Delicious Tilapia Scampi

We picked our first garden fresh tomato today! It was beautiful. With great self-control and sacrifice I let my four-year-old have it. :) He loved it. The corn is "as high as an elephant's eye." Well maybe not quite, but it's taller than me! It will be ripe in a few days here I hope! We are looking forward to it with great anticipation. We planted our second crop of peas a few weeks ago and the plants are just starting to pop up. We are getting cucumbers, a few peppers, beans, a few summer squash, carrots and plenty of chard. Too much actually. We can't keep on top of it. I froze a bunch of it today just so it wouldn't get too big. I'll blend it up and put it in sauces or other dishes. Speaking of dishes, here's another wonderful summer dish for you. Fish is great for summer because it's light and tasty! Enjoy.

Baked Tilapia (or Shrimp) Scampi

Printable Recipe

*Serves 3-4

*One of our favorite ways to eat  veggies!

INGREDIENTS:

5 tilapia filets (or 1 lb. small cooked shrimp)

1-2 Cups chopped up fresh vegetables (bell pepper, banana peppers, yellow summer squash, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, or your choice!)

1/2 Cup butter, melted (or olive oil)

Garlic salt

Lemon Pepper seasoning

Parsley (fresh, chopped or dried)

DIRECTIONS:

Place Tilapia and vegetables in 9x13 baking dish. Pour melted butter on top. Sprinkle with seasonings as desired. Bake 375 F for 30-45 mins or until fish and vegetables are tender. Serve over rice with a side of fruit salad. Mmm....delicious!

Recipe Source: healthyfamilycookin.blogspot.com

Read More

The Taste of Summer

I don't know about you, but I love to eat light foods in the summer. We love to grow a garden and eat the vegetables from it all summer long. Our garden is just starting to produce the summer vegetables. We've had a few summer squash and zucchini, a couple of cucumbers, some beans and plenty of fresh chard. Usually the chard is the hardest to stay on top of in the summer. When it's not regularly picked, it grows large and tastes rather bitter. I know a lot of people love fresh chard cooked with butter and salt on it. We actually prefer it raw and we use it exclusively in our salads in the summer (when the spinach and leaf lettuce has gone to seed). The nice thing about swiss chard is that it will produce even in the heat of summer. It's a great vegetable to grow and very healthy! As long as it's kept young and tender chard is a great substitute for spinach in salad recipes. Here's a delicious recipe with chard that I adapted from this recipe I found.

Spinach or Chard Rice Salad

1/2 cup Italian salad dressing (I used half of a package of dry Italian dressing and the ingredients to make it)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sugar

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 large green bell pepper*

4 green onions, thinly sliced

2 cups thinly sliced fresh spinach

5 bacon strips, cooked crisp and crumbled (optional - I didn't use)

*This recipe would also be very good with other vegetables. A few ideas are: sugar snap peas, red bell pepper, celery or olives.

We had this for dinner tonight with crescent rolls and fruit salad. Yum! The taste of summer really doesn't get much better than that! Here's the crescent roll recipe I adapted it from this blog recipe - these were AMAZING! Mine didn't poof up as much as hers probably because I got impatient and didn't let them rise quite as long, but they were still really really good.

Crescent Rolls
(makes 2 cookie sheets, 48 rolls, 24 on each pan)

4 T. yeast
½ c. + 2 T. warm Water
6 eggs
1 c. oil
1 c. sugar
2 c. warm milk (not scalding)
2 T. salt
4 C. of wonder flour
4 Tbsp. of Gluten flour

Mix together in large bosch mixer (I halved this recipe for my compact Bosch) and add:

6-7 c. white flour a cup at a time until dough pulls away from sides of bowl

Continue to mix/knead for 5 minutes on med-high speed. Allow to raise 2-3 hours.

Separate dough into 6 even balls. Roll out each ball until the size of a dinner plate on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 8 pizza wedge slices. With each wedge, roll down ward wrapping bottom skinny bottom piece down and around to make pretty crescent shape. Place 3 rolls across and 8 down, 24 on each cookie sheet.

Allow to double in size while covered with clean dish towel (about 15 minutes). While raising on top of oven, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake one sheet at a time. Bake 6 minutes on bottom rack and then 5 minutes on middle shelf until light golden brown. (Before you take them out, double check the bottom to make sure they are golden brown, not too light they could be doughy). Once they are perfectly golden brown, brush tops with melted butter once removed.

Read More

Baked Ziti (Out of this World!!)

This recipe is definitely going on our family's list of favorites. I adapted it from a recipe on the back of a hunt's spaghetti sauce can. It is so delicious. To use a phrase from Mary Poppins, "Practically perfect in every way!" I hope your family enjoys it as much as ours did!

Baked Ziti

1/2 lb. Italian Sausage (it has to be Italian flavored - it makes a HUGE difference)
1/4 C. TVP (textured vegetable protein) soaked in water for 10 min and drained*
1/2 -1 C. Chopped vegetables of your choice (yellow squash, zucchini, etc.), optional
3 C. Spaghetti Sauce (I used a 26 oz. can of Hunts chunky vegetable sauce since I was in too big of a hurry to make my own)
1 Alfredo Sauce Seasoning package and ingredients for the sauce (or use 1 C. prepared Alfredo sauce)
1 C. Pureed Hubbard or Pumpkin Squash
16 oz. Pkg. Ziti or Penne
3 C. Mozzarella Cheese, divided

Preheat oven to 425 F. Brown Sausage. Meanwhile cook pasta according to package directions (until just barely done) and drain. Add TVP to sausage. Then add chopped vegetables and cook until tender. Turn off heat and add spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce, pureed squash and 1/2 the mozzarella cheese. Dump noodles into 9x13" dish and pour sauce mixture over and mix together. Sprinkle with the rest of the cheese. Bake 10 min.

*As a variation, you can use a cup or two of your favorite cooked grain (brown rice, quinoa, etc.)

Read More

Awesome Yellow Squash Muffins

We made these wonderful squash muffins with some squash that our neighbors gave us. I LOVE THIS RECIPE!! They are sooo good. And they are whole-grain! I like them even better when they've cooled down, but Brandon prefers them hot out of the oven. The only problem with this recipe is that you have to heat up the oven in the middle of the summer, but believe me, it's worth it! We doubled this recipe for the muffins we made today.

Yellow Squash Muffins

Printable Recipe

*Makes 1 dozen muffins

*Note: You can use ¼ Cup applesauce in place of half of the butter in this recipe if you want to cut the fat. They are still good, but you will notice a difference.

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound yellow summer squash, cut up
½ Cup butter, melted
1 egg
1-½ Cup wonder flour
½ Cup sugar or honey
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt

DIRECTIONS:
In a medium saucepan, bring the cut up yellow squash to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain the squash and puree in blender. Add the butter, honey (if using) and egg to blender and mix for a few seconds.

In a medium sized bowl, mix together the flour, sugar (if using), baking powder, and salt. Stir in the squash mixture. Fill greased muffin cups ¾ full and bake at 375° for 20 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

*These muffins can be frozen and reheated.

Recipe Source: adapted from Friend Magazine

Read More

Freezer Bag Meals

Hurray! It's camping and hiking season! I found a great site last summer for some freezer bag recipes that you can make before at home that are quick and tasty while you're backpacking or camping. This site is really informative and has lots of recipes that are pretty tasty! Hope you enjoy it as much as we have!!

http://www.trailcooking.com/

Read More