Recipe: Deconstructed Stuffed Cabbage Casserole

Hello everyone! I’ve been back in rehearsal for the past few weeks, so since I’m not doing as much cooking at home these days, I don’t have as many recipes to share. However, I did just make this one delicious dish yesterday for Karen (she doesn’t cook so while I’m in rehearsal I make her some kind of casserole to feed her for the week. Yeah, we do that.) This is super healthy, easy to pull together for a week night meal and she raved about it. Give it a whirl and let me know what you think!

DECONSTRUCTED STUFFED CABBAGE CASSEROLE
*serves 6

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lb. ground turkey breast
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, diced
• 1 tsp. smoked spanish paprika
• 1 1/2 tsp. sharp paprika
• 1 medium head green cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 1 – 14.5 oz. can fire roasted diced tomatoes
• 1 – 14 oz. can tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 cups cooked brown rice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 oz. shredded low fat mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a large casserole dish with cooking spray.
2. Heat half of the olive oil in a large frying pan. Add ground turkey and cook until brown. Break up cooked turkey into small pieces. Remove turkey and reserve in a bowl.
3. In the same pan add the other half of the oil over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and paprika and toss to coat, cook about 2 minutes more. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, ground beef and salt and pepper. Let mixture simmer over medium-low heat until warmed through and slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.
4. While the meat and tomato mixture simmers, add chopped cabbage to a large pot of boiling water. Cover and boil about 8 minutes until cabbage is wilted and half cooked. Drain cabbage well.
5. After the meat and tomato mixture has thickened a bit, mix in the cooked brown rice to the mixture and stir well to combine. Remove from heat.
6. In the casserole dish add half of the cabbage mixture to the bottom of the dish and season with salt and pepper. Top the cabbage with half of the meat and tomato mixture. Add another layer of the rest of the cabbage, season well. Top casserole dish with second half of the meat and tomato mixture. Cover tightly with tin foil and bake for 40 minutes.
7. Remove the foil and sprinkle the cheese on top. Return dish to oven and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes.

Project Life 365: Week Twelve

3/17 – Cheers
3/18 – Light
3/19 – In The House
3/20 – Fresh
3/21 – Weather
3/22 – On The Wall
3/23 – Musical

Project Life 365: Week Eleven

3/10 – Doodle
3/11 – Smash
3/12 – Roam
3/13 – Message
3/14 – Charmed
3/15 – Beware
3/16 – In The Middle

Project Life 365: Week Ten

3/3 – Troublemaker
3/4 – Big Personality
3/5 – Private
3/6 – Daily Commute
3/7 – Over There
3/8 – Dreamy
3/9 – Contained

Photo Project: Munich and Salzburg

This gallery contains 14 photos.

Before I embark on a new photography project I am gaining inspiration by going through photos that I took while backpacking around with my lovely wife a few years back. Today I’d like to share some from Munich, Germany and … Continue reading →

Kids’ Kitchen: Cheesy Spinach Quinoa Bites

Holy health nuts, batman! This is one of the recipes I’ve made recently for River that he has absolutely scarfed down. Probably because it seems to him like a mini muffin (aka: carbs) and as I’ve previously mentioned about my little guy, he’s a carb king. These little bites are teeny flavorful and pack a punch of super nutritious spinach and quinoa. Enjoy!

CHEESY SPINACH QUINOA BITES
*makes about 36 bites

Ingredients:

• 3 cups cooked quinoa
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 cups chopped frozen spinach, thawed and dried
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 cloves garlic, finely diced
• 1 shallot, finely diced
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
  

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl mix together quinoa, eggs, spinach, cheese, garlic, shallot, flour, salt and pepper until very well combined
   
3. Spoon mixture into the cups of a mini muffin tin, pressing down with the back of the spoon or your fingers. Bake 20 minutes. Cool completely on wire rack.
   

Veggie Burgers

Hello all! Today I’m continuing my contributions to your healthy kitchen by sharing my Veggie Burger recipe. It’s made primarily with chick peas and packs a lot of veggies in each bite so give it a whirl for either your dinner or your little ones!

VEGGIE BURGERS
*makes about 8 large burgers

Ingredients:

• 1 15 oz. can chick peas, drained and rinsed
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 5 stems flat leaf parsley leaves
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• vegetable or olive oil
  

Directions:

1. In a food processor blend the chickpeas, carrot, garlic, onion, parsley and eggs until smooth.
2. Add chickpea mixture to large bowl and mix with bread crumbs and salt.
   
3. In a large pan over medium heat, heat oil.
4. Place a 1/4 cup of the mixture in your hands and roll into a ball. Place in pan and flatten slightly with your fingers of the back of a spoon.
   
5. Cook patties for about 5 minutes, then flip, reduce heat to low and cook for an additional 5 minutes.  Remove patties from pan and serve.
   

These burgers are great served open faced on a whole wheat roll with some shredded lettuce, garlic aioli and mild cheese. Enjoy!

Kids’ Kitchen: Green Veggie Pancakes

Happy Sunday, everyone! Today I’m sharing a recipe for Green Veggie Pancakes for the mini people in your lives. Full disclosure, this particular recipe did not meet with overwhelming approval from my little guy, but he’s a toddler so I’m not taking it personally or as anything wrong with the recipe, necessarily. I think they’re pretty delicious, and even River came around when I served them to him the third or forth time (with marinara sauce for dipping.) They’re super healthy and quick to pull together, let me know how it goes for you and your minis!

GREEN VEGGIE PANCAKES
*makes about 6 pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup broccoli, very finely diced
• 1/2 cup zucchini, grated and finely diced
• 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 whole egg
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 2 tbsp water
• vegetable or olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp grated Parmesan
  

Directions:

1. In a large bowl mix broccoli, zucchini, flour, egg, garlic, basil, parsley, water and salt and pepper. Mix well.
   
2. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. When oil is hot spoon 2 tablespoons of the batter per pancake into the pan, top each pancake with a pinch of the grated Parmesan.
   
3. Cook pancakes about 2 minutes, then flip and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Remove from pan and place onto a towel lined plate to drain oil.
   

Serve either plain or with a dipping sauce like yogurt sauce or marinara. Enjoy!

Project Life 365: Week Nine

2/24 – Good Night
2/25 – Good Morning
2/26 – Blue
2/27 – Nook
2/28 – Handmade
3/1 – You Today
3/2 – Process

Magnolia’s Cherry Squares

Hello, hello! Today I’m bringing you a recipe from my favorite bakery in NYC, or anywhere for that matter, Magnolia Bakery. If you aren’t familiar, it’s a very well known bakery here in NYC known mainly for their cupcakes. These cupcakes are so good that at 9 1/2 months pregnant I walked about 10 blocks to get some at 10.30pm (those of you who have been that pregnant know what kind of commitment that is.) I sat in my house and ate two (do not judge me) and at a little after midnight my water broke. So in my personal life, they are somewhat magical. I don’t eat them often, because since the aforementioned pregnancy/water breaking/baby birthing extravaganza I’ve been trying to slim down quite considerably and unfortunately they’re not exactly low cal. These delicious Cherry Squares come from the More From Magnolia: Recipes From the World Famous Bakery cookbook and are a way I can indulge in some Magnolia goodness from my very own kitchen and without many of the calories. I tweaked the recipe a touch, which you’ll see in the pictures, just cutting it down to make only 9 bars instead of the 24 that the full recipe yields, other than that I made no other changes and the recipe with all the original ingredient amounts is what is posted here. They’re made entirely from pantry staples, simple enough to whip together for a week night dessert, tasty enough to pull out if you have company and if you can believe it each 2 inch square is only 138 calories!

MAGNOLIA’S CHERRY SQUARES

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup canned cherry pie filling (it would be delicious with strawberry or blueberry filling also!)
• Confectioners sugar, for sprinkling before serving
• Butter flavored baking cooking spray

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray a 13×9 inch baking pan with baking cooking spray.
3. In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat. Add the flour and mix thoroughly.
   
4. Spread the dough evenly into the prepared baking pan. With a sharp knife or a toothpick score 24 2-inch squares. Place one teaspoon of the cherry pie filling in the center of each scored square.
   
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.
   
6. Cool completely. Sprinkle generously with confectioners sugar just before serving.

Enjoy and if you are interested in checking out more recipes from Magnolia Bakery, pick up the cookbook here, I highly recommend it!