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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Tomato Salad with a Twist

25 May
Doesn't it look delicious?

Doesn’t it look delicious?

It’s been a little while since I have posted a new recipe and I’ve been wanting to share this one since last month when we first tried it. The recipe is one that one of my daughters found on the back of a Whole Grain Wheat Reduced Fat Triscuit box. Our family loves these Triscuits and we keep them on hand regularly, so once we saw this recipe, we continued to see it on every box of Triscuits we bought. Each time we’d buy a new box, my daughter would say, “Mom, we have to make this!”

Finally over the school break in April, I made sure we had all the necessary ingredients, and we finally made it. I truly enjoy cooking with fresh veggies and it makes me so excited for summertime, when we have our own garden. Tomatoes are a favorite of almost everyone here, and we especially love the more unusually colored varieties along with the typical reds. This time around I bought a large container that had a mixture of several types of tomatoes in it, and it made for such a beautiful salad.

Since one of the girls eats a gluten free diet, I chose to make hers separately with no Triscuits and no red onions, since she doesn’t like those either. Tomatoes are one of her favorite snacks though, so she was just as excited as everyone else for this new recipe.

Each time we bought a new box of Triscuits, we'd be reminded of this recipe that we just had to try!

Each time we bought a new box of Triscuits, we’d be reminded of this recipe that we just had to try!

This was a simple recipe to follow. It is called a Panzanella Salad, but it’s very much like our usual Caprese salads, just with a bit of a twist, provided by the added Triscuits. There is no cooking involved, just chopping, slicing, dicing and assembling, so the preparation was quick. We just had to keep stopping ourselves from snacking as I was prepping.

While I cut up the tomatoes and the cheese, I had my daughter prep the Triscuits, counting out the amount the recipe asked for, and breaking them into bite-sized pieces. That was definitely a “one for me, one for the bowl” activity as well.

We served this with a dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers, and it was the perfect side dish. It’s going to make a great addition to our sides for this upcoming summer. We loved the added crunch to the salad that the Triscuits provided, and my younger daughter enjoyed her gluten free version just as much as we enjoyed ours.

Here is the recipe according to the Triscuit box:

Ingredients:

  • 1-1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
  • 1/3 cup slivered red onions
  • 18 Triscuit Reduced Fat Crackers, coarsely broken
  • 3 Tbsp. reduced-fat balsamic dressing
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
  • 1/8 tsp. black pepper

 

Directions:

Combine  first 3 ingredients in medium bowl.

Mix  dressing and garlic until blended.

Add to cracker mixture; mix lightly. Let stand 30 min.

Tear  basil into small pieces. Add to tomato mixture along with the pepper; mix lightly.

 

Even when made gluten free, this is a delicious side dish!

Even when made gluten free, this is a delicious side dish!

 

 

 

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Baked Cheese and Broccoli Patties

6 Nov
These were so great! Definitely a keeper!

These were so great! Definitely a keeper!

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON DECEMBER 3, 2014

On a recent school day afternoon, I received a text from one of my daughters. It was about an hour before I had to leave and she’d be arriving home while I was gone, but I wouldn’t be back for quite some time.

Her lunch had been ruined. I can’t remember the reason why or specifically what happened. My memory isn’t what it used to be. She was annoyed and she was already starving, with a couple of hours to go before she’d arrive home.

I didn’t have an after school snack planned, and she knows how to make a bagel, cereal, a sandwich, things like that, but I had an idea. I looked up a recipe I’d been wanting to try for a while,  one I’d seen floating across my Facebook page for Baked Cheese and Broccoli Patties.

Now I know that doesn’t sound like a typical yummy after school snack, it’s definitely not chocolate and not sweet, but it’s savory and my kids actually all like broccoli. In fact, this one in particular loves it, and her winning recipe that got us to the White House in 2012 was a simple broccoli and cheese omelet. Rather than let her come in and make just anything for a snack, which was now replacing her lunch, I thought maybe I could leave her these to just reheat and she’d get something a little warmer and more nutritious than a bowl of cereal.

I checked out the recipe, checked out the time and figured out that if I moved quickly, I could squeeze in the prep and cook times before I left. They’d be done and on top of the stove when she got home. It might even make her day a little better, which would be an added bonus.

They were delicious. I texted her a photo of them when I knew she was out of school, on the bus, on her way home. “Just reheat and eat,” I said.

She was so happy. So hungry and so happy. I later texted again to see if she liked them and she said she loved them, that they were very similar to this recipe that we’d gotten out of our cookbook that we’d received at our White House luncheon, minus the hot dogs and pasta. When my other daughters got home from school, they too reported loving this after school snack.

So I call this a great recipe success! All thumbs up, a quick and easy recipe and it can be used for a side dish with a meal or on its own; even as an after school snack. Who knew?!

When I saw this recipe go by on Facebook, a friend was sharing it to another friend’s wall, but there was no originating information to go with it. I did an online search, saw the recipe on the Food.com site, but the photo was different than the one in the recipe I had, and this person too, reported getting it from a random Facebook post. However, someone put up a comment with the origination of the recipe, so I’d like to give credit here to the Po’Man Meals blog. Thanks for inspiring a whole lot of us!

I’m using the ingredients and directions I found on Food.com, which is the same as the one I have printed out at home, so thanks to them as well.

I encourage you to give it a try!

Baked Cheese and Broccoli Patties

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil.
  2. Heat the oil in a small pan over medium heat, add in the garlic and onions. Season with salt/pepper to taste. Sauté until onions are garlic are tender, set aside to cool.
  3. Add the broccoli to a kitchen towel. Wrap the towel around the broccoli and squeeze out the extra moisture. Pour the drained broccoli into a large bowl, add the onion and garlic and mix gently.
  4. To the same bowl, add the panko, the cheeses, eggs, and salt/pepper to taste.
  5. Mix together and form into patties, place on the prepared baking sheet.
  6. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Flip and bake for another 15 minutes if needed, or until browned and crispy.

 

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Get your pumpkin on and Go Orange for No Kid Hungry!

1 Oct
Thanks to Paula over at My Soup For You for teaming up with me today to bring you some great pumpkin recipes, and for bringing even more awareness to No Kid Hungry!

Thanks to Paula over at My Soup For You for teaming up with me today to bring you some great pumpkin recipes, and for bringing even more awareness to No Kid Hungry!

It’s October! It’s fall. It’s the season of beautiful leaves, fun autumn events like apple picking, hay rides and pumpkin carving.

Pumpkin….mmmmm…..does it make you think of pumpkin spiced coffee, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin pie?!

Me too!!

We’re a lucky bunch, most of us. We can run through the drive through at the local donut shop and get this month’s pumpkin flavored muffin or drink, without too much of a struggle. We can pop a recipe for my good friend Paula’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread or her Pumpkin Soup right into the oven and enjoy it without too much trouble. All those warm, orange flavors warm our bellies and our thoughts all throughout the fall.

We’re very lucky.

Not everyone is so lucky, however. According to the No Kid Hungry statistics for our local area, as of June 2013 (more than a year ago), 22% of kids in our little state were struggling with hunger. Fifty-five percent of them were eligible for free or reduced lunch at school, and only 51% of those students were eating school breakfast.

At a recent school event I covered for the newspaper earlier this month, when a room full of young students were asked what the most important thing was that they’d miss if they were late to school, their answer wasn’t attendance, or morning math, or reading, it was breakfast. Every student who raised their hand was worried that if they were late to school in the morning, they’d go hungry until lunchtime.

Childhood hunger across our nation is a growing problem, but we can do something to help.

Last year, you may remember that our own family started a local Go Orange Day for No Kid Hungry after seeing a television commercial about the nationwide effort to help end childhood hunger. Nationally, the official Go Orange Day for No Kid Hungry is at the end of September, but we opted to do ours just a little bit later at the start of October. It was a big success. We rallied our large school district, the superintendent’s offices and City Hall all to Go Orange for No Kid Hungry, and raised over $1000 in monetary donations as well as bringing in hundreds of pounds of non-perishable food items for our local food pantry. We were helping to put food on the tables of families all around us, and it was a great feeling.  All around us, local restaurants and other establishments went Orange as well, donating portions of their proceeds to the No Kid Hungry effort, and wearing orange to show their spirit.

This year, we’re doing it again. We’ve pushed our date out slightly further, and this year on Friday, October 31, Halloween Day we’ll be getting our pumpkin on, going Orange for No Kid Hungry again. We’ve rallied our school district, our superintendent’s office, City Hall, and even our church to help us put an end to childhood hunger again this year. So far we’ve had TEN local responses for going Orange on Halloween Day. Even more exciting, we’ve had some inquiries from local folks wanting to spread this year’s local Go Orange day to their communities and schools within our state and neighboring areas. All around our city, people will be showing their Halloween spirit, dressing in orange, donating money and/or non-perishable food items on Halloween Day and helping out their neighbors all in a day’s work.

We are thrilled. Wouldn’t it be great if we could really make a difference EVERY YEAR?

Wouldn’t it be great if just by spreading awareness and spreading the word, we could help feed other families?

We are foodies, we are blessed, we are thankful to be able to cook and bake and eat our fun pumpkin flavors in the spirit of the season, all month long.

So I ask you: will you get your pumpkin on this Halloween Day too? Will you spread the awareness of childhood hunger in your area and continue the good work of No Kid Hungry and their Go Orange efforts in your city or town, at your school or church or temple? Will you help?

Get your pumpkin on. Visit Paula’s blog over at My Soup for You and help her spread the word too. Make some Pumpkin Soup. Grab some Pilgrim Pies, eat some pumpkin spiced Chex snack mix, and be thoughtful, be thankful that you can help another family in such a simple way.

 

 

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Garlic Roasted Kale

14 May
This made a nice change for us as a side dish with dinner.

This made a nice change for us as a side dish with dinner.

A while back I posted the recipe from our visit to the White House for the 2012 Kid’s State Dinner for Kale Chips. That visit was our first experience with kale chips, but it was not our last. My kids love them and it makes a great after school snack for sure.

Recently, however, I received an email for a variation of kale chips. This recipe was for Garlic Roasted Kale from the site My Recipes.com, and I thought I’d give it a try. The things that attracted me to this recipe were the fact that it included garlic, which I love, and it also included kosher salt, which I enjoy the flavor of as well.

I gave it a try one afternoon and the kids absolutely loved it. I decided to try it again most recently as a side dish for our dinner, instead of our usual broccoli or green beans or salad. As my kids were walking through the kitchen, they each asked what I was making and each time they were so excited when I said kale. I had to just shake my head in amazement. I don’t think I ever imagined I’d get three cheers for kale. Ever.

Below is the recipe from My Recipes.com for Garlic Roasted Kale. The only thing I skipped in this recipe was the vinegar at the end because I did not think the kids would like it, although I was pretty sure I would. The rest I did as was called for.

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 1/2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil$
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
  • 10 ounces kale, stems removed and chopped$
  • 1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
  • DIRECTIONS
    1. Arrange oven racks in center and lower third of oven. Preheat oven to 425°. Place a large jelly-roll pan in oven for 5 minutes.
    2. Combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl; toss to coat. Place kale mixture on hot pan, spreading with a silicone spatula to separate leaves. Bake at 425° for 7 minutes. Stir kale. Bake an additional 5 minutes or until edges of leaves are crisp and kale is tender.
    3. Place kale in a large bowl. Drizzle with vinegar; toss to combine. Serve immediately.

 

 

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New on SheKnows: My Touchdown Turkey Sausage Taters

30 Jan

Be sure to check out my newest post today on SheKnows! It’s my new recipe for Touchdown Turkey Sausage Taters, and it’s out just in time for this weekend’s big Superbowl game!

I was happy to have had the opportunity to work with SheKnows and Jimmy Dean on this, the first of two posts for their products. You can be on the lookout for the next post on SheKnows to come out in the coming weeks. Until then, be sure to check out my post on SheKnows!

Wait til you see the great recipe that I created with the Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Crumbles!

Wait til you see the great recipe that I created with the Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Crumbles!

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Superbowl Week: Chili and Loaded Chili ‘skins

29 Jan
Chili with shredded cheese, sour cream and chips

This chili looks almost too good to eat!

ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 27, 2012:

Don makes a great chili, he really does. I’d never even HAD chili until I met him and had his. I also had never had peppers or onions because growing up my dad didn’t like either, so we steered clear of them when cooking. Now though, I eat all of those things and I especially love my husband’s chili. It’s perfect for Superbowl Sunday.

INGREDIENTS

5 lbs ground beef or ground turkey or ground pork (or any combination of the three)

2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 six ounce cans of tomato paste and 2 cans of water

2 twenty-eight ounce cans of diced tomatoes

3 twelve ounce cans kidney and/or black beans

2 green peppers, chopped

1 large onion chopped

4-6 TBL chili powder

1 tsp. oregano

Salt/Pepper to taste

Sour cream, cheddar cheese, chips for topping

DIRECTIONS

1.) Combine and cook meat, garlic, oregano in large cooking pot

2) Add chopped peppers and onions

3) Add all other ingredients and cook on low for two to five hours.

If you’d like to cook this in the crock pot, cook up the meat first and then throw it all into the crock pot to cook on low for the 2-5 hours.

This is the sort of recipe you can make according to your taste. The spicier you like things, the more spicy ingredients you can add to it (hot sauce, chili powder, chili peppers etc.) The more mild you like it, the less you add.

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BONUS RECIPE: LOADED CHILI POTATO SKINS

Loaded chili potato skins

A bonus appetizer that you can use some of your chili to make.

We love potato skins and chili seems to lend itself to an additional appetizer idea: Loaded chili potato skins.

Cook up a bunch of baked potatoes ahead of time. Let them cool a bit.

Cut them in half and hollow them out, leaving about 1/4″ to 1/2″ of the potato in the skin.

Add some of your chili and some cheddar cheese to the inside, and bake them until cooked through.

Broil at the end to crisp up.

Add your favorite toppings: sour cream, guacamole, etc.

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Coming soon to SheKnows…Touchdown Turkey Sausage Taters

20 Jan

Wait til you see the great recipe that I created with the Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Crumbles!

Wait til you see the great recipe that I created with the Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Crumbles!

As many of you know, I’ve recently joined the founding team of SheKnows Experts as a contributing blogger. You can see my new SheKnows Experts badge on the right side of The Whole Bag of Chips. You can see my profile here.

I’m excited to announce that my next post for SheKnows will appear on their site on January 30, 2014! I’ve been working with SheKnows and the Jimmy Dean company, trying out an exciting product of theirs, the Jimmy Dean Sausage Crumbles in some of my recipes, such as the one you see here, which will be a perfect addition to your Superbowl Sunday menu!

You will love how quick and easy this new recipe is, but best of all, you’re going to love how delicious it is! Be sure to head on over to SheKnows next week to check it out!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Quinoa Tabbouleh Salad

13 Nov
Lunch or dinner, this was a great new recipe!

Lunch or dinner, this was a great new recipe!

Things are constantly getting lost in our house.

“Have you seen…”

“Does anyone know where…..”

“I can’t find my……”

This recipe is one of those lost items. I’d ripped it out of a magazine over the summer. It’s from the June 2013 Woman’s Day magazine. I thought it sounded great.

My husband’s family is Lebanese, he loves Lebanese food, especially tabbouleh, and so does Elizabeth. I love it as well. I thought for sure it’d be a hit.

If I could find it.

Once I ripped it out and showed him, he agreed it sounded great, and then I never saw the page again.

Until last week.

We happened to move the couch away from the wall to get something one of the kids had seen fall back there, and lo and behold…my Woman’s Day recipe!

It just so happened that we’d made quinoa the night before as a side dish for our dinner. We had leftovers and it was in the fridge already.

With the quinoa cooked and cooled previously, this was a super-easy lunch to throw together in the morning before school for Don and Elizabeth’s lunchboxes. I even had sliced cucumbers leftover from the day before too, so I was really already on my way.

The votes came back with big thumbs up for the new salad. I sent wheat pita pockets on the side. Elizabeth scooped hers up with the bread, Don put his right inside the bread.

We had a little bit leftover and they used it as a side dish one night with dinner.

This is a great, quick tabbouleh and if you like Middle Eastern foods, give this a try!

QUINOA TABBOULEH SALAD

Woman’s Day June 2013

In a medium bowl, whisk together:
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice1 Tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley
1 teaspoon olive oil
a pinch each of salt and pepper

Add:
3/4 cup cooked quinoa1/2 cup canned chickpeas
1 plum tomato, chopped
1 seedless cucumber, chopped

Toss to combine.

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Fun Friday: Our new after school snack obsession: Flatbread Pizzas

27 Sep
My impulse purchase earlier this week has led to some fun after school snacks this week!

My impulse purchase earlier this week has led to some fun after school snacks this week!

It all started earlier this week when I went grocery shopping on an empty stomach.

That’s the worst.

In this case though, it benefited us in that it led to the greatest after school snack experimentation!

While I was at Aldi’s, I found flatbread in their “Fit and Active” line of healthier foods. I was intrigued. One was “original” and one was multigrain and contained flaxseed. Both were reasonably priced and I was pretty hungry so even plain flatbread sounded delicious.

Well, as I walked through the store, I saw some good-looking plum tomatoes and I put them into my carriage also. Seeing them, alongside my flatbread, reminded me of an old Pampered Chef pizza recipe we used to make that had ricotta cheese mixed with Parmesan cheese, topped with sliced plum tomatoes and mozzarella cheese.

I decided that with my new flatbread and tomatoes, along with the nonfat ricotta and mozzarella cheeses I had at home, I would make a variation of that for my lunch. And I did. I cut up two plum tomatoes, spread a little tomato sauce on my flatbread, and layered on my toppings. About 10 minutes under the broiler on low, and I had my lunch.

This was my lunch that day, and the leftovers were just as good!

This was my lunch that day, and the leftovers were just as good!

When the girls arrived home later on, they asked me what was mysteriously wrapped up in foil in the fridge. When I showed them my leftovers, they wanted a flatbread pizza for their after school snack. So I sliced up some more tomatoes, some olives and used the rest of my sauce and mozzarella cheese to make one for them.  The entire snack took less than 15 minutes to prep and broil and even less than that to eat.

They loved it!

The following day, my wheels were turning. I remembered a dessert pizza that I had at a restaurant a while back and I decided to make a dessert pizza for the kids based on another recipe I’d seen floating around Facebook lately.

With Elizabeth helping me, I took a flatbread,we  spread some peanut butter on it, layered sliced green apples on top of that, and drizzled caramel over them. A sprinkle of cinnamon-sugar over the whole thing, and under the broiler it went.

Our first dessert pizza of the week.

Our first dessert pizza of the week.

DELICIOUS.

Our creative juices were flowing. The next day I made them a peanut butter and Nutella pizza with sliced bananas on top.

As they were eating that one, they came up with the next one: S’Mores flatbread pizzas: Nutella and marshmallows. When I told my friend Gina, she suggested crushing up graham crackers and sprinkling them on the top. What a great idea! For dinner that night, her family was having chicken and broccoli flatbread pizzas.

I was adding that one to my list.

Elizabeth has already requested flatbread pizzas to be added to our lunchbox rotations. As quick as they are to make, I could easily make them up ahead of time and send them in for lunch. Obviously the dessert pizzas would not be our lunchbox pizzas, but they do have their place!

I’m excited for this newest snack option. It gives us some fun and some variety in our choices, and that’s always a good thing! I encourage you to see how many different variations you could come up with!

Another keeper!

Another keeper!

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Grilled Caprese Portobello Mushrooms

17 Jul
A yummy addition to our summer meal menu options!

A yummy addition to our summer meal menu options!

We are on our second heat wave this month. When you’re in the midst of a heat wave like this, sometimes you don’t feel like cooking. Or eating.

Scratch that. I almost always feel like eating, even when it’s hot.

But what to eat becomes the question. You don’t want to turn on the oven and sometimes it’s even too hot to grill outside, because when it’s 100 degrees, do you really want to stand over a hot fire?

Sunday was that kind of a night. What to eat? What to cook. Don listed everything in our fridge and freezer but nothing sounded appealing. He’s never that thrilled when I say no to everything we have.

On this night however, it was a good thing that I didn’t want anything we had on hand. We ended up trying a great new recipe from the Sugar Free Mom blog and loving it!

I know I’ve mentioned Brenda’s blog before, but if you haven’t visited it yet, now’s a great time to do so. The recipe we tried was for grilled Portobello mushrooms made Caprese style; a great summer menu addition. Another friend of mine posted the recipe on Facebook and I knew immediately that this meal was in our future.

We bought three Portobello mushrooms, (we knew not everyone would like these so we only bought for those who would), some mozzarella cheese to slice and some good-sized tomatoes to slice up as well. Rather than grilling the mushrooms, Don cooked them in our cast iron skillet, and they were fabulous! We served ours with a side of macaroni salad and corn on the cob. A perfect summer meal.

Give Brenda’s blog a visit, and try out her recipe! I know you’ll love it, and  you’ll love her photos.  Her Portobellos were much prettier and more photogenic than mine!

Her recipe is below.

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We did not have fresh basil on hand so we used dried instead.

  • 6 large portobello caps
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • few cracks of pepper from peppermill
  • nonstick olive oil cooking spray
  • 6 ounces mozzarella, sliced into 6 pieces
  • 1 large vine tomato, sliced into 6 pieces
  • 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Wash the mushrooms and drain them on paper towels upside down then pat dry. Turn them upright. Spray the mushrooms with nonstick cooking spray. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon salt and garlic powder over the mushroom caps. Add a few cracks of pepper then place the seasoned side onto a medium high grill or grill pan. Follow the same procedure for the bottoms of the mushrooms and allow to cook for 2-3 minutes on one side before flipping over. Top each mushroom cap with one slice of tomato and cheese. Close the grill for 1 minute to let cheese melt slightly. Place caps onto a serving plate. Add one large basil leaf to each cap. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over the tops, season to taste with more salt and pepper if desired and serve warm or room temperature.

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