Spinach and Shrimp Fettuccine -- Chef Noah

Noah is our child that still loves to cook.  In fact, he is going to make most of our meals this summer, and he has created his own Pinterest account and is collecting recipes to make for us.

Recently, he decided to find a recipe to use some ingredients we already had in the house and he found this recipe on Pinterest that sounded good to the whole family:  Spinach & Shrimp with Fettuccine noodles (click on the picture to expand).

We used more spinach than the recipe called for and we also used spinach fettuccine noodles.  As he is learning to make new meals, he tries to follow the recipe closely, but he already has a great natural ability for herb/spice selection & combination.

Noah made the entire meal himself, even mincing & grating the garlic.

Doesn't this make you hungry?  It tasted wonderful!

Easter snacks (ideas from Pinterest)

This Easter, Noah and I decided to make some fun snacks for our annual family gathering after church.

Note, these little guys were easy to make (just use your favorite deviled egg recipe and put the caps back on top, use capers or black olive slivers as eyes & carrot wedges for nose), but once made, they couldn't sit up on their own unless we put them back in the carton.

I thought that putting dip inside of hollowed out head of iceburg lettuce was a cute idea for a veggie tray.

Home-made Potato Chips

Some nights we have a big salad and home-made potato chips. We use sweet potatoes & white potatoes.  On this particular evening, Noah wanted to be the chef.

I had to help him slice the potatoes with the mandolin veggie slicer (pictured below leaning against the wall).

He sprayed the cooking trays with non-stick grapeseed oil spray, spread out the potatoes and sprinkled on the seasoning.

Below is everything we used to make these yummy home-made baked potato chips.

Recipe:

• Sliced Potatoes
• Non-stick spray
• Braggs to spray on potatoes so the seasonings "stick"
• Seasonings:  celtic sea salt, garlic, chili pepper

Salad in a jar.... vacuum sealed to extend freshness

Sometimes we have time to get really organized for the week by preparing quick, go-to salads.  And sometimes, we even have time to make specialized salads for each family member, since we all have different favorites (Taylor enjoys using his label-maker).

All you need are some mason jars, a push-pin tack, some electrical tape and an inexpensive ziplock vacuum sealer and you can vacuum seal salads that easily last for a week in the fridge.

The first step is to make a hole in the lid of the mason jar.

Next, you lightly place the electrical tape over the hole, then screw the lid on the filled mason jar and pump the vacuum sealer until the air is removed and you've sealed the lid.  We always test it to make sure it has sealed.

The best way to fill the jars is with the hardest veggies on the bottom-- examples: carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery.

Next comes the softer veggies like sweet peppers, cucumbers, onions.

The greens will always go on top.

If we are going to eat the salads at home, we often put dressing in the bottom, followed by broccoli, cauliflower & carrots, which marinates them until it's time to eat.  Just shake the jar well to mix the dressing and you can eat your salad right out of the jar!

But, if using the salads to prepare lunch containers, we take dressing with us and add it later.

Happy New Year 2014!

Happy New Year!

With the new year, we have spent some time trying to determine how best to "simplify" our schedules.

2 nights of the week, we only have 2 boys at home and 2 nights we have activities and need a quick meal opportunity.

So, we have standardized the "quick meal" nights and they will be the same thing each week, with little variety.  The boys are able to fix those meals and we will make "salad in a jar" at the beginning of each week, to accompany those meals (Salad in a jar is it's own entry to follow).

The other two nights have been divided between Taylor and Noah, and they "own" dinner for those nights.

This week Noah has chosen the following meal:

• Black bean veggie burgers on whole wheat buns
• home-made baked potato chips
• salad
• chocolate shake for dessert

Tayor has chosen a family favorite:

• Home-made Pizza
• salad
• a surprise for dessert

Since we have another "snow day" tomorrow, Matt is going to make a dinner for us (he has decided to "play it by ear".

The next few blogs will cover each of these quick, easy and healthy meals that are so simple they can be made by the young ones in your family!

Stay tuned....

Taylor: Healthy Pizza

We all love pizza right?  Could there really be a healthy alternative that tastes fantastic?!
YES!
And that helps you lose weight and feel great at the same time?
YES!

Again, we are using "The Raw Food Detox Diet" by Natalia Rose as our guide.  Taylor chose the "Detox Pizza" section and fashioned it to each person's preference.

Taylor chose to make salad and individual pizzas for all 5 of us.  He was quite meticulous, so it took him a bit of time to accomplish.  But a wonderful thing about this recipe is that is as quick as it is delicious.  Too good to be true right?

The ingredients are simple:

• Sprouted whole grain tortillas
• Vegan organic Spaghetti sauce (many varieties at your local health food store and even some like Muir Glen at WM)
• Fresh Basil leaves
• Fresh veggies to taste (sliced onions, mushroom, sweet pepper, tomato etc)
• Shredded raw goats cheese (so far, we have had NO symptoms to this cheese like to cow's cheese or regular goats cheese... no congestion, constipation etc)

Super quick... super easy... super yummy!  Best of all combinations!

We had a salad first to help digest all the cooked foods.  Then dug in to each individualized pizza!  Thanks Taylor!  Great meal!

Raw Vanilla Ice cream

We ate lunch out on Sunday, so we didn't need a big evening meal too.  Therefore, we ate fruit/veggies for dinner and the boys teamed up to make the family a yummy evening dessert!

The recipe is called "Raw" Vanilla ice cream (from The Raw Foods Detox Diet), although technically the maple syrup and vanilla extract are not raw... still, it's pretty close to being an all raw treat!  The recipe actually called for vanilla beans, but we only had extract and it turned out great.

Matt/Dad (Jeff) made the vanilla ice cream and Tay made the chocolate sauce.

Ingredients:

Ice Cream:

• 3 young thai coconuts-- all flesh and some of the water
• maple syrup (1/2 cup)
• vanilla (1 TBS)
• ice (3-4cups)

Blend them all up together until creamy.  After years and years of getting by with a normal blender, we finally broke down a few years ago and purchased a Vita-Mix blender.  SO.WORTH.IT!  We use it multiple times a day to make smoothies, dressings and now desserts!

Chocolate Sauce: (from The Raw Foods Detox Diet also)

6 TBS Organic Cocoa powder

1 cup maple syrup

Blend in a blender.

Use a cleaver to open the coconuts... carefully! 

Tay smiling because it is SO good!

Matt has dished out the ice cream and now Tay pours on the chocolate sauce





Noah had to get in the picture :)

Matt Meal #1- Whole Wheat Lasagna and Chocolate Shake

So, we've taken a slight deviation of late, in that we have added raw goat's cheese into our food choices.  We won't eat it every day, just occasionally, and I'm finding that it doesn't leave behind symptoms, as cow's cheese does and even soy cheese.  We didn't experience a congestion hang-over, even when this raw cheese is used in a cooked meal.

The ingredients for the lasagna:

• whole wheat noodles (we would have used sprouted grain or spelt if we could have found them)
• spinach
• zuchinni
• raw goat cheese
• organice spaghetti sauce
• garlic

Matt served a salad, lasagna and then finshed off the meal with a chocolate shake, which was made of pure cocoa powder, young thai coconut, stevia, almond milk, vanilla  and ice.  Great way to finish a fantastic meal.

Some ingredients and kitchen tools used in preparation

Matt used a mandelin to thinly slice the zuchinni

Doesn't that look good?

We ate our salads at the table...

Then dug into the lasagna...

Then moved into the living room for a "picnic" while we ate and watched a movie.

Summer of kids Chef Meals begins...

Well, the Seiter family is back at it... except more from a "Julie & Julia" perspective.

Out of all the raw foods and vegan books I've read, this is the one that resonates as the best recipe guide for our perspective on nutrition.

As stated before, we don't really have a label.... we aren't vegan, we aren't vegetarian...we make choices to eat food as close to the way they occur in nature, we eat abundant amount of raw fruits and veggies and try to avoid foods that are de-natured and turn into toxic waste.  We try to eat food combinations that allow for the best digestion and absorption... quick exit foods, as Natalia calls it in this book.

Therefore, we are going to use many of the recipes in this book, as well as some others, and the boys are going into "Chef" mode again this summer.

Some of the recipes they've picked out are "Whole Wheat Lasagna", Raw vanilla ice cream, Chocolate milkshake, Orange sherbert, Gazpacho, Quick Pizza, Coconut Thai soup, Pad Thai and many many more.

We went shopping for some of the initial recipes this weekend and bought ingredients like:  pure maple syrup, raw honey, stevia, nama shoyu, young thai coconuts, cilantro, lemons, limes, salmon, zuchinni, eggplant.

The first recipe of the summer is Matt making the Whole Wheat Lasagna and a chocolate shake for desert.  Yum!  AND, these are recipes that a Mom can feel good about feeding her kids.  AND, Mom doesn't even have to make it!  A Win/Win scenario all the way around!

Chef Taylor: Apple Nut Sauce breakfast

Since we've been eating a lot of  "splurge" meals during our summer "Kids Chefs" project, Taylor decided to make something containing all raw food (except the drizzle of pure maple syrup) for his breakfast. 

This is a meal we used to make even more frequently when the kids were young. 

Apple Nut Sauce recipe:

• Sliced apples
• Several cups of raw nuts (we used almonds... choose your favorite)
• Raw organic maple syrup (optional)
• Cinnamon (optional)
• Shredded coconut flakes (optional)

Cut apples into wedges and chop them into apple sauce using a food processor.  Empty them into a very large bowl and pour nuts into food processor and finely chop.  Empty nuts into large bowl and mix thoroughly.  Add cinnamon for taste.  Serve in bowls and drizzle with pure organic maple syrup and/or shredded coconut.

Chopping apples to place into food processor

Making sure all apples get chopped for sauce

Combining the nuts and apple mixture

Happy boys!  The nuts make this a filling yummy meal.

Chef Matthew: Omelet Breakfast

In our welcome blog entry, I noted that although we eat a large quantity of raw fruits and veggies, we are not completely vegan.  The animal products that we will "splurge" on occasionally are organic eggs and seafood.
Matthew had never seen an omelet, but had heard of one and wanted to make omelets for his Chef Breakfast.  He decided to make "cheese omelets" with almond cheese and he used fresh tomatoes in both Taylor and Noah's and tomatoes and onions in his.  He added a little sea salt and black pepper to finish out the recipe.

Before adding the cheese:

Matthew found flipping the omelet a bit challenging:

See how well the almond cheese melts?

The finished product:

Chef Noah--- Watermelon/Celery juice: healthier Gatorade

Did you know that celery is a great form of natural sodium?  And that watermelon is made up of almost all water?  Is it any wonder that combining the two foods would made a great sports drink?  It's also DELICIOUS!

Since I was planning for an out of town meeting, we only had one "chef" event this week.  Noah made Watermelon/Celery juice using our Champion juicer.

For those of you interesting in juicing vegetables for family health advantages or disease/illness recovery, it's important to invest in a good juicer that is also easy to clean.  We've found if it's not easy clean-up, usage declines.

If you google Champion juicers, you can get a better price online than in any health food store (under $200).  You can also check Craig's list for used Champions.  This is my favorite brand of juicer because it not only is great for juicing, easy clean-up, but it also makes wonderful fruit sorbets that are the consistency of soft-serve ice-cream (more to come on that in Noah's "Chef" meal next week).

Chop the watermelon and celery.  You do not need to remove seeds-- they can be put through juicer along with the watermelon flesh.

Celery should be put through at the end of the juicing, because the celery stringy fiber tends to get caught up in the gears and can slow down the process unless saved til the end.

Noah has always loved to help with the juicing.

We'll include more juice recipes in future entries.
Enjoy!