Vegetable Soup

Vegetable soup

Ingredients

4 tbsp butter

Vegetables

2 cups chopped leeks

2 cups diced carrots

2 cups diced potatoes

1 large onion, diced

1 1/2 cups frozen peas

Seasonings

2 tbsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

2 tbsp dried thyme

Grains

1/3 cup barley

3/4 cup red lentils

1/4 cup green lentils

1/4 cup brown rice

Broth

8 cups vegetable broth

3 cups garden vegetable cocktail

Soup ingredients

Directions

Sauté the veggies in the butter until softened a bit, add the salt, pepper and thyme and give it a stir. Add the remaining ingredients: barley, rice, lentils, broth and veg cocktail and bring to a boil.

Adding grains to sautéed veggies

Turn down the heat and let simmer about 30 minutes.

Vegetable soup

I bottled this batch for lunches. I can just grab one from the freezer and throw in my lunch bag with some crackers. So convenient!

6 x 500-ml & six x 1-litre jars of vegetable soup

Peanut Butter & Banana Dog Treats

Your dogs will love these! They won't even know or care that they're healthy. And your kids will love making them, too.

Healthy dog treats

Ingredients

2 cups oat flour
4 tbsp ground flax seed
1 banana
2/3 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup almond milk
Cookie cutter
Parchment paper

Peanut butter & banana

Step 1 - Shopping

Go to the Bulk Barn for ground flax and oat flour. Just so you know, the scoops in the flour bins there hold exactly two cups, so get a bit more than that because you'll need extra for rolling the dough.

Bulk Barn also has a lot of great cookie cutters, including a number of dog-themed ones of all sizes.

Cookie cutters

Go to any grocery store for a banana and some almond milk. Of course there are the 2L sizes of almond milk in the coolers, but I think you can buy smaller amounts (un-refrigerated and in boxes or cans) in the natural  food section. Just make sure you get unsweetened, not vanilla or sweetened because they make all kinds. Almond milk is healthier for dogs than cows' milk. And, you probably have peanut butter in your pantry. Also, make sure your peanut butter doesn't contain xyletol...very toxic to dogs.

The parchment paper is optional. We use it because our cookie sheet burns everything. If you skip it, just use the dry baking sheet, don't grease it.

Step 2 - Mixing

Measure the flour and flax into a mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, mash the banana. Mix in the almond milk and peanut butter.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients until a dough is formed. If it is too dry and crumbly, add more of the wet ingredients and if it is too runny, add more flour, but those amounts should work.

Mixing the dough

Step 3 - Rolling & Cutting

Sprinkle some oat flour on a pie mat or clean work surface and begin rolling the dough into an even thickness, about 1/4" thick.

Using a cookie cutter, cut out the cookies and place on a parchment paper-line baking sheet.

Cutting the dough

Step 4 - Baking

Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes.

Let cool before serving.

Ready to bake

These should store for a couple of weeks. Remember, there are no preservatives so they won't last as long as store-bought ones, so use them up! One batch made about 100 small cookies as shown above. We give our dogs three or four per day; they both weigh less than 25 lbs, so a larger dog could probably have more.

Creamy Buttercup Squash Soup

2014 Squash Harvest

Cut in half, de-seed and roast in roast pan in 1/2 inch to 1 inch of water about 40 minutes:
1 Buttercup Squash – you can substitute Butternut, but it won't be as good. Trust me on this.

Saute until soft about 10 minutes:
1 Onion, Chopped
1 Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored and chopped
2 Tbsp Butter – the good kind
¼ Tsp Nutmeg
¼ Tsp Cinnamon
¼ Tsp Salt
¼ Tsp Pepper

Add to onion mixture:
Cooked Squash
1 Box Vegetable Broth

Cook about 10 minutes until flavors meld. Cool and puree in food processor or blender. Add back to pot and add 1 cup of water; simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

Slowly stir in:
1 Pint of Whipping Cream (Heavy Cream)

Squash soup from homegrown buttercup squash

Pete's Pancakes

Pancake from scratch

Over the years, we've tried several pancake recipes, but we always come back to, "It's no better than the mix" so we generally save ourselves the hassle and buy the "just add water" mixes. However, Monday I wanted to make pancakes to go with the vegan bacon I bought and found that we were out of pancake mix. Since it was Thanksgiving Day and everything was closed, I just looked a recipe up and happened on the best pancake recipe we've ever tried. Thanks Pete!

Here is the recipe:

2 cups flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp baking powder
2 eggs (beat them separately before adding to mixture)
1⁄4 cup butter, melted (1/8 of a pound)
1 3⁄4 cups milk

Combine the dry ingredients. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add the milk and melted butter. Add the wet ingredients gradually to dry, by creating a well in the center of the flour mixture and stirring the egg mixture in slowly. Be sure you don't over-mix; it should still be lumpy.

Let the batter sit for 10 minutes while the pan heats up. The trick to cooking pancakes is not to flip them until bubbles begin to appear in the center.

These pancakes are light and fluffy and taste fantastic. By the way, the second time we had them we were out of milk and just used water and I didn't notice a difference at all.

Vegetarian Strata

Original recipe here (adapted from)

Strata

Ingredients

The amount of vegetables is not important. That's the great thing about it. You can use spinach, meat, whatever veggies or cheese you have on hand.

Here's what went into ours:

(approximate amounts)

1 loaf homemade white bread, cubed
1 1/2 cups Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup Swiss cheese
5 or 6 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 red pepper
1 large onion
12 shoots of asparagus
4 oz mushrooms

Directions

(As adapted from this recipe)

Fill a bowl with the cubed bread

Chop all the vegetables.

Sauté the vegetables for a few minutes until the onions started to get translucent, then toss them in with the bread crumbs.

In another bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and spices, and pour over bread.

Put half the the mixture in an 8x8" baking dish and press it down. Add 1/2 the grated cheese. Pour the rest of the bread mixture in and press it down a bit and top with the rest of the cheese. Place into 350 degrees F oven for about an hour.

Strata on plate

Meatless Meatballs

Original recipe here

Meatless Meatballs

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 pound fresh white mushrooms, finely chopped
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats (we used rolled instead)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, very finely shredded
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, packed
3 eggs, to add separately
1 tsp salt
black pepper to taste
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
1 pinch dried oregano

Directions

(As adapted from Chef John's original recipe)

Chop and mince mushrooms, onions, garlic, etc.

Chopped mushrooms

Meatlessball ingredients

In a skillet on med-high, heat olive oil then add mushrooms and sprinkle with salt. Cook until liquid completely evaporates then add the butter and reduce the heat to medium. Cook about 5 more minutes until brown.

Mushrooms cooking

Adding butter to brown the mushrooms

Stir the onion into the mushrooms and cook until translucent, about another 5 minutes. Take it off the heat and stir the garlic in and continue stirring about 1 minute. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool.

Mix oats into mushroom mixture until thoroughly combined. Gently stir 1/2 cup of parmesan into mixture. Add bread crumbs, 1/4 cup parsley, and 1 egg; season with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and oregano. Mix with a fork.

Mushroom mixture, bread crumbs, parsley, parmesan, 

salt, pepper & 1 of the eggs, uncombined

Stir in another egg. Mix together with a fork until crumbly and the finally stir in remaining egg. We had to add an extra egg because we substituted quick oats with rolled oats, which seem to absorb a lot more moisture. Mixture should hold together when pressed.

Meatless meatball mixture

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Chef John says at least 4 hours and for best flavor and texture, refrigerate overnight, but we only refrigerated ours for 2 1/2 hours and they were still fantastic.

Go find something else to eat at this point. We had hummus and pitas.

Remove from fridge. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Form mixture into small meatballs. Roll meatballs lightly between your hands until smooth and arrange meatballs on prepared baking sheet.

Uncooked meatless balls

Bake in the preheated oven until meatballs are lightly golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

Cooked meatless balls

Laura's Hummus & Pitas

We eat hummus a lot. Laura makes super good hummus. She is pretty handy at making pitas too. I love hummus as a spread in a veggie wrap.

Laura's Hummus & Pitas

Hummus Recipe

1 can of chick peas, rinsed
1/4 cup tahini
2 large cloves garlic
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt

Pour into food processor or blender and whiz it up. Add water as needed - just a splash at a time until it starts to blend well.

Optional:

Add 1/4 cup plain yoghurt. Makes it a bit creamy and adds probiotics.

You can make a more basic hummus with lemon, garlic and chick peas. Nearly as good!

Pita Bread

Laura uses this recipe. She says they're easy to make.

Dough rolled out

Pita frying in olive oil

Pita nearly finished