Zucchini Pancakes

Zucchini Pancakes

If you know me at all...you may know that I try different things for my family. I try very hard to get veggies in my kids. Most mornings my kids eat super green smoothies that have a ton of spinach in them. So in saying that, I read about some people adding veggies to their pancakes.....so of course I couldn't not try that! I was considering putting spinach in the pancakes this morning, but I was worried about the water content in the spinach. So I grabbed the next thing I thought would work, Zucchini
I mixed up my batter, the 6 grain pancake mix from Costco...and shredded the zucchini

throw them in the batter and mix

Chat with your helper as your pan heats up about the merits of balloons and the things you can do with them. My regular helper was busy watching Dora

Then cook them up! The pancakes of course, not the balloons

While the pancakes cook up, check in on your helper

Flip....and look at how yummy these pancakes are going to be

Ask your helper to call Daddy and her brother....and smile as she just wants to play with her balloon at your feet and thank God for such a sweet girl

Sit down for some domestic bliss and a family breakfast where the kids are loving their zucchini pancakes


And to think this was all before 830 this morning!
So now..I'm trying to consider what is next for these pancakes...I'm thinking some sweet potato... Oh well...smoothies for tomorrow!

Homemade Yummy Hamburgers

I think my family could eat hamburgers a few times a week. They love them, a lot. Sadly we order in way to much and in an effort to stop I am trying to accommodate our desire for those yummy hamburgers. These hit the spot!

It was a sort of throw together hamburger here goes...

one pound of ground beef or another other ground meat

2 eggs

1/2 an onion chopped finely

steak spice

Worcestershire

shredded parm cheese

Italian dressing for the local restaurant here...this dressing is amazing. any Italian dressing works

I also use quick oats to make the meat go farther, I think it was about a cup

Mix it all together and form your patties

I heated up the BBQ and cooked them until they were no longer pink and I added some cheese to them.
A little hint for the BBQ. I was told that meat, that is not heavy with sauce, will 'release' from the grill when it's ready to flip. So basically that means that you shouldn't have to scrap your meat off the grill it will naturally let go and be easy to flip. This generally works for me, unless, I have a lot of sauce on the meat then it does not always work or if I have not cleaned my grill very well.

I served this on the flax buns with sweet potato fries and roasted broccoli


I'll be making these again soon, they were very good. The kids loved them as did the husband.
Check out some more great recipes at Tempt my Tummy Tuesday

Sweet Potato French Fries

I've been trying to get sweet potatoes into my families diet instead of regular 'white' potatoes (which we don't eat a lot of any way).... to add some extra healthy elements.
I didn't have a recipe for the fries but just went for it and man they were GOOD!

You will need....

Sweet potatoes - enough for your family, I did 4 or 5 small ones (I'm talking about the ones with the DARK orange flesh, often called YAMS on the west coast).

Garlic - a few cloves minced

Grapeseed Oil or Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Seasoning Salt

Fresh cracked pepper

Your oven at 350

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into french fry size


Mince up some garlic. I used 3 cloves, we really like garlic. I cut them up then put some salt on them to help mince them as the salt breaks down the garlic and used the flat edge of my knife 'squish' them up
Put the sweet potatoes and garlic in a bowl, add your oil, a few teaspoons of it and your salt and fresh cracked pepper and toss it all together
lay them flat on a baking sheet, I put mine on parchment paper for easy clean up

I set my timer for 15 minutes and then gave them a stir and flip and cooked them another 15 minutes.
They browned up nice and caramelized a little bit, they really were very good. My whole family loves them.

I served them up with chicken wings and salad.
I'm making the fries again this week as a request from my hubby!
This recipe and other tasty treats you can find at Tempt my Tummy Tuesday

Slow BBQ'd Marinated Chicken Thighs

Wow, this week has gone by in a blur. It's Friday and I've not posted since Monday!! I'm sure all six of you were missing me greatly. It's been busy as I've had a lot of work with my 'part' time job and company over on two different nights this week for dinner and my friend and her kids over and we also went over to her house. So that's a bit busy for us. Oh and I did make cookies today also. Whew I'm tired just thinking about this week!
So I slow BBQ'd two batches of marinated chicken thighs this week for each of my nights of company. They turned out fantastic!!
The first batch I did in a home made plum chutney that a friend had made and 'forgot' at my house....I hope she didn't want it back! It was great!

I then dumped the chutney and the chicken together in a ziplock bag and marinated it for the day, squishing it and turning it around a couple times

At the same time I threw the other half of the chicken in the second marinade for later in the week and put it in the fridge

3 hours before dinner, I heated up and cleaned the BBQ.

Then I turned half the BBQ off and left the other half on high. Put the chicken, skin side up, on the half that is off and close the lid.

I checked it a few times to make sure it was cooking well and rotated any pieces that were cooking faster with pieces that were not. You do not flip the chicken and do not put it over the flames. Cooking it this way will give you a nice crispy outside and a very moist inside!

In the end, they will be pretty dark, but the chicken is not over cooked at all...the sausages are a different story....company was late sadly. So the chicken survived and the sausages even over cooked were consumed also

Girly loved the chicken!

Roasted Broccoli

I had a lot of good feedback about the roasted cauliflower, except for ONE person...and you know who you are....
So here is the roasted Broccoli...it's soooo good, really. MMMM

You need Broccoli, Garlic, Salt, Pepper and Extra Virgin Olive Oil (I used Grapeseed Oil as I prefer the taste)
A baking pan with sides
The oven heated to 350

Cut up the broccoli into bit size pieces and put into the pan and add the EVOO or Grapeseed oil and toss it together to coat the broccoli

Mince up the Garlic

add the garlic and the salt and pepper to the broccoli

Roast it in the oven for about 25 minutes. It will turn all brown and crispy...mmmm

My kids both loved it and the little man kept eating it up

And according to my Menu, today was the fish day...I really really don't like fish....still....really I don't. But it's what we do for our kids right.....try to teach them what is good for them....so I suck it up and eat it with out complaining...honest even with yummy sounding topping, I still don't like it...

Easy Apple Crisp

I often throw together an apple crisp when company comes over. It's one of those desserts that is easy to do fast and then let it cook and fill your house with a yummy smell.
I don't use a recipe, but just throw the stuff together and mmm, mmm, yum.

I use about 4-5 apples and cut them with my handy apple slicer from the above picture. I cut each of the apple pieces in half and I leave the skin on. Normally you should take it off, but really, I'm lazy and too lazy to peel the apples so I throw them in the dish (that has been sprayed or buttered)

This last time I sprinkled them with cinnamon, just because I could. I didn't notice it, so next time I guess I should do more...hmmm, oh well
In a mixing bowl I start the topping, because lets face it, really that's all I want anyway, it's the best part, the apples are just to make me think I'm making it for the appley goodness, but seriously we all know the truth here

I always make a large amount of the crisp top. I put the quick rolled oats and the brown sugar in the bowl and add some flour to help thicken the sauce that will form. I mix it all together. Then I add the butter and use two knives to cut the butter into the oats/sugar mix. I cut it in until it's all mixed.

If you need to know about how much I use of each, I would guess 2 cups of oats, 1 3/4 cups of brown sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour and 3/4 cup of butter, more if you want.

I put it in the oven at 350 for about an hour. Less if I make a smaller one for just the three of us. Let it cool a bit and enjoy on it's own or with whipping cream or vanilla ice cream.

Of course this is amazing with rhubarb (add some white sugar on the rhubarb to cut the tartness), peaches, pears, blueberries and the list goes on!

Let me know if you whip one up! It's a yummy treat and the leftovers are good the next day to!

Pannekoek

So I had some fantastic pictures to go with this post...but I deleted them and of course we are done dinner so I'm sorta out of luck and pretty angry at myself!

Pannekoek is a very large thin pancake basically. The dutch serve it filled with most anything from sweet to savory. Cooking it is easy and eating it is even easier!

Here is the *gasp* recipe....yes, an actual recipe that I even followed....for the most part anyway!

One of my bestest girly friends gave me this recipe and gave me the go ahead to post it.....

Pannekoek

2 Cups of Flour

2 Cups of Milk

4 large eggs

dash of salt

dash of sugar

I didn't alter this recipe to much. I did 1 cup white and 1 cup whole wheat flour, I added about 1/2 a cup more milk as I found the whole wheat flour made it a bit thicker, and I added some vanilla

So the trick here is you want it runny and you want a big pan with sides. I use a soup ladle and put one ladle full into the pan and turn the move the pan around to ensure that the pannekoek spreads out around the entire pan and you want it THIN....and I mean THIN and the size of the pan. Don't worry if your first few don't look like mine... (the one picture I didn't delete)

This recipe should make about 5 - 6 pannekoek. We in the past have just put jam in them and rolled them up. Tonight we put syrup in them, rolled them up and topped it with strawberries and real whipping cream.....but I deleted the great picture I took. I can eat 1 and maybe a half more, the hubby packs away at least 3. You can put bacon and eggs in it and roll it up...really anything you want. I kept mine in foil to keep it warm and pliable while I was cooking and I generally use 2 pans on the stove to speed up the process.

Once you have your filling, roll it like a cigar and cut into it and enjoy the yummy dutch pancake and pretend you are surrounded by tulips, with the smell of nice strong coffee being brought to your table at the cafe you are at, far far away from here....mmmmm, it's good to day dream....all I smell is a dirty diaper that didn't make it into the garbage can....I guess I should find that and take care of it...*sigh*

And just an FYI..even the whole wheat flour does NOT make this any type of healthy....but at least it makes me think I tried!

So far this week other than switch the night for the pannekoek with the pasta for tomorrow I'm on track with my menu plan...YAY. And considering that my craptacular day on Monday has thrown off my entire week and put me in a poor mood...I'm still sticking to my menu.

Here is a picture to leave you with....my kids after dinner tackling mommy.....I am in this picture...promise....see my arm as I snap the picture....

Ham, Broccoli and Spinach Quiche

Quiche to me has always been one of those things that sounded too hard to make......I'm here to tell you, it's not! It is super simple.
As always, I don't have a recipe I followed. So I'll just walk you thru it.....

I bought premade pie crusts.....

I had left over ham so I diced it up
diced up some green onions
steamed some broccoli and then cut them up a bit smaller
cut up some spinach
cut up some cheese....I would recommend you actually shred the cheese, however I have this weird thing about not wanting to dirty my dishes right out of the dishwasher...I like to at least put them away first...it's odd, I know. You should shred it, forget about my issues, shred the cheese

put it all in a bowl and mix it together

put it into the pie crusts. I had planned to only make one quiche, but I had enough filling to make two, which was a good thing as my SIL brought a friend for dinner.... I put parm cheese on one and then decided it would be better to add the parm cheese to the eggs...oh well...live and learn

Then I used the same bowl to mix the eggs and milk in. I used a dozen eggs for these two quiches, however, I used 4 full eggs and the rest I used egg whites (just to take out some of the fat), I also took the time to take out all those yucky white things attached to the eggs, you know what I'm talking about....those gross me out, so I remove them...blah, gross.

To the eggs I add milk, fresh cracked pepper, sea salt, parm cheese and dried thyme...mix them up...as you can see my little man likes to do the mixing for me...

Add the egg mix to the pie crusts
the little man also topped it with tomatoes to make it look nice
You can see I put them on baking sheets.....I would say do this before you start filling them...unlike me....I did manage to not spill any amazingly

Put them in a 350 oven until they are set in the middle as in they don't 'jiggle' in the centre

Then enjoy the yummy yummy quiche...I had no left overs from this meal!

I also threw together an apple crisp as per my SIL's request! I'll share that yummy and super easy treat later!

Roasted Cauliflower

Today started with an amazing purple sky and still the wind here continues and keeps it a bit too cold to let the littles play outside in the beautiful sunshine.
My little man and I were up most of the night doing the dance of beds. I am trying to convince him to sleep in his own bed. I was never going to allow my kids to sleep with me, however with my health issues these past few months it was just too hard to deal with getting up for him so he joined me. And now the fun starts of getting him back in his shared room with little girly. He also had a fever this morning that seems to have gone away with the help of some meds.

So, I must confess, I hate cauliflower, or at least I used to hate cauliflower. Not a big fan of it at all. It was always just so bland. I only ever had it boiled and then with the trusty cheese sauce. So really any nutritional value went out the window. I don't know where I heard of this, like most things I cook. But once I tried it, there was no turning back!
This is so simple!


You need, salt, pepper, olive oil (grape seed oil or extra virgin work also) and of course the cauliflower and a pan and your oven at 350


-chop up the cauliflower into the size of pieces you like
-I then put mine into an older cake pan with about 2" sides, but you can use any oven safe dish you like
-drizzle a healthy amount of the olive oil over it
-add salt and pepper
-give it a mix and add any more of the oil, salt or pepper that you think it needs

Put it in the oven for an hour, stirring once or twice.
I normally will cook the cauliflower if I'm already using the oven and there is room beside the other dish

This is the finish product of one head of cauliflower. I love the taste of it roasted and there is no need for the cheese sauce!
Try it and let me know how you like it!