripe chunky tomatoes and spices would be delish!

Plus this is another great meal that feels like a treat (or cheat) meal. How often can you eat lasagna that is awesome and doesn't have a bajillion calories? Paired with a big old salad, this dinner is a-ma-zing. (Even my carnivorous husband thought it rocked. After he came home and asked if there was anything weird going on in this dinner. I may have lied and told him after he ate three plates worth.)

Here is the recipe from Oh She Glows (it's a great site. Check it out.) And a pic of my awesome creation. (My food photography skills are growing. Go me!)

Tofu Ricotta:

• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 medium sweet onion, diced
• 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves, minced
• 1/2 cup packed fresh parsley, minced
• 1 (14oz) package extra-firm or firm tofu, pressed
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 3/4-1 tsp fine grain sea salt, or to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes (optional)

1. Rinse block of tofu and wrap with paper towels followed by 2-3 tea towels. Place it on a cutting board or plate and add several heavy cookbooks on top. Press tofu for about 20-25 minutes to drain out the water. Alternatively, you can use a tofu press.

2. Grease a very large casserole dish. I used about 30 shells, but you’ll need to cook more than that as some shells will break during the cooking process. Cook shells in a pot of boiling water until al dente, about 8-11 minutes. Be careful not to overcook. Drain shells and set aside to cool.

3. Preheat oven to 400F. For the tofu ricotta: In a large skillet, sauté the garlic and onion in the oil for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add in the chopped celery, basil, and parsley and sauté for another 5 minutes or so. Feel free to throw in some spinach for extra greens.

4. For the tofu, you can either crumble it into the skillet with your hands or you can give it a whirl in the food processor and then stir it into the skillet. If you use the processor, the texture will be very creamy like ricotta cheese and if you crumble it with your hands it will be more chunky/crumbly. It’s up to you how you want to make it. I usually opt to crumble it by hand so I don’t dirty the processor. Stir in the nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, lemon, and cayenne all to taste. Over medium heat, cook for about 8-10 minutes or until most of the water cooks off.

5. Spoon about 1 cup of marinara sauce into the casserole dish and spread around. Add about 2 tbsp of tofu ricotta into each stuffed shell and place shells on top of marinara sauce. Cover shells with the remaining 2-2.5 cups marinara sauce and any leftover tofu ricotta. You can add vegan cheese on top, but I don’t bother. Cover dish with tin foil and poke several air holes. Bake at 400F for about 20 minutes or until heated throughout. Serve with a basic green salad and garlic bread, if desired.

Read more: http://ohsheglows.com/2013/03/13/jumbo-stuffed-shells/#ixzz2TrheI8u4