Quinoa Cheese Bites (gluten free)

Quinoa Cheese Bites

The boys could not agree how to eat these cheesy little dumplings: G-man smothered his in tomato sauce and the Cadet carefully dipped each bite. Does it really matter? They were eating quinoa. Voluntarily, cheerfully even.

Quinoa Cheese Bites started with Elle's recipe for Vegetarian Meatballs, and quinoa stands in place of crackers. A few more tweaks, and voila! Gluten free and oven baked, you can serve them as an entree or as a perfect take-along snack for a party.

1 cup quinoa, cooked*
1 large (or 2 small) eggs
8 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded (I have not tried it, but I bet non-dairy cheese would work well.)
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp basil

Cook the quinoa. (I added two cups of boiling water to the quinoa, stirred it until it came back to a boil, put the lid on the pot and left it for half an hour.)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a large baking dish (or two, 12" square dishes) with coconut oil or olive oil.

Mix everything together. Form one-inch balls, gently press them together and place them onto the baking dish. If you dip your hands in water first, and again every so-often, it will be easier to form the balls. Bake, uncovered, for about forty minutes, until the tops are golden.

Serve with your favorite tomato sauce, or blend the following together:

16 oz unsalted tomato sauce
small onion
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp garlic



[For anyone who is paying attention: yes, this is a repost from 2012. :) ]

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Garlic and Cheddar Bagels

Garlic and Cheddar Bagels

Bagels are easy to make, and a great project for the kids to help with in the kitchen. Twice this year, G-man has taken Garlic and Cheddar Mini-Bagels when it was his turn for preschool snacks. I based this recipe on one by John D Lee which turn out chewy on the outside and soft on the inside.  The cheesy, garlicky variety are as great fresh from the oven as they are toasted the next day for breakfast. Yum.

For eight doughnut-shop sized bagels, or sixteen mini-bagels:

1 1/4 cups warm water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp yeast
1 tbsp oil (avocado or olive work well)
4 cups unbleached flour or whole wheat flour
2 tsp garlic powder
1 cup grated cheddar

In a mixing bowl, combine the warm water, salt, and sugar. Gently stir in the yeast and allow it ten minutes to wake up and start to bubble. Stir in the oil, then three cups of the flour. (If you are using whole wheat, two and a half cups might be stiff enough.)

Turn the dough onto a floured board, and spread it out with your hands. Sprinkle the garlic and the cup of cheddar on top. Fold the dough over, and knead for five minutes, adding flour as needed.

Let the dough rest for ten minutes, then cut into eight (or sixteen) pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.

Shape the balls into bagels: Poke a hole in the middle, and gently enlarge the hole with your hands. Alternatively, you can stick your finger in the hole and spin the bagel on the board, enlarging the hole. (The kids like to help with this.) Make the holes ridiculously large, and the dough will shrink back a little.

Allow the bagels to rise until doubled, about half an hour, longer if it is cool in your kitchen. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425F, and set a large pot of water on the stove to boil.

Boil the bagels in batches: Gently drop the bagels into the boiling water, leaving enough room for each to expand and float. After a minute, flip the over and boil for another minute. With a slotted spoon, gently remove the boiled bagels and place them on greased cookies sheets.

Bake the bagels for nine minutes, then turn them over and bake for another nine or ten minutes. If you are making minis, bake them for only eight minutes on each side. Allow them to cool at least fifteen minutes before you tear into them.

(An illustrated recipe for Cinnamon Raisin Bagels can be found here.)

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Make Your own Granola! (gluten free, vegan)

Homemade Granola 

"Never eat a food with its own mascot." Whomever said this first was brilliant, but was not trying to reason with youngsters eying carefully positioned, sugary offerings in the cereal aisle. Since our boys love both oatmeal and baking, we have not had that fight yet.  We can make a delicious, sweet and crunchy cereal with ingredients we keep on hand. 

For about six servings:

3 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp brown sugar, honey, or maple syrup
1/2 cup sliced almonds (optional)
2 tbsp olive oil (more if you prefer the granola clumpy)

Preheat the oven to 300F.

Mix all of the ingredients except the oil together in a pyrex baking dish. Add the olive oil and mix well. Bake the granola for about half an hour, stirring well after 20 minutes. Allow to cool before serving.

For a little pizazz, after baking try adding half a cup or so of:

raisins
dried pineapple, chopped
dried apple slices, chopped, or
dried berries

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G-Man's Fruit Pudding (vegan, gluten free, no added sugar)

G-Man's Fruit Pudding

After supper, our four year-old son stood in the kitchen and dictated the ingredients and instructions for his dessert idea. He wanted to make "Dessert Soup," with bananas for the broth and strawberries and blueberries. Smooth and creamy, this dessert was a snap to make and a delicious way to add another serving of fruit to our day. I am proud of G-man's creation!

(He is with me as I write this, wearing pyjamas and sunglasses. He stayed up late to watch Bill Nye the Science Guy on Iowa Public Television.)

For four:

3 ripe bananas
1 cup fresh or frozen strawberries
1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries.

Thaw and slice the strawberries. Mash the bananas in a small bowl. Add any juice from the strawberries and whip it all together with a fork.

Divide the banana puree among four fruit nappies. Top with the strawberry slices and gently swirl them in. Place the blueberries on top, then serve right away.



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Sweet Potato Noodles with Apples, Almonds and Baby Kale (gluten free, milk free)

Sweet Potato Noodles with Apples, Almonds and Baby Kale (gluten free)

"No vegetables for me! I just want noodles!" Who hasn't had days like this? G-man and the Cadet are really good eaters most of the time, but last night I had to pull a Jedi Kitchen Trick. Take cooked and mashed sweet potatoes, add some masa harina, a wee bit of seasoning and an egg, and you've got a gluten-free noodle that is spiked with nutrition.

The boys gobbled theirs up plain, while Stealthy Dad and I enjoyed a more grown-up version: tossed with olive oil, apples, almonds and fresh baby kale from our garden. Either way, we had a great meal.


Sweet Potato Noodles

1 cup non-GMO masa harina
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potatoes, cooled to room temperature
1 egg

Fifteen Minute Mac 'n' Cheese Dinner (gluten free option)

Fifteen Minute Mac 'n' Cheese Dinner

"If I had a million dollars,
We wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner
But we would eat Kraft Dinner
Of course we would. We'd just eat more..."
      - Barenaked Ladies, If I had a Million Dollars

K.D. That's what we called the stuff in school. It was cheap, fast, and, well... fast. What if you could make real macaroni and cheese from scratch in the same time, or less? Our boys would eat this every day if we let them.

Gather up two pots- one to boil the pasta and one to make the sauce- a mixing spoon, a silicone-coated whisk, and a colander. Fetch these ingredients:

2 tbsp flour (sweet rice flour for gluten free*)
2 tbsp butter
2 cups milk (whole works best)
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 12oz package of macaroni shells, elbows, or alphabets. Use gluten free if you wish.

Ready, set, GO!

Homemade Chicken Nuggets (GF, low sodium)

Homemade Chicken Nuggets with Rutabaga Fries and Fool Ranch Dressing

Anyone with kids out there who like chicken nuggets? Recipe after recipe, I have tried to make nuggets that "pass." It really is funny, considering that G-man and the Cadet refuse to eat pizza at a restaurant because is doesn't taste like what we make at home.  They pace around for homemade cookies, and cheerfully call a frozen banana smoothie a "milkshake." So what's up with nuggets? C'mon, G-man... that place with the big letter M on a stick is really not that good... This is the first time that kid ate chicken nuggets at home without coaxing. We have a winner!*

Monster (Spinach) Pizza

Monster Pizza

Who knew that spinach pizza would be a family favorite? When Monster Pizza is on the agenda, both kids want to help. G-man adds the ingredients together to make the crust. While the yeast is waking up in the sugar water, he cheerfully makes paw prints in the flour. The Cadet likes to press "play" on the blender. By the time the meal is over, they have Monster Pizza sauce smeared all over their grins and from foreheads to chins. 

The Hidden Danger Ranch

I love that TV commercial for ranch-style salad dressing, the one where kids are gobbling up plates of veggies as if they were funnel cakes at the fair. Read the ingredients, and you will see why that dressing has no place in the Stealthy Kitchen: it contains Monosodium Glutamate.  MSG may be a carcinogen, triggers migraines for some people, and is a source of sodium. (Go ahead and argue with me that you think it is harmless, naturally occurs in seaweed, has been eaten since the beginning of time.... You can try but I won't be buying it. The chemical listed in most commercially packaged food came from a lab.)

As appealing as it seems as a veggie-sneaking tool, ranch is not as "innocent" as the marketing suggests. A couple tablespoons of ranch dressing contains 14 grams of fat and 260mg of sodium. The "lite" version cuts the fat to 7g but ups the sodium to 290mg. That's a lot of sodium to make a vegetable appealing to kids.

While most vegetables are perfect just as they are, kids do sometimes need a little push to get them to snack from the crisper. Try these ideas:

"Candied" carrots. Put a couple cups of either carrot sticks or "baby" carrots into a pyrex bowl. Dot a tablespoon of butter onto the top of the carrots and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Stir, then microwave again, two minutes at a time until they are cooked just right. Toddlers will need them soft, while preschoolers will want a crunch. (Since we have a toddler and a preschooler, I take half of them out at this point and cook the rest a little more.) Sprinkle with a bit of brown sugar and stir again. (1/2 tablespoon of butter has 7g of fat and about 50mg of sodium. Butter gets a bad rap, but it sure beats ranch dressing!)

Hummus If you take your favorite hummus recipe and make it with unsalted chick peas, you have a low-sodium veggies dip. Two tablespoons will have about 6g of fat and very little salt if you make your own.

Mascarpone cheese. Two tablespoons has about 12g of fat and 10g of sodium. You can stir in a bit of maple syrup or some sugar and cinnamon to make a creamy, cheesy sweet dip. Also try garlic powder and basil. 

Fun shapes. I don’t know why, but G-man will try anything if it is cut into triangles. Maybe it is because he can bite off the tip to see if he likes it. Japanese cucumbers are sweet and crunchy and have tiny seeds. Peeled and sliced, the slices are easy to cut into triangles. He also approves of carrot sticks cut into match-stick sizes. Rutabaga, summer squash, and the hearts of broccoli stems can be cut into fun shapes.


Homemade Ranch dressing. Take a cup of plain yogurt, and stir in a teaspoon of onion powder and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. A quarter cup of parmesan cheese will thicken the dip and make it cheesy, and you can add garlic or tomato powder. Two tablespoons, including the parm, has about 60mg of sodium and a gram of fat.

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Fast and Cheesy Noodles

Fast and Cheesy Noodles

Short on time? Kids are hungry and they want to eat NOW? That is when many parents will grab for a big can of spaghetti. I don't know too many kids who don't like that squishy canned pasta, swimming in tomato sauce. It is also swimming in sodium, (600mg per cup of Spaghettios brand) corn syrup, and "flavourings."

This dish is not innocent, but is a better alternative to the o's and our kids really like it. (If I could buy ramen noodles locally without the silly foil packets of MSG I would. ) It has the has the goodness of tomatoes, olive oil replaces the mystery vegetable oils, and it contains about 250mg of sodium per serving. All in less time than it takes to cook up a box of macaroni dinner.