Saturday, July 14, 2012

Spicy Roasted Eggplant with Tomatoes and Cilantro

Yummly.com is a great website if you have not yet discovered it.  You can just type ingredients and it gives you recipes with those ingredients.  Have some stuff at home, but don't know what to make with it?  Just type it into Yummly and you'll have multiple options! 

That is how I found this recipe for spicy roasted eggplant with tomatoes and cilantro- http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Spicy-Roasted-Eggplant-With-Tomatoes-And-Cilantro-Epicurious

I was planning to make a Middle Eastern dish for an Iraqi family I know around Christmas time, but I ended up getting sick and not being able to.  Now I had eggplant, tomatoes, cilantro, & onions, but didn't want to make a difficult meal...so what could I do with them before they went bad?  I took them with me to my mom's house where I was going for Christmas break and put the ingredients into yummly and found this great recipe that I made when my brother and sis-in-law got there.

Full recipe is in the link- here's an overview:

Roast the eggplant.
Mash the pulp.
Saute onions.
Add 3 Tbsp ginger.
Add chopped tomatoes, cumin, paprika, coriander, & cayenne pepper.
Add eggplant & stir until thickened.
Remove from heat and stir in fresh cilantro.
Serve over rice (at least that's what I did).

If you follow the recipe, this is a spicy dish!  It would be easy to adjust your seasoning amounts to make it less spicy (or more) to your tastes though.


Monday, July 9, 2012

Smoothies

I love making smoothies.  Very tasty and a great way to get a lot of good stuff in you without even realizing it!  I don't have a regular protocol for my smoothies, it really just depends on what I have and/or what I remember to put in them.  I try to add spinach to all smoothies if I have it (very healthy and I promise you don't even notice) and flax seed.  I cut a bunch of bananas in half and have them frozen that I use sometimes (my bananas were always going brown before I used them all so I really like this!).  Sometimes I use a mixture of fruit and sometimes just one fruit.

This smoothie had 1/2 cup spinach, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup black raspberries, 1/2 cup milk, 1 Tbsp flax seed, 1 Tbsp almond butter, 1 Tbsp honey, and 1/2 cup ice.  This was good but for my own taste preference I prefer a little less almond butter.  This is when I was counting weight watchers points so that's why I have measurements for everything.  Usually now I don't measure.


This smoothie was simply strawberries, milk, flax seed, almond butter, honey, and ice.

Like I said, my smoothies just depend on what I have at the moment and what I remember to put in them.  These are the only ones I have pics of but I've also used mangos, blueberries, the frozen bananas, red raspberries, peaches, etc.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Parfait

Got this general idea from the Simple Foods for Busy Families book as well.  I use plain greek yogurt and from there the ingredients vary.
This one included honey, cereal flakes, almond slices, flax seed, sunflower seeds, and tangelos.


This one has vanilla extract, honey, cereal flakes, almond slices, walnuts, pecans, banana chips, and raspberries.