Lemon Rosemary Spaghetti Squash

check out my new recipe on http://www.ranaldifamilyfarm.com !!!

Spaghetti Squash Recipe

 

Suzies “Farm”

Today we decided to finally get dressed and get ready at 930am to go down to Imperial Beach and check out Suzie’s Farm. Their second Saturday of the month tour was today, 10am. Yep, thirty minutes to get all the way down to the border… I was crossing my fingers that we didn’t show up and everyone would be gone. Out of my fear, I made a deal with the kids though that if that happened we would go to the zoo and still do something fun for all our travels. They were content with this deal.

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Stuffed Pork Chop and Sauteed Green Beans

I over-shopped at Costco last week. Don’t even begin to judge me, we’ve all done it before…

So anyway, I’ve had a GIANT container of butternut squash in my fridge and a huge bag of green beans.  I have made pretty much everything with the squash including tossing some of it into my kids mac N cheese (which went surprisingly unnoticed!)  I sat here googling and trying to figure out something to do…

I scavenged through my pantry and found some black beans and rice.  I wasnt happy that most of the recipes I found involving black beans were spicy so I took the classic idea of stuffing with apples crammed into pork chops and used the rice and black beans instead and figured, hey, if the sweetness of apple can go good with pork so could butternut squash!  So chop chop mix mix and there ya go!

Pumpkin*Parmesan*Java*Coffeecake

Alright, so I have to admit…this week’s challenge for Clash of the Cooks bye WHOLE FOODS ENCINITAS was incredibly puzzling, BUT

I am TOTALLY proud of myself!!

if you were given these four ingredients what would you do? :

1. Coffee
2. canned Pumpkin
3. a jar of hot sauce
4. fresh made Parmesan crisp crackers

Smoked Gouda, Bacon and Egg Casserole and Cranberry Mimosas: Easy Holiday Brunch

It comes as no surprise to those who know me that I love cooking and have been entered into a cooking competition for Whole Foods Market Encinitas.  This is not like any other culinary competition I have ever been in before, in fact I am pretty certain I have never been in any kind of cooking competition.  I love cooking, but it is a learn as you go type of relationship.  I have only recently trained myself to start actually tasting as I go instead of waiting till the end to just see how it turns out.  I’m lucky that method worked for as long as it did.  I came from  household that cooked the same meals each week and they were cheap, simple and ordinary.  There was no experimentation, no creativity and very little flavor.  My grandmother, bless her heart, cooked like we were still in the great depression and fed us the bare necessities but didn’t ever seem to have fun cooking her food.  I like to have fun with cooking. I laugh at myself most of the time because I honestly do not know what I am doing, ironically enough I have many close friends who have gone to culinary school and are professional chef’s *thanks for not making me feel like an idiot guys!*.  This competition sounded like fun to me; An incredible challenge, waaaayyyyyy outside of my comfort zone and an exciting new way to share and learn some creative new recipes!

Touchdown for Nutrition- Part 2 (Edible Dirt)

***In Case you haven’t read T4N-Intro to learn about my Whole Foods/Nutrition Challenge check that out HERE***

Alright, I accepted that defeat… The Apple Cinnamon Chips didn’t go over too well with the kids.  However, I refuse to give up.  I’ve got more up my sleeve!!

Edible Dirt.

Touchdown for Nutrition- Part 1(Apple Cinnamon Chips)

***In case You missed Touchdown for Nutrition –  Intro to read all about my Nutrition/whole foods Challenge, you can read it HERE***

So Game #1 snuk up on me before I even had a chance to catch my breath from the EVERY DAY practices AND the first week of school for my Kindergartner and 3rd grader!  Luckily for me, Whole Foods Encinitas was having a really awesome produce sale and I had a really simple recipe to make APple Cinamon Chips.  I quickly ran over and got three large bags of Fuji and Granny Smith Apples on sale!  Check out their website for their weekly specials! HERE
my total was about $11

As soon as I got home I began to cut, core and slice the apples…by hand.  I have been told by numerous people now that having a handy dandy little thing called a “mandolin” would help me to slice the apples SUPER thin. Or that I should get a coring tool for my kitchen so I can core the apples much quicker. Well Folks, I don’t have any of those things.  So cutting by hand it went.

My 5yr old was in charge of sprinkling the cinnamon and sugar (with a dash of cloves) ALL over the apples. Then we put them in the oven at 250 degrees.  They cooked for about 30 minutes and we pulled out the cookie sheet and used a fork to turn over each slice and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar again. The cookie sheet went back in the oven for another 30 minutes and WA_LA!!! they were done!

I was SO excited! We were munching on them as we bagged them all up into little baggies for the team.  As I began making these individual treat bags I began to second guess my choice for the first week of snack… I’ve got to make a good impression right? My dear husband didn’t help because he kept reaffirming the fact that ALL the kids would rather have candy or a package of cookies instead of apples.

I thought for a moment then realized I had some cookie dough in the fridge so I whipped out two dozen or so choc chip cookies so now each baggie had a handful of crunchy cinnamon apple chips and one cookie.  That aught to be a winner right??… WRONG.

The boys won their game 21-6 and were SO proud of themselves!! They were anxiously asking everyone if there was a snack and what it was and I felt a knot growing in my stomach.  Poor Haylee was SO proud of herself and so excited to pass out this wonderful snack she helped make with her mommy for her big brothers Football team and almost ALL of them were turning their nose up at it.  More than half of the boys literally refused to take a bag when it was handed to them, even after pointing out that there was a cookie in it.

Because I had felt so nervous about their reaction I happened to have a bag of leftover candy with me so once I saw they were all refusing MY snack I tossed the bag of candy on the ground and let them have at it.  It was total chaos, it almost resembled feeding time at the zoo or something… all the boys were scrambling over one another yelling, giggling grabbing for as much candy as they could.  Pretty much like when a pinata explodes, but without the pinata.

I sat there with my bag of yummy apple chips feeling defeated.

Sugar & Junk – 1  Nutrition – 0

Touchdown for Nutrition- INTRO

What is that age old saying?

“an apple a day keeps the doctor away”  

Well whether or not that’s true, it seems that despite the dramatic increase in whole food, all natural, non-processed ingredients Trend kids these days still prefer JUNK over a nice apple or box of raisins.

Bulldawgs and Cinnamon Apples.

August 25th, 2012.

This will forever be the day Kaelob took his first steps onto a “real” football field.  

Italian Cream Cheese Chicken-Crock pot Recipe!

So this is a very loose interpretation of a recipe a friend gave me years ago. I can never remember how she told me to make it the first time so I just add and remove things each time I make it.  Here is how I made it most recently: