"You need a really small stool to milk a corn kernel"

That quote is from my dad.  When I mentioned I was going to make corn milk the other day, that was his response.  He seemed impressed with his joke.  So I thought I'd make mention of it here.  Which is probably dumb because now I'm just encouraging these oh so sophisticated jokes.

Do you watch Master Chef?  It's on Fox on Monday and Tuesday evenings.  It's a cooking competition between home cooks.  These folks haven't worked in restaurants or been chef's anywhere.  So it's more relateable.  Well sort of relateable.  I doubt I'll ever be able to butcher anything and those guys can.  Last week they had a challenge of making a desert using corn.  One of the contestants made corn milk and then used that to make a corn shortcake.  I had it stuck in my head all week and eventually looked up what I thought would be a long, messy task in the kitchen. 

Google "Corn Milk"

Reading, reading...

Oh, it's just cooked corn off the cob and a cup of water, blended and strained?  Welp...

Yeah thats really all it is. 

Corn Milk

- 1 large ear of corn (or 2 smaller ears, about a cup of corn if you're using canned corn)

- 1 cup of water

Blend corn and water together and strain liquid through a fine sieve.  If you want it thicker, perhaps to replace whole milk or cream, add more corn. 

Here's a few facts about using corn milk.  It's a great milk substitute.  It can be used in both sweet and savory dishes.  But don't use it in hopes of saving calories.  It has the same amount of calories, cup to cup, as 2% milk.  However, it has less fat.  It does have sugar, but it's natural sugar.  And, my favorite part is this - you know where it's coming from.  You know you don't have to worry about hormones or poor conditions for animals (I mean you still have to worry about those).  Corn is easy to find locally in most places within the US.  Support your local farmers and make you some corn milk!  (Or get your cows milk from local farmers - that's a really good thing too.)

Moving on to a yeasted corn bread, perfect for sandwiches.  It's a tasty way to shake up the regular sandwich.  It's a little on the sweet side so I paired it with spicy additions like black bean hummus with jalapenos and grilled turkey coated in some Emril seasoning.  Balance, baby.  Balance.

Sweet Corn Yeast Bread

- 1 pkg active dry yeast

- 3/4 cup warm corn milk (test warmth on your wrist.  You can use water or regular milk if you prefer.)

- 1 tblsp honey

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 tblsp olive oil

- 1 cup cornmeal

- 2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

In a bowl, mix milk and yeast a few times with a wooden spoon and let sit for about 5 minutes.  Stir in honey, salt, and cornmeal.  Start adding flour, 1/4 of a cup at a time, and mix in well.  Continue to add flour until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and starts to form a ball.  Dust a cutting board with flour and knead dough until its smooth and elastic, adding any remaining flour to fight off stickiness. 

Place dough in a oiled bowl, roll around in the bowl to coat, and cover with a towel and place in warm place for about an hour, or until dough has doubled.

Once dough has risen, knead dough for a few turns and then form into a loaf.  Place on a baking sheet, cover with a towel, and let rise for another 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  When bread has finished rising, bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.  Let cool before slicing.

Now let's make a sammich. 

As I mentioned, I made my sandwich with spicy black bean hummus, turkey, avocado, and tomato.  I liked the heat mixed with the sweet.  But you could try this with anything.  You could even make a breakfast sandwich with it, using a fried egg or just some jam!

But if you wanna make it like I did, here's my recipe (well it's really dad's recipe) for black bean hummus.

Spicy Black Bean Hummus

- 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

- 4 or 5 slices of jalapeno

- 1 tsp salt

- 2 tsp garlic powder

- 2 tsp cumin

- 1 tblsp olive oil

Pulse all of the ingredients in a food processor until smooth.  Store in an air tight container.

You can use that hummus as a condiment or just eat it as a dip with chips or on a tortilla all rolled up!

And just in case you were wondering, I did end up copying Master Chef and making shortcake using this recipe, but replacing milk with the corn milk I made.  And it was too good to even talk about.

Carbs are my friends

They are my friends.  They are my super mean friends that make me feel fat and bloated, but also happy and satisfied.  Just like real friends should.

I've been trying to limit my carb intake to one meal a day, as I've mentioned before.  So I gotta make those carbs meaningful and delicious, otherwise, what's the dang point?  It's my payoff for exercise doing torture poses in yoga for an hour. 

The other day I got my carb fix from pasta.  I've been wanting to try udon noodles in a dish.  Mostly because I'm fascinated by them.  Udon noodles are generally seen in Korean cuisine and are made from wheat flour.  They're thick but they only cook for 2 or 3 minutes and not a minute more.  Which is kinda awesome.  I'd read about different eggplant purees and decided I wanted to make one into a "cream" sauce in place of actual cream.  Trying to make this carb dish as guiltless as possible. 

I went vegan with this dish, but you could add parmesan in place of the nutritional yeast.  I roasted the eggplant for extra flavor, and the heat from roasting the eggplant should melt the parmesan right into this sauce. 

This is ridiculously satisfying and delicious.  Try it with any leftover veggies you have sitting around.  You can also use whole wheat linguine noodles or spaghetti noodles instead of udon.  I think I really just wanted to say I used udon noodles.  You can find them at Kroger in the Asian food section.

Asparagus, Portabella, and Udon with Roasted Eggplant Cream Sauce

- 1 bunch of asparagus

- 5 or 6 baby bella mushrooms

- 1/2 pack of Udon noodles

- 1 medium sized eggplant

- 2 tblsp nutritional yeast (or 1/4 cup grated parmesan)

- 2 or 3 cloves of garlic

- 1 tblsp olive oil

- 1 tsp sesame oil

- 1 tblsp grated ginger (or 1 tsp powdered ginger)

- 1 green chili, sliced

- salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Slice eggplant, lengthwise, and place, cut side down, on a foil lined baking sheet.  Cook until skin is blackened, about 25 - 30 minutes. Set aside and cool.

When eggplant is ready, bring a large pot of water to a boil (if using udon noodles, don't salt the water).  While water is heating up, scoop out the insides of the eggplant, pulling away from the peel.  Place eggplant in a food processor and pulse with nutritional yeast, garlic, and a pinch of salt. Set puree aside.

In a medium skillet, heat olive oil and sautee 1 clove of minced garlic and ginger for about a minute.  Add sesame oil, asparagus, and baby bellas.  Sautee veggies for about 3-5 minutes or until tender. 

Meanwhile, once water is boiling, drop udon noodles in the water for 2 minutes (seriously, don't go over 3 or the noodles get mushy.  Yuck.).  Drain noodles.  Add noodles to the veggies and stir in the skillet.  Stir in cream sauce and serve.

This is some really amazing stuff.  And, once again, it's pretty guilt free, it's fresh, and it satisfies the carb monster.  We all have one. 



50 shades of purple

I really have no idea what I'm doing when I title posts sometimes...
I almost hate starting a sentence with "I saw this recipe on Pinterest", just because it's used so much it almost makes my head spin.  I love Pinterest and it's such an amazing source for inspiration.  But errrrrrrrrrrrbody is on Pinterest and it's becoming so big that I rarely go a week without hearing or saying the phrase "Oh, I got it from Pinterest!".  But I did get this idea for a recipe from Pinterest.  I am part of the phenomenon.  I'm cool with it.

I had some beets that had been forgotten (poor beets) in the back of my crisper and was so excited to try the beet hummus I'd seen.  But I only had 2 or 3 small beets. So I tweaked the original recipe I'd seen and roasted the beets I had and then combined them with the usual chick peas.  It's a hybrid!

Roasted Beet Hummus

- 2 or 3 small to medium sized beets, rinsed
- 1 tblsp olive oil for roasting
- 1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas)
- 2 or 3 cloves of garlic
- 2 tblsp tahini
- 2 tblsp olive oil
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp turmeric
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1/4 cup plain greek yogurt (optional.  I like to add it just to make the hummus extra creamy.  Yum.)
- salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400.  In a baking dish, place rinsed beets and drizzle with olive oil.  Cover dish with a lid and bake for 35-40 minutes.  After beets have cooled, remove skin.

In a food processor, pulse roasted beets, chick peas, garlic, tahini, olive oil, cumin, turmeric, lemon juice, yogurt, and salt until well combined and smooth.

Serve with homemade pita bread (recipe here), veggies, or chips.


Not only is this hummus SO pretty to look at, but it's sweet and roasty and divine.

Stop asking me for chips!

Have I mentioned to you that my kids don't like sugar?  It's weird.  And they didn't get it from me.  In their 2 and a half years they have winced and spit out ice cream, chocolate, cupcakes, whipped cream, peanut butter, jam, candy, and rice crispy treats.  What the crap is up with these little people?!  I'm sure, at some point in their lives that will change.  But as it stands, they have no interest in sweets. 

They do, however, love fruit.  Nature's candy.  Why can't I just be satisfied with that?  They also LOVE chips.  Can't get enough of'm.  I get asked for chips on a daily basis.  And I say no plenty of times, but it is the one bit of junk food they eat.  They've still never had fast food (fast food isn't fast in the country, y'all), they don't eat anything fried at home, what a couple of chips now and then?

And then, out of nowhere, I remembered one of my favorite things to eat when I was a kid:  Apple chips.  Oh yeah.  Sweet and tart and crunchy.  So good and not a thing wrong with them.  They satisfy your chip craving while also keeping away medical professionals!  I love it!

It's like little apple pie chips, is what it's like.  My kids LOVE apples. And they LOVE chips.  Apple Chips?  This is going to be like Christmas in July! 

They wanted nothing to do with them.

They looked at me like, "Mom, this doesn't look like an apple OR a tortilla chip?  Stop yankin' my chain."  But had they at least tried them, man would they have been in heaven.  Whatever.  Sometimes kids are weird.  Or, rather, sometimes my kids are weird.  They don't like rice crispy treats!  Obviously they're weirdos.

Adorable weirdos.

What's this post about?  Oh yeah - Apple chips.

Cinnamon Apple Chips

- 3 firm apples (I used Fuji.  Try Gala, Granny Smith, or Pink Lady apples if you'd rather)

- 1 lemon, juiced

- 2 tsp cinnamon

- 2 tsp raw sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Slice apples with a mandolin or a paring knife, about 1/8" thick. 

In a bowl, mix apple slices, lemon juice, and cinnamon, until apples are well coated.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Place apple slices on the baking sheet, making sure they aren't touching.  Bake for about an hour and then flip the apple slices so that they cook evenly, and cook for an additional hour or more, until they are crispy.

Note:  Apple chips will be a little flimsy when they come out of the oven, but after cooling they'll crisp up completely.

These are one of my favorite snacks still.  I mean who doesn't love chips you can eat all day and not feel bad about?  No one.  That's who.

Cold as ice

I don't wanna harp on summer heat too much.  Everyone does it.  I do it.  It's hard not to.  IT'S FREAKING HOT.  Ever since I was a teenager, summer was the ideal time for me to lose some weight because it was so hot I couldn't even eat.  It was just carrot sticks and apples and spinach salad.  I grew up in Florida and the humidity was like being hugged by a sumo wrestler.  Buh.

So that's what brought me to making salad for lunch all this week.  After a rainy couple of weeks, where things seemed to cool off, it's back to raging heat.  I may as well take advantage of this appetite suppressing weather and eat like a bird.  I got some ROCKIN' green dream pants for my birthday and while they technically will go on me, they are far too tight.  Mayhaps the heat will have me in my dream pants by fall!

(Don't worry...I eat like a bird for breakfast and lunch...but by dinner, the temp has dropped and I is ready to chow.  Come'ere kit kats!)

Do you know about jicama?  I think I heard about it on Chopped, maybe.  It's kind of like a cross between a carrot and a pear.  Slightly sweet, nice a crunchy, packed with water.  I've seen it in fruit salad just as much as I've seen it paired with veggies.  It's at The Pig in Batesville, but if you don't have it around, you could use parsnips or turnips even.  It's a salad.  You can use whatever you want!

But I recommend, no matter what your salad consists of, that you try this kiwi vinaigrette.

Kiwi Vinaigrette

- 3 ripe kiwi (the kiwi should have a little bit of give to it when you squeeze it)

- 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar (or cider vinegar, or white balsamic)

- pinch of salt

Blend all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor until well combined and serve.  Store in an air tight container.

You could also try this with mangoes, strawberries, or blackberries.  Just a thought.  A delicious thought.

Getting rid of the Monday's

Pancakes are a tradition in our house, on the weekends.  Pancakes pretty much guarantee that all four of us will be around the table at the same time, sharing a meal.  Joe works in the evenings and I'm running around like a crazy person, trying to keep all the plates spinning, so Saturdays and Sundays are pretty important when it comes to family time, particularly meal time.  We did our traditional pancakes together on Saturday and I guess they really stuck with the kids this time, because Charlie asked me for pancakes first thing this morning.  They're easy to throw together and I thought "why not?".  I'm out of eggs and as I started thinking about it, I kind of wanted to avoid another heavy breakfast for them.  It's really a once a week kind of thing.  Yeah, I'm annoying.  And then I was starting to get things together and I thought I'd go crazy and take out all of the dairy products.  Replace the butter with coconut oil and the milk with soy milk.  Now it's healthier AND it's something I can share with niece, who has to eat completely diary free.

I have to say, after making all these changes...these pancakes tasted EXACTLY THE SAME as any other pancake.  Looked the same.  They're the same.  Crazy.

Here's a big tip I've discovered along the way of vegan baking.  Letting your batter for cakes or breads or pancakes, rest for 5 to 10 minutes, after you've mixed the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, will help everything bind together...which is the point of eggs in most baking recipes.  When I first mixed this batter together it was incredibly runny.  After sitting for 5 minutes, it was thick like batter should be. 

Ok, I didn't eat or serve this many pancakes at one time.  That would be ridiculous.  Well, it would be ridiculous for me to SAY I would eat this many pancakes at once.  What I say and what I do, on rare occasion, don't match.  All of that is to say, I would eat 5 pancakes in no time flat.  But here's what's nice about these pancakes - you're cutting out eggs, butter, and milk.  That's a lot of fat you're cutting out.  I did the math and these pancakes are 107 calories a piece.  Add a teaspoon of honey (I hate maple syrup, by the way.  The smell, the taste, all of it.  But you can use it if you're brave), some strawberries and blueberries and it's about the same as a bowl of granola and yogurt.  You could make a big batch, freeze what you don't eat, pop them in the toaster on the morning you wanted one, and boom - you gots pancakes.  It's a nice shake up in your breakfast routine.  

I'm making such a big deal out of the easiest thing in the world to cook.  But it's nice to have a healthy, tasty spin option.

Egg Free, Dairy Free, So Good Pancakes

- 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

- 1 tsp cinnamon

- 2 tsp baking soda

- 1 cup soy milk

- 1 tsp honey

- 1 tblsp vegetable oil

- 1 tblsp water

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 2 tblsp coconut oil

Combine all dry ingredients together and mix slightly.  Add milk, oil, water, and vanilla.  Stir together until just combined, being careful not to over mix (over mixing makes your pancakes flat-so).  It's ok if it's lumpy - it should be!  Set the bowl aside to rest for a few minutes.

Melt the coconut oil on a skillet over medium heat.  Once melted, pour the oil into the batter and stir into batter.  Return the pan to the heat.  Once pan is good and hot, pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto pan and let it cook until bubbles start to form on the surface.  Carefully flip onto other side and let cook until both sides are golden brown and cooked through. 

Add fruit, nuts, or chocolate chips to the batter if you like.  Or split your flours in half, using 1/2 cup white flour, 1/2 cup wheat flour, and have whole wheat pancakes!

Get rid of them Monday's!



Cloudy with more than a chance of meatballs

It actually IS cloudy!  And there is more than just a chance that I'm going to give you a meatball recipe!  I'm pretty excited that post title worked out so well.  It's the little things.

So yesterday, while I was making my pesto, I also decided to put the large mound of tomatoes to good use and whip up some homemade spaghetti sauce.  I basically wanted to spend Monday putting together these bases for other dishes.  Between pesto and spaghetti sauce, I can do pasta, pizza, spaghetti and meatballs, grilled chicken and veggies in pesto, eggplant Parmesan, the list goes on.  Dedicating one morning to making those two things, basically did all the menu planning for me.  Sweet! 

Homemade spaghetti sauce is something I recommend everyone try.  Especially right now while tomatoes are so delicious and ripe and perfect.  It's something you can freeze for those pink tomato months, also known as winter.  It takes a little while to cook, but doesn't require a lot of hands on time.  The smell is amazing and stays in your house for a good day in a half.  Which is pretty nice for me.  I'd much rather have my house smell like Little Italy than diapers, is all I'm sayin. 

Tomato Basil Spaghetti Sauce

- 8-10 medium ripe tomatoes

- 3 tblsp olive oil

- 1 onion, chopped

- 1 bell pepper, chopped

- 4 cloves of minced garlic

- 2 carrots, chopped

- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

- 1/4 tsp oregano

- 1/4 cup red wine

- 1 bay leaf

- 2 stalks of celery

- 2 tblsp tomato paste

Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Have a large bowl of ice water ready.  Place whole tomatoes in the boiling water and let sit for 1-2 minutes.  Remove with a slotted spoon and place immediately in ice water.  Let rest until cool enough to handle.  Remove the peel and squeeze out the seeds.  Chop  6-8 tomatoes and puree in a blender.  Chop the remaining tomatoes and set aside. 

In a large pot, over medium heat, cook garlic, onion, bell pepper, and carrots in olive oil until tender, about 5 minutes.  Pour in pureed tomatoes, chopped tomatoes, basil, oregano, and wine.  Place bay leaf and whole celery stalks in the pot.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, and simmer for about 2 hours.  Stir in tomato paste and simmer for another hour.  Discard celery and bay leaf and serve.

Zucchini noodles are incredibly easy and delicious.  They get rid of those carbs you'd feel guilty about with regular pasta, they have a nice crunch to them, and they add such great color and flavor to the otherwise traditional spaghetti.  There are several ways to make these noodles.  You can use a vegetable peeler and get long ribbons of pasta, you could use a mandolin, a julienne peeler (which would be the best tool here...I don't have one, but if you do, go crazy with it!), or just cut the noodles with a knife, which is what I did. 

Zucchini Noodles

- 3-4 medium zucchini

- large pot of salted, boiling water

Bring salted water to a boil.  Cut zucchini lengthwise, into four parts, getting rid of the middle of the zucchini, where the seeds are.  Use a peeler, a mandolin, or a knife, to cut long noodles.  After noodles are prepared, drop in salted boiling water for 1-2 minutes and drain and serve.

For the chicken meatballs, I used the Martha method I talked about here to turn my chicken breast into ground chicken.  But you can use ground turkey or chicken already packaged from the store.  I just didn't have it, so I had to get creative.

Lean Chicken Parmesan Meatballs

- 1lb ground turkey or chicken

- 1 large egg

- 1/2 cup bread crumbs or panko (I used panko...cuz I love me some panko, dawg)

- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan

- 1 tsp garlic powder

- 2 tblsp chopped parsley

- 2 tblsp olive oil

Combine chicken, egg, bread crumbs, Parmesan, garlic, and parsley in a bowl.  Heat olive oil over medium heat in a non-stick skillet.  Once the oil is good and hot (when the oil gets fragrant), roll chicken mixture into golf ball sized balls and fry in the oil on all sides until cooked through.  Drain on a paper towel and serve.

Note:  This recipe will make 15 or so meatballs.  You can freeze the leftover meatballs on a parchment lined baking sheet and pull out a few anytime you want to make this dish.  Look at that.  I just gave you awesome leftovers.  You're welcome.