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!

Recipe :: Pineapple Infused Vodka

From time to time, mostly when we find a really great pineapple, do we think about making pineapple infused vodka. It's so easy and the final product is just delicious. Perfect for any summer drink! I've taken some snaps of the steps to show you how easy it can be to infuse vodka with whatever your little heart desires!

Things to note:
1. Obviously keep the empty vodka bottle
2. Between step 5 and 6 you need to wait one week
3. Feel free to use anything other than pineapple. The next thing I want to try is swedish fish!

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.

Sparkling Cranberries

Last week, I saw an awesome tree skirt on pinterest. The thing about pinterest is, most of the pins are actually from other people's blogs, which is pretty awesome because it's like a gateway to the world of the best bloggers. Obviously if you've made it onto pinterest, you've made it (light sarcasm but it's also for real!).

Anyway, from that tree skirt I started following The Johnston's mostly because she looks like a nice girl and she's also pregnant and I tend to follow nice girls, nice girls that are pregnant, or nice girls that are moms. I'll add a list of the sites I follow regularly on the side when I get a chance.

{Picture taken from The Johnson's Blog}

Anyway, while perusing her blog I saw these little babies. And I thought, those look delicious. AND easy!

So the next time I was at the grocery store, I picked up some cranberries since they're in the produce section right now. Alex was all "what are they for" and I was all "I'm going to sugar them up and we're going to eat them" and that's what we did. With some other friends joining in on the fun as well (of eating them, not making them).

They're insanely easy to make. Check out Ashley's blog for not only recipes but pregnancy updates and crafting and basic awesomeness.

Here's a link to her post on the Sparkling Cranberries. Seriously, try them you won't regret it.

Crock Pot Chicken Chili

I did not take this picture. Click Here.

I saw this on Pinterest (where else?) and it looked yummy, so I pinned it.

I put all the ingredients into the crock pot last Friday morning. We ate it for dinner that night (obv). I had two large bowls (that I really could not fit) and it was delicious. Possibly the best chicken chili I've ever had. Couple that with the easy factor and it was a hit for me (us). I even bought the ingredients at the store the next day so that I can make it again soon.

Try it, you won't regret it.

Check it!

Ever spend 10 minutes shredding chicken that you needed for a recipe? Me too. I actually hate shredding chicken but sometimes it has to be done.

Well, thanks to Pinterest (of course) and whoever actually came up with this. I will never shred chicken by hand AGAIN!

{pin}

Did you know you can shred chicken in your stand mixer in just a couple minutes flat?

NOW YOU DO!

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

This is my normal go-to breakfast choice when we have bananas on hand.

The recipe is quite simple and takes minutes to put together.

Ingredients:

1 Banana

5-6 Strawberries (mine are usually small but whatever size)

1/2 or 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder or ground flax seed

3 spoonfuls of Plain or Vanilla yogurt OR greek yogurt for more thickness

2 cups of milk (i use organic skim)

Optional:

5 Ice Cubes (i do this when my strawberries aren't frozen to make it colder)

Directions:

Put it in the blender and blend. Doesn't get easier than that!

Variations:
Sometimes I do two bananas and some chunks of pineapple for a tropical version.
Or I use frozen sweet cherries and banana.
Really any fruit will work but having the banana in there adds extra sugar that you
would would probably miss if you just did a berry smoothie.