Bean Bruschetta

Made this last night for a quick and easy dinner. I used my slow cooker but you could easily give it a quick bake in the oven as well. My kids loved it!

Ingredients:

3 cans of beans (I used romano, kidney and black)
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of corn
2 onions diced
3 cloves of garlic diced
1 red pepper diced
a palmful of fresh basil leaves chopped
1 tsp chili powder

1 package of goat cheese (or any cheese you prefer)
salt and pepper to taste
1 italian or french loaf of bread

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients, except the cheese and bread, in the slow cooker or a oven proof dish. For the slow cooker, cook on low for 4-6 hours and in the oven cook at 350 F for 30 min. Cut your loaf in half lengthwise and lay on a baking sheet. Spread the bean mixture over the bread. Crumble the cheese over top and broil until bread and cheese are browning.

My trip to Newfoundland

Newfoundland is a place of harsh dramatic beauty. It is hard to believe that it is all real and that people actually live there. While in the summer it is beautiful and hospitable the trees that cling to the cliffs and the harsh lines of the rocky shores tell a different story. The hills and the houses that are built on them look quaint and charming but more then once I pondered how the people get out their door in the winter.

Still I was awed by the immense hills that are a part of life in Newfoundland and I fell in love with the smell and the roar of the ocean. I was charmed by the hospitality of the people and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them speak and sing.

I went through the Screeching in ceremony and am proud to call myself and honorary Newfoundlander. I had an amazing east coast experience in which we fished our own lobster fresh from the ocean then carried up the hill to the house and had it for dinner. I pushed myself through the grueling hike up Signal Hill but was rewarded with amazing vistas and on overall sense of accomplishment. I have stood on the very eastern edge of North America and saw whales spouting.

I will never forget my experience.

Hot

The kids had their first soccer games this week. So CUTE!

We have had tons of hummingbirds at our feeder. The kids love it because they can stand right under the feeder and the hummingbirds will still come to it.

Not doing a lot of cooking lately. Tonight I am going to try the Tuna Melts that were posted on the blog Octoberfarm. It has been too hot to think of stoves and BBQ's. I just want to melt on my deck with a cold drink.

The garden seems to be doing well. My irises are in full bloom and look beautiful and the tomatoes and sugar peas are growing nicely in the garden. I keep looking for all the other seeds I planted to start sprouting but nothing is showing yet.

My neighbor brought my over a vase full of her peonies. They are so beautiful, they are white with a few fuscia petals in the middle. I sprayed my roses last night because I can see buds forming but I never get any roses because of aphids. So I figured this year I would get a jump on them and spray them before infestation.

My Kids

LOVE THEM TO BITS!

Black Bean Brownies

I got the original recipe from the Reluctant Entertainer blog whom I think got it from Bush's beans. I, like usual, did my own thing and played with the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 can of black beans
3/4 cup of whole wheat flour
1/3 cup of cocoa powder
1 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/2 cup of brown sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
1/4 cup of plain yogurt (I didn't have any plain so I used sour cream)
1 tsp of vanilla
1 cup of unsweetened applesauce ( I used my grandma's applesauce and it is slightly sweetened)
1 cup of sour cherries (I used ones we had preserved from last year but it isn't a necessity,
substitute chocolate chips or nuts or leave out entirely)
3/4 cup of bran -one of my additions- not necessary
2 tbsp of salba - one of my additions- not necessary

Directions:
Heat oven to 350F. Rinse the black beans and drain. Place the beans and applesauce in a food processor and process until a paste. In a large bowl add the flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda, mix well. Add the sugar and black bean/applesauce mash in and mix well. Add yogurt, vanilla and any other additions and mix well. Grease a 8 inch square pan and spread mixture in the pan. Cook for 25-30 min or until you can stick a toothpick in the brownies and it comes out clean. Once cooled, refrigerate the brownies.....I learned this the hard way and lost the last bit of my batch to mold.

Cooking for my kids

I like to cook but my cooking experiences were found in fine dining restaurants where butter and cream are used in everything. When I had kids my focus shifted to wholesome, well balanced meals with lots of vegetables. But this was difficult for me to achieve, I have three children, a boy of four and twin girls of three. My kids are only 16 months apart, I had three kids under the age of two when my daughters were born. On top of that I ran an in-home daycare, when the twins turned one, in which I accepted two more children into my home, one was only two and the other was three months. So at that time I had five kids under the age of three, it was a very busy time and finding the time to prepare and make dinner was almost impossible. So a lot of times we ended up eating convenience meals that all I needed to do was heat up. I felt terrible about this, I worked so hard to make sure my kids ate well all day, I switched all our cleaning materials to natural products, all of our personal care items became natural and we planted a vegetable garden, all to give our kids the best start and here I was giving them meals loaded in fat and sodium.

To help myself feel better though and to make it so we weren't wasting food, if I saw an item that was going off I would puree it up and freeze it in our ice cube trays. Spinach was a big one, I would buy the huge box of spinach and as it reached its best before date I would boil it all up, strain it then squish it into the ice cube trays. Cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini were all others that I pureed up on a regular basis. I also keep cans of beans around, flax seeds and ground flax. If I was cooking a can of spaghetti-0's I would add two cubes of spinach and a few tablespoons of ground flax. Feeding the children macaroni and cheese, throw in a few cauliflower cubes, ground flax and white kidney beans. It really helped me to feel like I wasn't feeding the kids poorly.

If you are a follower of my blog you will notice that the techniques I employed while the kids were younger still apply today. I am often "juicing up" recipes that I find to make them healthier for the kids. I cook a lot of vegetarian, the meat we buy if from a local farmer and is all pasture raised. I am experimenting with different grains and trying to make these meals quick as well as healthy.

Today I tried black bean brownies, they are hardly sweetened except with a bit of cherries, applesauce and brown sugar. I added Salba and bran to the mix to bring up the fiber and to add Omega 3. They are cooking right now and smell really tasty. If it works out, I'll let you know!

Chili Meatloaf

Got this recipe from Canadian living. As per usual I juiced it up a little bit and took some short cuts. It is tasty!!!

Ingredients:

1 onion diced
1 green pepper diced
2 garlic cloves minced
1 egg
1/2 package of taco seasoning
1 lb of ground beef
1/2 cup of bread crumbs
1/2 cup of salsa
1 can of red kidney beans drained
1 cup of fresh spinach (or 1/2 cup of thawed, frozen spinach)
1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese


Directions:

Put all the ingredients, except the cheese, in a large bowl and mix together well. Then place in a loaf pan (mine fit into two pans) or form into a loaf on a parchment lined baking sheet (don't use a cookie sheet or the grease will get all over your oven). Coat with the shredded cheese and bake at 350F for 50-60 min.

I accidentally poured too much salsa in (I hate measuring things) and mine is a bit runny......but SO tasty!