My First Recipes Post - Green Smoothie, Broccoli Snack, and Soljanka
This past week involved a lot of cooking and trying the new recipes. Liam has been fighting yet another cold and had hard time eating solids so I tried green smoothie I found on happyhealthymama.com. It was delicious (see recipe below). Liam did not like the pulp but I strained it and he drank the juice. Brian and I ate the rest, it was yummy. I will be making this one again. It is loaded with vitamin E, C and iron.
Another toddler recipe I made over the weekend was a broccoli snack. For some reason, Liam rejects to eat steamed broccoli, so I searched online for a recipe that may appeal to the little guy. It is made of broccoli, cheese, egg, and bread crumbs (see below for details). Very simple to prepare, and tastes great. I served it with tzatziki dip and he loved it. Brian and I did too.
My little guy loves meat, and we love to prepare meats for him as it is great source of protein and iron. We buy only organic meat. Some feel that they can not afford the organic meats as they are more expensive food choice, but our approach is to rather eat smaller amount of organic meat than lots, lots of “bad” one. We try to cook meat based meals (chicken, beef, lamb, or pork) only twice a week (no more than 2 lbs per week for 3-4 people) and at least once a week have a fish. The rest of the meals are vegetarian based. This way we have balanced healthy diet that is easy on the budget too. This weekend I prepared Russian Soljanka, a beef stew loaded with veggies (see recipe below). We served it to Liam with bowtie pasta. This dish reminds me of Bosanski Lonac (eng., Bosnian Pot) mom use to make back home.
RECIPES:
Green Smoothie:
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
2 small oranges, peeled and pulled apart into wedges
1/2 green apple, sliced
1 cup raw spinach, packed
2 tablespoons raw honey
a few ice cubes
Place all ingredients, in the order listed, into a blender. Blend until smooth and enjoy.
Broccoli Snack:
6 oz of frozen broccoli, defrosted and drained
1 egg
8 oz of shredded cheese (cheddar, or mozzarella, etc.)
½ cup of bread crumbs
Preheat oven to 425 deg F. Mix broccoli and egg in the blender until smooth, add cheese, spread half of the bread crumbs on the cutting board. Place broccoli mixture over the crumbs and flatten ½ in thick. Cover with rest of the bread crumbs Cut into diamond shape and bake 8-10 min.
Soljanka:
1 yellow and green bell pepper, chopped into ½ in squares
1 lb of cabbage, cur into 3/8 in shreds
1 onion, chopped
1 lb of beef, cut in cubes
4 tbs of peper or tomato paste
4 ½ cups of water
3 oz of gherkins (chopped) with ½ cup of its juice
4 tbs olive oil
Salt and peper
Cilantro or parsley
Heat 2 tbs of oil and fry beef until golden brown. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and remove from the pot. Add remaining 2 tbs of oil to the same pot and heat up. Add onion, peppers, and cabbage. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add water, pepper sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and cook for 15 min. Add gherkins and cook for 5 more min. Add meat and cook for another 2 min. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro or parsley.
