Fire-Roasted Vegetable and Hummus Club, Tart and Tangy Baked Beans and Monkey Tails

Reheat instructions:

I decided to send you your marinated vegetables fresh, for you to roast just before eating, so they wouldn’t get soggy overnight. To oven roast, preheat oven to 500 degrees. Put veg on oiled cake pan or cookie sheet. Roast in hot oven 20 minutes or until onions and vegetables are caramelized.

While veg is roasting, cut ciabatta rolls in half, butter or oil insides and grill on hot skillet until toasted.

To assemble club sandwiches, smother bread with red pepper hummus, top with roasted vegetables and salt and pepper if you like.

Baked Beans: Reheat uncovered in preheated oven 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until bubbly.

Monkey Tails (a la Cedar-Lu): keep frozen until ready to eat.

Enjoy your Memorial Day Picnic food!

Pineapple-Cashew-Quinoa Stir-Fry, Side Salad and Apple Crisp

This was a no fuss meal to put together. Here are the heating instructions:

Stir-Fry – I think it would be best re-heated in the microwave. Heat throughout. Serve with lime wedge.

Salad – Shake the dressing up so that the oil mixes back in. Pour onion, celery, carrot mixture over salad greens and mix. Pour dressing over salad greens and mix. Top with croutons and serve.

Apple Crisp – Heat at 375F for approximately 15 minutes or until heated throughout and the top has started to brown. Serve with ice cream (if possible).

I like that the main meal was a one pot recipe. I love quinoa, pineapple, cashews, red pepper so I figured this recipe had great possibilities. The kids did not like it. I LOVE the salad. I have had crazy cravings for salad. The dressing is from the Casa de Luz cookbook. It’s called ‘Sisters’ Salad Dressing’. I had the salad for lunch today. I am unable to have salad without croutons. The apple crisp was Neal’s idea. He said he’d make it but I made it in the end. I actually didn’t have a recipe for apple crisp. For the very first time, I took a recipe and altered the ingredients. I think it turned out pretty darn good. Neal put a dollop of lemon ice cream on top of his and was making very happy sounds as he ate two helpings!

Recipes: Pineapple-Cashew-Quinoa Stir-Fry, Side Salad with Sister’s Salad Dressing and Ali’s Apple Crisp

Adzuki Bean Loaf, Layered Potatoes and Leeks, and Mulberry Jam filled Butter Cookies.

I have one word for this dinner: filling! My initial thoughts: it’s low on greens but plenty of hidden veg in the bean loaf. I haven’t made this bean loaf in seven years! The oregano and basil came from my garden. Sorry about the mushrooms in the potato dish. I kept them large so you can pick them out. The rosemary can from my garden.  I liked how the “parmesan” turned out. Cedar loves nutritional yeast so she said it was a “score!” The cookies were a two part process and a double batch. The first batch I used almond extract and they turned out way too large (and only 10 cookies total). The second batch I used vanilla extract and made them much smaller. I prefer the smaller ones, taste and size. A super simple recipe though which is nice. The jam was fun to make. I think it’s ok. Not my favorite jam but my first mulberry and my first wild urban forage jam so I’m tickled about that. I’m sensitive to texture so I do not like the stems that are in the jam. The recipe called to leave the stems on. I balked and removed some but when I realized the stem is through the whole length of the fruit, I knew removing them would be futile. In the cookies I don’t notice the stems. When I spread the jam on top of the cookie for an additional burst of flavor, I do notice them and I prefer to pick them out. Sorry about that if it bother you too. The jam is made with Pamonas pectic which is citrus based, so no gelatin. Like I said, I like to spread the cookies with another layer of jam! Your jar of jam could be gone by the end of your dinner! I learned that Mulberries are high in Vitamin K and C. Oh, and too many mulberries can lead to a laxative effect. I’ve been eating jam and cookies all weekend and haven’t noticed a thing so “too many” must be ” a lot.”

I was going to attempt to send you like 12 cookies, like I said in my last comment last week. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. I told myself that I would let it go and if I thought there were too many sweets in the house I would put some in the freezer for kids lunches or potlucks or something. So please send what you want to send and don’t worry about my crazy ideas and antics!

I thoroughly enjoyed your daily meal plan last week. I hope you find mine to be as helpful this week. I posted it yesterday, unsure of when you like to make your grocery list. In any case, there it is. I did not find it too much to make the meal plan and the dinner share. It just sort of worked (and I would have needed to do it eventually anyway for myself) so I just made myself do it.

To reheat:

Both pyrex containers are oven safe. Be sure to preheat the oven before adding the pyrex. Because of the risk of breakage with putting cold glass into hot oven, I like to bring them to closer to room temperature than fresh out of the fridge. Maybe set out on counter for 30 minutes before putting in the oven.

Preheat to 350. Heat both through, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until hot!

Enjoy!

Recipes Adzuki Bean Loaf Jam-Filled Butter Cookies Layered Potatoes