Garden Pie Casserole

This is my vegetarian version of Sheppard’s Pie. It is a great choice for Meatless Monday, or any other day of the week for that matter. It strikes that fine balance between healthy goodness and yummy buttery potatoes cooked to a golden crisp.  Ahhhh…. So good.

Nut-Free Gluten-Free Granola Bars

I have been looking for a ‘granola’ type bar that I can send to my daughter’s nut-free school and that my gluten-free husband can also eat.  I found about a dozen different recipes and couldn’t find what I wanted.  I finally came upon one from thepaleomom.com that I tweaked just a bit to make  "Grandma" friendly. No sulphur in the dried fruit and no Soy Lecithin in the chocolate.  I used a brand of organic chocolate chips that don’t have soy in them at all. There are no oats in this recipe so I guess technically these are not granola bars but .... po-tae-toe, pot-ta-toe. . .

Veggie Chili

 

Veggie Chili is a hearty way to have big bowl of comfort food during long cold nights and leftovers make a great addition to homemade nachos or a taco salad. Served with crutsy bread, rice or organic corn chips it's perfect.  Because I don’t make mine too spicy (for young eaters) we always have hot sauce and/or chili flakes on the table for those with more adventurous taste buds.  You can also serve it with lime wedges and yogurt. 

Back to Basics - Cooking Beans From Scratch

Many people think that cooking dried beans is difficult and time consuming.  In fact cooking your own dried beans from scratch is very easy and requires almost nothing of the cook. A nice bonus is of course that they are extremely economical.  But for me the most important reason to cook beans from scratch is to avoid BPA in the cans.  So let's get started.