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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Veggie "Runza"/Bierock (vegan)

Veggie "Runza"

A Runza, trademarked by the Runza fast food chain, is also known as bierock or a pirozhki. To make a long description short, it is a bun with a filling baked right in. My mom's pirozhki were smaller and filled with potatoes and cheese; the fast food chain's version are sandwich-sized and stuffed with beef and cabbage. This one's stuffed with seasoned black beans, purple and green cabbage and shredded carrots. The boys loved them, and any trick to get them to eat more veggies and legumes is a good one, right?

I'll start this recipe filling-first to be truthful. You see, I was baking bread anyway and simply took a portion of dough out to make our Runzas. Any bread dough will do.

For eight generous sandwich pockets:


Black Bean and Cabbage Filling

1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups black beans, pre-cooked or canned and well rinsed.
(If the beans are unsalted, add 1/2 tsp salt.)
1/4 cup chopped green onions1/2-1 tsp coriander, to taste
1-2 tsp chili powder, to taste ,
4 cups diced cabbage, purple, green, or a combination
1 cup grated carrots
1/4 tsp salt

In a lidded saucepan, gently warm the olive oil and onions. Add the beans and seasonings then stir until hot. Stir in the cabbage and carrots and the quarter teaspoon of salt. Put the lid on the pan and turn the heat off. The cabbage will soften as the mixture cools down enough to work with.

Take enough bread dough to make about a dozen rolls and divide it into eight portions. (If you don't have bread on the go, a recipe follows.) Roll the dough into balls and allow to rest for ten minutes.

Flour your board or counter top. Roll each ball into a round about ten inches in diameter. Flip each dough circle over so it does not stick to the board when you fill it.

Place an equal portion of filling onto each dough circle, keeping it on one half. At this point, you can either fold the circle over to make a moon-shaped pocket, or roll it up like a tootsie roll and tuck in the ends. Either way will work as long as you pinch all edges together well to make a seal.

Spray a little olive oil onto a cookie sheet. Place the Runzas/bierocks onto the sheet and make small steam vents on the top of each with a knife.

Allow the dough to rest for half an hour, then bake for about 18 minutes @365F.

Serve hot!

Thirty Minute Pizza (from scratch!)

Thirty Minute Pizza

Delivery pizza takes forty-five minutes. Homemade can take thirty. Delivered can cost twenty bucks a pie, including the tip. Homemade, even with high quality ingredients, costs a fraction of that. We typically have more choices for vegetable toppings than the local pizza joints.

Our secrets to a great pizza crust- crispy on the bottom yet tender and soft- without kneading or long proofing, are whole wheat flour and olive oil. (If you have only white flour, see this recipe.) Pans without holes in the bottom are essential.

While buying big blocks of cheese and grating it myself would save money, I wait for eight-ounce bags of grated cheese to go on sale so I can pop several in the freezer for occasions like pizza. In the summer, we make tomato sauce to freeze in eight-ounce containers. Small cans of plain tomato sauce also work in a pinch, so are useful to keep on hand.

For one large fourteen-inch pizza crust:

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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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!

Grilled Pizza

Grilled Pizza

Grilled pizza. That sounds kind of funny, but think about it for a minute: crisp on the bottom, slightly smokey, and a heck of a fun way to enjoy a kids' favorite without heating up the house with the oven. G-man and the Cadet love to help make pizza from scratch so we keep it simple; whole wheat flour makes a crust that is thin, crisp and easy to handle.

For a dozen, 6-inch round pizzas:

3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp garlic powder
olive oil
8 oz tomato sauce, either unsalted canned or home made
cheese of your choice, grated and at room temperature
toppings of your choice

Today's pizza went like this:

Find a chef's hat, optional.

Choose toppings wisely. (Have a grown-up chop them up.)

Mix water, sugar and yeast.

Stir flour and garlic powder together.

Mix the yeast and flour until a dough forms.

Divide dough into balls and coat with olive oil.

After about fifteen minutes, form the pizza crusts: Pour olive oil onto a cookie sheet. Dip a dough ball in the oil and flip it over. Smash the dough into rounds, thoroughly coating it them with oil. Arrange them on cookie sheets for transport to the grill.

Horse around a little.

(The boys had to watch the next part through a window since grills are for grown-ups:)

Place half a dozen dough circles on the hot grill, and close the lid. After a couple of minutes the crust will have risen and there will be grill marks. Flip them over. Top with sauce, cheese and any other toppings you like. 

Close the grill lid and bake until the cheese melts.

Pizza with Mushroom Sauce (low sodium)

"Sure I'll pick off the green peppers and mushrooms." I forgot to tell G-man that most of the green peppers and mushrooms were blended into the pizza sauce. We have Red Sauce, which is your basic tomato,  and Monster Sauce, which contains blended up spinach. Now we have Brown Sauce, and both kids love it! 

1 no-knead pizza dough recipe, with whole wheat flour

8oz unsalted tomato sauce

8 oz sliced mushrooms

bell pepper

seasonings: about 1/8 tsp each of oregano, garlic and powdered onion

4 oz shredded cheddar

4 oz shredded mozzarella

Prepare the pizza dough. While it is rising, blend together the tomato sauce, three quarters of the  mushrooms and of the bell pepper. Top the pizza with the sauce, then cheese, and the remaining mushroom slices. Slice what is left of the green pepper and arrange it on top of the pizza. (Having something to pick off is a foodie-mom's parlour trick.) 

Bake at 400F for 15-18 minutes.

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This recipe was shared at Meatless Mondays, a collection of vegetarian dishes shared by foodies from all over the web!

It is never too early....

The Cadet helped bake bread this afternoon. He watches his three-year-old brother pouring, stirring, and kneading and wants to try, too! (Are processed-food snacks this much fun?)







(This photo was shared with many others at Friday Food Flicks!)

South Campus Mac 'n' Peas

South Campus Mac'Peas

The cafeteria at the South Campus Hall at the University of Waterloo served macaroni and cheese casserole on Mondays. Peas were vegetable of the day. For years, my Monday lunch was macaroni and cheese casserole with a double side of peas. ("What? No potato? We have fries, mashed, scalloped...?" "No, just peas. Mac 'n Peas, please.")

"Roni Cheese! Roni Cheese!" The Cadet asks for macaroni and cheese over and over. Thankfully, it is easy to make from scratch, seriously lowering the sodium content over the boxed kind. If I learned anything in college, it is that sweet peas pair well with sharp cheddar so I add them right in.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

You would not have to hang around with me for very long to learn how I feel about food colouring, especially food colouring intended for children.

This pretty pink frosting is bursting with tart raspberries and contains no added sugar and no artificial colours. It is the perfect compliment to rich chocolate cake, or will dress up vanilla for a party!

Perfect Pancakes with Blueberry sauce

Perfect Pancakes with Blueberry sauce

"Pancakes!" was one of the Cadet's first words. Around here, we like them morning, noon, and night. The kids especially like them coin-sized presented on a platter as finger food. This is the second batch today, and no one is complaining. (I did not get a photo the first time because they were devoured.)

This recipe has a shorter ingredient list than boxed mix. There are seven, compared to Aunt Jemima's seventeen, not including their list of "enriched flour" ingredients. Seventeen! You will find this recipe to be just as easy as boxed. A double batch is a great idea because they freeze really well for an even quicker breakfast in the future.

For a batch of about two dozen 4" pancakes:

2 cups unbleached flour (I get away with whole wheat flour and the kids don't mind.)
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sugar

1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup milk

5 tbsp vinegar

Mix the dry ingredients well in one bowl, and whisk the egg, milk and vanilla in another. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together and let the batter rest for at least ten minutes.

Coat a griddle with non-stick spray and heat it up. (I use olive oil in a pump sprayer from Pampered Chef.) Stir in the vinegar, folding the bubbles into the batter.

Drop batter onto the griddle by spoonfuls. When the bubbles break, the bottoms should be golden brown. Flip the pancakes and brown the other sides.

Serve with butter, syrup, or blueberry sauce.


Blueberry Sauce:

2 cups frozen blueberries
1/2 cup sugar

Heat the sugar and blueberries together in a sauce pan until bubbly. Serve immediately.




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This recipe was shared at Make Your Own! Monday.

Dairy Bargains.... (yogurt, string cheese, and cottage cheese from scratch)

I did it again. At the grocery store a couple days ago, there were several half-gallons of milk in the cooler at a dramatically reduced price. The catch was that they "expired" in two days. No problem, right? Make some muffins, some cream soup, maybe pop some in the freezer for another day? Unable to resist a bargain, I stocked up on this end-is-near milk.

On the first day, I made some string cheese for the kids using the American Mozzarella Cheese recipe that Dr David Fankhauser posted to his page.  For string cheese, I double the rennet, and reduce the sodium content by only using a half teaspoon of lite salt per gallon of milk. During the last steps, I pull the cheese into long strings and fold them over, like pulling taffy, until it starts to solidify, then serve it warm to the crowd instead of storing it in brine. If it is not eaten all at once, I'll put it in an airtight container and warm it up before serving it the next day. It will not have the preservative benefit of salt, so if I want to keep it longer than a day I freeze it.

Fresh Yogurt Banana and Ovaltine Smoothie

Two more days flew by. So here I was with a gallon and a half of milk with today's date on it.


Half a gallon (2L) became yogurt. Yogurt requires that milk be brought to a boil then cooled down before inoculating with the bacterial culture. Even though my favorite yogurt culture requires 12-15 hours' incubation, I was not worried about incubating pathogens because of the boiling step.

I was on a roll. Only one US gallon (4L) left.... why not make cottage cheese? My cottage cheese from out of date milk recipe also requires that the milk be boiled first, and can be used for milk even a week past its date. Tonight there were some, um... modifications to the procedure:

Step One: Put the milk on to boil.

Step Two: Quickly go to the bathroom, since the kids are in bed and the burner is on low anyway...

Step Three: Get side tracked. Check laundry, pet the cat, let the dog out, and let the dog in again. Find the portable extension phone one of the kids must have left in the toy box.  Forget why you went down the hall in the first place and check the latest on FaceBook.

Step Four: Hear the sizzle of milk boiling over and dash to the kitchen.

Step Five: Damage control. Pour the milk into another container, while carefully not stirring to disturb the burnt skin on the bottom of the pot. Get a towel to clean off the burners and the front of the stove. Pour vinegar into the pot and bring to a boil, which removes the burnt milk without scrubbing.

Step Six: Pour the scalded milk back into the (clean) pot, and place in the fridge to resume making cottage cheese later. Normal cheese making instructions would shun using old milk, and boiling or chilling it, but this is my recipe and it is idiot-proof.


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Spinach Chocolate Brownies

Spinach Chocolate Brownies

G-man was bugging me this morning to make spinach chocolate cake. Seriously. The Cadet started chanting, “Cake, cake, cake!” so it was official. We were skipping Sesame Street to hang out in the kitchen.

To make an 8”x11” pan of Spinach Chocolate Brownies:

1 package frozen spinach

1 1/2 cups unbleached, all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

6 tbsp flaxseed meal

Strawberry Faux Milkshake (non-dairy option)

Our kids like to cool down with a "milk shake" that is loaded with calcium, potassium and Vitamin C. G-man adds frozen fruit to the blender and the Cadet likes to press the buttons.  While we could use raspberries, blueberries, peaches or cherries, this is the version of the Faux Milkshake that they like best:

Strawberry Faux Milkshake

Blend well:

2-3 frozen, ripe bananas*
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 cup fresh, homemade yogurt (or non-dairy milk)
1 cup milk (or non-dairy milk)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Pour into cups, or sippy-cups with straws.


*When bananas get overripe on the counter, peel them and freeze in a ziplock for later. At times our grocery store will sell dark bananas at a steep discount and I swoop in and buy a couple dozen. Frozen bananas add texture to a faux milkshake that is close to ice cream.




For other natural food recipe ideas, check out Traditional Tuesdays, Fat Tuesday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday,  Real Food Wednesday, Healthy 2Day Wednesdays, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, and Allergy Free Wednesdays,  Gluten Free Wednesday,  Thriving on Thursdays and Fight Back Friday.




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Pizza Fridays

Veggie Pizza

The Cadet and G-man both love pizza so we have one almost every Friday.  It is a simple, tasty way to entice them to eat vegetables and to try new foods. G-man likes to help make the dough, and really likes to add the toppings. He joyfully sprinkles cheese on the creation, sneaking a few handfuls for himself.


If we were to order in instead, the sodium content would be prohibitive for Stealthy Dad. One slice of Pizza Hut's Veggie Lover's on Hand-Tossed crust contains 530mg of sodium. Casey's Vegetable Pizza contains 671mg.  A slice of Domino's Hand Tossed: 405mg,  a slice of Papa John's medium Garden Fresh: 500mg.


As prepared in the photo above, each slice (1/8 of the pizza) contains about 180mg sodium. This is what it is made of:

Operation Broccoli

Today’s challenge was to get G-man to eat broccoli. No stealth, and no bribes. I had heard that ownership is a key factor in getting kids to try things they have written off as yucky.

In preparation for today, I took him with me to the grocery store to choose produce. He cheerfully picked out a bag of carrots, a bunch of broccoli and, at his own request, a head of cauliflower.

When cutting up some veggies for a stir-fry, I called out and asked if he wanted to help with lunch. No, thanks. Caillou was on. I asked him if he remembered the vegetables he picked out at the grocery store the other day, and if he would like to help me cook them. G-man left the living room, and came into the kitchen with his “baby table,” a footstool. Game on!

Into a pan I poured some olive and sesame oils and a dash of lite soy sauce. (Half of a whole lot of salt is still a lot of salt, so just a dash will have to do.) I held the chopping board next to the pan and let him toss in a few pieces of chopped broccoli, carrots and cauliflower. He stirred them a couple times with a tongs, and was off again.

He came back wanting to throw in frozen blueberries. Why not? We tossed in some frozen blueberries. And off he ran, not seeing the pinch of brown sugar coat the sautéed veggies.

This is what a stir-fry looks like with blueberries.  It was his idea, and he ate it.

G-man came back just in time to see his lunch put onto a plate, in perfect little piles, with some extra blueberries for good measure.  The next step was to let him play with it. He tried to make balls, then pancakes. He squished it against the side of the plate. I had to walk away to laugh around the corner, and when I returned, he had blueberry juice smeared on his face, arms, and legs. All but one piece of broccoli was gone, though. I witnessed him eat the last piece and proudly shout that it was, “a-licious!”

Score! G-man got a bath, as did the floor, the table, and chair.


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This photo is linked to Friday Food Flicks, a weekly roundup of food pictures around the web!

Basic No-Knead Pizza Dough (low sodium)

Mmmmm, pizza. Here is an easy basic recipe for a 14” pizza crust that you can make in one bowl without kneading. It turns out just right for toddlers: neither too deep nor too crisp to bite into. If you prefer a thin and crispy pizza, oil the pan well underneath.

You can use this basic dough to make Mini Pizzas from leftover cheese dip.

1 tsp sugar

1 pkg yeast

3/4 cups lukewarm water

1 1/2 cups flour (unbleached or whole wheat)

1/2 tsp garlic powder

olive oil

In two-cup measure, dissolve the sugar and yeast in lukewarm water.

Meanwhile, mix flour and garlic powder in a mixing bowl. After ten minutes, the yeast mixture should be frothy. Pour it over the flour and mix with a plastic spoon until all the flour is mixed in and it is a soft dough. Try to mix in all the flour from the sides of the bowl.  Pick up the dough. Pour about a teaspoon of olive oil into the bowl. Spin the dough in the oil until it is coated, and flip the dough over, oil-side up. This will keep the dough from drying out while it rests.

Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.  Pour a tablespoon of olive oil into the center of the pizza pan. Spread it around on the pan a bit with your hands. Pick up the dough ball, keeping it oil-side-up, and smash it with your hands into the pan. There should be oil under the dough to keep it from sticking, and a little on top (from your hands and from the bowl) to keep it from drying out.

Preheat oven to 400F, giving dough time to rise. After at least 10 minutes’ rest, top dough with sauce, cheese, and whatever toppings you wish. Bake for 15-17 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the crust is slightly brown underneath.  

[You can speed the process up by mixing everything together in a bowl off the bat. Be careful to mix the dry ingredients well and add the water last.]


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