Crustless Quiche

I found this recipe on the Weight Watchers website many years ago. You can use any vegetables you'd like or have on hand. Most recently I made it with just onion and red pepper. I also doubled the recipe to make it in a 9X13 pan. If you do so you need to add about 15-20 minutes to the cooking time so the center finished cooking.

1/4 green pepper, diced
1/4 yellow pepper, diced
4 oz mushrooms, chopped
1 crown broccoli, chopped
1/4 Onion, diced
6 Egg Whites or 3 Eggs
3/4 C. Cottage Cheese
Salt
Pepper

Saute the vegetables in pam. Beat eggs and add cottage cheese mixing well. Add a
little bit of salt and pepper for flavor. Spray a 8X8 pan with Pam. Combine the vegetables with the cottage cheese mixture and pour into prepared pan. Cook at 350 for approx. 20 minutes or until lightly brown and set.

Corn Muffins

In attempt to break my kids out of the sugar cereal routine I have been trying assorted muffins made with ingredients like whole wheat, ground flax seeds, oat meal, apple sauce-the list goes on and on. I think they are all tasty however since my kids are used to very sweet baked goods they don't enjoy the subtle taste. I finally found one that everyone likes. Either these taste sweeter than the ones I have tried in the past or their taste buds are finally adjusting. Either way I am happy to have found one everyone likes-even my husband.

I made a couple changes to the recipe for Tiny Corn Muffins. First off I have no buttermilk but I found this substitute for buttermilk which I always use now. In this case I used a tablespoon and a half of vinegar and added milk until 1 1/2 cups. In place of the 3/4 C. flour I used 1/2 C. whole wheat flour and 1/4 C. white flour. I added 1 Tbls. flax seed because why not and I used honey rather than agave because I am still on the fence about agave-feel free to pass along your thoughts about agave. Lastly I used canola oil rather than vegetable oil. Hmmm-I guess mine were very loosely based on that recipe. To make life easier I will put my edited version here:

Tiny Corn Muffins:

1 3/4 C. Cornmeal
1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 C. White Flour
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Tbls. Ground Flax Seed
1/4 C. Honey
1 1/2 C. Buttermilk(or 1 1/2 Tbls. vinegar plus milk to equal 1 1/2 C.)
2 Large Eggs
1/4 C. Canola Oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the first 7 dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk the remaining wet ingredients in a separate bowl until thoroughly combined. Pour the cornmeal mixture into the wet ingredients and thoroughly combine with a whisk. Pour into greased or paper lined mini muffin cups. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted inside. Cool and serve.


The original recipe says it makes 24 mini muffins however I came out with a little over 50:

I also lowered the oven temperatur and cooking time as they were very well done at 425 for 15 minutes.

Part Whole Wheat Pizza

After last nights chili disaster I decided to move back into the kids comfort zone. I decided to make the same pizza I always make them but making the crust part whole wheat-repeat after me-baby steps. The recipe for pizza dough that I always use is from my 7th grade home economics cooking class. So thank you Mrs. Purtell. I just change the white flour to part whole wheat.

Part Whole Wheat Pizza

1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp.)
3/4 C. warm water
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbls. oil
3/4 C. whole wheat flour
1-1 1/4 C. white flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, salt, oil, whole wheat flour and 1/4 C. white flour. Stir. Slowly add remainder of white flour until moderately stiff. Turn dough onto greased board and kneed until smooth and elastic-approximately 5-10 minutes. Place dough in a bowl sprayed with Pam. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let stand for 15 minutes. Refrigerate for 2-24 hours.
Roll out dough to cookie sheet or pizza stone. Add sauce, shredded cheese and toppings. Bake in preheated oven at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Everyone loved it and nobody had a clue that I changed anything. I guess that is the key-slow, small changes.

All Day Burritos

Yesterday Danya picked a recipe out of the Kosher by Design Kids in the Kitchen cookbook that she wanted for dinner. It was for Bean, Rice and Cheese Burritos. I felt like this was a good chance for me to take a recipe that wasn't so healthy and make it a little healthier. I started last night by making my own refried beans using pinto beans. I didn't take a picture but be glad as they weren't pretty. Then I went a little too far and made my own whole wheat tortillas. They were very tasty however it was a lot of work, hard to do and my stove was a bit too hot so they all got a little too crispy which made them hard to wrap.

Next time I would just buy whole wheat tortillas. However, if you are looking for a challenge, or own a tortilla press, I recommend this recipe. The recipe called for white minute rice and I substituted it with brown rice. So what should have been a simple recipe became an all day process. In the end they were really good.

Josh, Danya and I liked them a lot. Jordy took an itsy bitsy bite and said yuck and Nadav said "no, no, no" as I tried to hand it to him but neither of those responses were unexpected.

Here is my altered recipe.

Bean, Rice and Cheese Burritos

4 wheat tortillas
1 C. brown rice prepared with a packed of taco seasoning
4 Tbls. refried beans
1 C. shredded cheddar cheese

Spread 1/4 C. of rice, 1 Tbls, beans and 1/4 C. cheese on each tortilla. Roll each tortilla and wrap in foil. Place all the burritos in oven heated to 425 and cook for 15 minutes until cheese is melted.