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Quick and Easy Garlic Parmesan Broccoli

21 Mar
The "after" picture

The “after” picture

“Oh yay! This is my favorite broccoli!”

I kid you not. Those words were spoken at dinnertime tonight when I put this side dish on the dinner table.

This broccoli recipe has in fact, become a new favorite. It might even be neck and neck in line with this one as a favorite broccoli side dish.

We were given this recipe at our local Whole Foods store one Saturday afternoon. Although I don’t do a ton of shopping there, I do have a few things that I need to buy that I can only find there, so one afternoon we were all together and we stopped in to pick up those types of things.

 

Such a simple recipe!

Such a simple recipe!

Being a Saturday afternoon around lunchtime, the samples were in full swing. Roaming a store, trying out new things, is one of our family’s favorite things to do. On that day we were given samples of a new favorite granola and of this Garlic Parmesan Broccoli. Although my family tends to really like broccoli, they really LOVED this recipe. As we took our samples, the employee at Whole Foods handed us the paper copy of the recipe. I folded it and put it in my purse and kind of forgot about it. It was late January or early February when we were there, and it was probably the end of February when I remembered I had it and tried it out one night. Sometimes when you make something at home after having had it out, it might not come out the same way. This recipe was seemingly impossible to mess up, and it came out great. I don’t always have fresh broccoli on hand, but I use my Pampered Chef hand-held food chopper to chop frozen broccoli florets after they’re cooked, and it works out great.

Looks unexciting in the bowl, but gets rave reviews every time!

Looks unexciting in the bowl, but gets rave reviews every time!

And so, tonight when I made it again and I got the exclamation that this is the favorite broccoli recipe, I knew I had to share it with you today. It’s fast and easy and delicious. There’s almost never anything left over, which is always a good sign of a great recipe. I also like that although we got it from Whole Foods, which tends to have a reputation for being very expensive, this particular recipe is very budget-friendly. You can use frozen broccoli, a jar of minced garlic and sprinkle cheese, or you can use fresh broccoli, fresh garlic and fresh grated cheese, depending what your budget looks like and what you happen to have on hand. You can also do any combination of fresh and not fresh also.

Next time you’re looking to spice up a plain side dish like a bowl of steamed broccoli, give this one a try! You never know, you might find that your kids have a favorite broccoli too!

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Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Muffins

9 Dec
I was temporarily lost without one of the staples in my menu: muffins.

I was temporarily lost without one of the staples in my menu: muffins.

Muffins.

If you are a long-time reader of The Whole Bag of Chips, you know how much I love a good homemade muffin. I like the versatility of being able to serve them after school, for breakfast, for a lunchbox item or for a late night snack.

Going with a gluten free menu for my youngest just before Thanksgiving has led me on a search for all kinds of staples and pantry items as well as for some good recipes to try. The staples and pantry items were immediate needs, as were items for each meal. One Sunday morning rolled around, and I realized my go-to plan for Sunday morning breakfast might be in jeopardy if I couldn’t make muffins.

This ended up being a lifesaver for one of our Sunday mornings

This ended up being a lifesaver for one of our Sunday mornings

Luckily, I’d visited our local Trader Joe’s earlier that week and picked up two bags of an all-purpose flour. I had grabbed two because I don’t often get to Trader Joe’s, and because I am learning quickly that there’s often only enough for one batch of something when it comes to buying gluten free items.

I noticed that the back of this package of flour contained several recipes, and one of them was for an apple cinnamon muffin. I was thrilled. Muffins are a staple here, and I hadn’t yet thought about what to do about that for Alex. When Sunday morning rolled around, I remembered the flour and the recipe on the back side.

As I examined the recipe at home in my kitchen, I was very excited to read that the recipe could be used as written, to make the apple cinnamon muffins, or it could be used as a basic muffin recipe if you took out the cinnamon and you could put in whatever you wanted.

Well of course….she requested that I put in chocolate chips. A girl after my own heart.

The recipe was easy to follow. I had two snack cups of natural applesauce here that I used, which was lucky because I hadn’t planned ahead for this, so I was glad I had it on hand at home already. I used canola oil instead of sunflower oil and skim milk. The recipe was quick and easy to follow and I was able to make 18 muffins, so she ate a few that morning and then I froze the rest. Now, a couple of weeks later, there are only three left, and I’m already thinking of what recipe to make next. I am thinking of using some of our frozen blueberries that we picked in August to make some homemade blueberry muffins.

I was so happy to see this recipe on the back of this package of flour from Trader Joe's.

I was so happy to see this recipe on the back of this package of flour from Trader Joe’s.

This flour was $7.99 a pack, and the muffin recipe used about 3/4 of the pack, so I was glad that I had more than one. I will finish it off and start my next package of flour when I make my next batch of muffins. There was also a pancake recipe on here, but as you saw last Wednesday, we were happy with our Bisquick gluten free pancakes, so for now I’m sticking with that.

If you haven’t found a muffin recipe you like yet, and you’re searching for gluten free, I encourage you to try this one. It did not require anything unusual and the muffins were tasty. All three kids eventually got to have them, and they all gave them a thumbs up each time.

If you have any other good muffin recipes to try that don’t require a ton of unusual ingredients, I’d love to hear about them!

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Peanut Butter Pumpkin Muffins from Family Food on the Table

18 Nov
The combination of ingredients was what piqued my interest in this recipe.

The combination of ingredients was what piqued my interest in this recipe.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t get off my pumpkin kick until after Thanksgiving. I’m still all about pumpkin for a few more weeks, at least.

I’m finding that this school year, due to our scattered after school schedules, I’m doing a great deal more driving than I am baking in the afternoons and evenings. Whereas I used to be able to do a quick after school baked snack at the end of my work day, this year I can only do that a couple of times a week, if I’m lucky. This means that I haven’t had a lot of new and exciting recipes to try out and to share, and for that, I apologize!

On Monday however, a recipe came across my virtual desk and it definitely piqued my interest. I actually had to read the title a couple of times to make sure I was reading it correctly, as I wasn’t sure I’d seen this combination of ingredients in the past. It’s not that it was anything crazy, it’s just that it wasn’t something I think I’d paired together in the past.

It meant that I just had to try it, just to see how it was.

 

Batter looked good, that's always a good sign!

Batter looked good, that’s always a good sign!

The recipe was for Peanut Butter Pumpkin Muffins, and it was from Family Food on the Table and it said chocolate chips were optional. To me, chocolate chips are almost never optional, but I liked all of the ingredients that were listed and I had them all, except for the white-wheat flour. I had white, I had wheat. I did not have white-wheat, so I decided to try using half white and half wheat instead. Otherwise, the recipe seemed perfect for an after school snack/late night snack/breakfast for our whole family; well at least for almost all of them. I forgot that one of them doesn’t like very much with peanut butter. She ended up having something else for her snack instead.

These came together quickly and easily. The prep time was estimated to be about ten minutes, and that was pretty on-target. The cook time was 18-22 minutes. A few of mine were a little soft on top, and probably could’ve cooked a little longer than the 18 that I did, but everyone was starving by the time I finished working and started baking, and everyone gets home so early now that I rushed them out, not checking each one as thoroughly as I should have.

However, despite my feeling a bit rushed, these muffins were delicious! They were hearty and healthy and deemed a keeper by all but my one non-peanut butter lover. I also noticed that there were several options listed at the end, including the option to substitute various types of nut butters such as almond butter to keep them peanut free. It also said that they were tasty with a little extra spread of peanut butter on them when eaten. One of my daughters did that, and she did say they were delicious that way too!

So if you’re as curious as I am as to the combination of peanut better and pumpkin and chocolate chips, I suggest you give these tasty muffins a try! Head on over to Family Food on the Table and check out this recipe and all their others too! Or maybe, you eat pumpkin, peanut butter and chocolate chips together all the time, and in that case, you most definitely want to head on over and check this recipe out!

Enjoy and have a great rest of your week!

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Carrot Cake Muffins

24 Sep
Breakfast, snack or dessert? All of the above!

Breakfast, snack or dessert? All of the above!

Good morning!

My blogging schedule is so off this school year, but I’m getting posts in whenever I can for you, and I know you’ll think this one was definitely worth the wait!

Today’s is one that’s been on my editorial calendar since the spring when a friend of mine shared photos of these Carrot Cake Muffins on Facebook. I asked her for the recipe right away and she sent me this one from Allrecipes.com, a favorite site of mine when looking for new recipes.

I knew right away my kids would like these, especially if I added a little icing made with confectioner’s sugar. I mean really, what’s not to love??

My favorite thing about them is that I’m sneaking in a little bit of vegetables that normally they might not all eat. I have since made these multiple times. One afternoon I only had time to make the muffins, not the icing, and left that recipe out for my oldest to do on her own at home. It worked out perfectly.

I love anything that can double or triple in its job, and these muffins do just that. They can be a breakfast, an after school or late night snack, or even a dessert. Although we’ve always had them with the icing, I’m sure they’d be delicious without it also. Most times when I’ve made this in the afternoon, I bag up the leftovers into bags of two muffins each, and that’s a breakfast or a lunchbox snack for the next day too.

You can click here for the muffin recipe from Allrecipes.com, and below is the Powdered Sugar Icing recipe that we use each time.

Powdered Sugar Icing (taken from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook tenth edition, copyright 1989)

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Milk or orange juice (We usually do milk.)

Mix powdered sugar, vanilla and 1 tablespoon milk or juice. Stir in milk or juice, one teaspoon at a time, till of drizzling consistency.

Makes 1/2 cup or enough to drizzle over one 10-inch tube cake.

Let cake stand two hours before slicing.  (We do let our muffins cool first, but not for two hours.)

 

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: 30 Minute Spaghetti with Summer Vegetable Sauce

29 Apr
Another successful meal from Liz's 30 Minute Meal cookbook!

Another successful meal from Liz’s 30 Minute Meal cookbook!

About two weeks ago, for my previous What’s for Dinner Wednesday post, I showed a recipe that Elizabeth had found in a Cook’s Country Magazine for 30 Minute Meatloaf Burgers.

At the time that Liz chose that recipe, we were at the end of our two weeks of meals, which meant we’d be menu planning again soon afterwards for the next two weeks of meals.

Liz was on top of it. She and her dad poured through her selection of recipes hoping to find one that everyone would like at least one part of, if not all of. Pasta is a pretty easy choice. Everyone likes pasta, even if they don’t like what’s on it. Therefore, she chose a 30 minute meal called Spaghetti with Summer Vegetable Sauce.

It was so delicious, and seeing the veggies simmering on the stove while Liz and Don were cooking together really made me long for summer. This meal was wonderful and Liz did a great job choosing another quick and easy meal. I know she’s got at least one more on deck for a future week.

I’m getting a bit spoiled…

Here’s the recipe for you, just as it appears in the Cook’s Country Magazine.

It was hard to wait after seeing this simmering on top of the stove!

It was hard to wait after seeing this simmering on top of the stove!

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons unsalted butter (We use I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.)

1 onion, chopped

1 large summer squash, halved lengthwise and sliced thin

1 large zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced thin

2 garlic cloves, minced

12 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup dry white wine

Salt and pepper

1 pound spaghetti (We used linguine.)

6 tablespoons basil pesto (We made our own.)

DIRECTIONS

1.) Bring four quarts of water to a boil in large pot. Melt butter in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in squash and zucchini and cook until softened, about five minutes. Stir in squash and zucchini and cook until softened, three to five minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes, wine, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and cook until liquid is reduced by half, about two minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste; cover and keep warm.

2) Meanwhile, add pasta and one tablespoon salt to boiling water and cook, stirring often, until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking water, then drain pasta and return it to pot. Toss vegetable mixture and pesto with pasta, adding reserved pasta water as needed. Serve.

Test kitchen note: Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Chickpea and Tomato Salad with Fresh Basil by Green Lite Bites

25 Mar
A great side dish for your dinner or a light lunch idea.

A great side dish for your dinner or for a light and tasty lunch.

I’ve become addicted to Pinterest.

I’m probably the last person on earth to become addicted because for a long time, even though I knew it was there, I didn’t go on it very often.

I’m on it every day now.

If I’m sitting somewhere waiting, I click on the app on my phone and I just scroll and pin, scroll and pin.

I’ve found many wonderful ideas for many wonderful things, many of which I’ll probably never have the opportunity to try out. But, I’ve pinned them for future reference, just.in.case.

One such pin that I scrolled past actually did come to fruition, and it was a delicious success, so I thought I’d share it with you today for my WFDW post even though it’s not just for dinner.

This recipe for Chickpea and Tomato Salad with Fresh Basil came my way via the Green Lite Bites site, and I appreciate them sharing it because it’s a simple recipe with fresh ingredients, and I will definitely be making it again in the future.

Interestingly enough, on the day I saw this pin on Pinterest, I actually had a can of chick peas sitting on my kitchen counter. I’m not sure who put them there or why, or what the original intention for them was, but they’d been there a while and I’d been thinking of roasting them one afternoon for a snack, since I hadn’t done that in a while.

Additionally, we’d been babysitting my parents’ plants while they were away and one of them was a fresh Basil plant that they’d left us and told us to feel free to use it if we wanted to. So, I had fresh Basil, which I never do, I had chickpeas, which I often don’t, and I had tomatoes, which I always do. I had everything I needed for this recipe.

I also had two cucumbers that needed to be used, so I decided when making this recipe, to add one in as well.

This was going to be on our menu for lunch during the work and school week, so I decided to give my morning a break by making it ahead of time and putting it in the fridge overnight. I also felt that the flavors would have a good amount of time to blend together and everything would be perfectly chilled by morning.

Four out of five of us were having this for our lunches. For two of my daughters, having just this in a bowl was plenty, along with some pita bread cut into triangles on the side. For my husband, we opted to put this salad onto a bed of lettuce, (as I’ve shown here) with the same side of pita bread. There was just enough left for me to have a little bowl on the side with my lunch that day too.

Everyone loved their lunches and it was just enough for everyone’s desired portion sizes. I loved having my morning “off” from making all four lunches from scratch and I loved coming home to my own lunch partially decided for me, and waiting to be eaten. I don’t love lunches to begin with and I hate deciding what to have. This was a nice treat for us all.

The recipe is quick, can be modified to add in or take out ingredients based on your own tastes and what you have on hand. You could throw in some fresh mozzarella cheese balls (although that would make it a little less healthy if you did) and it’d be just as delicious.

Here is the recipe just as it’s shown on the Green Lite Bites site. I hope you’ll pay her site a visit, as there’s lots of other healthy options to try!

CHICKPEA AND TOMATO SALAD WITH FRESH BASIL

  • 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • About 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
  • 25 large basil leaves, chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tbsp honey (10g)
  • pinch of salt

Toss all ingredients together and chill for at least 20 minutes, allowing all the flavors to merge.

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