Vegetable Frittata

Vegetable Frittata

2 cups of fresh spinach
1 small onion, chopped finely
2 stalks of celery, chopped finely
1 cup of shredded carrot
1 tbsp olive oil
6 large eggs
1/3 cup of milk
1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp of ground sage
salt and pepper to taste

1. Wilt spinach in the microwave with a little water and for about 2 minutes.  Set a side and let cool.  Then chop into smaller pieces.
2. Add onion, celery, carrot and olive oil to a frying pan and cook until tender.  Remove from heat and set a side.  Add spinach and distribute evenly.
3. In a large bowl, beat together eggs and milk.  Add cheese and vegetable mixture.  Add in sage and salt and pepper to taste.  Stir.
4.  Pour mixture into greased 8x8 pan and cook in oven for 25 to 30 minutes at 375 degrees F.  Frittata is cooked when it is slightly brown and set.  Let cool for 5 minutes and serve.

Yam Soup

Yam Soup

4 yams or sweet potatoes

1 large onion

1 tbsp olive oil

6 cups of veggie broth or chicken broth

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Put yams on foil lined cookie sheet and bake in oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

3. Once the yams are cooked, chop up onion and add to large pot with 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Cook until soften and a little bit caramelized.

4. Add yams and broth to the pot. 

5. At this point I use a hand blender and puree the soup right in the pot.  If you don't have this then you will have to use a food processer or blender.  

6. Heat over low heat because this soup will spit and burp at you if you are not careful!

7. When hot, spoon in bowls and add a little milk to make it creamer or cool it down for the kids.

8.  Serve with toast or biscuits.

Veggie Dishes From Last Week

Last week went really well with vegetarian meals and less processed food.  We ate vegetarian on the weekdays and most of the weekend too!  The only "meat" we had was on Saturday when we took the family to A&W for lunch.  Not the best choice but that is this month's once a month "eating out" trip.  And I guess I would also have to report that Brad ate meat at Rotary this week for lunch.  But I say that he probably has to because there is not much else to eat there.  :)

So below is some of the homemade veggie meals that we had...

Vegetarian Pizza (spinach, peppers, mushrooms, cheese) on WW crust

Yam Soup with homemade WW bread

Vegetable Frittata 

"Outta Ten Report" was kind of forgotten but I will tell you that pizza is one of the favorite dinners around here along with Yam Soup.  Never fails, everyone is always happy.  The Vegetable Frittata was also well received.  I forgot to take a picture when it first came out of the oven but there were no leftovers from this.

I'll be posting the recipes to the Yam Soup and the Vegetable Frittata in separate posts.  Keep an eye out for those.  I wanted to let everyone know that switching to eating mostly vegetarian has not been that difficult and I personally can tell that I feel better for eating this way.  So if you are thinking, "Oh, I can't do that", yes you can!  Go to your local library, take out some vegetarian cookbooks or look online, there are lots of recipes floating around.

Yummy, yummy lunch.

Can't wait to eat this. I'm really enjoying the spinach right now.

Mediterranean Lentil Soup with Spinach

Mediterranean Lentil Soup with Spinach

1 cup green lentils
1 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp of ground cumin
1 tsp of lemon zest
1 potato, peeled and grated
6 cups of vegetable stock
8 oz fresh spinach leaves, chopped
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice


1. In a colander, rinse lentils thoroughly under cold running water.  Set aside.
2. In a skillet, heat oil over medium heat.  Add onions, celery and carrots and cook, stirring, until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic, cumin and lemon zest and cook, stirring for 1 minute.  Transfer mixture to slow cooker.  Add reserved lentils, potato and stock.
3. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or on high for 4 to 6 hours, until vegetables are tender.  Add spinach and lemon juice.  Cover and cook on high for 20 minutes, until spinach is cooked and mixture is hot and bubbling.

Each recipe that I share will be rated by my family(exactly what they say!) in the "Outta 10 Report"

Brad- 6 outta 10.  Not enough seasoning, didn't like the chunks of spinach.  Likes soup that is all the same consistency, either pureed or chunks have to be all the same.  But in general, pretty good.

Krista- 6 outta 10.  Agreed not enough seasoning, needs salt and pepper.  Didn't like the lentils like this, may be would be better if the lentils were pureed before.  May be the lentils weren't cooked enough.

Alexa- 9 outta 10.  Pretty good but could have been better.

Harper- 1 outta 10.  Not good at all.

Joely- 1 gag outta 10 gags, which means she liked it.  She ate the whole bowl!

Also I made by own bread.  This started off in the bread-maker but then the power went off.  It was done mixing so I just kneed it, let it rise and baked it in the oven.  One thing I would recommend though is to make sure the whole wheat flour is still good.  I think mine may have been bad because the bread had a little bit of a bitter taste.  I bought new flour today though, so we'll retry tomorrow.  Luckily I had bread that I made yesterday that was leftover.

Come on a journey with us....

1) Vegetarian meals on weekdays.

2) Cutting down our meat eating dramatically.

3) Meat must come from local not "factory" farms.

4) Cutting out processed food, eat real food.

What will you get from reading this blog, you may ask...

 

You will get to see recipes that I try and if my family likes them.

You will get to see how my kids and myself deal with less sugar!

You will hopefully get to see my family become healthier.

You will learn that it is possible to cut out processed food.

I also believe that you will see that eating real food is cheaper.

I hope that you enjoy this journey with us and that we may inspire you to make your own journey!

 circa. 2011 (last time we had a family picture)