Tuesday, January 22, 2013

DIY Clif Bars

I have been eating Clif, Lara, Raw, and pretty much any kind of healthy date based bars for quite some time. If you're also a fan, you'd know that the soft nutritious goodness that you enjoy with the first bite and lasts through the entire snack. These days, a Clif Bar or Larabar may cost you up to a $1.25 a piece and while I wish I could tell you I calculated the money I've saved down to the homemade bar, I can tell you that they're worth every penny. My 8 x 8 pan made about 6-8 bars, but they lasted about one and a half days. They are great for breakfast, pre-workout snacking, post workout snacking, and anything in between.


Ingredients:

2 cups diced medjool (pitted) dates
1/2 c. dark chocolate chips
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/4 c. crushed pecans


Method:

Cover your 8 x 8 pan with a piece of parchment paper, leaving about 3" on each side. Next cut your thinly diced dates and peanut butter in your Kitchenaid or food processor on medium to high speed in order to thoroughly combine them with the peanut butter. Add chocolate chips and spoon into your 8 x 8 pan, then press with your hands into all corners. Cover with the remaining parchment paper and leave in the refrigerator for at least three hours. Slice and enjoy!


Monday, January 21, 2013

Quinoa Cakes

A week or so ago I made these Cheesy Quinoa Cakes. YUM.

They were crisp and refreshingly healthy. That feeling of feeding your body something wonderfully nutritious definitely is an after effect. I varied the recipe a bit, and omitted the aoli sauce, but the original is great I am sure. I added a side of garlicky kale, and for lunch, included some salsa. Although they were delectable with their own cheesiness and a little taste of olive oil, I would imagine most people would like to add a sauce or dip of some sort, so go ahead and experiment!



Ingredients (adapted from here):

2 cups cooked quinoa
2/3 cup grated gouda cheese
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 ½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste




Method:

For the cakes:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place all ingredients, except for the oil, into a mixing bowl and stir together until well combined. Season with salt and allow to sit for 5 minutes. Pour oil into a large saucepan and place over medium heat. Form ¼ cup patties with the quinoa mixture and place in the heated pan. You may have to do a few batches, but it'll be worth it! Cook quinoa cakes for about 5 minutes on each side, until the the edges have browned and they look crisp. Flip carefully with a spatula and place on a warming plate in the preheated oven. Repeat with the remaining patties until all of the cakes have been cooked. 

For the kale:
Throw in four to five handfuls of roughly cut and washed kale with a clove or two of garlic and olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt, cover, and leave to simmer on medium heat for about fifteen minutes. Voila!




Feed them to someone you love, your child, your husband, your momma. They'll thank you for these crunchy and flavorful patties. They'd be perfect for a party appetizer or alongside some tomato soup.

Coming soon to a blog near you... DIY Larabars and Baked Oatmeal... !!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Feastie!

I just found out that Sage and Sound is featured on Feastie! This is super exciting for me as I've perused the blogs featured on Feastie, and I find myself to be in great company. Please click around and check out the website. A new feature on the top left of your screen is the Feastie Tool Bar. I've copied the instructions for it's use below, I'm now I'm looking forward to starting my grocery list and saved recipes.


FeastieBar

The FeastieBar
Recipe Gallery
Find your blog's recipes in one place - each individual blog has their own gallery featuring all of their recipes. The number on the green pear reflects the number of recipes in that gallery - click the pear to see your blog’s recipe collection. On non-recipe posts (such as a homepage) you'll have a button with a green pear that directs users to your Feastie recipe gallery. Posts with recipes will feature all four of the FeastieBar buttons seen above.
BookmarkBookmark favorite recipes in one place. Search from over 100,000 recipes from hundreds of food blogs - and new recipes are added daily. Bookmarked favorites are stored in user profiles for easy access. 
Grocery ListCreate a grocery list automatically with one click. Feastie organizes the grocery list for users, according to aisle/department - they can access the list (and your recipes) from a mobile phone and save time and money at the store. 
Cooked ItSave cooking history and keep track of which recipes they've cooked. No more searching for recipes - your readers can keep all of their tried-and-true favorites in one place.
Keep it all in one profile - saved recipes, cooking history, shopping list - everything in one place. Users (and bloggers!) just create a free account and access their profile from home or from a mobile phone.
So, get started! It's free to start a profile, shopping list, and cooking history! 

Yogurt Parfaits- make ahead meals!

Tonight I'm making these. Super yummy (I hope) and from my second (second only to Orangette!) favorite blogger, Iowa Girl Eats.




Although my oldest sister keeps telling me to get some, but I still haven't, I am making mine without chia seeds. I think the pictures to the original recipe are too pretty, so I'll refer you to those.

Cheers and Happy Over the Hump Day!

Monday, January 7, 2013

Italian Wedding Soup

Pop Quiz: What makes two people's three dinners, two lunches, and fills a whole leftover Martha Stewart BPA-free glassware? The answer, my friends, is Italian Wedding Soup. You didn't hear it from me, but this stuff fulfills all the food groups, ensures your fill of kale for a day, and pumps you up full of vitamins. And, it's delicious. After my mother mentioned the other night that she was making this delightfully cultural (I mean it has the word Italian in the title), I decided to embark on the journey that is soup making myself. I was prepared for an arduous trip, full of blending, food processing, slicing, and dicing. But I was wrong.

Approximately 40 minutes later, I had a delicious meal and used only 2 pots and one mixing bowl. Since we live in a pretty adorable retro house (I'm talking 1920's), there isn't a ton of counter space, though it is more than enough for me. So, it is a testament as to how simple this soup can be. My husband didn't even blink when he walked into the kitchen. Now that's a good sign.

Some Italian wedding soup recipes call for orzo, which I think would be good, but I chose to use barley, after seeing it in the grain aisle at Trader Joe's. Plus, I'm frighteningly adventurous. I also added a few chopped mushrooms to my own recipe, and made the meatballs a little bigger than I have had in the past.



The result was fabulous. Like I said, it fed my small family of two for days and days. Now we're moving on to something else, like chicken. But we'll be back to that soup.

*Note: I based my recipe off this one from The Kitchn. However, I lightened it up quite a bit, omitting the cheese, eggs, garlic, and onion. I used a pinch of garlic salt, and that quickened up the process.



Ingredients:

1- 1 1/2 lb. ground turkey, or chicken (white lean meat)
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 c. Italian flavored dry breadcrumbs (I love Progresso)
8 cups organic chicken broth (low sodium is OK)
2 1/2 cups dry barley
4 cups kale, torn into small to medium sized chunks
1 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

Method:

Heat two burners to medium heat. Coat a large saucepan with olive oil, swirling to cover all surfaces. In a large mixing bowl, combine pinch of sea salt, breadcrumbs, and ground turkey and mix thoroughly. Form into meatballs. You will likely have around 20 meatballs, 30 if you make them smaller. I made mine about the size of a large tablespoon. Place them in the well oiled pan, which should be relatively hot by now and cover loosely with a lid.



In a large 3.5 quart or bigger pot, bring chicken broth to a rolling boil, then add barley. Allow to boil for a minute or two, then bring to a bubbling simmer. Add kale, carrots, and mushrooms. Allow to simmer with the lid on your pot for about 15-20 minutes. The barley will cook itself, which is a nice little time saver. After about seven minutes, check your meatballs and flip them so that they are evenly brown. Since I didn't want to use two pans, I lined a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and baked the remaining meatballs at 400 degrees for about ten minutes total, flipping them halfway through.


Once your meatballs are cooked through (you can check by cutting one open), add them to the broth and vegetable mixture, and let simmer for about ten minutes, so the flavors can meld together.

And there you have it! We had some tasty multi-grain crackers from Trader Joe's with it last night, and I added some eggplant hummus. Yum.



I think I know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow!

Ciao,

k



Thursday, January 3, 2013

One small thing, not related to food

I've been thinking lately about running and how much I crave it. I haven't been feeling well this week, and came across this:


It's perfect timing, because of our "resolution" (I hate that word-so non permanent!) to eat cleaner. Although the two: eating and exercising are two different activities, they are both so essential to my well being that I think of them similarly. Have you ever seen those Olympic athletes that were once Iraq War veterans, then amputees, then sprinters with artificial limbs? I cry each and every time I see them. And this little quote thing, I found on Pinterest, while slightly cheesy, is a good reminder.

Do it because you only get one brave little body your whole life.