Lunch Roundup #12

This week's lunch Whole Spelt Pretzels, cheese stick,

hard boiled egg, snap peas, pineapple, chocolate 

Daughter # 2 wanted pretzels this week, so I took it as an opportunity to try them with Whole Spelt Flour. Spelt is not gluten-free but has much lower amounts  of it. It works well in some recipes but not so well in others as the lower gluten content changes the composition. 

I used the same pretzel recipe as before and just replaced the whole wheat flour with whole spelt flour. They turned out good, but a bit breadier or puffier than the whole wheat ones - a bit closer to pretzel bread rather than pretzel. I actually made both and the family seemed to like the spelt ones better as the bag emptied first. 

Whole Spelt Pretzels

3 cups whole spelt flour (more if needed)
1 package fast rise yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup very warm water (125 to 130 degrees F)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon honey

4 tbs baking soda

1 egg yolk, slightly beaten
coarse salt 

1. In a stand mixer or food processor combine 2 cups flour, package of yeat, and salt. Mix and set aside. 

2. In a medium bowl add warmed water, and oil. 

3. Pour liquid into the flour mixture, plus add the honey. Mix well. 

4. Add remaining flour to turn into a dough - you may need to add more if sticky.

5. On a lightly floured surface, knead dough for 5 minutes. 

6. Let sit in a large oiled bowl, covered,  for 10 minutes to rise. 

Boiling

7. In a large pot or large skillet fill with 3 inches water plus baking soda. Bring to a boil.

Rolling.

8. Punch down the dough and divide into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a long snake (coil) about 10-12  inches long and wrap into a pretzel shape. Press the ends into the dough. 

9. Plop each pretzel into the boiling soda water for 30 seconds. Remove with a large slotted spoon and place on a well greased cookie sheet. 

10. Combine an egg white with a tbs of water and whip. 

11. Brush pretzels with egg yolk and sprinkle with salt. 

12. Bake at 400 degrees until Dark brown (like a pretzel). 

Make sure you let them cool all the way before storing. 

Crab and Spinach Egg Muffins

My husband brought me a vintage Betty Crocker cookbook called Dinner in a Dish circa 1965. In it is a recipe that combines a cream sauce with crab, veggies, egg and the spice mace. Mace is like a strong nutmeg. I thought the flavor would go really nicely with the sweet crab and an egg quiche instead of a dripping cream sauce that won't freeze well. 

I just love the cover and the graphics inside. I may have to spend my garage saling this summer looking for old cookbooks.

Crab and Spinach Egg Muffins

1/2 cup millet

1 tbs butter

8 oz fresh spinach cut into small strips. 

1/2 onion diced

4 eggs

1/4 cup light cream (or add 1/4 cup milk)

1 cup milk

1 tsp orange zest

1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice 

1 tsp mace

1. Cook your millet by dropping it in 1 1/2 cups boiling water. Turn down the heat to simmer for 30 - 40 mintues or until the water is soaked up by the grain. 

2. In a large pot add butter and melt on medium heat. Add in chopped onions and cook for 2 minutes. Add in spinach and wilt. Set aside. 

3. In a large bowl add 4 eggs, milk, cream, orange juice and mix with an electric mixer. Add in mace, zest, millet, sinach mixture, and chopped up cooked crab meat. 

4. Scoop into a heavily greased muffin pan - the cups almost full. 

5. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. 

Vending Machine - Art

Instead of a lunch roundup this week I'll share my new piece of art. If only the grocery stores had healthy foods in the vending machines? the kids would ignore them and the adults would be scrounging for quarters.

8" x 10" Colored Pencil on Board

Zombie 5k Boston 2012

I did not cook any Mealpods this weekend, the freezer was full and I was... being chased by zombies. 

My friend and I ran the Boston area Run For Your Lives Zombie 5K. It had rained the day before so the track was muddier than I think they meant for it to be. The run started with a park ski hill: the runners had to climb up the foggy hill but the Zombies were brought up on the conveyor belt. I guess that is only fair. You can see me in the middle in red and my friend just behind me. 

We don't really have any pictures from the race except for the first foggy one because the whole course was on top of the hill - in a field and then in the woods - and spectators could not watch. Amazingly there were quite a few people with those waterproof headcams on during the race and I found a good video on YouTube. It was so muddy most people came in over an hour for the 5K because you had to shuffle through the slippery mud for a good portion of the race.

Youtube video by stealthbaz

My favorite parts of the race was the field at the beginning where you had to try and sprint past the zombies. When it was too muddy you were more afraid of losing a shoe than a flag. If you are not familiar with the Runforyourlives race, you get a flag belt with 3 flags and you have to run through the 5K obstacle course and past zombies. The zombies try to get your flags and if you make it to the end with at last one flag - you have survived and get bragging rights. I died... so I am officially part of the undead. I did enjoy trying to block my friend's flags after I lost all of mine and stare down the zombies. It didn't last that long though before I couldn't wedge my body between a rather aggressive zombie who ignored my undead self. I must have stunk of decay already and did not smell like food. 

The race is going to be in a bunch of other cities as well. If you would like to do it but are nervous about some of the obstacles I would encourage you to go anyway. You can go around any you would like to and no one really cares. 

BEFORE

AFTER

After (after a little cleanup)

Lunch Roundup #11

This week's lunch: Concha Roll, Grilled Chicken, Snap Peas, Strawberries and Pineapple. 

Okay this might not be the most nutritious lunch. I made Mexican Concha rolls for my art class for Cinco de Mayo so I had to make them for my kids as well. Conchas are a sweet bread roll (like Portuguese bread) but topped with a sugar/flour/butter mixture. When we used to go to Mexico when I was younger, (& lived in Arizona) these rolls were in all the bakeries we went to. The bread is light and fluffy and the topping sugary and crumbly. They are called conchas because the designs bakers put on them resemble seashells. They use a metal stamp to stamp the design into the dough. I of course did not have one of these tools so I ended up using an apple slicer/corer which made more of a sun design on top of the rolls. The crumbly dough should have covered the whole roll, but the recipe I used did not make enough, so I had to skimp on each one. Oh well. 

Here's a tiny history of the conchas rolls also called Pan Dulce. Apparently the tradition of baking sweet breads was kept from the French Conquerors who were the very ones fought in the Battle on May 5th 1862. 

This is the recipe I used. http://www.food.com/recipe/conchas-mexican-sweet-topped-buns-119586 

from food.com. I followed it exactly, but I would make extra of the topping. I ran out and it is better to have too much than too little. It calls for scalded milk which I had never needed before so I looked it up and you just have to heat up your milk right to the tip of boiling on med/med high heat while stirring constantly. The recipe says to let it cool which I took as just a couple of minutes in the fridge to get the high heat out of it. It was still warm when I used it. The recipe takes 3 hours total but it is not hard: the rolls just need to rise twice. 

I also watched some videos including this one that really showed the texture needed on the cookie topping. It also shows the stamps they use for the designs, but like I said, I used an apple slicer and it worked pretty well! 

I would have like to add some tortillas into their lunch to eat the chicken in, but I felt like the extra large sweet bread roll took up the whole grain percentage (and then some) of the meal. 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Marinated Steak Tacos - Cinco de Mayo

It is Cinco de Mayo Friday so we are having Mexican food week. I actually do a unit on Mexico at school with my fourth grade art class and at the end we celebrate Cinco de Mayo by making our own tortillas in class. I can't wait for that tomorrow (I don't work on Fridays so we have to do it early). I put a link below to how to make your own tortillas too because once you make them yourself you will never want store bought ones again. 

At home, I could eat Mexican food every day. I really wanted to make my own tamales but I could not find any local corn husks, so I will have to do that another time and order the corn husks online. There are not many Mexican markets in New Hampshire!  I decided to make a marinated steak taco instead. The recipe is from this Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications   - simply titled Mexican. I think this might be the same one on Amazon but the cover is different. It is FULL of great authentic Mexican recipes and little facts. I have been drooling over it for months and it was past time to try something from it. This recipe calls for flank steak, which is not my favorite, so I opted for a round steak that was sliced thin. You can use either. 

Marinated Steak Tacos 

• 2 pounds thinly sliced steak round or skirt/flank steak
• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime juice
• 2 tbs canola oil
• 2 ts chilli powder
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 1 tsp salt
• 12 corn homemade tortillas

1. Trim fat from meat. Make sure your meat is extra thin (about 1/4" thick) and tenderize with a meat cleaver  until it is. 

2. Cut the meat into thin strips (about 2 inches wide) and put into a gallon sized ziploc bag. 

3. In a medium sized bowl combine the rest of the ingredients for the marinade: lime juice, canola oil, chili powder, minced garlic, and salt. Pour over the steak in the bag, zip it shut, and make sure the marinade coats all the meat. 

4. Place the bag in the fridge for 60-90 minutes.

5. Grill the meat over a charcoal grill or an electric indoor grill (like I did). 

Enjoy in a homeade corn tortilla (Mealpod Recipe), with Mexican Rice, Roasted Corn, and a little sour cream. 

I actually cheated on my Mexican rice since I was already making tortillas and the steak (you can't make everything the right way), by combining 2 cups rice cooked in a rice cooker, a half a jar of my favorite salsa - Green Mountain Salsa - and a bit of garlic to lessen the acidity of the salsa. It comes out mooshy instead of fluffy like when you do Mexican rice the right way, but it works! Check out the ingredients on the Green Mountain Salsa: 

INGREDIENTS: Ripe Tomatoes, Fresh Onions, Fresh Tomatillos, Fresh Pasilla Peppers, Fresh Jalapeño Peppers, Fresh Cilantro, Apple Cider Vinegar, Fresh Parsley, Fresh Garlic, Sea Salt, Spices

ALL OF OUR PRODUCTS ARE: All Natural, No Preservatives or artificial colors or flavors. Gluten Free, Cholesterol Free, No GMO's (Genetically modified produce).

That is what a food label should look like! This stuff TASTES AMAZING too  and they actually sell it online by the case, which my Mom did buy one year and passed it out to her friends back home. 

To make the tacos into a frozen Mealpod (after devouring several fresh) I mixed the rice and corn together and put it in the bottom of a Mealpod foil packet (simply a sheet of heavy duty foil) and placed two strips of steak on top. 

Other Mealpod recipes celebrating Mexican food:

Tamale Pie

Gluten-free Mexican Casserole 

Tasty Turkey Chili

Spicy Sweet Potato and Sausage Burrito filling

Taco Cups

Lunch Roundup #10

Pretzel-dog carrots, string cheese, strawberries and watermelon. 

Lunch Roundup # 10! For people new to our blog, and especially our new Paleo followers, this blog is written by my sister Melissa and I. Melissa is the Paleo poster, and while I try to not eat to eat too many grains in a week/day, my family and I don't follow Paleo. I will often make Paleo like meals and gluten-free ones mainly because I think the American diet has too many excuses to eat breads and grains, but my school lunch roundup usually has some sort of whole grain in it. 

I had to try my hand at making real pretzels (instead of breadsticks that resemble pretzels like last time). The difference is just boiling them for 30 seconds in water and baking soda, which seemed scarier than it ended up being. For the lunches I wrapped the dough around chicken sausage to make pretzel-dogs and with the rest of the dough I experimented with different shapes and sizes of pretzels. 

There are so many recipes on the web for pretzels to choose from. I used this recipe  from cdkitchen  that uses half whole wheat flour, and a bit of honey and they turned out great. 

For the dogs I used the recipe above (because I wanted a whole wheat recipe) but followed the directions on Joy The Baker for how to wrap the sausages. I started with cutting my sausage in half and rolling a long snake of dough around the sausage making sure that the seams get pressed closed. Take a look at Joy the Baker's post to see how that is done.  Getting it water tight is important because after you put the dough on them, they will need to be boiled for 30 seconds in a bath of water and baking soda. I used a large skillet filled with water as high as it could go without spilling when boiled, and added 4 tbs baking soda. Then I put the wrapped dog in the boiling water for 30 seconds on each side since it was not fully immersed. 

After boiling them, place them on a greased cookie sheet and brush them with egg yolk and water. Sprinkle with salt. Bake at 400 until they get a nice dark pretzel color. You will be tempted to take them out early - but don't! Wait until they LOOK like a pretzel! Believe me I took way too many out too soon including the one in the photo. The ones where I forgot about them in the oven (oops) turned out the best!

The pretzel dogs have about 200 calories, 2 g fiber,3 g fat from my estimation on Livestrong.com 

We did make plain pretzels too for a snack and I will be doing them again soon with some spelt flour expeiments!