Spa Water

If you want to believe in all the wishy washy health nut stuff then this spa water is suppose to help jump start your metabolism. I am a skeptic but thought that it might be a nice change from regular water. It does have an interesting taste, heavier on the cinnamon than the apple and it hits you more at the end. The verdict: a different way to consume your water and a great way to use up that apple that was a tad on the soft side!

Apple Cinnamon Spa Water

(Pinterest Find!)

Ingredients:

1 cinnamon stick (I snapped mine in two)

1 apple, sliced thinly

Directions:

1. Add apple and cinnamon stick to pitcher. Add some ice and fill with water. Chill at least 10 minutes before serving.

We continue our detox day with a hummus platter! Mr. Lawyer had to put in a couple of hours of work this afternoon so I figured this hummus platter was in order. It was perfect and allowed us to graze at our leisure. I used my fool proof pita chip recipe and cleaned out the fridge of random veggies (which is why there isn't a ton of each item). Good deal.

Pita Pita!

I made homemade pitas yesterday. There's been a recipe floating around on pinterest so I decided to give it a go. I'm not completely sold. Maybe I needed to roll them out a little more or my expectations were too high (we live next to the best pitas in Philly). They were good but more of a pita-english muffin cross. It was fun watching them puff up as they bake. There are some other recipes out there that tweak the ingredients that I might try out. 

Homemade Pitas

(found on Pinterest, from Under the High Chair)

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon yeast
1 ¼ cup warm water
1 teaspoon salt
3- 3 ½ cups flour
Directions:
1. Dissolve yeast in water for about 5 minutes in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add salt and 1 ½ cups flour and with the dough hook, beat to make a batter. Add additional flour until a rough, shaggy mass is formed. Knead 8 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Add more flour if it is too sticky.
2. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into six pieces for large pitas or ten for smaller. I make all sorts of sizes to suit different snacks and meals. Form dough into balls, then flatten with a rolling pin into ¼ inch thick discs. Try and keep an even thickness as this is what helps them ‘puff’.
3. Let rest on the floured surface 30-40 minutes until slightly puffed.
4. Preheat oven to 425F. With a large spatula, flip the rounds of dough upside down on to a baking sheet. Bake 10-15 minutes until light golden. Stick around for the first five minutes of baking when the pitas perform their magic and puff up from flat pancakes to proud, four inch high pitas.

Broccoli Candy

This is what 20 bucks gets you at the Market.

And the only reason it was that high was due to the stupid 6.99 Cuties.

We have been eating a ton of fruits and veggies this week but that is for another post! This post is for that huge one dollar bag of broccoli in the upper right hand corner. Half of it went into our Spicy Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry and I needed to use up the rest of it. We're going to a friend's school fund raiser tonight so I figured we'd be munching on some less than healthy food, this inspired me to make a super healthy lunch snack: roasted broccoli! Throw in the fact that it was an Alton Brown recipe (who the Mr. Lawyer has a huge man crush on) and we may have been fighting over the last pieces. Who ever thought we'd be fighting over broccoli?!

It was like broccoli candy: a little bit sweet, a little bit salty. The panko added a nice little crunch. I even shaved a few calories off and didn't use the whole amount of cheese. After about 1/8 cup everything looked pretty coated so I stopped adding it. I served it up with some whole wheat pitas from Feders.

Oven Roasted Broccoli

(from Alton Brown, Food Network)

Ingredients:
1 pound broccoli, rinsed and trimmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan or sharp Cheddar
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Cut the broccoli florets into bite size pieces. Cut the stalk into 1/8-inch thick, round slices. Place the broccoli into a mixing bowl and toss with the olive oil, garlic, kosher salt and pepper and set aside.
3. Spread the panko into a 13 by 9-inch metal cake pan and place into the oven for 2 minutes or until lightly toasted. Remove the panko from the oven and add to the bowl with the broccoli mixture. Toss to combine. Return the mixture to the cake pan, place in the oven and roast just until the broccoli is tender, 8 to 10 more minutes.

4. Remove from the oven, toss in the cheese and serve immediately.

Bits and Pitas

A word about pitas: love. Fresh pitas are amazing for anything. Like homemade pita chips and delicious mini pizzas and let's not forget sandwiches! Which leads us to jalapenos. Have you ever added jalapenos to your tuna fish sandwich which just happens to be on a fresh out of the oven pita and layered with Cabot seriously sharp cheese? Heaven. 

Holy Guacamole!

I was all Iron Chef making this guacamole and was whacking the avocado seeds with a big knife and yanking them out. It was exciting. I did not make the salsa but I did make some Pita Chips! Which are highly addicting and delicious with everything, especially guacamole. Seeing as how there is no guacamole left I will definitely be making this recipe again.

Guacamole

(Alton Brown, Food Network)

Ingredients:
3 Haas avocados, halved, seeded and peeled
1 lime, juiced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro (omitted because I didn't have any)
1 clove garlic, minced
Directions:
1. In a large bowl place the scooped avocado pulp and lime juice, toss to coat. Drain, and reserve the lime juice, after all of the avocados have been coated. 

2. Using a potato masher add the salt, cumin, and cayenne and mash. 

3. Then, fold in the onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and garlic. Add 1 tablespoon of the reserved lime juice. 

4. Let sit at room temperature for 1 hour and then serve.

Meatless Saturday!

All of my food magazines (of which there are entirely too many) tell me that I should strive for at least one meatless day in order to reduce my carbon footprint and be a sustainable individual. During the week breakfast and lunch are normally not a problem for me. But living with a boy makes a meatless dinner pretty hard. Today we succeed!
Feder's (our neighborhood farmer's market/specialty store) has an amazing mushroom salad but I wasn't about to pay five bucks for a small container. So I hunted down a recipe online, served it with some homemade pita chips and it came out pretty darn good! The Lawyer says it's a keeper.
This time I did the pita chips with some olive oil I sautéed up with some garlic. The garlic complimented the mushroom salad very well. They were whole wheat pitas from Feder's (even more healthy!). The original recipe is here!

Creamy Mushroom Salad with Pita Chips

Ingredients:

4 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced

8 oz. cream cheese

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons grated onion

Directions:

1. Mix together all ingredients except the mushrooms.

2. Gently fold in the mushrooms.

3. Serve on pita chips! Or some nice crisp leafy lettuce.

As I mentioned, nice and yummy. I'm thinking that it's going to be like a macaroni or potato salad and that by tomorrow all the flavors will melt together and it will be even more yummy!

Mr. Lawyer's Winging it Veggie Soup!

Mr. Lawyer bought a pre-packaged bunch of soup veggies from Feder's which contained parsnips (yum!), carrots, yellow squash, celery, a shallot, red potatoes, and some dill. He made a broth from the veggie bouillon we have, through everything in with some cracked pepper and the leftover garlic chunks and olive oil from my pita chips and let it simmer till everything was perfectly creamy and cooked through. He then added some pasta and left it cook an additional 10 minutes. He had no plan and winged it and it turned out great! The bouillon added some saltiness, the squash and potatoes some creaminess, parsnips are just yummy, and the pasta soaked up any extra broth so it wasn't too watery.

mmmmm mushrooms!

Easy Appetizer

Pita Chips

(Adapted from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

Pitas

Olive Oil

Desired Seasonings (such as pepper, garlic, and basil)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

2. Cut the pitas into quarters or eighths using a pizza cutter, then separate the triangles. Divide them up into two piles, thinner and thicker slices.

3. Mix olive oil and seasoning.

4. Place one group of slices on a baking sheet and brush with olive oil mixture

5. Bake for approximately 7 minutes.

6. Repeat with second batch.

It’s not necessary to divide the triangles before baking but I like too because the thinner ones bake more quickly. I would recommend keeping an eye on them the whole time as they can burn very quickly. I used ¼ cup olive oil with ¼ teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon dried basil, and ½ teaspoon garlic powder the first time I made these. The second time I used Pino’s Press Tuscan Herb Olive Oil and sprinkled some red pepper flakes on some of them for a little kick. Feder's Fresh has the most amazing pitas that I can't get enough of and have been using for this recipe, delicious!

Pico de Gallo (Salsa Fresca)

From Everyday Food Magazine

Ingredients:

2 medium Tomatoes

1 small Onion

1 Jalapeno

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tablespoon lime juice

Cilantro leaves for garnish

Directions:

1. Chop everything up and let it sit for at least 15 minutes, add the cilantro before serving.

I made this using the left over produce I had from the Turkey Chili so it wasn’t a full batch. I was lacking the jalapeno and cilantro and had to substitute lemon juice for lime but it still yummy! Just not spicy.