Mexican Tortilla Bake

Last nights Meatless Monday was a hit! I was totally surprised how much Sophia loved the dinner I made. Ive been slacking with my recipes (and my posts), so stumbling upon this gem was a big surprise! I actually had the recipe stored away for a while in my trusty little marble copy book. I really need to use that book more often! This was one of the simplest recipes I have made in a long while.

• 2 cups frozen corn, thawed
• 1/3 cup sliced green onion
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 4.5oz can chopped chiles
• (4) 6 inch tortillas
• 1 1/2 cups reduced fat cheddar or Mexican blend cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 400. Combine first 7 ingredients in a bowl. Place 2 tortillas in an 11"x7" greased baking dish. Spoon half the corn mixture over the tortillas followed by half the cheese. Repeat with another layer of tortillas, corn mixture, and cheese. Bake 15 minutes. Let stand 2 minutes before cutting. Top with 1 Tbsp sour cream if desired.

I was a bit nervous serving this to Sophia. I decided to leave the chiles out to eliminate the spice for her. She goes back and forth on whether she likes beans. Last night she decided that she did in fact like them. After eating her entire plate and asking for some of mine, she specifically requested that I send it to school for her lunch. I had thought the recipe was going to make way too much, but between the two of us having dinner and the next days lunch out of it, it managed to be the perfect amount. I still have a little leftover in my fridge to send to school with Sophia tomorrow. Even her teachers were raving about the lunch she brought to school today. Miss Amy, the woman who runs Sophia's PreK actually commented on my facebook page that Sophia's lunch looked and smelled amazing. I can't even lie, the compliments from her teachers is what made me want to rush and share the recipe on the blog.

I will definitely be making this recipe again. I cant wait until the peak of summer when I can try to use some fresh corn and tomatoes. I have also thought about using some refried beans under the layers of the corn mixture. Refried beans are one of my favorite Mexican ingredients! I found a simple crock pot recipe to make them fresh instead of from a can. Apparently the canned refried beans are not entirely horrible either. If you pay attention to the ingredients list, you will be able to find some that only list the beans. One ingredient products are the best! I wonder if I can make some whenever beans are on sale and then can them myself....hmmm....

Oh! I saved the best for last. This recipe is a weight watchers recipe. I don't know how many points it is considered, but it is only 221 calories per serving!

Quinoa Breakfast Bake

Good morning! Happy St. Patrick's Day! While I should be posting some sort of ham or corned beef and cabbage recipe today, unfortunately I will not have the chance to make that this year. Last year I did ham and cabbage in my pressure cooker and it came out awesome! This year I have a birthday party to go to and then I am lucky enough to have a babysitter so I can go act out my Irish with my girlfriends.

This morning for breakfast, I am eating a quinoa bake. Quinoa is one of my new found healthy foods. I have been experimenting with it a little lately. I found the recipe for a quinoa bake online somewhere, and it is super simple. I love that it takes a side dish from dinner earlier in the week and turns it into a protein packed power breakfast.

What the heck is this quinoa anyway? First, I can bet you are saying the word wrong in your head as you read this. I did for weeks! Quinoa is not pronounced phonetically. KEEN-wa. I feel funny saying it sometimes, but there you have it. Quinoa is a reminiscent to a grain, but it is completely gluten free. It is actually more closely related to spinach and Swiss chard. It is one of the few (if not only) plant based foods that can be considered a complete protein, meaning it includes all the essential amino acids. Quinoa is a good choice for people considering going vegetarian but are nervous about lacking protein in their diet. It was considered the "gold of the Incas", because the tribe recognized its value in raising the stamina of its warriors. It is now known this is due to the large dose of the amino acid lysine, which is helpful in the healing and recovery of tissues. There are so many more benefits to this tiny crunchy little seed like kernel. Consumption of quinoa can help with migraines, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.

With that all said, it is pretty tasty if prepared right. The basic prep of quinoa is simple. For how ever many cups of raw quinoa you are cooking, use half that amount of water. Boil the water with the quinoa and then cover and simmer for 15 minutes until the water has absorbed. It cooks pretty much like rice, but in half the time! There are so many ways to change up this basic recipe. This week I switched out my water for vegetable broth and tossed in some diced up broccoli. The possibilities are endless. Plus you can find so many recipes for quinoa if you just look. Start with substituting it in any recipe that calls for rice. I used it in my stuffed tomatoes and I don't think I will ever go back to using rice for that one.

So back to breakfast. I basically made myself a baked omelet. I love doing this with eggs, because it does not have to be flipped or babysat at all. I used 2 egg whites and 1 full egg. This was a tip given to me by a friend who recently lost a lot of weight. Sometimes egg whites just don't hold up to the fillings of an omelet, so adding just one full egg will give you a little extra sustenance. I diced up half a tomato and used about half a cup of leftover quinoa. Beat it all together and popped it in the oven for about 20 minutes. Voila! A nice healthy (meatless) breakfast. This is one of my favorite breakfasts to make on the weekends. It is so simple and delicious. I don't notice the quinoa in the eggs very much when eating, it just gives the omelet a nice airy texture with all those added health benefits.

Cranberry Roast

Remember that copybook where I write down all my recipes? I kind of abandoned it ever since I started up with Pinterest. I have found so many recipes on that site that I can save to my boards and revisit over and over again. This is lovely since saves my hand from writing out any recipe I find before they wind up lost to the deep sea that is the Internet. The only pitfall I see is now I must bring my laptop into the kitchen and work from the website (I do not own a printer and if I did, why would I want to waste that paper?). While I am grateful I have a laptop and not a desktop which allows this to be possible, I'm completely paranoid that I will get food and water all over the laptop and ruin it. I don't mind getting splatters on the copybook. In fact, I kinda like it. I think it gives the book character. Anyway, since Ive been on Pinterest, the copybook has found a home buried in a drawer. This weekend I decided to make banana bread so I had to pull it out to get the exact recipe. I am so glad I did, because in doing so I started browsing through recipes I have forgotten about over the past few months. I found the simplest recipe for a pork roast. Growing up, my mothers crock pot was use mainly for cooking a roast. I thought the main way you could do this was to toss some carrots, onions, and celery in with the meat and let it cook. While this is a delicious method of cooking meat, there are many more options.

• 2-3 lb pork roast
• 2 cans cranberry sauce
• 1 packet onion soup mix

In a bowl, stir the onion soup mix and cranberry sauce together. Place roast in crock pot and pour mixture on top. Cook on low for approximately 8 hours.

So, my roast cooked for a little longer than 8 hours. Probably closer to 9 since I set it up before work to have ready when I got home. As soon as Sophia and I walked in, we could smell something delicious was happening. She was cracking me up! "Mommy! Something smells soooo good!" Then kept taking deep breaths in through her nose and said, "Oh man, I can't stop smelling it!" and continued to take big deep breaths. She really is too cute sometimes!

I didn't know what I should expect with the cranberry/onion mix. The flavor wound up being close to a BBQ taste, but with texture. The natural juices from the roast mixed with the sauce and gave it a very yummy flavor. I used the "whole cranberry" can, not the gel, so I don't know if the sauce would be too thin if you only used the gel. I am excited to try this with some fresh cranberry sauce. Hopefully I will remember at Thanksgiving time so I can make extra cranberry sauce specifically for this.

Its a good thing we liked this roast recipe. I made this on Tuesday and we have been eating it ever since. I think tonight we will finish the last of the pork and make sandwiches to eat in the car on the way to dance. Dance days are so hard on our diet. I am so bad at planning properly in order to avoid the drive thru. I don't know what I will do next year when Sophia's schedule gets busier with an extra night of dance and hopefully starting Girl Scouts. There has to be a way to keep the sanctity of family dinner and healthy eating while having the kids active and involved. It would really probably help if I had a two parent household...