Sauteed Zucchini

I took this to a pot luck the other night and it got rave reviews. I'm growing my own veggies and most of the ingredients came from my patio garden! It's really easy and flexible. I'm going to scale it down because your not generally going to want to feed ten or more people!

1 small to medium zucchini
1 or 2 green onions sliced
small amount of sweet peppers any color
two tbsp of chopped fresh parsley

Spray a frying pan with cooking spray and saute all ingredients until the zucchini is tender

You can use yellow squash instead of zucchini, regular onion instead of green, add celery if you want or experiment with adding other veggies. I really like how this comes out and make it for myself quite often.

Breakfast Burritos

I really love the breakfast burritos some fast food restaurants make but don't like paying the price. I often shop really early on Saturday mornings and a couple weeks ago when I was done shopping I was going to go to the closest fast food joint and buy a couple when it occured to me that I had everything I needed in the grocery bags in the back seat. So here it is.

For each burrito you will need:

1 taco size whole wheat tortilla

1 or 2 eggs (depends on how much other stuff your going to stuff in it)

Cheese:
You can use 1 or 2 slices of cheese or grated cheese

Meat (optional);
2 deli sliced pieces of ham ot turkey or
1 or 2 sausage links or patties chopped up or
2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled or
Chopped cooked ham, turkey or chicken

Veggies:
Small amount of chopped onions and peppers are a must, use whatever peppers your taste buds can handle
Optional veggies, pick one or two(or more if your cooking for several people) :
(just use a small amount for each burrito)
Broccoli (this is really good, try it)
Grated carrots
Celery
Corn
Grated potato
Cubed cooked potatoes
Mushrooms
Tomato
Any leftover veggies from dinner

Put the deli sliced meat (if that's what your using) and cheese on tortilla, put in microwave for about 20 to 30 seconds. If you have help, have them do this while your cooking the filling.

Filling:
Saute the onions, peppers and any other uncooked veggies, add the sausage if thats what your using, saute until onions are transparent and sausage is cooked through. Add other meats, cooked veggies and heat through. Beat the eggs thouroughly and add to mixture. Cook like scrambled eggs. Put desired amount on each burrito, roll up and enjoy.

Tired of Boring Green Beans?

One of the things that seems really popular among my clients is to pour bacon grease and crumbled bacon over their green beans. This makes the health conscious part of me cringe. However, bacon bits or crumbles without the bacon grease works very nicely. Here's some other quick and easy ideas to add some interest to your beans.
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Add some mushrooms, peppers, water chestnuts, green onions and/or chopped onion.
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Add some salsa
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Toss cooked beans with a tablespoon or two of Parmesan cheese
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Saute with onions, mushrooms, celery and/or peppers
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Simmer in cream with mushrooms and/or onions
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Toss with a little bit of sour cream and chives
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Toss with sauteed or toasted almonds
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Cook with a crushed clove of garlic
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Add fresh thyme, basil or parsley
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Add a dash or two of Worcestershire or soy sauce
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Saute with one or two seeded and chopped tomatoes
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Cook with a small can of diced or stewed tomatoes
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Sprinkle with lemon juice
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Sprinkle with crushed red peppers
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Here's an Idea

One of my readers, Molly, sent in this idea I haven't tried it, I don't cook at home enough but this is basically how it goes:

Deb , a Mennonite friend introduced me to Mennonite stew what we do is we take a butter dish and put it in the freezer when we have left overs just a small amount we put them into the dish in the freezer when the dish is full i defrost it put it in a casserole dish and bake at the end i cover the top with shredded cheese. Most things will work in this as long as it isn't too soupie. The casserole is always different and I haven't had a bad one yet. The dish might have several different types of meat and veggies in it and it eliminates almost all waste of food.Molly : O )

Coleslaw Scramble

My veggie scramble can involve a lot of preparation that some people may not be up to first thing in the morning. You could, of course, do it the night before if you can plan that far ahead (something I'm not really good at), so I've tried this the other day and it's a fast and easy alternative to get more veggies into a meal that is traditionally devoid of them.

The recipe is based on two eggs for one person, you can of course make it for any number of people by increasing the ingredients.

2 eggs
about a 1/4 cup of fresh coleslaw blend (the one I used had broccoli and cauliflower "hearts" as well as the cabbage) you can adjust the amount to suit your own tastes
Green onion sliced or small amount diced onion
Shredded cheese

Spray pan with cooking spray. Saute onion and coleslaw blend until just tender
Beat eggs and add to vegetables. Right before eggs are done sprinkle with shredded cheese.

Of course, you could add any of the ingredients listed for the veggie scramble too. Once again it's a great way to use up leftover meat or vegetables from the night before

Freezing Onions and Peppers

A lot of veggies take some preparation and blanching to freeze, but all you need to do for onions and peppers is clean, chop and freeze. I use a lot of both in my cooking and having them ready to use can save a lot of time. You don't have to do large batches (unless you've found a really good bargain), there's been times I've used half a pepper for a recipe and froze the rest.

Doing it this way keeps them from sticking together in one big clump so you can remove the quantity needed. The procedure is fairly simple:

1. Peel onions and clean and seed the peppers
2. Slice or dice them as you would for different recipes
3. Spread out on a cookie sheet
4. Place in freezer until frozen
5. Then place in bag or container and return to freezer until needed

Mom's Garden Goulash

My father was a farmer stuck in the suburbs. Every year he would dig up over half the backyard and plant a garden. This garden was always very prolific and we ate a lot of fresh garden veggies in the summer. Certain vegetables would all start ripening at the same time and it became a race to freeze or use all of them up. Many of the neighbors would hide when they would see my dad or mom coming with yet more zucchini, tomatoes, peppers or eggplant. So my mom would chop them all up, fry them all together and called it goulash. I have since learned that it has a more fancy french name, ratatouille. This is my version which probably can't be called ratatouille because of the changes I made so I'll stick to mom's original name and give her credit. Here's my version.

1 large potato, quartered lengthwise and sliced
1 zucchini or yellow squash halved lengthwise and sliced
1/2 green pepper, coarsely chopped
1/2 red pepper, coarsely chopped
1 or 2 med. tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 med onion coarsely chopped
1 or 2 stalks of celery sliced
2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley

In a microwave safe dish cover the potatoes with water and microwave for about 5 minutes and drain. You want them not quite done. Spray large frying pan with cooking spray, add onions, pepper and celery and saute until tender. Add potatoes and zucchini and continue until both are almost done. Add tomatoes and parsley. Saute another two minutes or so.

Changes:
Use a small eggplant instead of, or as well as the zucchini

You can add oregano and/or basil as well as the parsley

You can also add leftover veggies at the end just long enough to heat them.

This and a slice of buttered bread would be all we had for dinner but it can also be a side sish.