Muffins!

Once again, I have a zucchini the size of my arm to use up. It finally cooled down so I decided to do a little baking. I LOVED these muffins. They aren't overly sweet but stay super moist. I found the recipe in the Taste of Home Archives. I made a few changes and substituted strawberry applesauce for regular.

*Justin would not touch these muffins. I took a wooden cake dowel and pushed a hole through the middle (see where I'm going with this?) and told him it was a donut. Well all of the sudden it was a yummy treat and he ate 2 :)


1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup applesauce (I used strawberry)
2 eggs
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon (I used pumpkin pie spice)
1 cup shredded zucchini, water squeezed out (just dump into a big paper towel and squeeeeeze)
2 ripe medium bananas, mashed

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375. Place paper cupcake wrappers in cupcake pan.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, applesauce, eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla.

3. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Make a well in the center and add the wet ingredients. Stir until just blended. Then stir in the grated zucchini and mashed banana.

4. Divide the batter among the 12 muffin cups. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean. Let cool about 5-10 minutes, then remove from pan and eat!

Taco Pizza

If I cut anything into uniform pieces and hand Justin a fork, he'll usually at least try it. Still, I was shocked that he seemed to really like Taco pizza! It's SO simple, really yummy and pretty darn healthy!

1/2 of 1 package of Wegmans Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
1 diced red pepper
1 diced vidalia onion
1 20oz package "Jennie-O" seasoned lean ground turkey (Taco flavor)
8oz shredded mild cheddar cheese
1/2-1 cup taco sauce (your preference)
sour cream optional

*Preheat oven to 375.
*In a large skillet, saute turkey with the peppers and onions. Sometimes I'll stir in additional taco seasoning mix, just to make it more flavorful.
*Spread dough out. I didn't have a pizza pan so I shaped my pizza into a small enough circle to still fit on a cookie sheet.
*Spread taco sauce on dough
*Top with meat/pepper&onion mix.
*Top with shredded cheese
*Bake 15-17 minutes

*After it cools a few minutes, cut into slices. I put some sour cream in a baggie. Snip off one corner and gently squeeze out sour cream.

Zucchini Casserole!

I LOVE zucchini. I know I've said it before but it's just so good and so versatile. We have several zucchini the size of my arm in the garden so I knew it was time to get cracking with one of my favorites. Yes, it has a stick of butter & condensed soup but served as a side dish it does have lots of yummy nutrients. Growing up- my mom would make this with homemade croutons but it was really hot out and I was in a hurry. The dish is 90% zucchini. Jody & Justin both gave me the thumbs up.

Zucchini Casserole (adapted from allrecipes.com)

• 1 large cubed zucchini (mine came to about 4 cups of diced sized pieces) To prep the zucchini, make sure you peel it. Then I cut it in half length wise and scrape out any large seeds with a spoon.
  
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup grated carrots
• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 1 (6 ounce) package chicken-flavored dry bread stuffing mix

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Boil the zucchini and onion in water for 5 minutes; drain well. In a medium bowl, combine the soup, sour cream and carrots. Stir in the zucchini and onion and mix well.
3. In a separate medium bowl, combine the butter and stuffing mix. Spread half of this mixture into the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking dish. Spoon the zucchini mixture over the stuffing, then top off with the other half of the stuffing.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25 to 30 minutes, or until stuffing is golden brown.

Stuffed Peppers

On the night we have stuffed peppers I made Justin the "stand-by", Grilled Cheese. I was super surprised when he looked at my plate and said, "meat please?"Then gobbled up half my dinner. Now that I think back of it; stuffed peppers are a great meal. I picked the green peppers just minutes before I stuffed them from our garden so they were nice & sweet. The other ingredients; lean turkey, brown rice, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce... totally kid friendly! You'll noticed in my picture I cook them in individual ramekin mugs. That way I can give them a little "bed" of extra filling. *Tastes better than it looks, I promise*

Stuffed Peppers
2 or 3 large green bell peppers (depending on how full you stuff them)
1lb lean ground turkey (browned)
2 cups cooked brown rice
1/2 vidalia onion-diced.
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
1tbsp Worcestershire sauce

*Preheat Oven to 350
*Cut the tops off of the peppers to make a little "bowl".( I used any discarded pepper around the stem to cook with the onions)
*Place peppers in a pot of boiling water for 5 mins to soften- set to dry.
*In a skillet saute diced onion and any diced pepper until slightly soft.
*Add browned turkey and brown rice.
*Stir in 1/2 cup tomato sauce and Worch. sauce. salt & pepper to taste
*Add filling to peppers and top with the rest of the tomato sauce

*Bake for 1 hour at 350. With 15 minutes left, top peppers with shredded mozzarella!

Homemade tater tots

YUM! These were so good. I'm not going to lie, they were kind of a lot of work. Tater tots are a favorite of Justin & Jody right now so I think it was well worth it. Also, I added some cheese to the original recipe, as part of my "add-calcium-because-my-kid-hates-milk" cooking.

Recipe adapted from http://momsensenj.wordpress.com/

1 Large Potato, cut into approx 2 inch cubes
Salt

1/4 C shredded cheddar
1/2 Cup All-Purpose Flour
1 Egg, whisked
1 Cup homemade wheat breadcrumbs
Olive Oil Spray

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Boil the potatoes in salted water in a pot for 12-15 minutes or until fork tender.
3. Drain off all the water and cool the potatoes.
4. Using the side of a box grater, grate all of the potatoes into a bowl. (mine made about 1.5 cups shredded potatoes) Mix in shredded cheese
5. Place the flour, whisked egg and breadcrumbs in THREE separate bowls.
6. Take about 1 tbsp of the potato mixture and shape into “tater tots”.
7. Roll the tots into the flour, followed by the egg, then the panko bread crumbs, coating lightly.
8. Place onto a lined/greased cookie sheet and coat evenly with cooking spray.
9. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden.
10. Cool and serve.

10 minute Chicken Noodle Soup

We have a very busy weekend ahead of us so I wanted to prep some food for Justin in advance. Lately he's been searching through the cupboards and when I ask what he's looking for he says, "hmmmm soup?". I think he's had soup maybe 3x in his life and I haven't bought canned soup in years. He's such a goof!

I make this recipe in my small crockpot. If you have a large crockpot I'd double the recipe. I started the soup while Justin was eating breakfast and it was done by lunch. There was virtually no dishes and no time spent cooking. The crockpot does all the work. I maybe did 10 minutes of work... that's why I called the recipe 10 minute Chicken Noodle Soup...

*Place into your crockpot...
16oz low sodium chicken broth
10 baby carrots (sliced into disks)
1 large stalk of celery (sliced into disks)
1/4 small onion (optional)
3 boneless/skinless chicken breast tenders (you could use 1 lg breast, just cook it longer)
salt & pepper to taste (I also threw in a bay leaf, I like that flavor)

*Turn the crockpot to high and let it sit 2 hours.
*After 2 hours "fish" out your cooked chicken and shred it. Place it back into the broth.
*Add 1/2 C of small uncooked pasta to the soup. (I used Orzo)
*Stir & Cook on high for 1 more hour.

I got about 5-6 big cups of soup. It will depend on the size of the pasta and size of chicken tenderloins you use :)

BBQ nuggets

Every kid loves mashed potatoes! Every kid loves Mac & Cheese! Every kid loves milk!
Nope. Not mine. Justin doesn't really have "every kid" taste. That's why I decided to spice up his chicken nuggets! Also- it's so mom & dad could enjoy too. 3 ingredients... that's all! Plus these freeze, so well! I let them cool and threw the rest into a ziploc bag. The next day, 8 mins at 400*- perfect!

BBQ Chicken Nuggets
2 large chicken breast cut into chunks (or strips- you pick)
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
1 cup bread crumbs (once again used the ole' wheat roll into the food processor)

Preheat oven to 375. Dip chicken chunks in bread crumbs and then into bread crumbs. Place onto greased cooking sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes.
*If you want a golden color to the nuggets, I suggest using an Olive Oil spray to mist the nuggets before they do into the oven.