Category: spinach

SPINACH PIE

Hi….It’s been long time I posted anything online. Even though I wasn’t posting, I have been working on few recipes as usual on salt free. A lot of my family and friends have been opposing to “no sodium diet” but keeping “HEALTH” in mind I decided to not to give up.

I am proud of my kids to support me in this battle. I didn’t want to disappoint them so i have been and will keep trying all these recipes they love and of course new ones too to make them NO SODIUM.

You are right. I am here with a new recipe ( made some changes to the recipe i found on line).

Serving size:4
Prep time: 15-20  min
Cook time: 15 min

Ingredients:
Spinach (preferably fresh) 2 cups...cooked spinach tastes better
Cottage cheese 1 cup
Parmesan cheese 1/4 cup
Eggs 2
Black pepper (freshly crushed) 10-15 
Thyme (dried) a pinch
Nutmeg powder 1/8 tsp
Onion (diced) 1/3 cup
Garlic cloves (minced) 1 big
Curry powder 1 tsp
Jeera powder 1/2 tsp
Puff pastry sheet (1)

Procedure:
1.Saute the diced onion and minced garlic until the onion is 
translucent. 
2.In the mean time, mix the cottage cheese, parmesan cheese, 
nutmeg, black pepper,thyme,eggs. Then put in spinach (makesure
there is no water).
3.Now add the curry and jeera powder. Mix it to evenly distribute.
Add onion and garlic to this and mix it again.
4.I used the puff pastry sheet ( you can also make from scratch, i 
didn't have time). Roll into thin sheet after thawing. Now spread
this in oven safe bowl and put the above spinach mixture in the bowl
as shown in pics.
5.Close the ends into middle like you do for a pie. Fork on top so
that heat escapes and doesn't make it soggy.
IMG_1668
6.Bake it at 400F for 8-12 min depending on power settings.
IMG_1669


Enjoy your spinach pie when it's hot but not too hot.
Advertisements

Green protein shake

We were off track of healthy diet for the past few days. We includes my kids too. You know how kids are these days, once they are off that’s it ..it’s so hard to get them on track. Luckily my kids agreed to be back on healthy diet. I want them to be excited about it and not boring so i thought of this plan. As soon as i said to my kids they were laughing and got mad in the beginning. Later they were perfectly fine with the plan and helped me pick the recipes. Do you know want it is that we came up with? …Well it’s called GREEN BREAKFAST, RED LUNCH AND ORANGE DINNER. I know what you might be thinking but when you see our meal plan for this week you will be amazed too ….Let’s go with today’s green protein shake for breakfast. It’s very simple and healthy…..

Ingredients:
1 cup Mango
1 and 1/2 cup spinach
honey to taste (optional)
coconut water (if needed for desired consistency)Preferably fresh 
but i couldn't get a nice coconut so i used pure bottled one but not
from concentrate.
flax seeds or chia seeds (optional too)..

Directions:
Peel off the mango skin and dice them into pieces.
Wash spinach leaves and add all the ingredients to the blender and 
blend them into a shake..Your yummy shake is ready to go....

img_1123

Note: I always perfer to use fresh fruits and vegetables.

NO SODIUM PARMESAN SPINACH RICE

I have been lazy today since morning , having fun watching TV. Some times you like to have that free time for your self. Then after a while i realized it’s time for kids snack. They will be coming from school and i have to make the snacks or lunch because my son he doesn’t eat his lunch at school. He will be coming home hungry so sometimes i make lunch instead of snack. Today i have to make lunch because he took a cheese salad for lunch and i knew he would be really hungry once he comes home. I was thinking what to make today and i looked in the fridge for vegetables. I found a box of fresh spinach which will go bad soon if i don’t use in couple of days. I decided to do some thing with it. I checked online to find a recipe with spinach and i found a recipe with different cheeses and salt. I was disappointed first because i was trying to do something different that my kids never ate.

I said to myself,”i can make some changes to the recipe and make my own to get a new taste without salt but yummy. Huh….is it going to work? I changed a lot of recipes before for my taste. I will give it a try again…..”.

You don’t believe it was a huge success. My kids loved it. So i want to share that recipe with you….

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 to 2 cups of cooked spinach (just steam...i don't like to 
use frozen spinach so i get fresh ones).
img_1101
1/3 cup or less diced onion ( i used yellow onion).
1 garlic clove diced.
1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves ( i crushed them to powder).
img_1104
3 eggs.
img_1105
1/3 cup milk. 

pepper to taste.
img_1106
parmesan cheese grated ( i want to use vegan next time.. i will let 
you know how it goes).
mozarella cheese grated too.
1 and 1/3 cup cooked rice.
img_1107
1 and 1/2 to 2 tbsp melted butter.
img_1102

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350F. Take a pan and put in spinach, onions, garlic
on low heat covering with a lid. Mix it often so it doesn't stick to 
the pan since we don't use oil. And also make sure you cook rice too.
Almost forgot, melt butter also. At the same time, i grated mozarella
cheese since i don't have any grated ones at home. 
Once you have cooked spinach ready to go, combine with beaten eggs,
parmesan cheese and milk. Add melted butter too to this mixture. Mix
well. Pour this in a oven safe container and bake it for 25 min. In 
the last 3 to 5 min, add mozarella chesse on top. 

Now waiting for that 5 min to end felt like forever. I wanted to tas
te it to make sure kids are going to love it if not i have to make 
changes or need to cook something else.

To my surprise, it turned out so awesome to look and taste.

We need to enjoy what we eat so you can make anything you like by 
adding and deleting the ingredients you don't like to make a new one
for your taste.
img_1108
img_1111

TIPS FOR MAKING HEALTHY SMOOTHIES

 

Recently, I was wondering how i can make my life easy with kids, job, family, house etc…..You are going through the same thing! I knew it so i put some time into it figuring out how i can do this….First thing came to my mind was breakfast…What can I do to make my job less hard in the morning?….Ofcourse you want it to be healthy when it comes to family but you also wish for less work..

I noticed that a lot of people are in to smoothie freezer packs (no doubt i prefer home made only). Huh! “freezer bags” might not be a good idea to eat frozen food but i gave it a thought. If we make fresh at home, they should be good for health. You know you are not adding preservatives to preserve them from rotting you are just preserving the nutrients naturally so why worry right. That’s it, it striked my mind to be a great idea. So i did some research and you will be thrilled to know i gathered a lot of reciepes, even though most of them we know already and i found some interesting ones online (like whole foods and few more…).

 

Are you ready to jump into kitchen to make these delicious, colorful but healthy vegan smoothies which take couple of minutes to make?

Before you enter the kitchen, here are some tips in making smoothies:

  • You can add “chia seeds”, or “flax seeds (they don’t change the color a lot, or taste)

chia-seeds                          flax-seed

  • You can add 2 cups fruit, 1 sliced banana

banana

  • You can add 1 cup greens (for healthy fibrous smoothie).
  • Add 1 cup of liquid (like water, coconut water, juice, almond milk) to the blender, then add frozen smoothie pack contents or fresh ingredients.
  • Adding coconut manna or 1/2 avocado will produce a creamer smoothie.

avocado

  • Freeze yogurt in icucube trays (for convenience but try to add fresh).
  • Layer from softest (like banana) to hardest, and add liquid last.
  • Oatmeal is cheap, filling, healthy and turns your drink into a meal (which is fribrous too).

oatmeal

  • Add veggies like cabbage, kale or spinach you won’t even taste them ( gives vitamins, fiber, minerals).

spinachkalecabbage

 

I will keep looking into it and if you have any please share them….hope you all are going to enjoy making smoothies…….see you in my next post of smoothie reciepes….