Squash Tots

This summer, Alex grew some spaghetti squash and much less zucchini than previous years. We may have to up the ante next year due to this recipe bc oh my goodness I could eat a ton of these little buggers.

I saw this recipe originally on Pinterest, which actually directs you to this blog post (cutting out the middle man, sorry Pinterest), using zucchini. That is the first squash we tried it with and they were yummy! Then we had spaghetti squash, as I mentioned, on hand so we decided to try it with that and they turned out even better! I'm also thinking this will be a killer kids side dish in a year or so. Maybe with a little less onion though!

I will go over the details of the recipe below because it's so easy and also because I took the recipe from above and times it by 4 because I had 4 cups of squash to use.

First, this is pretty time consuming if you're using spaghetti squash and far less time consuming if you're using zucchini. Spaghetti squash you have to cut and then roast and then scoop out. Zucchini you just have to shred. I roasted a lot of squash one night so that I could puree a bunch for baby food for Miss Scarlett and I put the extra in the fridge because I planned to freeze it to make tots in the near future. Later in the week, I just decided to make the tots and then freeze them so I could pop them in the microwave for an easy breakfast, which by the way, these are awesome for breakfast!

Recipe//
Makes approx. 50 tots
Oven Temp: 400 F
Oven Cook Time: 18 minutes +/-

Ingredients//
4 cups of squash (if this is zucchini, you need to shred it with a box grater and then squeeze out as much water as humanly possible, if it's pre-cooked spag squash then no need to do that)
4 eggs
1 cup of breadcrumbs (we used Panko)
1+ cup of sharp cheddar cheese, I just eye balled it
1 onion finely diced (these are quite oniony with this amt, put as much as you see fit)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions//
Mix it all together
Put it into a greased (or ungreased if you use Pampered Chef's, I found this out by accident!) mini muffin tin and push down on them with a spoon to really press it in so they don't fall apart when taking them out.
Put it in your pre-heated oven for between 16-20 minutes. 18 minutes is my oven's sweet spot.
If you plan to eat them immediately, let them cool for a couple minutes and then jab them with a fork to pull them out.
If you plan to freeze them, let them cool down to room temp and then put them on a tray in the freezer for an hour or so until they're solid, then transfer to a freezer safe bag or container. I put ours in a container bc they will not be lasting long!

To heat them after they're frozen, put them in the microwave for 1 minute.

Wham, Bam, check out the pictures below!
{ps. is this font hard to read??}

All fits in one nice bowl for easy cleanup!

Don't forget the cheese.. mmmm

What Scarlett was up to while I was making these!

Ready for the oven and completely out of focus :)

Missing a couple bc my husband couldn't resist :)

Ready for the freezer!

10 Things + 1 :: Volume 5

11. The Lancaster Farm Fresh Coop starts this week. I am so excited to see what we get! We got half of a veggie share and a fruit share. Yum yum yum, organic and fresh and healthy. Perfect for making baby food, am i right? Speaking of baby food.. we got some asparagus seconds from the farm yesterday and I'm definitely going to use some of it to make baby food to freeze now, since asparagus won't be in season when Scarlett will start eating it. I have a feeling she's going to love it!

10. I'm currently obsessed with a new salad that Britt introduced me to almost a month ago now. It's called an Oriental Chicken Salad (i think?) and it is delish. I've since took it a couple of places to share and it got great reviews. I'll post the recipe soon!

9. Super excited for some upcoming trips! First to Richmond to see family and watch some volleyball and soccer. Scarlett is super pumped to meet her aunts, uncles and cousins! And then to Rehoboth Beach with friends where Scarlett will put her feet (and probably hands) in the sand for the first time. I hope none of it ends up in her mouth but who am i kidding? I'm sure it will.

8. Honestly, I'm regretting not getting the iPhone 4S.. just for the camera. The camera on the 4 is fine but I take so many pictures with my phone that the 4S would've been worth it. Oh well, next upgrade is in December, looks like i'm either getting the 4S or waiting a little bit longer for a potential iPhone 5!

7. Hoping for good weather for both of those trips above!! The weather this year so far has been interesting to say the least. No snow or really any super cold weather, which has been nice. I hope it gets warm and stays warm soon. The flip flopping and not knowing whether to wear a coat in the morning is getting a little old.

6. Scarlett will turn 4 months on the 20th and I'll do a whole post on it but one big thing she did a couple weeks ago was she rolled over! First huge milestone accomplished! We also hope that at her 4 month dr appointment we'll be able to start some kind of solids. Maybe then she'll consistently sleep longer at night!? :)

5. Alex got a charcoal grill for his birthday and let me just say, food cooked on a charcoal grill really does taste better. It's kinda crazy but so so yummy. Alex is looking for any and every opportunity to use it. I see lots of backyard cookouts in our future for this summer!

4. Post baby bod update. The weight is coming off.. slowly but surely. I'm trying not to rush it but the last couple of weeks I've been trying to eat healthier and that killer salad in #10 has been helping! I try to take walks on my days off with Scarlett and starting this week I'm going to try to get a pilates sesh in everyday. My core is definitely in need of some toning.

3. Speaking of post baby bod.. I'm gonna need some new swim suits for this year. More mom-appropriate but also stylish. I think I might have to search pinterest for this. These days I search pinterest for everything!

2. Mothers day is this coming weekend! My first official, baby outside the womb mothers day, since last mothers day I was pregnant but didn't know it. We're excited to spend the day together doing lots of fun things! A yummy breakfast, maybe a picnic lunch.. fun!

1. This blog design still needs a lot of work and I'm working on it when I get a chance. I need to look into the coding of some other blogs I follow to see how they get things arranged so nicely because I don't really like the spacing on the right between the different pages. I should really just hire someone for a new design.. I'll be pondering that now.

Farm Fresh Coop :: Veggie Update & Recipe

Just a couple of photos of some of the veggie packs we've been getting recently and a couple recipes for the produce we received. Enjoy!

Week 3 Produce!

Check out the ginormo carrot!

We made lettuce wraps!

Delicious pork, okay turnips and yucky mustard greens!

And here's a recipe from the previous week, sorry, no picture!

Squash & Sweet Potato Soup
Ingredients
1 butternut squash or acorn squash
1 large sweet potato (we used a super large one)
1 head garlic
3 or 4 shallots
3 tbsp butter or olive oil
3 cups chicken broth (this depends on the size of your squash and potato)
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp dried oregano
Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions
Turn on the oven to 375 degrees before you start prepping your veggies for roasting.

Cut your squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the strings and seeds. Cut your sweet potato in half or more depending on the size. Peel your shallots and add to your baking dish (we used our pampered chef large bar pan for this) and cut the top off of a head of garlic exposing all the cloves. Drizzle the cloves with olive oil, wrap it in a piece of aluminum foil and add it to your baking sheet/dish. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt on your squash and sweet potatoes and put it in the oven to roast for 20 minutes or until the squash and potato are cooked through.

Once cooked, remove from the oven. Get our your stock pot or in our case, our dutch oven and warm it up with the butter or olive oil. The original recipe I based this off of said to wait until your squash and potato cooled before scooping but I skipped that and just scooped them while they were hot. As I scooped I added them to the dutch oven that was set at about a 6 or 7 out of 9 (so medium high-ish). Once I had everything scooped, I threw the shallots into the pot and removed the roasted garlic cloves from the head (they should just squeeze right out) and threw them in too. I threw in the oregano and the bay leaves as well as some salt and pepper, then added the broth and let it simmer for about 15 minutes or so with the lid on.

When everything was cooked down enough to be blended, remove the bay leaves and transfer the soup in batches to the food processor for smoothing. You can also use a blender for this but our blender isn't the best. You can also use a stick blender for this but I feel like it takes longer even though the cleanup is much shorter.

Once the soup is all blended and smooth, add it back to the pot. Stir in the heavy cream until mixed thoroughly. Serve with chives or green onions as a garnish!

Adapted from: Full Fork Ahead

Baked Kale Chips
Ingredients
1 bunch of Kale
Olive Oil
Salt

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Rinse and then de-rib the kale and cut into chip sized pieces. Toss lightly with olive oil and arrange on a baking sheet (covered in parchment for less cleanup) and then sprinkle with salt.

Bake for 20 minutes.

You'll never look at Kale the same again!

Recipe Originator: Smitten Kitchen

Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative

For the winter, Alex and I decided to join the Farm Fresh Coop for seasonal organic veggies from local farms.

We've never done this before but have known about it for a while and the coop uses the Brubaker farm for some of it's produce year round which makes it pretty cool.

This week is the first week and they just sent a newsletter stating what we could be getting. Here it is, straight from the newsletter:

1 Bunch Red Tatsoi - Certified Organic - Riverview Organics

1 Bunch Collards - Certified Organic - Autumn Blend Organics

1 Head Napa Cabbage - Certified Organic - Bellview Organics

1 Leek - Certified Organic - Coyote Run Organics

1 Head Broccoli - Certified Organic - Pine Hill Organics

1 Bag Carrots - Certified Organic - Sunrise Ridge Organics

1 Bunch White Kohlrabi - Certified Organic - Sweetaire Farm

2 Heads Green Leaf Lettuce - Certified Organic - The Back 40 Ranch

1 Head White Cauliflower - Certified Organic - Green Valley Organics

1 Buttercup Squash - Certified Organic - Riverview Organics 

1 Bunch Chrysanthemum Greens - Certified Organic - Riverview Organics

Doesn't that sound delish? Pretty sure we're going to be living it up with some gourmet cooking this winter, which is appropriate to get as much in as we can before baby girl's arrival. This little one will be lucky though since we'll probably do the Summer Share as well and her first veggies will be from local organic farms.

Hopefully as we use the veggies I can post more about them and how we're preparing them. Above is a picture of what we got this week. YUM!

Here's a picture of what we made for dinner last night with our fresh harvest! It's a basic stirfry that Alex whipped up in a flash and then added some home-cured bacon bits to. It was yummy and I can't wait to see what else we can make with this bounty of organicness.