recipe Archives - Page 5 of 8 - Working Mommy Journal

August 5, 2013

Lentil Curry

I have been searching high and low for a couple of good lentil recipes. I checked out a couple of sites (including the Canadian Lentils website – what a great recipe collection they have and my other favourite site – the Gracious Pantry). With this knowledge in hand we made a curry (our family loves curry!) using the lentils I had just purchased. Here is what we did.

Ingredients:

– 2 cups of green lentils

– 7 cups of chicken broth

– 2 cups of sliced carrots

– 3 cups of fresh spinach

– 7 garlic cloves

– 1 zucchini grated

– 1 tbsp of curry powder

– 2 tsp cinnamon (this is where my hubby wished we had cinnamon sticks!)

– 1 tsp cumin

– 2 tsp onion powder

– 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients into one large pot. Bring to a boil and continue to boil on medium heat until the liquid has been absorbed (took roughly thirty minutes on our stove).

This prepared meals for four for dinner with lunch the next day as well as three freezer meals for during the work week.

July 2, 2013

Spinach Berry Smoothie

I had to share this spinach smoothie as it surprised me with how good it turned out!

At work we were discussing “detox” smoothies and adding vegetables into our smoothies both of which I had never tried before. My co-worker told me that by adding spinach to a smoothie not only does it have many nutritional benefits but also no odd taste. I was kind of curious to see if this would hold true (to be honest I did not believe her!). To my surprise, it actually tasted delicious, there was no taste to the spinach (and it blended so nice) – the colour was a bit off but if you can look past that it’s delicious!

Ingredients:

– 1 banana

– 6 strawberries

– 1/2 cup of blueberries

– 1 cup of Almond Fresh Vanilla milk

– 1 cup of spinach (washed and stems removed)

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients into blender.

2. Blend until desired consistency.

And voila! Perfect breakfast solution for at work! Don’t mind the messy desk!

June 20, 2013

Easy Homemade Applesauce

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 bag of 4lb Gala apples

2. 1 tsp of cinnamon

3. 1cup of water

Directions:

1. Core or slice up apples, leave the skin on.

2. Add apples, water and cinnamon to a large pot and mix it.

3. Set to medium heat and boil for twenty minutes or until apples are soft enough to mash with a potato masher. If needed add more water to reach desired consistency.

June 17, 2013

Summer Berry Sangria

I am not a big red wine consumer so I was a bit nervous to try out my friend’s Sangria recipe. I was actually very surprised with the sweet taste and how refreshing the drink is. It was super easy to make but I had to adjust her recipe according to the ingredients I had in my home.

Ingredients

– 350 ml of Jackson Triggs Merlot

– 1/2 bottle of PC Citrus Fizz

– 1/2 cup of blueberries

– 1/2 cup of strawberries

– 1 orange sliced into rounds

Directions

1. Add wine to a large jug and top with Citrus Fizz.

2. Add in fruit.

3. Put in fridge for 30 minutes (or slightly longer if desired). Enjoy!

May 14, 2013

Banana Cinnamon Raisin Bites

I was so excited to be able to participate in the Sun-Maid Canadian Family recipe contest this year!

My husband loves his raisin bread but we tend to eat it plain and just toasted. So we were all really excited to be able to shake things up a bit and make something unique for our family.

We began to brainstorm ideas and some important criteria for us were: quick, simple, fruits and fun! My boys love their bananas and strawberries so we definitely wanted to include them in our recipe. In the end we ended up with two different versions of the same recipe. One is simpler and perfect for after school and the second takes an extra ten minutes in the oven but still easy to make.

The ingredients for both are exactly the same. You will need:

– three bananas

– 1/4 cup of Maple syrup

– 1/2 cup of strawberries

– 6 slices of Sun-Maid Raisin Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Directions:

1. Cut the bananas into thin slices.

2. Cover the bananas with Maple Syrup and mix until evenly covered (this is my favourite part and tastes so yummy!).

3. At this point, you can either go one of two ways. The first way is to lightly toast the Sun-Maid Raisin Cinnamon Swirl bread. Cover with banana and syrup mix. Top with strawberries. We cut our strawberries in half and put the bananas in the middle and covered the whole thing with more syrup.

4. The other way we completed the recipe was by arranging the bread in cupcake pans (this was quite tricky and required some patience!). Then we poured the banana and syrup mix on top. We then baked them at 350F for just under ten minutes (oven times may vary – you only want to lightly toast the bread otherwise the bananas will soak through and stick to the pan). Remove the bread from the pan and place into individual bowls (we used our ice cream bowls!). They had such a unique shape to them – our son said they looked like little flowers! Add some extra syrup and bananas on top, sprinkle with strawberries – enjoy!

I wish we had almond slivers to sprinkle on top of the strawberries as well but they tasted delicious as is. The total prep time for this was under five minutes and total cook time between 5-15 minutes depending on which version you use.

What is your favourite way to enjoy raisin bread?