Guest Blogger: Ben's Flag Flounder

Flounder with brocoli and orange

The nice thing about fish-- it is pretty healthy, and quick to make. With a guest coming over (one of Victoria's family members), I like to do something which both kids and big people can eat. Fish seems like a good idea.

Now fish and rice are good, but there is not much color there. Broccoli makes it healthy, and adds the green. The orange adds that nice citrus bite, and throws in some more color. I suppose this is Irish fish now-- green, orange, and white, like the Irish flag! Of course, this tastes more like something from the East, with the sesame and ginger.  Perhaps India? Niger or Ivory Coast?   Take your pick:

The idea is fresh, healthy and quick. Let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

9 flounder filets

8 ounce dry rice

16 ounce water

2 oranges

3 cups brocoli

seasoning- ginger powder

seasoning- vegetable seasoning

sesame seeds to taste

Guest Blogger: Ben Eisenberg

Directions:

1. Boil water and add rice. Cook covered for 15 minutes.

2. Steam broccoli for same time.

3. Add sesame seeds and powdered ginger to the rice and broccoli

4. Grease a pan with vegetable or olive oil

5. Cook fish in pan at medium heat

6. Add lots of vegetable seasoning, a spritz of salt, and spritz of white pepper

7. Flip and add seasoning to other side

8. Cook fish for about 15 minutes, or until brown around edges and beginning to flake apart

9. Cut a fresh orange. Use slices to squeeze juice onto fish and rice.

Tip: for serving lots of people, heat the oven to 170 degrees. Put the fish fillets you just cooked into the oven to warm while cooking the other fillets.
Tip: Squeeze orange onto the fish and rice. 

NaNya Annie, Avi, Via- all enjoying Ben's dish!

Mother/Daughter Tea & Croutons ---- 2012 London Olympics

Today is the start of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom.

Good luck to all of the athletes this year! 

What better way then to celebrate with a good ole fashioned tea party. To be able to do that with my daughter, just her and I, even better! With Ben and Avi gone away at a boy's summer camp for the weekend, it was the perfect time.

Via is here to teach: How to be an Olympic Princess.

*Tip- Everything is red and pink.

1. Get Your Beauty Rest!

2. Make your nails all pretty and red!

3. Do Pink eye shadow (dark and light)

4. Don't forget to do mascara- PURPLE mascara!

5. Add sparkling red lipstick! 

6. Don't forget to add necklaces, bracelets, and more!

Via teaches: How to have a spot of tea and croutons!

1. Make your croutons (recipe later) or buy them.

2. Pick out your teas, we picked out Bigelow's English Teatime and Twinings of London's Herbal Revive Tea.

3. Brew your tea- we do it ole fashioned- tea pot and add tea to boiling water. Add to your tea pot set. We used Alex's Children's Tea Set to help set the mood.

4. Drink your tea and nibble on your croutons. Don't forget to wear purple gloves!

5. End the night, with one of my daughter's favourite book series- "Fancy Nancy". Tonight we will be reading "Fancy Nancy: Bonjour Butterfly."

6. Enjoy the opening ceremonies to the 2012 summer olympics on the telly, like we did! Great opening and can't wait for the games to come in the next 17 days!

Peach Frozen Yoghurt

Nothing better than cold, natural, light subtle sensations on a hot day!

I personally can sit and eat ice cream for days! I tried to do homemade ice cream with little success. Still trying. I have thought if an ice cream maker makes a difference. For now, I will just try something new. This seemed perfect.

With intention to try this, we sat down and ate the entire thing. No joke. I like this better because I can justify this more than ice cream. This has not just plain yoghurt but Greek yoghurt. I love Greek yoghurt the best. It is thick full of flavour. It has probiotics. I know what is in this rather than store made. When I get the chance, no brainer.

Serves 8-12. 

Ingredients:

4 peaches

32 ounces Plain Greek Yoghurt

1 Cup Vanilla Soy Milk

3-4 tbsp sugar

Directions:

1. Cut your peaches and mash them together in a bowl, leaving 1/2 peach out.

2. Add 1 tbsp sugar and continue mashing until it is somewhat mashed.

3. Add 1/2 cup soy milk and continue mashing and mixing.

4. Add in the Greek Yoghurt and stir well.

5. Add in the rest of the sugar one tbsp at a time and stir.

6. Add in the rest of the soy milk and stir in well.

7. Freeze!

8. Take out and let sit at room temp to soften a little bit and serve.

Vegetable Bean Rice Soup

Right now it is drizzly outside and just call for a cup of warm tea and soup kind of day. So I figured that it be important to just do that. A one pot meal that encompassed everything healthy and heart warming.

This is all sorts of awesome- gluten free, vegetarian, vegan, full of protein, vegetables and servings. You can make this and have lunch tomorrow. Take it to a brunch (because we know these days, diets of all kinds and food restrictions of all kinds, it can be hard to cook to cater to everyone at once, right?).

The other thing I like about this dish is the ability to use items that are not in nature expensive and know that easily per serving, you will be not spending much. This makes 12-16 servings.

Ingredients:

1 large tomato

6 Shanghai Tips/Bok Choy

1 medium onion

3 garlic

1/2 bunch Cilantro

1 large bell pepper

12 cups water

1 1/2 cups rice

1 15 ounce Kidney beans, canned

Directions:

1. Chop all the ingredients.

2. Combine onion and garlic to sautee in the bottom of the pan for a minute

3. Add in the Cilantro and stir for a minute

4. Add in bell pepper and stir for a minute

5. Add in bok choy and stir for a few minutes until the boy choy condenses down a little bit

6. Add in 12 cups water and bring to a boil

7. Add rice and cook for 15 minutes

8. Add in tomato and cook low for 5 more minutes.

9. Serve.

                                          

Baked Swai Filet over Serrano Pasta & Banana Almond Brownie Cake

Happy Birthday to a great husband and father!

Yesterday was my husband's birthday- and we did celebrate it! First it was my kids and I making him a collage frame to take to work that would be like taking a piece of us with him. It including a hand print made with all 5 of our handprints cascading against one another in paint. His name cut out of a cereal and game box, a half done puzzle, easter grass, magazine clippings, etc. All put together to create a master piece that would be the buzz and talk of the day at his office. So proud of the creativity in this house!

Okay, you say this is a food blog! Yes, it is. So, the creativity did not, of course, stop there. 

May we present Ben's Birthday Menu!

I will present as my blogging experience today the dinner and dessert. 

                               Dinner:                                                     Dessert:                                                      

                 Baked Cheesy Swai Filet                      Banana Almond Brownie Cake                 

                 Serrano Chili Pesto Pasta                                Milk

We will start of with the main dish- Baked Cheesy Swai (Filet)

The star of the food show :) 

Ingredients:

2 cups crushed crackers (I used 4 matzos)

4 Swai Filets (I used individual frozen)

1 1/2 Cups Sharp Cheddar Cheese

1 tbsp Vegetable Seasoning

1 Egg

Say Cheese! 

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 450.

2. Take your crackers and crush them 

3. Add cheese and seasoning mix well

4. Mix egg in as well.

5. Grease bottom of pan

6. Put mix down and take the thawed swai filets and coat them with the mix

7. pour the rest of the mix on the top

8. Bake for 10-15 minutes

9. Serve! (We served over Serrano Chili Pesto Pasta- recipe below).

We will move on with the Serrano Chili Pesto Pasta. 

Use my recipe for Serrano Pesto Sauce and put it over pasta. This has serrano peppers, ginger, peanuts, olive oil, parmesean cheese, basil- and is so easy to make, you need only a blender and do not have to cook it, just add over pasta. Best of all, you make this batch and you will have leftover sauce for a while.
If anyone knows my husband, they know spice is a must- so had to have spice in his birthday dinner.

Do not forget the biggest ingredient of them all, which is the more the merrier!
We got to enjoy the company of a good friend, James.
I, of course, pretended as if I knew nothing of it.
"La la la. Hmm, honey, can you get the door, I have to check the fish. Thanks."
"Did you know about this?" "I don't know, did I?"

Now, on to the dessert, the Banana Almond Brownie Cake.

This was actually Via's idea- to add the banana's that is. Way to throw in nutrition! A+.
She even helped make daddy's brownie cake!

Ingredients:

1 Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Brownie Mix

1 Egg

1/3 cup Water

1/3 cup Vegetable Oil

2 Ripe Bananas

20 Almonds

Directions:

1. Preheat oven at 325.

2. Make the brownie mix, starting with the egg, oil, and water. Mix well.

3. Add in the bananas and mash with a fork into the brownie mix.

4. Crush the almonds with a fork and add them into the mix.

5. Pour into pan and bake for 35 minutes.

6. Sing Happy birthday and eat!

                           Happy Birthday to everyone born yesterday! 

Almond Coffee Bean Brownies

Almond Coffee Bean Brownies with a tall glass of Soy Milk :)

I have found my new favourite thing. I love the Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Brownie mix. I love it so much I could sit and eat for a long time, like eat a whole batch in one sitting. And do not forget licking the bottom of bowl is a must! I miss Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco California. Their chocolate is some of the best. 
I think I have to admit- I may just be a chocoholic! :)  Now you can sign me up for chocoholics anonymous. 
To help moderate myself, I decided to make a brownie that would not only satisfy my chocolate craving but also be healthy as I could make it. So I put coffee in it for kick and taste, yum! And I put protein and fiber in it. You can taste the almonds but not the beans and that makes it SO good. Ben took a bit and was shocked that he could not taste the beans and just found out it had coffee in it, so know he is supposing that is why he got an energy boost last night. All I could do was smile. He like it, not just by the comment but the several pieces missing when I came down the next morning. 
My son even loved it- he was licking his fingers so much that I swear he would have eaten his own hand had it been made of chocolate. Now we know the theory behind the chocolate bunnies for Easter- it is all about the chocolate. It could be his face made of chocolate and he would eat it. Ha ha. 

Avi loving the brownies! 

Makes 12-24 brownies, depending on size you cut them into.

Ingredients:

Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Brownie Mix

2/3 cups brewed coffee

1 egg

1/3 vegetable oil

16 ounce black beans canned

20 almonds for in batter

10 almonds for topping

What ever could this be? Yum yum!

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

2. Crack the egg, add coffee and oil and mix together.

3. Add the brownie mix and mix well until batter is completely mixed.

4. In a seperate and small bowl, use a fork mashing the drained black beans. Use a fork- that is best. It allows for it not to become complete mush.

5. Add black beans to mix

6. Take a fork to the 20 almonds and crush them and put them in and mix.

7. Pour the batter in a greased baking pan.

8. Take other 10 almonds, crush with fork and add on top.

9. Pop in the oven for 35 minutes. Don't forget to lick the bottom of the bowl!

If you share a brownie with a baby- he WILL come back for more!

Guest Blogger: Mrs. Stephanie McKay

              "Does the Chicken in the Store Have Arms?"

Stephanie and I have been friends since grade school! Such a weird thought! I remember her, Brandon and I doing a play for one of our classes. I don't even remember if I was Cinderella or the evil step sister- do you remember Steph? We used to practice at your house, which was a few blocks from my foster home.

 I was sad when we were driving through Colorado and it did not work to meet up. I was hoping to be able to see you. But there is always a next time. Especially because I just know about those weekly trips you take to D.C. ;) Haha. 

Anyhow, I am proud to present one of my friends as my first guest bloggers!                          Miss you Steph!

She is an amazing and dedicated educator and a great human being and friend! 

From "Mr. & Mrs. McKay"

http://mrandmrsmckay.blogspot.com/2011/07/does-chicken-in-store-have-arms.html

Does the chicken in the store have arms?

Mrs. McKay hates cooking. She hates preparing, cooking, and cleaning up. She hates touching raw meat or even dealing with it. She hates figuring out if it's cooked all the way or if it's overdone. She definitely doesn't like to eat leftovers. When she has to cook, she ends up cooking the chicken until it is very, very dead. She absolutely hates cooking.

Now she is married and must fill some sort of shoe, some sort of stereotype. Cooking. No more eating at restaurants or ordering in many nights throughout the week.

Meet Winny.

Yesterday, Forrest and I went to the Drake Farmer's Market to check out the local goods. We ended up buying a whole chicken because somewhere in my mind, I thought it would be smart to buy a whole chicken and make several meals out of it. Not only was I going to save money, but I was going to be buying a chicken from a nice little farm where it roamed free and was happy.

The meat man flopped the frozen bird onto the scale and weighed our future meal. 4.5 lbs. Her name is Winny and she is my new challenge. Winny was quite expensive, $17 for a damn bird. She better go far.

Because the bird was as solid as a rock, I left her in the refrigerator overnight. Today, I pulled Winny out...right as Forrest came down the stairs! "Sweet, you get to pull out the nasty shit." He wasn't so pleased, but he stepped up to the plate. Winny was a little, eh, frozen on the inside which required a little more force than normal. Sorry Winny.

Winny stared, well not stared, but sat on the pan, waiting for me to become domestic and add something important. I stuffed Winny with oranges, rosemary and thyme. Then I gave her a EVOO (extra virgin Olive Oil) massage, salt and pepper scrub, then added some herbs under her skin. Into the oven at 350 degrees for 2 hours. Do your thing, Winny.

As I pulled Winny out of the oven to let her rest, I examined her. She had big arms (well wings actually, but I thought arms first). I never really noticed that chickens had bigger arms than their breasts. In fact, I never noticed the wings on a whole bird from the pre-cooked section at the grocery store. After asking Forrest if the chickens in the store had arms too, I noticed that she was an organic, free range bird and wasn't pumped with terrible things. Her breast was smaller, making her wings look bigger. Forrest started to take the meat off and saw that there were waaaay more body parts (or sections of meat) than he has ever noticed. Hey, don't judge. We is students.

See, I am, or was, a snobby girl and could only eat chicken breast. I would buy big-ass packets of chicken breasts and never anything else. Now, I will buy happy chickens with smaller breasts. This means that they didn't have to lug around their boobs during their short lives. Tell me about it, chickens, I lug around mine and it can be heavy. I totally get it.

We decided to make fajitas for dinner, save meat for other meals and I put the bones in the freezer to make soup later--a suggestion made by Forrest's vegetarian mom. Go Figure.

Everything turned out amazing and I was shocked at how domestic I could be. I filled a portion of a stereotypical wife's shoe today.

Then I cleaned the damn kitchen.

Stephanie and her husband Forrest. Awe!

Say hi to Oliver- Stephanie's beautiful baby! 

Cin PB Honey Plantains

Cin PB Honey Plantains over Rice

I was in H Mart (an Asian oriented mart) in Maryland, which I have fallen in love with by the way, and found plantains on sale and thought, ooh! Let us try something new!                    
I looked up about plantains and that they can be fried, which does not sounds as good to me. So I decided to make them more like a dessert or snack and bake them. I have no clue why peanut butter sounded SO good on it, but it did, especially when you add in honey and cinnamon.                                                                                                                                                                     
I am such a kid too! I saw Cinnamon and went- ooh Cin! What a great play on the word sin, and how amazing delightfully sinful this dish sounded to me! So hence the name-               Cin PB Honey Plantains.

Before adding the sauce and baking.

Serves 4
Ingredients:
3 plantains
1 tbsp honey
1/3 cup butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 heaping tbsp crunchy peanut butter

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. strip the plantains like a banana and slice thin.

Baking in the oven!

3. heat the butter for 30 seconds by microwave.
4. Put cinnamon, then peanut butter, than pour the butter over it and mix.
5. Add in the honey and stir.
6. lay out the plantains and pour over sauce
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes turning as necessary
8. You can serve warm, yum yum!


Seeing the time I was cooking this, we decided to make this over lunch. We put this over plain rice and my kids not only ate it up, they wanted more. You see Avi's face below? He was upset because I told him that we had to save some for daddy! So priceless! 

He is trying to feed you- say ah!

Enjoying lunch                                  

  Operation
Try-A-New-Food
        is a 
 SUCCESS!!!

Want To Be A Guest Food Blogger?

This is one of those times that you sit and reflect on the why of doing a food blog.

I do it for many reasons. Accountability to healthy cooking and eating. Creativity in small ways. Engaging my kids. Teaching my kids for life. Spending time with my own kids in a very healthy way. Sharing a piece of us or our food masterpieces with the world. In fact we are making something right now to post for you! And sometimes, let us admit, we do it for ourselves as much as anyone else.

In needing creativity in my life, I love to BE INSPIRED and TO INSPIRE!

So, I want to create a platform for ANYONE around the world to submit 

 thoughts, questions, experiences (ie: eating at the boardwalk, family picnic, or even an abroad food experience), recipes and photos (or even links) to me and I will post them.  

How to do it! 

Email me at jcpropheticsoul@gmail.com with:

1) Your written blog (can be anything- thoughts, questions, experiences, recipes)

2) Your pictures (send as many as you want)

3) A link, if you have one.

I can not wait to have you be a guest on my blog!

In the meantime, I will leave you with a picture of my 4 loves!

Pear Rice Pudding

My daughter is someone who is picky about food. So when she gets inspired to help me cook, I am always grinning ear to ear and jumping like a monkey who just saw a tree full of ripe bananas!
:)

We had pears and I randomly asked the kids, "Well, we have to have these pears. What sounds good with pears?" And without skipping a heart beat she replied, "pears over rice mama". Well, she inspired me! She is my co-conspirator in this recipe! She helped with the idea and also helping with every step. She used an Ikea's kid's knife and helped cut the pear, she poured in the ingredients, and helped cook as well as serve it.

I love me my rice pudding or rice cereal in the morning. So, I am sure we will have this for dessert tonight and for breakfast tomorrow morning.

My baby ate this and he is by far the pickiest eater so far. The only thing I know he really likes is Cheerios. Everything else is negotiable by mood. So, considering he was cranky and tired when he ate this, speaks well.
My entire family loved this and I am sure I will be cooking it for ages to come!

Ingredients:
2 cups Rice
4 cups Water 
9 cups Vanilla Soy Milk 
5 small Bosc Pears
1 cup Sugar
1/2 tbsp-1 tbsp Cinnamon
1 tbsp Butter(choose alternate for vegan)
*If using milk, you need to add Vanilla.
  * Serves 8-12.
    * Time is about 1 hour

Directions:
1. Chop pears.
2. Get all your ingredients.
3. Boil 4 cups water, add the butter, then add rice and cook 15 minutes.
4. Put into another sauce pan, all the pears and 4 cups soy milk, medium high heat to help soften pears while you cook the rice
5. While cooking the pears, half way in add 1/2 tbsp cinnamon and optionally mash with a masher.
6. When rice is done, add in the rest of the milk to the pears and the sugar- add the rest of the cinnamon, if you love cinnamon like we do!
7. Add in rice, cook over low to medium heat for 30 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes up to about 10 minutes.
8. Add in 1 cup more soy milk at about 10 minutes to go.
9. Stir constantly the last 8- minutes or so. 
10. After it's done cooking, take it off immediately to prevent burning or overcooking, and serve warm!

And just in case you don't know how to eat yummy delish food, my 18 month old has given you a pictorial step by step guide on how to enjoy this dish in style!