"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing..." -Helen Keller
 
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A while back, a friend of mine made this carrot casserole. Now, I'm not normally a fan of cooked carrots, but it was really good, so naturally, I wanted to give it a try. I tried to tweak the recipe for healthiness, but as you can see by my notes below, I think the original chef knew what they were doing when they added the sugar and butter that they did.

Ingredients:
3 lbs. carrots, sliced
2/3 cup sugar (I reduced it to 1/3 c. but probably should have gone with the full amount.)
1/2 cup butter (I omitted it-- of course it would probably be better with.)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
1/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
3 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp orange rind
1/4 tsp nutmeg

1. Cook sliced carrots in boiling water to cover in a saucepan 20-25 minutes or until tender; drain and let cool slightly.  Mash carrots in a bowl until smooth.
2.  Stir together mashed carrots, sugar, and remaining ingredients until blended.  Spoon mixture into a lightly greased 11x7 inch baking dish.
3.  Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 40 minutes.
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Summer. A time for accomplishing things, right? Well, that's usually my approach to life when I have free time. So this summer, I want to learn how to cook/prepare more dishes using fresh fruits and veggies. I tried my hand at this one from a raw food website, and loved it! This whole fruit-and-veggie cooking thing is off to a good start!
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Dressing Ingredients:
1 c. cashews, soaked at least two hours
juice from 1 1/2 lemons
1/4 c. water
2 small shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 T. honey
1/2 T. vinegar
pinch of salt

I mixed these in the blender until smooth.

Salad ingredients:
6 c. chopped broccoli
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 c. raisins
1 c. sunflower seeds
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I mixed the salad ingredients, then I added the dressing. After tossing it evenly, I allowed it to refrigerate for 15 minutes to allow the flavors to blend. This was healthy and tasty, and most of all, incredibly simple to make.
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Potatoes... a good, solid food.  I have a good friend Kelli who says, "I'm a meat and potatoes kind of girl." I'd have to say I'm right along with her.

We've been making our own french fries here for over a year now and have tried to make them at least a little on the healthy side.

Ingredients:
about 3 large potatoes per baking tray
2-3 T. oil (We use sunflower oil)
salt

Just chop the potatoes. We like fat slices, but the fatter they are, the longer it takes to cook. Then we put them into a disposable plastic bag, pour in a bit of oil, shake, and remove the potato wedges, leaving the majority of the oil in the bag. Once the potato wedges are evenly spread on the baking sheet, we bake for about 50-65 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
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And somewhere between 50 and 65 minutes later... Perfection in a pan.
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I don't know the first thing about cooking vegetables when there's no can to be opened. You Google vegetable recipes and find a bunch of creamy, buttery ideas. Yes, friends, if I drenched my vegetables in butter and fat, I could cook vegetables too.

I want to learn how to cook healthy veggies. This week, I picked up some asparagus at the supermarket and decided to give it a shot. I just chopped the ends of the asparagus, added about a Tablespoon of sunflower oil to the pan, cooked the asparagus over medium heat until they darkened in color and became tender (about 7 minutes for me). Toward the middle of the cooking process I sprinkled in just a touch of salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese. Nothing extravagant. But good.
 
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Project for the next few weeks: casseroles. Casseroles. That word sounds so old woman-ly, but I like it; it also sounds so American. I think there's a little piece of old woman in me, and a whole lot of American, so the project is set. (Side note: In fact, I'm quite excited to be an old woman some day... making casseroles, drinking tea with my friends, reading mysteries, knitting, and watching Hallmark channel movies doesn't sound so bad.)

Dreams of aging aside, my first project in the casserole series was eggplant parmesan.

Ingredients:
1 T. sugar
1 T. basil
1 T. oregano
about 24 small-medium tomatoes (though 4-8oz. cans of tomato sauce, a can of whole tomatoes (chopped), and a bit of tomato paste would have done the job)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 lb. of eggplant
1/4 c. water
3 egg whites
1 1/4 c. breadcrumbs
2 T. Italian seasoning
1/3 c. Parmesan cheese
2 c. mozzarella cheese, ideally; I used the only option we've got: a package of low-fat cheese singles

First I chopped up 4 large eggplants; 3 would have been more than plenty; 2 might have sufficed. I chopped them to be about 1/4 inch wide. I placed them in a bowl, added water, and soaked them for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, I combined the first 5 ingredients above to make a sauce. I brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat and simmered for about 30 more minutes.

In 2 small bowls, I used the water and egg whites to make a mixture, then I used the parmesan, breadcrumbs, and Italian seasoning to make another mixture. After the eggplant slices had soaked, I dipped them in the first bowl, dredged them in the mixture in the second, and placed them on a tinfoil-lined baking sheet. Then I broiled them for about 5 minutes per tray (I ended up with 3 small trays of slices, which was way too many... I guess I wasn't sure how much eggplant was "2 pounds" as the original recipe suggested.)
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Then came the easy part; I just layered the sauce into a 13x9 pan, then a layer of eggplant, followed by a layer of cheese, repeated the layering steps once, covered it with tinfoil, and finally baked it at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. In my opinion, it could have used to be baked about 10-15 minutes longer for more tender eggplant, but what do I know?

I served it with some asparagus and whole wheat pasta.
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One of my goals during this term is to do more cooking. Another was to incorporate more vegetables into my diet. Eating out is great, and usually ends up being cheaper than cooking at home, but it gets old on the taste buds, and the food tends to be cooked in lots of oil and served alongside mounds of rice.

While stir-fry isn't really going out on a limb and making us feel like we're in America, this still mixed things up a little from what we usually find in the restaurants here, and-- very importantly-- contained no oil. I served this alongside a giant mound of... NOT rice.
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Here's what I used:
-a bunch of green pea pods
-a bunch of mushrooms (these ended up being great and I should have used more)
-some cauliflower
-several stalks of celery, thinly sliced
-3 Tablespoons light soy sauce
-1/4 cup water
-1 Tablespoon oyster sauce (whatever that actually is... there was a bottle in the fridge and I decided to go for it)
-1 Tablespoon vinegar
-salt to taste

I poured the soy sauce and water into a heating wok and added the cauliflower to give it a head start. After about 3 minutes, covered, I uncovered it and added the remainder of the ingredients (veggies and liquids). I re-covered the wok and allowed it to steam for several more minutes, stirring occasionally until the veggies were cooked but still a little crunchy. I turned off the heat, sprinkled on just a little salt, and served it. This made about 3 or 4 servings, depending on how big your "bunch" of this and "bunch" of that are.

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  • 3-4 baked sweet potato insides, mashed
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • a handful of marshmallows
Mix the sweet potatoes and brown sugar and lay in a baking dish. Top with marshmallows and cook for about 15 minutes or until warm and browned on top. We cooked this one at about 350 degrees.
 
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I bought some already cooked sweet potatoes from a street vendor and used the inside to make sweet potato casserole. I didn't want to waste the skins with so many vitamins, so I tossed them onto a baking sheet, lightly salted them, and baked them for about 15 minutes at about 375 degrees.
 
Fresh. Easy. Delicious.

Cut 4-6 small tomatoes. Lay on a lightly sprayed baking sheet. We sprayed these again with our oil mister and sprinkled 1 1/2 teaspoons of italian seasoning on top.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I cooked these for about 20 minutes until they seemed soft and ready. We ate these plain, but they'd be really good with good bread or crackers.
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These are a little greasier than our average favorite snack foods, but delicious! (Of course!) With a nonstick griddle, they could be even better! 

1 large baking potato (1 pound), unpeeled
1 small onion
1/4 cup flour
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Oil for frying

Chop the onion into small pieces and grate the potato. (Great job for manly hands... see below.)  Wrap the potato in cheese cloth and squeeze as much liquid out as possible. (Any lint-free towel will work.)

In a  bowl, mix the flour, egg, salt and pepper together. Stir in the potato-onion mixture until all pieces are coated.
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In a skillet (or whatever heatable piece of metal that is available in your country), heat 1 tablespoon of oil until shimmering, shining, and glistening. Drop teaspoons of the mixture onto the griddle, flatten, cook 1.5 minutes, flip, cook some more, and voila! A latke treat for all!
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Recipe adapted from: smittenkitchen.com