Category Archives: recipes

I have two today that I’m going to share. I love both of these!

Chicken Fajita Soup

2 tablespoons oil

1 pound skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into strips

1 (1.27 ounce) packet fajita seasoning

1 red bell pepper,cut into thin strips

1 green bell pepper, cut into thin strips

1 large onion, cut into thin strips

1 (14.5 ounce) can fire roasted diced tomatoes

2 cups chicken broth

1 dash hot sauce

salt pepper to taste


Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Place chicken in the hot oil; cook, stirring only occasionally, until brown, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle fajita seasoning over the browned chicken and stir well to coat. Add the red and green bell pepper, and onion to the seasoned chicken. Stir and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes.
Pour the fire roasted tomatoes and chicken broth into the pot with the chicken and vegetables. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Season the soup with hot sauce, salt, and pepper to taste and serve with sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, and tortilla chips.

This soup is so quick and easy and I love that it’s overflowing with bell peppers! (one of our favorite, super nutritious veggies)

Homemade Whole Wheat Crackers

The night before cream in a large bowl:

1 cup of buttermilk or plain yogurt
1 cup of butter, softened

Mix in:

3 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons of salt

Cover and leave in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Using white flour to dust your surface and dough, roll your dough out thin. Using a pizza cutter, cut into squares.Place your squares on an ungreased cookie sheet and prick with a fork. Bake for about 8 minutes and check, keep checking every two minutes until done (mine took about 14 minutes total). They should be browning slightly on the edges, when done. Place on a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container.

I was introduced to quinoa a little over a year ago and since learning about how nutritious it is, I’ve been trying to find ways to use it, however all of the recipes I’ve found have been failures. Most of them were just very bland and none of us cared for them, and the kids were slowing associating quinoa with “yuck”. I recently tried this Lemon Butter Quinoa recipe that was really good. The flavor was really nice and even the kids willingly ate a lot of it. If you don’t know much about Quinoa, take a minute to browse this page to learn more about how good it can be for your health.

Lemon Butter Quinoa

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup uncooked quinoa

1 can (14.5 oz) can of vegetable broth

2 teaspoons chopped garlic

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 dash fresh lemon juice (optional)

DIRECTIONS:1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the quinoa, and toast, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in broth, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 15 minutes, or until quinoa is tender.2. In a bowl, toss quinoa together with garlic, parsley, thyme, and salt. Sprinkle with lemon juice, and serve.


I used dried parsley and thyme with this because it’s all I had on hand. I served it with Sandra Lee’s Pan-Fried Tilapia, and zucchini sauteed with garlic and onions. It was a really nice combination!

This recipe was found on my current favorite blog, The Nourishing Gourmet. I’ve been on the hunt for a healthy biscuit recipe and these turned out fantastic! ( even despite the fact that I had to bake them in a toaster oven because my oven broke)

Soaked Whole Wheat Biscuits

2 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour
6 tablespoons coconut oil
1 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt

The night before, measure the flour into a medium size bowl. Using a pastry cutter, or a fork and knife with a cutting motion, cut in the coconut oil into the flour. When the oil is the size of peas or smaller, you are done. Add the buttermilk, and mix in until just combined. Leave overnight at room temperature, well covered. This mixture will be wetter than your average biscuit recipe. This is so we can more easily mix in the salt and rising agents the next day.

The next morning, place the oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 450. Press down the dough a bit right in the bowl.

Sprinkle the baking soda, baking power and salt on top of the dough, then fold it in half, top to bottom and press down firmly. Fold in half again from the side, and press down firmly again. Starting at the top, repeat this process until you have folded the dough about 10-15 times.

Next, roll it out. If needed, use some white flour or arrowroot flour when you roll this out. Place on a clean surface, and roll out into a rectangle.It should be about 1/2 an inch thick. Use a pizza cutter to make nice even squares.

Place on an un-greased cookie sheet or jellyroll pan and pop it in your preheated oven.Cook for 8-10 minutes, or until the top and bottom is lightly browned and the middle is cooked all the way through. Remove to cooling racks when done.

Since my enthusiasm for eating healthily is back in full swing and I’m finding all sorts of great new recipes, I thought it might be fun to try to post one of my favorites each week. I’ve been trying to remind myself that, as a homeschooling mom, I am blessed with even more opportunities to feed my kids well and to encourage the lifelong habit of making good choices when it comes to food, so though it may seem like this doesn’t exactly fit in with the rest of the subject matter on the blog, to me it all goes hand and hand!

Here’s a recipe I recently found in the “The Best of America’s Test Kitchen” magazine. I was drawn to it because I had not yet found a healthy pizza dough recipe that I was happy with…and because I had always wanted to try putting broccoli on pizza but never had!

Healthy Pizza with Multigrain Crust

Dough:

1 3/4 cups boiling water

1 cup seven-grain hot cereal

2-2 1/4 cups bread flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons of olive oil

Sauce and Toppings:

1 (28 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes, drained and juice reserved

1 tablespoon plus 4 teaspoons olive oil, divided

5 garlic cloves, minced

8 broccoli florets, cut into 1 inch thick pieces

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup oil-packed sun dried tomatoes, rinsed, patted dry, sliced thin *

pepper

3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1. For the dough, boil the water and add the cereal mix, take off heat, cover, and let stand until it resembles a thick porridge, about 30 minutes.

2. Pulse 2 cups of bread flour, whole wheat flour, yeast, and salt together in a food processor to combine. Dollop the porridge mixture evenly over the top and drizzle oil. Process mixture until a rough dough ball forms, 30-40 seconds. If it is sticky, add the remaining 1/4 cup of bread flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, and process 30 seconds longer.

3. Turn the dough onto lightly floured counter and knead into smooth round ball. place dough in a large lightly oiled bowl and cover. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1- 1 1/2 hours.

4. Divide dough into two equal pizzas and roll out into two 14-inch rounds.

Sauce and Toppings:

1. Pulse the drained tomatoes, olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic, and salt together in food processor until no large pieces remain. Transfer the mixture to a measuring cup and add the reserved tomato juice until the sauce measures about 2 cups.

2. If using a pizza stone, adjust oven to lower rack position and place pizza stone on the rack. Heat the oven to 500 degrees.

3. Meanwhile, heat 2 teaspoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add broccoli and cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in remaining 3 garlic cloves and cook about 30 seconds more. Add water and cover for 3 minutes. Uncover and add the sun dried tomatoes and cook until broccoli is tender and water has evaporated, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Lightly brush the outer 1/2-inch of each pizza dough with olive oil. Spread 1 cup of pizza sauce on each one, leaving a 1/2 inch border at the edge. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese, parmesan, and broccoli mixture.

5. Bake the pizzas until the edges are brown and the cheese is golden in spots, about 8-13 minutes.

* Just wanted to make a note that I did not use sun-dried tomatoes like the recipe called for. Instead, I chose to used chopped Roma tomatoes. I just tossed those on, uncooked, after the broccoli. You could really use any combination of vegetables on this pizza. I look forward to experimenting. The crust is really good!