Simple ways to WoW your food

I am pretty good about sneaking veggies into stuff- but here are some ways I've added extra veggies and grains to things:

In baking I've been substituting 1/4 to 1/2 of the flour with whole wheat flour. I've also been adding a couple tablespoons of flax seed (that I've run through the blender)

To anything with ground beef I'm adding 1/2 cup of red Quinoa. I've done this to Taco Salad and Sloppy Joes this week.

Spaghetti sauce is a great place to hide grains and veggies. Even to bottled sauce you can add zuchini, carrots, quinoa, millet- just simmer and then throw in the blender when everything is soft. No one will be the wiser.

I've WoWed our homemade pizza by adding:
Crust-I substituted out two cups of whole wheat flour and added dough enhancer and Vital Wheat Gluten
Sauce- I added 10 baby carrots that I'd steamed in the microwave to soften and zucchini and then blended it in the blender.
Toppings- My newest favorite pizza toppings are: red peppers, tomatoes, onions, and thinly sliced zucchini topped with mozzerella and asiago cheese. YUM!

Have you WoWed anything?
Have your tried any recipes here?
What do you think?

Lettuce Wraps

I love cooking Asian food. There are some important flavors that the majority of Asian foods require (at least at my house).

-Sesame oil
-ginger
-soy sauce and/or Teriyaki sauce
-Hosin sauce
-garlic


Lettuce wraps are pretty versatile- you can add pretty much any meat (or no meat) and whatever veggies you have on hand and as long as you chop everything about the same (small) size and season it properly they'll taste great. I feel pretty good about serving Asian food to my family since it's so full of veggies. Tonight I WoWed some chicken lettuce wraps and they got rave reviews from my toughest critics.

This is what I started with. Chicken breasts (I was in a hurry- so I used some leftover chicken from tacos two nights ago and supplemented it with frozen chicken breast pieces. Also, Yoshida sauce, a yellow and a red pepper, zucchini, green onions, thai sweet chili sauce, red pepper flakes, garlic, ginger and tonight I added leftover brown rice, millet and red quinoa. Of course lettuce for the 'wrap' part. Usually I use romaine lettuce- but I've found that really iceberg works best for these.



These are really easy to make- but the chopping does take some time. I enlisted the help of Megan (okay- she begged me) to chop the chicken. Little side note- my kids BEG to help in the kitchen. I have speed and perfection issues when it comes to cooking and really struggle with letting them help. Megan usually has chicken issues- but after chopping the chicken tonight she was so excited to eat the food she helped make. I need to 'let go' more often. She really did a good job with it though- and even used a sharp knife!

The key is to cut the veggies/meat to the same size.

I decided to add some red onion as well. Also I poured the Yoshida sauce over the cut up chicken so it would absorb some flavor before cooking (also I had to cover up the taco seasoning). I also sprinkled it with ginger. If you have fresh ginger I suggest using that- but I didn't have any so I substituted with powdered ginger.

Look how pretty it looks in the pan!


Now of course you can make these without the grains- but these whole grains will fill you up and make it so your kids aren't begging for food 20 minutes after you finish dinner. Also- they're delicious!

I started with some Sesame Oil, heated it until it was liquid- then added the garlic, veggies and stir fried them until they were tender- then I added the chicken and grains and some more ginger and Yoshida sauce. I also added Hosin sauce.

When I first started experimenting with Asian food other then stir fry (which is one of my favorites still) it took me lots of searching and finally going to a specialty grocery store to find Hosin Sauce. Now it's relatively easy to find in the Asian section of most grocery stores.

YUM!


Simply fill a lettuce leaf with some filling, roll like a taco and enjoy!



The critics say:
Ashley- "I'd give them five thumbs up if I had five thumbs!"
Megan- "These are the best! Can we have leftovers for lunch tomorrow?"
Annika (who wouldn't eat it as a wrap- but ate a couple pieces of plain lettuce and then the filling with a fork)- motioned two thumbs up.
Cori- Motioned two thumbs up- after she saw her sisters do it- but she ate three wraps.

Enjoy!

P.S. We had our wraps with cherries.

Our First SUPER GRAIN! Quinoa

Quinoa (Keen-Wah)



Quinoa comes in three colors, white, red and black. The above picture is red quinoa. Quinoa is a super grain. What is a super grain you ask? Well it's a grain that contains all 8 of the essential amino acids to make it a complete protein. Quinoa also contains lysine, which wheat does not, as well as niacin, iron and potassium.

Quinoa is prepared by simmering in water 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water (1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water) until water is absorbed (about 12 minutes when I did it tonight).





The texture of quinoa is much like that of al dente pasta or of brown rice. In fact tonight I added quinoa to our brown rice and it was hart to tell. The flavor is a little 'nutty' and quite pleasant. A suggestion from the WoW class was replacing 1/2 the ground beef in a recipe with red quinoa.




See the quinoa? My kids saw it too- luckily they're pretty good about eating what they're given, and I've been so excited by this class that I've been talking about it practically non-stop since I've gotten home. Luckily my next door neighbor and friend is excited to and is willing to listen to me talk about how I've been incorporating things and give me tips/hints on better ideas.

I added quinoa into our pizza sauce last night (after blending you'd not even know it was there) and my husband even added some to a chocolate shake tonight. I've also added it to spanish rice.

I paid $2.65 a lb for quinoa at the health food store. I cooked up a cup of quinoa and used some of it tonight and put the rest into snack sized ziplocs and stuck it in the freezer where it's supposed to be good for 6 months.

More about quinoa