Mexican Haystacks

The night I developed this recipe, I had no intentions of coming up with an end product that would be good enough to blog about. But once my family and I had tasted it, I knew I HAD to share it with you! It was one of those happy accidents that was born out of desperation...that desperation we've all felt (and perhaps feel on a daily basis)..."What in the WORLD am I making for dinner tonight?" We all know the familiar feeling of panic. I created this easy recipe based on what I had on hand, and it turned out so...darn...good...I just had to photograph it and tell you about it. It was also very simple to make!

My inspiration for this dish was a memory of how the church I grew up in would often have luncheons and serve what they called "haystacks". I don't even remember what all went into this dish, but the base was always rice, with chicken on top in a Hawaiian-inspired sauce (if I'm remembering correctly). Then, there were all kinds of additional toppings available, like pineapple, fresh tomatoes, raisins, and a bunch of other stuff you could stack on top of your "haystack". I decided to try a version of my own that celebrated Mexican flavors instead of Hawaiian, but it still has that tasty combination of spicy and sweet. It's also a healthier version with brown rice, low-fat ground turkey, and a yummy salsa-based sauce that doesn't contain sugar (as most Hawaiian sauces do).

The kids and I ate dinner before my husband did, as he was out doing some yard work. When I first tasted it, I said, "Wow! This is like a party in my mouth!" Later, when my husband came in and ate his, the first thing he said - no joke - was "Wow! This is a party in my mouth!" Great minds think alike, I guess?!

So I present to you my version of the haystacks of my youth, Mexican Haystacks. You start with a base of cilantro rice, which is simply fresh cilantro stirred into brown rice. Next, add a layer of tender ground turkey that has been browned, then simmered with onions, garlic, and salsa to make it full of flavor. Then, top with the fun stuff: smooth avocado, crunchy red pepper, and sweet, juicy mango. Last, a few sprinkles of fresh cilantro on top, and voila! Or perhaps I should say...ole!

Mexican Haystacks

RICE
2 cups uncooked brown rice
1 bunch fresh cilantro

MEAT
1 1/2 lbs ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
4 cups salsa (I used Kirkland organic salsa from Costco)

TOPPINGS
1-2 avocados, chopped
1-2 red peppers, chopped
1-2 ripe mangoes, chopped
fresh cilantro for garnish

Start your brown rice in a pot on the stove, or in a rice maker. Next, add ground turkey and chopped onion to a large saute pan. Add garlic powder and salt and pepper. When the turkey is browned, add 4 cups of salsa. Bring the salsa to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, chop the cilantro, pepper, avocado, and mango. When the rice is done, simply stir in almost all of the fresh cilantro, leaving just enough to garnish each dish.

I served each person with the rice and meat already on the plate, and everybody had fun adding their own toppings. Kids always like to feel that they "made" their own dinner!

I'd recommend serving this with a nice big green salad on the side.

*Also, the recipe above made enough for our family of five to have leftovers the next day. If you are cooking for a smaller family, just chop one avocado, pepper, and mango. You can also make less rice and only 1 lb. of turkey. If you do this, reduce the salsa used to only 2-3 cups.

Enjoy, mi amigos! :-)

linking up to Allergy-Free Wednesdays!

"Kitchen Sink" Quinoa Salad

 I named this quinoa salad after the kitchen sink, because you can literally add just about anything but the kitchen sink and it will still be yummy. (Okay, any VEGETABLE, for all of you ultra-detailed people!) We had a surprising string of summer-like weather here in the Pacific Northwest this weekend, and suddenly I didn't want to make the kitchen any hotter than it already was by using the oven. This salad was cool and refreshing, while still being really satisfying. My family loved it and the kids were asking for seconds and thirds! Which is good, because this recipe makes LOTS of salad...enough for my family of five to have for dinner, plus some leftovers for lunch the next day. (If you'd like a more modest amount for a smaller family, simply cook half the recommended quinoa.) Have fun with this one and add whatever fresh veggies you have on hand...make it your own! If I'd had zucchini or summer squash, or fresh tomatoes, I definitely would have thrown those in. We ate this as our main dish last night, but it would also be a lovely addition to a picnic or barbecue! It's reminiscent of a pasta salad but oh-so-much-healthier and even more satisfying. (Oh, and I just tasted it again today...I can now vouch for the fact that it's even BETTER the second day!!)

Kitchen Sink Quinoa Salad

SALAD
about 4 cups cooked quinoa*, cooled
1 sweet bell pepper (red, orange, or yellow), chopped
1-3 heads broccoli, chopped into florets
1 cucumber, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1 cup kalamata olives
any other veggies of choice (fresh tomatoes, carrots, or celery would all be delicious)

DRESSING
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons dried basil (fresh basil would be even better!)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

*How to cook quinoa:
1. Rinse well, just like you rinse rice. This means you add water to the pot with the quinoa, move your fingers around in the pot several times till the water is a bit cloudy, pour the excess water off, then add more water and repeat. You could do this for 3 or 4 minutes!
2. Add 2 parts water to 1 part quinoa. For this recipe, I add 4 cups of water to 2 cups of quinoa. (After rinsing the quinoa repeatedly, however, I estimated that there was already about 1 cup of water in the pot, so I only added 3 cups of water to the pan.)
3. Bring water and quinoa to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Simmer for about 20 minutes.
4. Remove lid, fluff quinoa with a fork, and let it sit for about five minutes.
 5. To cool it quickly for quinoa salad (since I never seem to think far enough ahead for nice cold quinoa salad) spread it in a shallow baking dish and put it in the freezer while you prepare your vegetables and dressing. In a perfect world, the quinoa would be made and chilled before you start dinner prep. But who lives in a perfect world?

Chop your veggies. Add them to the quinoa. (I've been saving glass jars that some of my foods come in and they make great dressing jars!) Add all the dressing ingredients to a small glass jar and then shake it up - much faster and more efficient than trying to whisk your ingredients together. Anyway, pour it over the salad...mix it all up...and enjoy! The colder the better, so you can easily make this salad ahead of time and serve chilled. Yummers!

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Homemade Chicken Stock

So I did something this week that I've wanted to do for years. I'm not sure what finally propelled me to do it...but I made homemade chicken stock for the first time. Kind of embarrassing to admit that,  because I'm sure there are a lot of serious cooks out there who've been doing this for years. I know that's how my grandmother did it. Maybe my mom too? Back in the day, I never cared enough about being in the kitchen to observe it, if she did.

dump it all in the pot...cover it with water

Anyhoo, remember the Balsamic Roasted Chicken I made this week? That was beyond finger-lickin'-good? The next day I got up my courage to make my own chicken stock with the leftover chicken carcass and drippings, using this recipe from Affairs of Living (she's got a fab recipe for Chicken Stock and one for Veggie Stock too, for all you vegans.) 

I basically dumped everything in my biggest stockpot and covered it with water. I boiled it for a couple of minutes to get rid of any pesky bacteria. Than I dumped the whole thing in my crockpot and let it simmer on low for almost 24 hours! With the amount of stock it made, I could have frozen it and used it for several dishes. Instead, with there being a lot of sickness in my house this week, I decided to just make one enormous pot of soup with it. Either way, judging from the amount of stock it produced, I figure it saved me at least $15. This is not the cheapest of lifestyles, so every bit helps, right?  

I then used it to make a really lovely, healing sort of soup with kale and quinoa, which we were able to eat on for two days. I forgot to take any pictures of it before it got eaten up! Rookie. Trust me. It's good. (I'll have to write the recipe down later.) The homemade stock had such a wholesome flavor. And literally, just as I was typing this post, I realized that it didn't hurt my insides the way that store-bought stocks usually do. I buy the gluten-free, organic stocks...but still...something was different about homemade. Verrrry interesting....

I'm considering making a whole roasted chicken once a week. Caleb could use the additional calories from the dark meat...my family would think they had died and gone to heaven...and I could start freezing my own stock I make from the leftovers. I think I'll try it!

(...And this is yet another one of those moments where I think, who is this person? When my husband and I met, I couldn't even cook a take n' bake pizza without burning it! My cooking skills were the laughing stock of my family! And now...I'm cooking things entirely from scratch, often making up the recipe myself, and they are GOOD. Seriously. If I was able to experience a transformation like this, anybody can!)

Balsamic Roasted Chicken

photo courtesy of The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen

I don't know why, but for some reason, I've always been intimidated by roasting a whole chicken. Perhaps because the sight of a raw chicken carcass kind of freaks me out, and certainly having to TOUCH the thing really freaks me out. But I've decided it's worth it because the end result is so amazingly tasty. My family has been eating a lot of lean proteins lately, so obviously chicken breast is a huge part of our repertoire. A whole chicken has more dark meat and fat to it so I wouldn't recommend eating it really frequently, but what a treat! And even though I purchase organic chicken, I have to admit that it's way more economical to roast a whole chicken than it is to cook enough chicken breasts for the family.

Last night I made The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen's Balsamic Roasted Chicken with Figs and Sweet Onions, and Oh.My.Goodness. my family and I were In Love. As is often the case with me, I hadn't really planned ahead and so didn't have all the proper ingredients for the recipe...but it still turned out amazing. I didn't have any figs or sprigs of rosemary. I just roasted that puppy with onions...added a couple of cloves of garlic to the onions I stuffed inside the cavity. I seasoned it just like the recipe recommended and within the first ten minutes of it being in the oven, the whole house smelled HEAVENLY. My son's physical therapist was here at the time and was waxing eloquent about the amazing aroma of balsamic emanating from my kitchen.

By the time the whole thing was ready to eat, the family had such a high level of anticipation because they'd been smelling awesome-ness for a couple of hours. And then you could tell from the silence and fork-thrusting-towards-mouths that they were happy. When they finally came up for air,  my seven-year-old said, "This feels like Christmas! Or Thanksgiving!" I tried to pass it off like, oh yeah, I slaved over this for hours...when really it was SO easy and just made me look good.

The onions are practically like a dessert by the time they are done. I served a big old green salad with it and everybody was happy. The best part? I always try to make enough dinner to have leftovers for lunch the next day. So I get to eat it again today. :-)

Easy Southwest Sprouted Bean Soup

Okay so I didn't have fresh cilantro on hand...so I used dried parsley for garnish...I never said I was a professional!

For me, fast food used to mean a greasy burger and fries. Tasty at the time, but made me feel terrible afterwards. Not only did I feel guilty while eating it, but for me, there was pain afterwards and it lived on in my body fat. Awesome.

“Fast food” has taken on a whole new meaning for me. Take this soup for example. It’s a quick and easy soup to throw together. It’s also a good way to use up whatever veggies you happen to have on hand. I’ve used leeks before, and I’ve thrown in broccoli florets or kale…anything goes. You could also add a dash of cayenne pepper if you like it extra spicy. 

If you like your soup veggies to be super soft and mushy, just simmer the soup longer than the recommended 15-20 minutes. I happen to like my veggies to still have a bit of firmness to them, so this recipe is perfect for that. Nice and warming on a cold day!

(Also, as always, this soup is free of gluten, wheat, yeast, corn, soy, dairy, and eggs. I use all organic veggies and broth and gluten-free spices. Make sure your chicken stock is labeled gluten free!)

Easy Southwest Sprouted Bean Soup
gluten free, wheat free, dairy free, egg free, corn free, soy free

2 TBS olive oil

1 onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 carrots, sliced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

3 TBS cumin

1 TBS chili powder

1 can diced tomatoes

2 ½ cups sprouted bean trio (TruRoots)

8 cups chicken stock*

Salt & pepper to taste

Fresh cilantro & avocado for garnish

Start by heating 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large Dutch oven or stockpot. Add the diced onions and sauté until they start to get translucent. Add the garlic, celery, and carrots and sauté for a couple more minutes. Add some salt and pepper to taste.  Then add the peppers, cumin, and chili powder. Stir it all up and then add the diced tomatoes, sprouted beans, and chicken stock. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer on medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes. Always taste it at this point and decide whether it needs more salt and/or pepper. Top with fresh cilantro & avocado (diced fresh tomatoes would be a great topping too) and enjoy! (Please note: this soup was inspired by a recipe I LOVE, Black-Eyed Pea Soup from www.nourishingmeals.com )

*for a true vegan soup, substitute vegetable broth