kale-quinoa cakes

First of all, excuse the terrible photo. I hadn’t intended to blog about these babies, so I didn’t take any photos of the process (I also made them on a Sunday afternoon I was also making a gazillion other things and it was a bit hectic in the kitchen) nor did I photo when they were finished. It wasn’t until days later when I actually TRIED them for the first time, that I realized how good they were and that a blog post was in order.

I found the recipe for Kale & Quinoa Cakes in a recent issue of the Wegmans Menu Magazine. I love kale and quinoa and they just looked so darn great in the picture. Mine, unfortunately, did not come out as pretty, but whatever. It’s one of those ‘I love to cook’ recipes, designated as such because it involved multiple steps. Before school, I didn’t bat an eye at page-long ingredient lists or elaborate recipes, but I tell you what–since I’ve been in school, any dish that takes more 30 minutes start to finish just makes me want to cry. I can’t wait to have my life back. Seriously. (Sixty-four days until graduation. But I’m not counting or anything.)

But, I liked these so much I decided to take time during one of my Sunday afternoon prep sessions to whip them up. The recipe isn’t complicated at all; it’s just one of those where you’re grabbing for bowls and spoons and the food processor and more bowls and once you’re finished you wonder, ‘Was that even worth it?’

I’ll be honest, I don’t know if it WAS worth it. Don’t get me wrong, the flavor was great. I’m thrilled that I have a whole bag of them in the freezer to have for months to come without any more work. However, I could easily serve kale and quinoa at dinner and accomplish the dish in a similar fashion. But, I’ll stop being a humbug and give some praise to the recipe. It had great flavor and texture and it really wasn’t that hard. I served the cakes with fish, but they would go equally well with salmon or pork or even eggs for breakfast. Definitely don’t ignore the tip to serve with Roasted Red Pepper sauce–so good!

Recipe below and linked above.

2 cups Wegmans Organic Vegetable Broth
1 cup (6.5 oz) Wegmans Organic White Quinoa (Bulk Foods)
1 bag (16 oz) Food You Feel Good About Cleaned & Cut Kale Greens
1 container (7 oz) Food You Feel Good About Diced Mirepoix
1 medium (about 9 oz) baking potato, peeled, chopped
6 Food You Feel Good About Large Eggs
2 Tbsp Wegmans Basting Oil
1/2 Tbsp Wegmans Sea Salt Fine Crystals
2 tsp Food You Feel Good About Tuscan Seasoning Shak’r
Wegmans Nonstick Cooking Spray

You’ll Need: Food processor, muffin pans

Directions:

Bring vegetable broth and quinoa to boil in pan on MED; stir. Reduce heat to LOW; cover with lid. Simmer 15 min.
Remove from heat; let stand, covered, 10 min to absorb liquid. Spread quinoa on large sheet pan to cool.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Blanch kale in large pot of boiling, salted water, 3-4 min. Transfer to bowl of ice water. Drain; squeeze dry.
Pulse kale, mirepoix, and potato in batches in food processor until finely chopped. Whisk eggs, basting oil, salt, and seasoning together. Add kale-potato mixture and quinoa to eggs; mix until combined.
Coat muffin pans with nonstick cooking spray. Place 1/2 cup mixture in each section of muffin pans. Bake 35-40 min, until egg sets and tops are lightly browned. Transfer pans to wire racks to cool 10 min before removing cakes.

Chef Tip(s):
Try these cakes paired with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce.

Nutrition Info: Each serving (1 cake) contains 110 calories, 13 g carbohydrate, (2 g fiber), 5 g protein, 4 g fat, (1 g saturated fat), 55 mg cholesterol, and 300 mg sodium.

Calories: 110

pomegranate-oatmeal snack cups

I recently received an email from MyFitnessPal with a link to a stash of oatmeal-inspired recipes. This immediately made me think of my friend, Stevie, who eats oatmeal just about every morning for breakfast, no matter the season. The girl is an oatmeal fanatic. Perhaps even more so than Kath, the RD whose blog inspired me to begin my own journey into the field of nutrition. But I digress.

So as I perused the list of oatmeal recipe ideas, I came upon these Pomegranate-Oatmeal Snack Cups, for which I already has all the ingredients in the fridge. It was fate. I mean, how often does anyone really have pomegranate arils just lying around?

They don’t come out very sweet, which is just fine by me, and are fantastic topped with a little sunflower-seed butter. These would be a great breakfast or pre-workout snack. Recipe is below and linked above.

Ingredients

Wet

2 eggs
1/3 cup 100% pomegranate juice
teaspoon vanilla extract
1 banana, small
1/2 cup almond milk, unsweetened
2 tablespoons coconut oil, partially melted

Dry

2 cups quick cooking oatmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cups + 1/4 cup pomegranate arils, separated

Instructions

First, preheat oven to 350ºF and spray a muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.
Then, place banana in a medium size bowl and mash until smooth. Add the rest of the wet ingredients (minus the coconut oil, we will add that very last) and whisk until combined.
Add the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Finally add in coconut oil.
Fill muffin tin about 1/3 to 1/2 way full. Sprinkle additional pomegranate arils (about 1/4 cup) on top.
Bake at 350º for about 20 minutes.

Here’s the nutrition information for each serving (2 muffins):

Nutrition (per serving): Calories: 200; Total Fat: 8g; Saturated Fat: 5g; Monounsaturated Fat: 2g; Cholesterol: 71mg; Sodium: 464mg; Carbohydrate: 26g; Dietary Fiber: 4g; Sugar: 6g; Protein: 6g

Adirondacks

Andrew and I spent last weekend in Old Forge, NY, with some friends of ours. Paola is a classmate of mine at Buffalo State in the Dietetics program, and she and Mark got married this past fall. Mark grew up going to his family’s place, called ‘The Hut,’ in the Adirondacks. Old Forge is about four hours from Buffalo and a destination in both the summer and winter months. The Hut is on a lake, with a beautiful view from the living room. It’s a cozy, homey-type place–a few bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen and living room and fireplace. It’s decorated with very traditional ‘cabin’ decor–bears, ducks, pine trees, wood accents.

We started our trip with lunch at Betty’s, in downtown Buffalo. So good. Can’t wait to meet them there again soon!

We drove up on a Friday afternoon and got in just before dinner. After unpacking and sitting for a bit, we went out for a nice dinner at one of their local favorite restaurants, where we enjoyed great service and great wine. I had a truly fantastic dish, the ‘Brazilian Pork,’ which combined juicy pork medallions with a mix of black beans, onions, peppers and green chilies with sweet potato fries. Very memorable.

The next morning, our only ‘activity’ was to go snow shoeing later on, so we hung around until about lunch time. So nice to just relax in our jammies!

We ate brunch at a local diner, where Paola and I both ordered the buckwheat pancakes with blueberries and pecans. Also very good.

Here we are, snow shoeing at a local golf course in about four feet of snow–SO MUCH harder than the snow we’re used to around here. Talk about a work out! All four of us were glad to be finished as we neared the parking lot.

We spent the rest of the afternoon either napping (the boys) or relaxing on the couch (the girls), channel surfing, reading and writing. And snacking. I wrote a blog about National Nutrition Month to be posted on the Buffalo News (more about that later), and Paola and I caught the end of a sappy rom-com once we relinquished control of the remote from Mark, who’d much rather watch golf.

We went out that night to another favorite spot for dinner, where a bunch of us shared some lobster mac and cheese as an appetizer. I ordered the chili burger–why I don’t know–and ended up eating it with a fork. The ceiling of the restaurant was covered with thousands of business cards, but we weren’t able to finds Mark’s dad’s, which he put up there years ago.

Throughout the weekend, snow mobiliers where EVERYWHERE. It was so neat to see them whizzing across the lake, both day and night, and all the machines parked out in front of stores and bars and such. I loved that even ‘nicer’ restaurants are very casual, especially this time of year, when pretty much the only appropriate footwear is snow boots.

We turned in early that night–must have been wiped out from the snow shoeing–and slept in the next morning. With the time change as well, we weren’t all out of bed until well after 10 a.m. After relaxing a bit, running the laundry and cleaning up, we stopped at another local diner on the way out of town for lunch. My Rueben sandwich was fantastic, and Paola and I got some bread pudding to-go for the ride home.

We had a great weekend and were so thrilled to spend time with our friends in such a beautiful place. Sometimes you really have to ‘get away from it all’ and just relax. Between Andrew’s summer trips to Lake Tippecanoe in Indiana and this year-round getaway in the Adirondacks, it makes me want to have something like that for our kids one day. Somewhere not too far away to call our own, to make memories, and to get away from it all.

One day.