Thursday, March 29, 2012

Amazing Artichokes

One of the few vegetables all of our children love. We use a pressure cooker to get a tender texture. The children love to dip the artichoke leaves into a small, warm mixture of "butter" and lemon juice. While learning how to get to the heart of the artichoke is a bit cumbersome at first, it becomes very easy. Dividing the heart into smaller chunks with toothpicks placed into the chunks has been the only way I've been able to get the older children to eat the heart. They prefer to eat the fleshy end of the leaves.

Ingredients:
4 large artichokes (or fewer)
lemon juice
butter substitute such as Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread, Soy Free

Directions:
Remove stem of artichokes. (Some recipes have you cut off the tips of the leaves.) Place 2 or more, if they fit, in the pressure cooker with about an inch of water on the bottom of the cooker. Follow directions on pressure cooker on how to close lid and open when done cooking. Cook on high until pressure regulator starts to rock rapidly, reduce heat to a slow rock. Cook for 15 minutes. Once cooled, pull off smaller leaves at base of artichoke as they aren't very tasty. Then, eat with butter lemon juice dip. A teaspoon of buttery spread and a splash of lemon juice in each cup seems to be enough for each of us. We all share the leaves of the first 2 while the other 2 cook. This link has some good visual images of how to get to the heart of the artichoke (see step #3).

Ratings:
5/5 love it

Food Allergy/Intolerance Notes:
See Earth Balance for other butter spread options.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Black Bean Spread or Dip

While traditionally a dip, it is thick enough to use as a spread for sandwiches. My 4 and 6 year olds like it with tortilla chips. My 1 year old spoons it right out of the bowl or eats it on the Basic Bread Machine bread with mashed avocado. I love it on the bread or bagel with avocado slices and the remaining diced tomato on top. I add a splash of lemon juice to the mashed avocado to keep unused portions from turning brown. Then refrigerate unused portions of spread and avocados.


Ingredients:
2 cups cooked, drained black beans
3 tablespoons tomatoes, seeded (remove seeds, pulp) and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 pinch of cayenne pepper (to taste)

Directions:
Process all ingredients in blender or food processor until smooth. Serve or refrigerate.

Ratings:
5/5 like it (but 6 year old made sure I understood that she likes hummus better)

Food Allergy/Intolerance Notes:
If buying beans in bulk, I've found the bagged dry beans to contain information on other foods used at the processing facility. In my experience, the large bins of bulk have not contained this valuable information.

Friday, March 23, 2012

"I Love You" Hummus

There is no better way to describe how my family feels about our hummus recipe. My husband and I tweaked the recipe years ago into a taste we really like. It has been the consistent favorite among all our kids including our pickiest eater, our 6 year old. Now, with dairy, soy, nut and egg restrictions, it is our go to meal that gets cheers in our house. The older two love to take it in their school lunches with tortillas chips (we are big fans of Garden of Eatin' Yellow Corn Chips). Ethan, our 1 year old with food issues, loves it spread on his homemade bread since he cannot chew the chips well, yet. It is so easy to pull out the left overs and use them in an "I'm starving" moment. My husband and I love it on a tortilla with spinach leaves, pita bread with cucumbers or as a carrot dip. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
2 15-ounce cans or 3 1/2 cups cooked Garbanzo Beans, drained
1/4 cup Tahini
1/2 cup Olive Oil
1/4 cup Lemon Juice
2 tsp. Ancho Chili Powder (Paprika will do if you cannot find this item in your store)
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cumin seed, ground to powder*
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 T. garlic, crushed

Directions:
Place all ingredients in food processor. Blend until smooth. Serve or refrigerate.

*A dedicated coffee grinder for spices works really well. We like our Krups coffee grinder. We have one dedicated to cumin and another for other spices as we've found we use a lot of cumin.

Ratings:
5/5 family members love it

Food Allergy Information:
We searched for a tortilla chip that is organic, not processed in a facility that does dairy, soy, nuts or eggs. We found a few companies but the Garden of Eatin' chips are our favorite. It was difficult to find a wheat tortilla that is "Ethan safe". We finally had to switch to corn tortillas which aren't as yummy with the hummus (so we do pita bread more now). A great corn tortilla is Food for Life's Sprouted Corn Tortillas. Ethan is not able to chew them yet but the rest of us really like them.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Basic Bread Machine Bread


For my first post, making a basic bread seems appropriate. We love the simplicity of our Zojirushi bread machine. A bread slicing guide is a must have. Once the bread is cooled, slice and place into a container. After our first loaf of bread a few years ago, we scavenged our kitchen for a suitable container. We found our infrequently used cake container flipped upside down worked great. Still using it almost 4 years later!

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F)
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast or 2 and 1/4 teaspoons
1/4 cup expeller pressed canola oil or olive oil
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Directions:
Place warm water, sugar, yeast in bread machine pan. Let yeast dissolve and foam for 10 minutes. Add oil, flour and salt to yeast. Select Whole Wheat setting, and press start.

Ratings:
5 out of 5 family members like it

Allergy/Intolerance background:
After reactions to dairy-free (e.g,. sour dough) bakery and restaurant bread, we had to make our own bread to ensure that no dairy products touched the bread our child ate. We quickly discovered our child cannot tolerate any foods made in facilities that also process dairy. Read the labels closely if choosing store bought products.