I feel like my meal planning and recipe creating juices have returned to me. Does it take a change of location and different kitchen for this to happen? Well,whatever it is I will gladly embrace it. Nothing has changed in our home since moving. Since I am still working from home, managing a certain schedule to maintain sanity is dire! I am trying to plan more the night before for lunches and dinners. Ryan will soon start his new job and we have talked about the importance of saving money, so planning lunches is really important. It is not only important for him but also for me. I do not have a lot of time to just prepare meals. I need something that I can put in a bowl and eat quickly so I can prepare Julianne’s meals as well.
I am not feeding Julianne the same foods that I am because we are not feeding dairy at all so I have only been focusing on whole fruits and veggies with occasional eggs here and there. After receiving my 2 boxes of spelt rotini pasta I decided to make a pasta salad. My mother would make these salads frequently as we were growing up. Pasta is not only delicious warm or hot but it is really delicious cold especially with the right ingredients.
I had a nice bunch of asparagus to use so that went well with some fresh red peppers and cucumbers. I added crumbled feta cheese but pickled tofu or sliced green olives could substitute for the feta to give the salad the desired sharp and tangy flavors. These were all items I had on hand so you can always substitute your favorite veggies too. The salad makes 2 big large lunch portions which Ryan and I quickly devoured yesterday. SO how about that spelt pasta? YUM! I definitely prefer it to whole wheat pasta even though I will still eat it. Their certainly was no graininess in this pasta and it was very flavorful. It takes 4 minutes to cook and it cools quickly too. What a plus!
You have to find some of Nature’s Legacy Tri-Color Spelt Rotini because it is definitely worth it. It is healthy and cheap. Make sure to check out Nature’s Legacy store to see where you can find this product. You can also buy it from their store as well. Enjoy the recipe!
Veggie Spelt Pasta Salad
by Noelle Kelly
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 7 minutes
Keywords: boil dressing salad lunch vegetarian spelt asparagus summer
Ingredients (2 large lunch portions)
Pasta Salad
3 cups cooked spelt pasta
1/2 cup chopped English cucumber
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1 cup blanched asparagus, blanched
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup light crumbled feta cheese
Vegan option: sub in pickled tofu or 1/2 cup chopped pitted green olives
Dressing
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 Tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1/4-1/2 teaspoon sea salt
crushed pepper
Instructions
Pasta Salad
Cook pasta according to boxed directions. Drain after cooking, place in a glass bowl and drizzle with a little oil and let cool. Chop the veggies.
Chop up the asparagus. Place in boiling water for 3-5 minutes and then blanch them so they stay nice and green. Drain.
Add the asparagus and the rest of the veggies to the pasta. Add the feta cheese or vegan options. Make the dressing.
For dressing
Crush the garlic and place in a bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well with a small fork. Pour dressing over salad and mix well.
Hello lovelies! I am so excited to finally be posting a recipe!!! Can you tell? Ryan and I have been really tired of eating out and now that our kitchen is all set up I have been busy making quick and fresh meals. Now that we lie in the East Coast we have different shopping options I am not really familiar with. Giant, ACME, Wegmans, and Weis. Where do I begin? I am SO happy that I at least have a Trader Joe’s 20 minutes away from us and I am personally shocked I have not been able to visit yet. Whole Foods is also availlable but the closest one is 30 minutes. We have an employee-owned 24-hour grocery store right by our home but it is limited in its produce. I love finding new places but my goal is to find FRESH produce and even try to find local farms for produce. I cannot sign up on a CSA because I am just too late on that so perhaps next year. This past weekend we went to Amish country, specifically Lancaster and I found some great produce for super cheap. I forgot to take a picture of the monstrous cantaloupe we have been enjoying. Julianne loves it too! I also bought a huge quart of tomatoes for 1.99 and a giant zucchini for baking.
Last night I quickly shredded my zucchini, half for a baked good and the other half for some planned dinner cakes. So what did I bake? Well, let me start by saying that my huge incentive was Torye Santucci. She contacted me a few weeks back, before we moved and asked if I would love to try some spelt products. I agreed but I was not sure when I would get to trying them but with the 2 weeks I hardly cooked I started thinking about recipes.
Ms. Santucci works for Purity Foods, a company that has created Vita-Spelt and Nature’s Legacy. They make all kinds of flours, like whole wheat and white spelt flour, and all kinds of pastas, pretzels, granola and more. The company was kind enough to send me 1 large package of whole wheat white spelt flour and white spelt flour and two kinds of pastas. What is spelt? I love the company’s explanation because it feels how it is described.
Spelt is an ancient grain widely recognized for its many health benefits.
Triticum spelta, the scientific name for spelt,
is a hardier and more nutritious cousin to modern wheat (Triticum aestivum).
Some taxonomists classify spelt as a parent of wheat.
A big plus for our family is that spelt pastas retain its texture so it is not grainy like whole wheat pasta. Ryan really dislikes grainy pasta so I will be convincing him with these products. Spelt does contain gluten but it is a different form of gluten that is in whole wheat and is easier to digest. I do not personally have a gluten intolerance so I cannot confirm this. Spelt flours can be substituted for all flours and as I will show in my new recipe I feel like that it makes for delicious and moist breads.
I took a recipe I worked with 2 years ago and revamped it. We ate 2 big slices warm from the oven and Ryan gave it a BIG 2 thumbs up. I believe he went back for seconds. 🙂 Enjoy the recipe!
3 flax “eggs” ( I used 3 Tbsp ground flax seeds + 9 Tbsp water)
1/2 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup So Delicious Coconut Milk
1 3/4 cups vegan sugar
2-1/2 cups Vita-Spelt white spelt flour
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
dark chocolate chips for sprinkling
Instructions
Grate and dab the zucchini between paper towels to remove excess moisture.
(You can use a food processor to grate zucchini)
Chop the walnuts and spray two 9″ x 5″ pans with non-stick spray.
Beat together the eggs substitutes first and set aside for 5 minutes. Add the unsweetened applesauce, vanilla, milk and sugar.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and cocoa. Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in the wet ingredients, and mix together. Stir in the zucchini and chocolate chips.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Divide the 1 cup of walnuts between both pans and pat into batter. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of dark chocolate chips for each pan and press into batter.
Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes. Cool for about 20 minutes before removing from the pan.
I really made myself post because we have been SO busy there is hardly any time.
We moved out of our Michigan home last Wednesday and started our 2 day trek to Pennsylvania on Thursday.
It took 4 1/2 hours to load the truck and luckily we were blessed with lots of help! I almost panicked and thought we were not going to have enough space for our crap. We had gotten rid of so much already I did not want to think we needed to rent a smaller truck for more stuff.
The home was cleaned, luckily I found a fabulous Groupon deal for house cleaning that helped me from breaking my back. All I really had to clean was the oven and refrigerator. What a deal! It was super strange to have all the space in the duplex. Julianne did not know what to do with all the space.
She ignored all her toys and went for outlets, cables and more. She even found a roll of paper towel to tear up. It was funny.
Ryan and I drove separately. He drove the big Penske truck, which had a trailer in the back for my car, and I drove his car with Julianne in the back. I was very thankful for all the prayers because even though we split the trip between 2 days (6 hour increments), she took all her naps which were 1 1/2 hours long! Yeah!
Another plus is that we skipped taking toll roads and took a more scenic drive through Pennsylvania. It was gorgeous and very woodsy and hilly.
We did take occasional breaks for lunch, feedings, and even coffee breaks.
Nothing like trying to stay awake on the road.
The nice thing about almost arriving to our destination was going through Lancaster, PA, Amish country. We plan on going this weekend since Ryan’s sisters and my mother-in-law are in town. I will report back. They have been here in PA and will be here the WHOLE week helping us unpack and playing with Julianne.
It has been a total blessing and a huge help. Moving with a baby is challenging. It is doable but it is challenging.
The biggest excitement is that besides Julianne being so mobile she pulled herself up ALL by herself. She was so proud, now all she has to learn is to plop herself on the floor safely.
This stage is fun but also very scary. Outlet covers and security gates for our multiple floors will be ordered and more child-proofing will be required. I know I will not be there for ALL her tumbles but I am sure a vigilant mother.
We are busy and almost all done with our packing a little over a week before we head off to Pennsylvania.
Julianne discovered the mirror and was loving talking to her “new” friend. 🙂
So I have a random giveaway for you. I thought it would be a fun thing to do before we head out from Michigan. It is a mixture of free product coupons, new CDs, Starbucks coffee, a new garlic peel roller (my fav!) and some ginger mints.
So Delicious coconut products are by far my favorite so I have 2 coupons to use on the product of your choice. I then have another 2 coupons for another non-dairy product out there. You should give it a try.
Zak! This is a product made in the USA and it peels garlic SUPER quick. I have one of my own and I thought it would be fun to give one away.
Music. We had duplicate copies of these CDs but they are NEW and wrapped. One is Sting, Songs from the Labyrinth and the other are art songs performed by Dawn Upshaw. Lovely!
And to top it off how about some Starbucks Via Coffee?
How to enter? Answer one question and ONE winner will get all these goodies mailed to you! Good luck!
Summer is a perfect time for popsicles including when they are spiked because it means it is treat time for mommy and daddy. These Watermelon Mojito Popsicles will be refreshing and perfect for after hours.
Michigan in the Summer
100 degrees in Michigan??? Yes, it is quite unreal and so Texas. I was glad to find cooler temperatures when I knew we were moving to Michigan but this summer has been pretty horrendous. Our poor dead grass can attest to this heat. What does this also mean? It means we do not leave our home except for emergencies or if we are melting ourselves. See, we do not have central air. ‘Tis true. How is the little one surviving? Well,we are all surviving.
How to Survive with no A/C
Thanks to some lovely friends, we have been living on a window unit for the past 2 years. We melted the first year before these friends let us borrow it the 2nd and 3rd years. SIGH….we learned the hard way. We had all the intention of staying indoors today but we have a teething child. This is probably the worst I have seen the poor dear but mixed with the warm air and the same toys I am sure I would be irritated too.
What did we do? We took a little trip to Home Depot. The perfect place to take a cranky baby. Hahahaha. In fact, we were just plain BORED and TIRED of going to the mall. There are only so many times I can take that trip without needing to buy anything. If I dislike monotony, I am sure my baby does too. Thanks to Ryan and a few errands we went down most aisles and came out with a box for Ryan’s suits and a box knife. It was not a useless trip after all and Julianne liked smiling at people. She forgot that she was in pain.
Watermelon Mojito Popsicles
So back to the heat. We have been enjoying popsicles over here. Since I am not baking anymore, I am being asked for popsicles. Ryan lets me know in the middle of the day what flavors would go together and all. He is funny! We have lots of frozen fruit I need to use before we move so in addition to smoothies I am also making popsicles for a teething baby and my big baby. Hahahaha.
I made a creamy cinnamon-spiced cantaloupe popsicle that I liked but that Ryan did not like, after having just one. I found out that he really does not like melon. Oh well, more for me. 🙂 I then came up with these beauties. I know I probably teased you but these do not have alcohol but can be added for those not breast-feeding. Too much info? Oh well. I am watching out for my alcohol consumption but you certainly do not have to.
I had a SUPER sweet watermelon. I used half of it for this recipe and the other half to eat for breakfast. Julianne LOVES her juicy watermelon. This is a quick recipe and is ready in 4 hours, if you can wait that long. I finally got to eat one for myself because every time I turned around, Ryan had one of these babies in his mouth. I am happy my hubby likes healthy desserts and these are definitely healthy, refreshing, and cold!
Enjoy!
Watermelon Mojito Popsicles
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 4 hour freeze time
Ingredients (6 popsicles)
8 cups fresh and ripe watermelon, cubed
1/4 cup fresh mint, packed
2-3 Tablespoons agave nectar or maple syrup
3 limes, peeled and seeded
6 ounces rum (optional)
Instructions
Cut a large watermelon and peel. Cube fresh watermelon and add 8 cups to a Vitamix blender.
Using a sharp knife, remove the peel from the limes, cut in half and remove seeds. Add the halves to the blender as is.
Wash the mint and remove from stems and measure a 1/4 cup, packed. Add to the blender.
Add the agave to the blender. Place blender on base and blend using the plunger that comes with the blender. If you do not have that use a wooden spoon to nudge the watermelon to blend. Do not add any water. The fruit has enough liquid. Blend on high until mixture is smooth.
Divide the mixture between 6 popsicle molds and freeze for 4 hours.
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