Greek Style Couscous

This salad (originally found from a Kraft food magazine) is one of our kids' favorites.  It makes a good side dish, but is actually hearty enough that, if served with a side of garlic toast, you can actually have it as a main dish, which is great for those summer days when it's just too hot to use the oven.

2 cups uncooked whole wheat couscous (we generally just use plain)
2 cups cucumber slices halved or quartered
2 large tomatoes, chopped
8 oz crumbled feta cheese
2 tsp dried dill or 2 Tbsp fresh
1 cup Italian dressing

Cook couscous as directed on package, without the salt and butter. Fluff with fork. Place in large bowl; cool 10 min.  Add remaining ingredients and mix. Original recipe says to chill 1 hour, but we generally don't bother and just eat it right away.

Honey Balsamic Roasted Beets

Growing up, I never really ate any beets- it's just not something that my mom ever made.  However, whenever we make the beet pasta recipe, we always end up with leftover beets that we don't really have anything to do with (since you can only buy beets at Walmart in bunches of 3, but the recipe only needs 1/4 cup worth).  So, since I discovered that they were actually pretty tasty on their own, I started to keep my eye out for interesting beet recipes on Pinterest.  This honey balsamic roasted beets recipe was inspired by this one on Simply Recipes.  I loved the idea of balsamic vinegar with beets, but I didn't have any orange zest on hand, and also I only had 2 beets on hand instead of 2 pounds worth.

Ingredients:
Beets
Olive oil
Honey
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 400º.  While oven heats up, slice the tops off the beets, peel them, and cut into large chunks.  Place into a greased baking pan, and drizzle with a small amount of olive oil (about 1 Tbsp for 2 beets), and a rather larger amount of honey.  Sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and balsamic vinegar.  Stir around with a fork to make sure the beets are all coated with honey and spices.  Cover the pan with foil and roast for 1 hour, or until easily pierced with a fork, stirring about halfway through, and again at about 45 minutes.

Easy Roasted Potatoes

This potato recipe is quick and easy to toss in the oven while I cook something on the stove top.  I adapted it slightly from one in our awesome Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

Ingredients:
2 lb potatoes (about 6), scrubbed and quartered (you could also peel them, but they end up slightly crispier with the peels on)
1/4 cup olive oil
onion powder
garlic salt
pepper
paprika
Chinese 5 spice mix

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450º.  Place quartered potatoes in a 7.5 x 11" baking pan and drizzle olive oil over the top.  Sprinkle heavily with spices to taste.  Stir up the potatoes to coat them all over with oil and spices.  Bake at 450º for 15 minutes, stir, and bake 15 minutes more, or until potatoes are tender and brown on the edges.

Broiled Corn (aka Crispy Kernels of Glee)

Some time back, I was browsing Pinterest and came upon instructions for how to broil frozen corn and turn it into "perfectly roasted little corn kernel babies of crispy glee."  The original link actually went to a recipe for Shrimp Minestrone, which is not really my thing, but I was intrigued enough by the concept of roasting corn in the oven that I figured I'd try it as a side dish, and it actually turned out really well.  It's a quick vegetable side that I can whip up as I'm setting the table for dinner, and my 2-year-old loves it.  I usually make this with canned corn, since we can get the corn for cheaper at a case lot sale than buying frozen corn, but I'll admit that the frozen corn does end up a tad crispier, and doesn't have the mild "from a can" undertone to the flavor that always seems to be there whenever you use canned vegetables in a recipe.

Ingredients:
1 can corn, well drained, or 1 cup frozen corn (no need to thaw beforehand)
1 Tbsp olive oil
Spices to taste: We usually do salt (not much with the canned corn!), pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika and Chinese 5 spice mix- but you can feel free to experiment and find a combination you like!

Place the corn on a broiler-safe baking sheet.  Drizzle olive oil on top and sprinkle with spices, then mix together until corn is coated, and spread it out on the sheet.  Broil in your oven, stirring occasionally, until corn is golden and starting to become crispy- 5-10 minutes for frozen corn or for 15 or so for canned corn. 

Apple Sausage Breakfast Patties

We discovered this recipe in our Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.  It's actually fairly quick to throw together once you have the onion and apple chopped up, and went really well with those rhubarb waffles we did.

1 slightly beaten egg white
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh apple
3 Tbsp quick-cook oats.
2 Tbsp fresh parsley or 1 Tbsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground sage
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp pepper
dash of ground red pepper to taste
1/2 lb lean ground pork or ground turkey breast (we've only ever made this with ground pork, because it tends to be cheaper)

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the egg white, onion, apple, oats, parsley, salt, sage, nutmeg, pepper, and ground red pepper.  Add ground meat.  Mix well.  Shape the mixture into eight 2-inch-wide patties.  Spray a cold 10-inch skillet with nonstick cooking spray and preheat over medium-low heat.  Cook patties over medium-low heat for 8 to 10 minutes or until meat is no longer pink and juices run clear, turning once.  Drain off fat.

Wheat Berry Porridge

This idea for this surprisingly hearty recipe actually came from a wild rice porridge, but when we tried the original, something about the wild rice just didn't work for Justin, and we just kept tweaking it from there until we ended up a recipe we really liked.  We had it as a side dish with the pumpkin spice waffles, but it can also be a great filling breakfast all on it's own.

Wheat Berry Porridge
2 cups wheat berries
5 cups water

(I don't really measure any of the rest of this- I just kind of sprinkle on spices and drizzle in the honey to taste- but the spice measurements from the original recipe are a good starting point)
1/4 cup honey (or more to taste)
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup dried apples, chopped (lots of other dried fruits would work well- this time around I actually added some dried coconut)
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
dash of ginger
dash of allspice
Plain yogurt (I don't measure this- just enough to make it have a good porridge-like texture)

To cook the wheat berries, bring the water to a boil in a large pan or stock pot and add the wheat berries.  Reduce heat and simmer for an hour.  Drain, and place the wheat berries in a large bowl.  Add the rest of the ingredients.

Honey Balsamic Roasted Chickpeas

I have never been a fan of beans.  All of my life, that gritty, grainy, beany texture has always been something that just makes me want to gag.  However, beans are healthy, and they’re cheap (a very good things when you’re living on a college student budget, like we are right now), so I’ve tried quite a few different recipes that people promised made that icky bean texture go away (including making hummus, and a suggestion that we cook and mash up white beans with garlic and rosemary.  “It tastes just like mashed potatoes!” they promised.  No.  It most certainly didn’t), and they never really worked, until last night.  Yesterday, we finally found a method of making beans that I was actually willing to eat.  And willing to eat in fairly large quantities.  We took chickpeas and roasted them (adapting this recipe slightly).  The kids really loved the chickpeas too- they kept snitching them out of the bowl to snack on them while they were waiting for dinner to be done.

Ingredients:
16 oz bag of dry chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans)
Lightly salted water (for soaking the beans- salt optional)
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp Honey
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp salt, or more to taste, depending on how salty you like your chickpeas
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground red pepper

Soak the chickpeas in a container of lightly salted water for at least 24 hours.  You'll want to be sure the beans are covered with at least an inch of water, because they'll be soaking a lot of it up.  After soaking for 24 hours, drain and rinse the soaked chickpeas and spread them out in a single layer on a large greased baking sheet.  Preheat the oven to 400º.  In a small bowl, mix together olive oil, honey, balsamic vinegar, basil, rosemary, salt, oregano, thyme, garlic powder, and red pepper, then drizzle over the top of the chickpeas and stir until well coated.  Bake at 400 for 30-40 minutes or until fairly well browned, stirring halfway through.