Pesto Perfection

Alright, so now I'm bragging, but this pesto was very tasty.
Think of all the ways you can use it, with pasta, over toasted bread, as a spread in a grilled cheese sandwich??

So let's be honest, I am not reinventing the wheel here. I just had a large bag of basil leaves that I needed to use and decided, wham Pesto it is.

 So we start with plucking the leaves from the plant :)

Then chunk everything into a blender and go.

Then you end up with a green paste type substance that resembles baby food, but tastes so much better.

The options of use are pretty much limitless. I did a grilled cheese but next time I'm thinking Pizza...

Veggie Loaded Turkey Meatloaf

I have to start this one off saying, look at the recipe and how many veggies I hide in this one! It was crazy.

What could be better than a Meatloaf? Nothing if you ask my husband. It's his favorite food. I swear he asks for it all the time.

Typically though I really don't like meatloaf. There is nothing really appealing to sitting down to a hunk of meat on my plate. I've lightened it up and loaded it with veg.

Again I have to say, look at all the veg in this one!

I like to make my meatloafs in muffin tins. Little individual serving sizes. If you want yours to be an actual loaf, go for it. I recommend putting a couple slices of bread under the actual loaf to soak up the grease.

Here is a little before/after shot for you. I like to super slather the top of mine with the sauce, but do whatever pleases you :) if you want to glaze, have at it

And Eat. Mmm tasty. Remember, the smaller you cut up the veg, the less likely people are to know it's snuck in there!

Squash Cookies

I woke up this morning and it was a brisk 40 degrees outside. Signs that fall is coming. I was ignoring the trees starting to change color but you can't mistake the coolness in the air. However, one of my favorite things about fall is the start of comfort food and holiday baking. This recipe reminds me of a classic pumpkin pie. It has all the same flavors but in cookie form!

Squash Cookies

Now if you know me, I used an acorn squash. Again because I happened to have one. I also find that a cooked acorn squash typically provides the perfect amount of squash for most of my recipes. I tend to get about 2 cups from one squash. So the little bet extra gets fed to my little man :)

Directions on how to cook an acorn squash are listed in one of my other blog posts: Squash Chocolate Cake

If you don't have a cookie scoop. I fully recommend it. It's like a little ice cream scooper. 

It makes uniform shaped/sized cookies. 2-3 bites each. This makes it so all the cookies take the same time to bake. Awesomeness. 

I think this is the 1st cookie recipe I've posted, so I want to share a secret with you. Let the cookies cool before taste testing. hahaha.
No but seriously, you should let them cool 1/2 the baking time on the cookie sheet, before moving to a wire rack to finish cooling.











And there you have it. Very tasty, cookies. Feel free to use a different squash, butternut or pumpkin would work just as well (maybe better?)
And look how uniform the cookies look. Classy ( I gave that perfect round one to my hubby, usually I only let him eat the ugly cookies that for some reason got shaped weird or I squashed them or something)

Sweet Green Bean Bundles

Is it wrong to call these little bundles of joy? I think not.

Green beans wrapped in meat and covered with sugar. mmmmm

So these are my little bean wraps. You can see that I chose to use deli ham slices. (we had just finished off the bacon, otherwise I would totally have used precooked bacon!)

Mmmm beans covered in the glaze waiting to go in the oven.

So this is aside from the point, but I also cut up some potatoes and thru them in the pan with the beans and glaze to cook. They were super tasty.

And a tasty little side dish or appetizer is created.

And yes, you can use canned beans if you really want to but why would you? Just make up a bunch and freeze them and have this dish whenever you want during the year!

Squash Chocolate Cake

This is a really tasty, yet healthier chocolate cake. I think it tastes like a chocolate spice cake. Seriously though, no one will ever know the secret ingredient!

So I used an acorn squash because that is what I had on hand. But it would be delicious with pumpkin as well :)

For Acorn Squash, cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds (save these, they are tasty roasted) and drizzle a little oil over the squash. Pop in the oven and roast for about an hour or until fork tender.

It only took me 1 squash to get 2 cooked cups, but depending on the size of your squash...

 I used a hand-held mixer to mush up my squash before adding to my cake mix.

I really like doing this because if you have any long squash strings or anything, they get caught on the beaters instead of going in your cake. It kinda resembles a yellow mashed potato right??

Mmm. the cake cooking away in the oven. I filled the pans up pretty much to the top because 1: the recipe made a lot of batter and 2: I successfully thought the cake wasn't going to significantly rise.

Cool, frost, decorate do whatever you want.

I fancied mine up a lot because I was taking it to work for a birthday party. It has a cream cheese frosting, the layers are stuffed with an orange marmalade. I also wrapped the cake in chocolate and drizzled some over the top. Looks much fancier :)

And enjoy. mmmmm. So tasty.

Swiss Chard Lasagna

Swiss Chard Lasagna

perfect for Meatless Mondays (or add meat if you want)

So sauteing everything together. I am always amazed by how much chard really shrinks down.

If you don't have

Mix up the rest of the ingredients.

Layer in the pan :) Instead of mixing my sauce and chard mix together, I just plopped each one individiually in the layers. Whatever floats your boat.

And eat :)

Cheesy Green Bean Casserole

Cheesy Green Bean Casserole

(a new taste on an old classic)

This is a simple twist on the classic. I don't know about anyone else, but when someone mentions Green Bean Casserole for thanksgiving, I'm like "Not it!" I do not want to make it. It is sooo boring!

It's about time to spring some life back into it. 

So the green beans. I got a pound in my weekly CSA share, so that's how much I made. This is supposed to be a side dish, but honestly we just ate it for dinner as the main course. Whatever :)

The most important thing with fresh beans is to snap off the edges. And if while you are snapping, the bean wants to loose a long thread between the ends, pull that bad boy out too. It's super stringy otherwise. Not all beans have this problem (mine did)

And by all means, if you don't have fresh beans, of course you can use a can. I think 2-3 cans is equivalent.

The milk sauce. Okay, so this is me trying to be fancy. That's not true, I didn't have or like Cream of Mushroom soup. I actually didn't have Cream of anything soup, so I made this instead. If you aren't feeling like cooking up a rue sauce, you can certainly just use a can of whatever Cream of Soup you have. Celery would be good.

I used a thick nacho cheese for my jarred cheese sauce. It was too thick to spread, so I threw it in with my milk sauce to melt is up a bit. Not all jarred sauces are like this, so look at yours before doing this step.

 I love me a little before/after photos. So here is mine.

Mmm bubbly cheese.

Then after with the topping.

(hi, I used baked potato chips instead of onions

Yes I am deviating from my own recipe)

And enjoy. mmmm. I can't promise how healthy this one is with all that cheese sauce in there. But it certainly does taste good.