Caeser Salad

Ok. Another week has passed and people are still isolated inside keeping their distance from others. I made dinner yesterday. We had mini pizzas (they are super easy to make just grab some pitas, pizza sauce, your favorite toppings, and cheese and bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes) and Caesar salad which was made with homemade fish free dressing. Today I will share with you that recipe so you can give it a try while you’re at home.

Fish Free Caesar Salad Dressing (for those with allergies)

You will need...

3-5 cloves of garlic

1 cup of mayonnaise

½ cup of shredded parmesan cheese

4 tbsp. of olive oil

1 tsp. of salt and 1 tsp. of pepper

2 tbsp. of lemon juice

Put all of the ingredients into the food processor and process for 1-2 minutes.

Put into an air tight container and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Toss it with Romaine lettuce, more parmesan cheese, and if you’d like, top with croutons. Add grilled chicken breast slices if you want more of a meal salad. 

Use the leftover dressing to dip fresh veggies in for a snack.

Banana Bread

A few posts back we had started our mini baby shower planning theme. With all that is happening in the world right now, we are delaying the baby shower that we were planning and blogging about until later on. When we figure out a new date and pick up with our planning, then we will continue with that mini theme.

Since many people are having to stay inside and isolate themselves, we thought that we should do some posts of things to do while you’re staying home.

Today we have Margie’s Banana Bread recipe that we are going to share with you. It’s super simple and quick to throw together. It’s also super yummy and perfect for a nice snack or to have with your morning tea or coffee.

You will need...

6 tbsp. of butter

1 cup of brown sugar

4 eggs

3 cups of flour

2 tsp. of baking soda

4 tsp. of baking powder

2 tsp. of vanilla

6 bananas

First of all, this is the original recipe doubled so that you get two loaves. I actually tripled the recipe and made three loaves and froze one for a rainy day.

Here we go.

Cream the butter and sugar and eggs.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, soda, and powder.

Defrost, if you're using frozen bananas, the bananas. Then mash the bananas in another bowl.

Alternately, add the banana and flour mix o the wet mixture in the mixing bowl.

Once everything is mixed together, stir in the vanilla.

Now you can leave them all plain if you want to, but we like to add some chocolate chips to at least one of the loaves. Usually 1-2 cups of chocolate chips is good. It all depends on how chocolatey you want it.

Pour batter evenly into pans (butter them slightly so they don’t stick).

Bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes.

Cool slightly before cutting.

 Enjoy! Oh, and Happy Spring too!

Green Smoothie

Only a couple of days before St. Patrick’s Day and we’re kind of sticking to our holiday theme and we’re going to look at healthy green smoothie recipes for this week’s post. As you remember, we did a heart healthy food list for Valentine’s Day.

Green smoothies are an ever popular trend. Some are very simple and some have lots of ingredients in them but they all are super healthy. Take a look and see our green smoothie guide that can help you create a drink to feel healthy and to help celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!

Simple Green Smoothie:

So a green smoothie has a basic outline. You want to add milk/liquid, greens, fruit, protein, and seeds. If you’re making a big batch of green smoothie, follow this rule, 2 cups of greens, 2 cups of liquids, 3 cups of fruit plus whatever add ons you want.

First of all, a green smoothie wouldn’t be green without the greens so some possible greens that you can use are...spinach, kale, lettuce, Swiss chard, bok choy, collards, dandelion, carrot top, celery, or beet greens. Feel free to use just one kind of green or mix it up and use a couple different types.

Next you’ll need to choose a liquid to add to the smoothie. You can use water, but for an extra bit of flavour try... dairy milk (1%, 2%, skim), soy milk, almond milk, coconut water, cashew milk, rice milk, oat milk, coconut milk, or cold brewed green tea.

Now add some fruit. Frozen bananas are always good to use but also try adding in some other fruit as well. Good fruit to add to your smoothie are mangos, pineapple, berries, peaches avocados, oranges, grapefruits, pears, apples, and grapes.

Finally add in some extras if you want. Some examples of extras are... your favourite protein powder, matcha green tea powder, flax, quinoa, chia seeds, honey, and other seeds.

Here is a recipe for a small batch of green smoothie...

1 ½ cups of milk (you choose what kind)

2 cups of frozen spinach

1 frozen banana

1 cup of fruit, your choice (good ideas are...mango, pineapple, berries, peaches, citrus fruit, green apple)

A scoop of your favourite protein powder

Blend all the ingredients together and drink. You can freeze this smoothie in individual containers so if you’re in a hurry you can pull it out and let it defrost in the morning.

Chicken Cacciatore

Yay it’s Thursday! It’s been a long week so far. Anyways, we are taking a break from the baby shower planning for now and we’re going to share with you a simple recipe that you can make on the weekend ahead.

Chicken Cacciatore is a family favourite dish. I don’t always have the time to make it, but this past weekend we had a stormy indoor Sunday so I thought why not. It’s the perfect comfort food dish to have after a long week and on a cloudy hibernating day.

To make Chicken Cacciatore (to serve five people roughly) you will need the following…

16-20 chicken thighs, with bones and skin.

1 can (796ml) of diced tomatoes

Your favorite tomato sauce, we used Classico’s Tomato Basil (or you can make your own)

12-20 sliced white mushrooms

2 tsp. of dried oregano

½ tsp. of dried basil

1 red chopped pepper

1 green chopped pepper

Salt (to taste)

½-1 tsp. of black pepper

3 cloves of garlic

Rice or pasta to serve with the chicken

Start by salting and peppering your chicken. Let it sit for about an hour.

While that’s happening, chop up your peppers and garlic and sauté them in a big pot until a little bit softer but leave some crunch. 

While the peppers are softening, you can slightly cook your chopped up mushrooms in a separate pan and set aside. You want the mushrooms to get a bit darker and softer and to cook some of the liquid out of them.

Add in the seasonings and the diced tomatoes. Stir around and then add in your tomato sauce. Allow your chunky looking sauce to boil and then simmer while you cook your chicken. 

Now it’s time to cook the chicken in batches making sure they get nice and crispy. I cooked them until they were almost fully cooked but you can leave them less cooked and let them finish cooking in the oven. I’m always super worried about under cooked chicken though. I started by cooking them on both sides for 5 minutes and then going back to the original side and cooking for at least 3 more minutes (make sure you don’t burn).

Place the prepared chicken into a couple of Pyrex dishes and cover with the tomato sauce. It’s not meant to be a runny type of sauce; you want it to be thicker over top of the chicken.

Cook further for an hour at 350 degrees.

When it comes out it should be steaming and bubbling.

Serve over rice or pasta. I also made some of my cheese biscuits to go along with it. They are always a hit

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