Roasted Squash & Sweet Potatoes

• 1 butternut squash, peeled and cut in large pieces
• 1 acorn squash, peeled and cut in large pieces
• 2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut in medium pieces
• 1 or 2 red onions, quartered
• 6-8 garlic cloves, peeled

Toss all vegetables with olive oil, until lightly coated.  Place in roaster/glass pan/cookie sheet/whatever you decide to use and sprinkle with rosemary, salt & pepper.  Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes, covered with tinfoil.  Stir vegetables, uncover and bake 20 minutes at 425 F.  I used a convection oven, so cooking time will be longer in a standard oven.  *Make sure your sweet potatoes are cut smaller than the squash as they take slightly longer to cook.

Tips for peeling winter squash:

1. Unless you have a reasonably heavy-duty peeler, don’t bother.  Of course, if hours of frustration, rapped knuckles and scraped thumbs are right up your alley, then go ahead.
2. Choose peel-friendly squash.  It should be small enough to comfortably hold in one hand (2 small is way easier than 1 big).
3. I’ve found that long, skinny butternut squash is much easier to peel than short and squat.
4. When choosing acorn squash, try to find really smooth ones that have minimal ridges.
5. “Top and tail” your squash before peeling.
6. Many people (including me!) react to raw butternut squash, so be sure and wash your hands WITH SOAP IMMEDIATELY after peeling and cutting to prevent the tingly, tight, leathery feeling in your hands.  Or you could just wear rubber gloves.  I think I might try that next time…

Rosemary-Rubbed Grilled Pork Tenderloin

• 1 1-lb pork tenderloin
• 3 Tbsp fresh parley, chopped
• 1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper

Combine all ingredients and marinate at least 2 hours.  This can be roasted or grilled,  (I know this because the first time I made it, I ran out of propane and had to transfer to the oven…dinner was a little late that day…) but to grill, preheat your grill on high.  ALWAYS do this – Craig used to preach to me the benefits of super-hot preheating, which I ignored until I went to cook some burgers once and saw a little mouse enjoying some of our leftovers from the night before.  It just makes good sense to sterilize outdoor cookware…

From here on in, I’m sorry, but I’m not really a great one for remembering method.  It always seems to work out in the end, but I have no clue how I got there…

Turn your heat down to about medium (If you have a thermometer on your grill, it should read between 325-375 F, at least I think so.  Brush your rack and spray with olive oil (or you can rub it with an oily paper towel if you don’t have an oil sprayer…but if you’re planning to eat clean, you’ll need to get one at some point…)  Place the pork on the rack with the skinny tip folded in.  Now here’s where it gets really sketchy.  I turn mine about every 5 minutes to prevent charring, and I’m pretty sure it takes me about 25 minutes.  But it may have taken me 40…As you can see, there’s a bit of discrepancy in my memory.  But if you have a meat thermometer, you can use that to check doneness.  Mine’s broken, not that I’d use it anyway.  I like mine medium-ra.  Not quite medium-rare, but definitely not medium.  When you think its done, take it off the grill and let it sit for 10 minutes before cutting, to seal in the juices (and hope for the best!)

Sunnyboy Muffins all cleaned-up

*These are HEALTHY muffins.  Do not serve to clean-resistant eaters that are suspicious of wholesome food.  They will run away with their tails between their legs.  My family loves them, but I think they’re an acquired texture…

• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 Tbsp oil (olive, sunflower or walnut)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt, no sugar added (using Greek yogurt makes one of these a complete meal because of all the protein)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup Red River cereal
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• yummy extras (our favourites:  orange zest, unsweetened dried cranberries, raisins, chopped honey dates, chopped walnuts or chopped pecans) Please don’t ask me how much.  I don’t measure.

Prep muffin tin and preheat oven to 400 F.  Dissolve baking soda in yogurt (make sure you use a big enough bowl as the mixture will at least double).  Mix in order given until just moist.  Spoon into pan and bake for about 20 minutes. (I think mine are usually done around the 17 minute mark, but the original recipe says 25 minutes)

Banana Oatmeal Muffins

These are considerably more acceptable to the less-forgiving mouths you feed.

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 1/4 cup bananas, mashed

Mix wet & dry separately.  Stir together, just until blended.  Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes.

Candace’s Emergency “Pad Thai” Disaster Quick-Fix

Here’s where the slap-dash takes centre-stage…

• cooked whole wheat linguine, however much your family needs
• cooked chicken breast (grilled, steamed, poached, whatever), cut in strips

• carrots, peeled ( I THINK I did 2 for the 3 of us)
• zucchini (probably 1 large)
• finely chopped suey choy/savoy cabbage/whatever you want to call it (here I probably used about 1 cup)

Using that heavy-duty peeler, peel the carrot and zucchini into ribbons.  Stir-fry the ribbons and cabbage, until done  While cooking the vegetables, mix the sauce:

• soya sauce (probably about 1/4 cup)
• chicken stock (maybe 1/4 cup, as well)
• olive oil (I couldn’t have used more than a Tbsp)
• lemon juice (a few splashes)
• garlic powder ( I like a LOT)
• honey (I don’t remember throwing this in, but I wrote it down at the time, so I must’ve.  I’m guessing about a Tbsp)
• crushed pepper flakes (I can say with some confidence, that you should add exactly however much you like heat)

Add the sauce to the stir-fry.  Cook until hot.  Combine EVERYTHING and then pat yourself on the back for making it through this recipe to the other side.

April 30:  Grilled pork tenderloin with roasted squash and sweet potatoes

May 1:  My Boys May 2:  Stuck in rush-hour traffic.  Not quite sure why I was smiling…May 3:  Mexican Fiesta Tortillas!  (Ironically, I took a photo of the tortillas, but forgot about the Fiesta the following day…)May 4:  ”My take a picture of Lukie.  SSSSMIIIIIIILE LUKIE!”May 5:  My Cashmere Baby.

Trena:

“oh yeah! I love when the family gets together!”

1. It is easy to get sidetracked with eating things that are not bad for you, rather than focusing on things that are GOOD for you.  ( To prove this, I developed a cookie recipe that I have called Not-Bad-For-You Cookies.  They’re pretty yummy, actually.)
2. It takes kids an entire week to recover from a weekend conference.
3. I will never take little kids to every day of a weekend conference ever again.  Next year, we are getting a babysitter for Saturday.
4. Homemade baby cereal is surprisingly easy to make.
5. Homemade whole wheat tortillas are also surprisingly easy to make.
6. Brown Rice noodles are not made for eating.
7. Trust your instincts.

April 15:  Out of EIGHTY-FIVE frames, this was the best one.  Not a great batting-rate.April 16:  I saw a delicious-looking pad thai recipe from a certain clean-eating recipe book (which shall remain publicly unnamed), and couldn’t wait to try it out.  It looked so fresh and lovely and the picture literally made me drool.  I planned to make it Monday night, but we had an appointment to go to at the end of the day and we were all starving by the time we made it home at 5:45.  Elijah was pulling everything remotely edible from the cupboards, begging for a snack (croutons, uncooked rice, canned tomatoes…) and there were dishes and canned goods all over my kitchen counters.  (I’ve been reorganizing and resorting all week.)  So with limited space, an exiled toddler and a growling tummy, I set to work trying this new recipe.  I usually get pretty creative in the kitchen and rarely follow a recipe exactly, but with being new to clean eating and wanting to be “teachable”, I followed it to the letter.

I should have known as I opened a can of tomato paste and dumped it into a measuring cup already full of blackstrap molasses.  I should have jumped ship as I poured boiling water over the icky brown rice noodles.  But for some reason, I kept on, mesmerized by that tantalizing photo.  When everything was ready to go, and all I had to do was add the chicken, my retreat instinct triggered and I just couldn’t do it.  There was no way on this earth that I was going to eat something that disgusting, not in the name of health, and certainly not in the name of bravery.  And there was no way that I was going to let some poor chicken’s ultimate sacrifice be so worthless and contemptible!

By this time, there were 2 crying babies, a prowling husband and a very harried wife.  I was about to throw it all out when Craig stopped me (he’s maybe only half Scottish, but its definitely the dominant gene pool) and told me it would probably be better if we threw it in the microwave for a couple of minutes….Yeah…no.  I let him try to salvage it while I caught my breath, looked at that picture again and told myself, “I can still do this.”  I don’t know if what I came up with is even close to pad thai, but it was SO GOOD!  And it looked exactly like the picture in the book…

April 17:  I love him!April 18:  High-flyerApril 19:  Brotherly love-looks.April 20:  So far away!April 21:  For everyone that feels bad for Craig:  this is a french toast sandwich made with homemade cinnamon raisin bread, bananas, almond butter and maple syrup.  He eats well…