Green Monster

We go through quite a bit of spinach when making smoothies in our Vitamix. It is full of nutrition and is considered one of the "magic vegetables" since the taste "magically" disappears when you blend it with fruit and other smoothie ingredients. We throw a handful of spinach in almost every batch of smoothies we make. Fresh spinach can be frozen for later use in cooking or smoothies. (Just don't expect to make a salad out of it.) I just rinse the spinach, spin it in the salad spinner, and pop it in a zipper freezer bag.

"Green Monster" is a term that can be used for just about any smoothie that contains green vegetables. Here's a recipe for a basic green monster that our family enjoys.

Green Monster
1 1/4 cup diluted juice (apple, white grape, pineapple, almost any juice will do OR use 1/4 cup juice concentrate plus 1 cup water)
1 orange, peeled (leave the white pith)
1 slice pineapple, 3/4" thick, skin removed
1 banana, peeled, fresh or frozen cut into chunks
1-2 cups spinach (1-2 big handfuls)
1-2 cups ice
Add ingredients to the Vitamix in the order listed. Start on variable speed 1 and quickly increase to variable speed 10, then switch to high for one to one-and-a-half minutes.

Vitamix Strawberry Lemonade

Strawberry Lemonade
3 cups fresh or defrosted grapes (red or green)
1 slice lemon 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick with the zest still on
4-5 fresh or frozen strawberries
Up to 1 Tablespoon honey, optional
2 cups ice
Start your Vitamix on variable speed 1 and quickly turn the dial up to 10, then switch to high. Blend on high for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Makes approximately 36 ounces.
Strawberries can be omitted for plain lemonade.
For limeade use a 1/4 to 3/8-inch thick slice of lime with the zest still on instead of lemon.

April Fool's Day Jell-O

Here's a fun trick for April Fool's Day. Prepare Jell-O in drinking glasses, add straws, and chill. Serve to unsuspecting family members.

No Boiling Baked Penne Pasta

No Boiling Baked Penne Pasta
32-ounce jar spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 cups water
15-ounce container cottage cheese
1-2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
12-ounce box whole wheat penne pasta
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, combine sauce and water. Stir in cottage cheese, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, and pasta. Spoon mixture into a 9x13 baking dish. Cover with foil and bake 55 minutes. Remove foil and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese. Bake uncovered 5 more minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Homemade Vanilla Yogurt

The kids and I really like vanilla yogurt and eat quite a bit of it. So I was excited to learn how to make my own homemade yogurt in the Crock Pot (no special machine required). I found basic directions at A Year of Slow Cooking and experimented to find the combination of flavors our family liked best. This is great topped with fruit and granola for breakfast or lunch.

Vanilla Yogurt in the Crock Pot
8 cups (half-gallon) of whole milk
½ cup natural, live/active culture plain or vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup powdered milk (more if using a lower fat milk)
½ cup sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla
Plug in your Crock Pot and turn to low. Add eight cups (half gallon) whole milk. Cover and cook on low for 3 hours. Unplug your Crock Pot. Leave the cover on, and let it sit for 3 hours. When 3 hours have passed, scoop out 2 cups of the warm milk and put it in a bowl. Stir in yogurt, powdered milk (to help thicken your yogurt), sugar, and vanilla. Then dump the bowl contents back into the Crock Pot. Stir to combine. Put the lid back on your Crock Pot. Keep it unplugged, and wrap a heavy bath towel all the way around the crock for insulation. Let it sit for 8 hours or overnight. In the morning, the yogurt will have thickened. Chill in container(s) in the refrigerator. This recipe makes approximately 8 cups of yogurt. Your fresh yogurt will last 7-10 days. Save 1/2 cup as a starter to make a new batch. Of course, you can make plain yogurt by omitting the sugar and vanilla. The powdered milk can be omitted as well, but the finished product will not be as thick. This can also be made with lower fat milks, but it will not be as thick.

Tomato Soup

I've been looking for a homemade tomato soup recipe that tastes similar to the smooth (no tomato chunks) canned variety. This is my adaptation of several recipes I've tried. I like to serve it with grilled cheese and apple slices.


Tomato Soup
6 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons flour
46-ounce can tomato juice
1 1/2 cups water
3 Tablespoons sugar
3/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground celery seed
1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper
In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add flour, and stir to form a smooth paste. Add tomato juice and water, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar and seasonings. Simmer until heated through.

Cinnamon Blend

When my son was in kindergarten, he came home with a request to send in his favorite recipe that I make to be included in a class cookbook. When I asked him what recipe was his favorite, he replied, "Applesauce!" When I told him that it was just (unsweetened) applesauce in a jar from the store, he said, "Yeah, but you put cinnamon on it." (We picked another favorite for the book.)

When he was in first grade, he had to make an "All About Me" poster which included his favorite food. He added a construction paper bowl of applesauce and used glue stick and cinnamon like glitter to scent the creation.

Applesauce is still a favorite dinner side dish topped with a special cinnamon blend that also works well in recipes calling for pumpkin or apple pie spice. It's great stirred in oatmeal, mixed with sugar for cinnamon toast, or just about anywhere you'd use plain cinnamon. I printed the recipe with a label maker and put it on my spice jar to make things easy when I want to refill it.

Cinnamon Blend
1/4 cup cinnamon
1 Tablespoon allspice
2 teaspoons nutmeg
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container.

Legolympic Snowboard Halfpipe Arena

As I mentioned in a previous post, here, our family has been really excited about the winter Olympics. And, well, Legos are kind of a way of life around our house. So, my son constructed a tribute to snowboard halfpipe gold and bronze medalists Shaun White and Scott Lago. Now we have a new addition to our Legolympic display with this halfpipe arena complete with a Lego Lago and a helmetless champion. Since Lego helmets don't quite fit on minifigures with hair, we'll just have to hope Shaun is extra careful with his Double McTwist 1260s.

Beer Bread Mix

Beer Bread is a nice side on soup nights. Although it is an easy quick bread, you can make the mix ahead of time stored in a ziploc bag in the pantry short-term or freezer for even easier preparation later. I'd love to know how this recipe compares to the popular Bountiful Beer Bread Mix from Tastefully Simple, but I'm not willing to spend $5.49 to find out.

Beer Bread Mix
3 cups self-rising flour (or half all-purpose and half whole wheat)*
1/3-½ cup sugar
* If not using self-rising flour, add 4 ½ teaspoons baking powder and 1 ½ teaspoons salt.
Beer Bread
Beer Bread Mix
12oz beer
2-3 Tablespoons butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix all ingredients except melted butter together, stirring just until blended. (You may have to use your hands to get the dough mixed thoroughly.) Dough will be sticky. Pour into greased bread loaf pan. Spread melted butter over the top of the bread before baking (or during the last 10 minutes of baking). Bake at 350°F for 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

Lego Family Time Legolympics

There have been a lot of promotions from game companies encouraging family game nights, but I wanted to share another idea for an evening of family fun with Legos. Lego has a very basic set called Builders of Tomorrow (6177), and they have been promoting it by featuring monthly building instructions on their site here. They've also teamed up with Family Fun Magazine to offer even more instructions each month here. They are PDF files that you can print and/or save in a file on your computer.

We've got quite a large stash of Lego sets, and we could probably create many of the mothly designs out of what we already have, but I really liked the idea of having one special set that was only for Lego Family Nights. The kids get excited when I pull out the "Family Lego Box". The Builders of Tomorrow set retails around $30.00.


Our family has been eagerly anticipating the start of the 2010 winter Olympic games. We've been using some of the monthly building instructions and the Builders of Tomorrow set to create a fun little Olympic display. (The only things pictured that were not made from the monthly building instructions and the set were the medal podium with minifigures, the torch-bearing minifigure added to the 2010, and the US flag which is actually a Mega Blocks set we found at the dollar store a few years ago.)

Valentine Heart-Shaped Pizza and Chocolate Fondue

Valentine's Day is traditionally a family affair at our house. Nothing terribly fancy, just our standard homemade pizza shaped into a heart, some strawberries and other yummies dipped in chocolate fondue, and fruit and veggie smoothies. Maybe a game or puzzle after everything is cleaned up and the Peanuts Classic, Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

Thin Pizza Crust in the Bread Machine
3 teaspoons yeast
¾ - 1 cup tepid water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
2 ½ cups flour
Dissolve yeast in water. Add sugar, salt, and olive oil. Pour into bread machine pan. Add flour. Set bread machine on dough setting. Check dough after 5 minutes or so to see if any extra water or flour needs to be added. Yield: 2 pizza crusts.
Top and bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and golden brown.

Easy Chocolate Fondue2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
6 ounces evaporated milk
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Melt chocolate and combine addtional ingredients according to fondue pot directions. Dip cubed pound cake, fruit, pretzels, cookies, marshmallows into chocolate and enjoy.

Spaghetti Sauce

Here's my very basic spaghetti sauce recipe. I buy a big can of tomato puree at Costco for $2.79 and can make about 4 quart-size jars of sauce. I also use this sauce when we make homemade pizzas.




Spaghetti Sauce
106-ounce can tomato puree
2 teaspoons onion salt
2 teaspoons basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon white or black pepper
2 1/2 cups water
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Combine and simmer in the crockpot on low for a few hours. Pour into containers (I use wide-mouth Mason jars.) and freeze.

To pack more veggies into the sauce, I have used the Vita-Mix to puree fresh spinach with a cup or two of sauce, and add it to the rest of the batch.
This recipe has not been safety tested for canning.

Easy Bake Oven Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe for chocolate chip cookies comes from an old cookbook that originally came with Easy Bake Ovens years ago. It produces a spongy, chewy cookie that, although it could use some improvement, is still better than the expensive mixes in the toy department. I used butter instead of the shortening called for in the original recipe, and I think mini chocolate chips would be better than one regular-sized chip per cookie. We baked two cookies at a time because they do spread out quite a bit in the pan.


Easy Bake Oven Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 ½ teaspoons softened butter or shortening
2 Tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon vanilla
4 teaspoons milk
12 to 15 chocolate chips
Preheat Easy Bake Oven 15 minutes (regular oven 350F). Cream together sugar and butter or shortening. Blend in flour, baking powder, and vanilla. Stir in milk. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop dough by half teaspoonfuls on well greased pan, allowing room to spread. Bake 5 minutes. Yield: 12 to 15 cookies.

Bagel Chips

I've had some bagels in my freezer that haven't been getting eaten. So, I turned them into bagel chips for an easy-to-grab snack.

Bagel Chips

6 bagels

6 Tablespoons olive oil

3 teaspoons garlc salt

2 teaspoons onion powder

Slice bagels into thin rounds. Place in a ziploc bag or sealable bowl. Add olive oil and seasonings. Shake to coat. Place on ungreased baking sheets and bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for 30 - 45 minutes, checking and turning every 15 minutes or so until chips have reached desired crispness.

Easy Bake Oven Angel Cookies

Angel Cookies
2 Tablespoons very soft butter
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 pinch salt
¼ cup flour
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
Preheat Easy Bake Oven 15 minutes (regular oven 350F). In a small bowl, mix ingredients well and shape into 1-inch balls. Place one or two cookies in greased Easy Bake pan. Press down on each cookie slightly with fingers. Bake 5 minutes. Allow to cool 5 minutes. Yield: 10-12 cookies.

Angel Cookies are light, delicate, and crisp. They are perfect for little tea parties. The mixture will seem like it will never come together. You will need to finish combining the dough with your hands. Make sure you press down on the cookies so that they are not taller than the sides of the pan or they will get stuck going into the oven. They spread out quite a bit in the pans as they cook. I found that I had to bake them one at a time, otherwise the cookies ran together. They will firm up as they cool.

Zucchini Brownie Cake

Even when you're trying to eat more healthfully, special events arise when you need a yummy treat. I'm not calling this recipe "health food", but I feel that it is a healthier alternative to other treats. Tonight, we're visiting special friends and were asked to bring a dessert. This dessert tastes phenomenal and you'd never know it is packed with zucchini. The recipe produces a sort of cake-like brownie and requires no eggs. It will not look pretty before you bake it, but you will be amazed at how you won't be able to detect the zucchini afterward. I have successfully substituted unsweetened applesauce for half of the oil.

Zucchini Brownie Cake
1/2 cup vegetable oil (or 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup applesauce)
1 1/2 cups sugar (reduced to 1 1/4 cup without a difference in taste)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour (a combination of white and whole wheat works well)
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup chopped nuts or chocolate chips, optional
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together oil, sugar, and vanilla until well blended. In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Mixture will be very dry. Fold in zucchini (and nuts or chocolate chips, if using). Pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until it springs back when touched. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Frosting
6 Tablespoons cocoa
1/4 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Melt together the cocoa and butter, and set aside to cool. In a medium bowl, blend together powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla. Stir in the cocoa mixture. Spread over cooled brownie cake.

**UPDATE**
I made this brownie cake again using applesauce for all of the oil and whole wheat for half of the flour and baked them in a muffin pan. Even without the frosting, my family still gobbled them up.

French Toast Casserole

We had some leftover blueberry bagels in the pantry, and they weren't getting eaten quickly enough, so I thought I'd try making French Toast Casserole with them. It turned out nicely. I divided this recipe in half for a 9x9 pan.

Overnight French Toast Casserole1 (10-ounce) loaf French bread
8 eggs
3 cups milk
4 teaspoons sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract, optional
4 Tablespoons margarine, cut up fine
3 teaspoons cinnamon/sugar mixture
Grease 9x13 pan. Cut bread into 1-inch pieces and arrange in pan. Mix eggs, milk, sugar, salt, and extract(s), and pour over bread. Dot with the margarine. Refrigerate 4-36 hours. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mixture. Let stand 5 minutes. Serve with syrup as desired.