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For Real.  Three cases in point today:

1.Breakfast. Boys had yogurt topped with the bottom crumbs of a bag of frosted shredded wheat cereal I’d been saving for just such an occasion, and a bowl of steel-cut oats.  Double-time whole grains.  Bill and I had yet another version of Huevos Graincheros. This time with butternut squash and brussel sprout leftovers from my waitressing shift last night at Circa.  So delicious.

2. Snack time. Took leftover steel-cut oats, mixed in an egg, handful of spelt flour, couple pinches baking soda and powder, chopped apple and regular quick-cooking oatmeal and baked these “cookies” for 10 minutes.  Boys loved them.

dawndra

3. Dinner.  The leftover brown rice from yesterdays red beans was thrown over the top of a pack of free-range chicken wings I had cooked in some olive oil.  Added a cup of white wine, salt, pepper, fresh chopped apple and some dried herbs and threw on a lid.  Half an hour later Bill’s favorite leftover meal was ready as I ran out the door for work.

Really, having whole grains of any kind pre-cooked and handy helps me keep the ever-demanding mouths and bellies full in my house.  Off to bartend now while Bill goes into uber-baby duty.  All in a days work!

Bill regularly makes a mean red beans and rice, being the New Orleans native that he is.  He usually makes it on Mondays-the traditional day to eat red beans and rice.  However, it’s Mardi Gras season and we are cooking southern style nearly every day because we are feelin’ it.  One big change today, aside from the fact that it’s Saturday, is I talked him into serving it with brown rice instead of par-boiled white.  Major. Tradition. Break.  Of course it was delicious and much more nutritious. He’s kind of  funny about me putting his recipe for Bill’s Red Beans and Brown Rice on the website, but I’m going to anyway because it is so good and now has whole grains in it.

photographsbydawndra.com

We always have a ton of elk meat in the freezer from my dad, a lifelong Pacific Northwest hunter.  The easiest meal to make, feed and clean up for the whole family are Quinoa Meatballs.  Check out the recipe if you’d like, otherwise throw equal parts ground meat (of your choice) and quinoa in a bowl with some bread crumbs, an egg, seasonings of your choice including some ketchup and mustard for the classic meatball.  Stir it up with your bare hands and form balls.  Bake at 350 for half hour or so.

I make this so often because it makes easy, sure-thing eating by my boys and if I have leftover vegetables already cooked in the fridge I chop them up small and mix em’ in to add more nutrition and flavor.  I always make too much so we can have meatball po-boys (sandwiches on french bread) smothered in barbecue sauce the next day.  I’m almost out of elk meat, so this post is getting emailed to my dad as a little hint to bring us more.  Come on Dad, look at how happy these meatballs make Jackson!

dawndra

and the photo shoots we have for the website!  What’s not to love about hanging out with a dear friend and eating delicious food after taking pics of it for your exciting start-up business?  So today Dawndra took pics of  a recipe called Whole Wheat Penne w/Quinoa & Creamy Red Sauce. We ate it all up and were still hungry (because we had to share it with three hungry little devils) so I grabbed some leftover roasted red potatoes from the fridge, topped them with some quinoa from the freezer, microwaved it all for a couple minutes then drizzled it all with thinned yogurt and habanero.  It was delicious!  We were so psyched with this two minute creation (literally) that she snapped a picture of our Roasted Baby Reds & Quinoa to share with everyone.

The pasta was really good too.  Boys chowed it down to my delight.

While I was at work last night (Circa!) Bill roasted some beets and sweet potatoes for the boys.  This morning there was still  half a bowl of them, uncooked, in the fridge.  I cooked them in some oil, like hash browns, until they were tender and crispy on the outside.  Heated some quinoa from the freezer in the microwave then poached a few eggs to top the whole thing off.  Another version of  Huevos Graincheros from the website! Threw some leftover green onion on top and a few splashes of tapatio and our favorite breakfast just got more interesting.  Added the Sunday New York Times and some coffee and the day could not have started any better.

I’ll admit it.  Sometimes my attempts at making my family healthy and delicious meals fails miserably.  Case in point: todays’ quinoa-sweet-potato-spelt-flour pancakes.  I tasted them first, and they weren’t very good, but I figured some butter and maple syrup would make the boys eat them up.  Wrong.  Here’s one of the twins about to show me exactly what he thinks of the pancakes:

Aaaand here’s the other one trying to “hide” bites on the table behind him:

Needless to say, this recipe will not be going on the website.  There’s always Sunday….

Bill was starving today and there was very little to choose from in the fridge.  There was, however, a cup or so of yesterdays Creamless Corn Chowder left and a bunch of frozen quinoa in the freezer (of course).   Heated a bowl of the quinoa in the microwave, dumped the last of the soup over the top, some hot sauce and green onion ends and he’s back upstairs to work on the biz (Gretchen’s Grains) in less than 5 minutes.  Frozen quinoa helps me use up what I’ve already got every time.  Obviously, this is my picture.  Kind of abominable next to Dawndra’s beautiful photos.

I’ve been on a major soup kick lately and finally hit on one I feel is website worthy.  I call it Creamy Creamless Corn & Green Chili Chowder. Suppose that is the most self explanatory name possible.  Anyhow, I really like how amaranth and polenta create a ‘cream’ effect.  When they cook down they make the broth thicken without having to use any animal products.  Our family is not vegan, or even vegetarian, but I try to use as little animal products as possible in my cooking.  It just feels healthier.  So I figured pureeing some corn would even heighten the ‘cream’ effect of the grains, throw in some quinoa and other flavorful additions and that equaled a vegan chowder worth sharing with everyone.  Dawndra came by so we could walk to work together (Mission Latin Restaurant) and got this shot of Jackson about to eat his soup.  She is so good. 

Dawndra came over today to take some photos for the website.  We always have a great time hanging out with the boys, cooking and taking photos.  Today I made Spicy Sweet Plantain Cakes (pictured) and Auntie Dawndra’s Favorite Wheat Berry Salad.  Totally hogged out and did just a little bit of gossiping.

Being that winter seems it will never end at this point, my boys and I are finding ourselves increasingly restless during the long afternoons before I head out the door to work (serving at La Rustica tonight for Valentine’s day).  Luckily, cooking projects never seem to get old and cookies of any type are fun to make and eat.  However, today there were no eggs in the fridge (again!).  Never fear, though, because there was a block of cheddar and a bag of quinoa in the fridge thawed out from the night before.

So this is a perfect example of what I mean on the website by “not really recipes” and “work with what you’ve got“.  I could look on the website for my recipe for Cheddar Quinoa Cookies, but why do that when I can just mix in a bowl the main ingredients; quinoa and shredded cheese.  Then add a couple tbsps flour, a little milk then whatever else I’m in the mood for-or have in the fridge.  Today I have some fresh rosemary from the neighbor and a little stone-ground mustard sounds like a nice pair, so I threw both of those in the bowl, let the kids take their turn stirring and forming balls of dough.  Baked them for 15 minutes and  there you go: healthy, fun, easy snacks=sanity and success in the kitchen.

Bill and I both liked this version better than the recipe on the website.