Falafel and Cucumber Sauce

This one is super easy, cheap and a family favorite! It is Mrs. Hock's recipe and is great! Enjoy!
(P.S.-be sure to add the cucumber sauce and tomatoes!)

Ingredients:
1 15 ounce can chickpeas
1 onion chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley (I've used dry and it is okay.)
2 cloves garlic
1 egg
2 teas ground cumin
1 teas ground corriander
salt and pepper to taste
1 pinch cayenne pepper (I like a little more than pinch)
1 teas lemon juice
1 cup dry bread crumbs

Mix all ingredients in a food blender. Form into flat patties about 2 inches in diameter. Heat oil in frying pan and cook each patty until brown on each side. Serve inside pita bread with cucumber sauce and fresh tomatoes.

Cucumber Sauce:
6 ounces plain yogurt
1/2 cucumber peeled, seeded and diced
1 teaspoon dried dill weed (I tend to add a little more)
1 tablespoon mayonaise
salt and pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients together and serve.

Stuffed Eggplant with Yogurt Dip

Well, it's been awhile since I updated the blog. Needless to say, the craziness of the holiday season has kicked into high gear... and although I'm still trying new recipes, finding the time to put them up on the blog is HARD! Anyways, here is a great one I tried for the first time last week. It came from a recipe book I have called "Cooking with Spice." It's a vegetarian meal, but it's great!

Ingredients:

4 medium eggplant (I only used two and cut all the ingredients below in half)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions

2 garlic cloves

1 bunch parsley

5 ripe tomatoes (looking back, I'd just use a can of cooked/diced tomatoes for the inside part)

1 cup cooked rice

1/2 teas ground paprika

cayenne pepper (to taste)

1/4 teas ground cumin (I used more around a full teas of this and the paprika)

1 teas sugar

For the yogurt dip:
2 garlic cloves

1/2 bunch mint (I didn't have mint, so I used cilantro. It was good, but mint would be better.)

1 cup plain yogurt

-Wash and cute eggplant in half lengthwise. Sprinkle with lemon juice and salt and allow to stand for 30 min.

-In pan heat oil, and two at a time, sear the eggplant halves on both sides for about 5 minutes. Allow to drain on paper towels. With a spoon scrape out the pulp, leaving and edge of about 1/4 inch all the way around. Chop the pulp coarsely.

-Peel the onions and garlic and dice finely. Wash the parsley and shake dry, pluck the leaves from the stems and chop finely. If you decide to use tomatoes (instead of canned), cut an x across the top and bottom of 3 tomatoes. Drop them into boiling water for about 1 minute. The skin should come off now. Peel, quarter, seed the tomatoes and dice finely.

-Heat the remaining oil in a pan and cook the onions and garlic in the pan until translucent. ADd the eggplant pulp, the rice, tomatoes, parsley and herbs and cook for about 4 minutes over low heat until done.

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the eggplant shells in a greased casserole dish and fill with the rice-vegetable mixture. Wash the remaining tomatoes and slice finely. Arrange over the eggplant. Bake for 35 min.

For yogurt dip: mix ingrediants together and put on top of eggplant.

Spicy Bean and Biscuit Pot Pie

Okay, this was delicious! (Sorry I forgot to take a picture!) I'll admit... a little time consuming (but easy), but delicious! The recipe came from a cookbook my mother in law gave me (Preventions Low-Fat, Low-Cost Cookbook.) This recipe only has 581 calories per serving (I think the way I did even has less because I used skim milk instead of buttermilk) and 6.8 grams of fat. AND, it only boils down to $.93 a serving (according to the book!) Enjoy!

Filling:
1 1/2 cups chicken stock/broth
1 tablespoon honey
2 cups chopped onion
2 cups diced tomatoes (you could use canned, but I cut up fresh ones)
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup diced green peppers
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons canned diced mild green chili peppers (I used a fresh jalepeno)
2 cups cooked pinto beans
1 cup cooked chick-peas
1/3 cup whole kernel corn
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce

Biscuit crust:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons reduced-calorie butter or margarine
3/4 -1 cup low-fat buttermilk (I used skim milk)
2 teaspoons honey

To make the filling:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a large casserole dish with no-stick spray.
-In large pot, put a little olive oil in pan and cook onions for 2-3 minutes. Add chicken stock and honey. Bring to boil. Add the tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, garlic and chili peppers. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. Add the beans, chick-peas, corn, chili powder, and cumin. Cook and stir for 5 minutes.
-Pour 1/4 cup of cooking liquid into small bowl. Add the tomato paste and soy sauce. Stir until the tomatoe paste dissolves. Add back into vegetable mix. Let simmer for 5 minutes-continue to stir.
-When mixture looks "thick" (i.e. most of real runny liquid is gone), put vegetable mixture into casserole dish.

To make the biscuit crust:
-Blend flour and baking powder into a large mixture bowl. Using a fork, cut butter or margarine into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal.
-Into measuring cup, combine the honey and buttermilk. Add to flour mixture and stir with fork. Add up to 1/4 cup more buttermilk if needed to form a stiff dough. Knead lighly in the bowl for 3 minutes, or until dough is no longer sticky. Turn onto floured surface. Roll out to approximately 1/2 inch think and cut into biscuits (I used a circle cookie cutter to do this.) Place biscuits on top of filling.
-Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Cover and backe for 10 minutes more.

Three Bean Minestrone Soup

Well, I forgot to take a picture of this, but it turned out really good! Plus, aren't soups in the fall/winter the BEST?! As I was cooking this, I came up with a tip. Homemade soups are really awesome, but can be a pain to put together. SO, here's my tip: when you are feeling ambitious, make a few "soup kits". In your soup kit, cut up one onion, 2 carrots and 2 celery stalks. Go ahead and freeze in your freezer. So many soups start with these three ingredients. This way when you want to make a soup, all you have to do is add chicken or beans or ham or beef and broth of your liking!

Earlier this week, I put 3/4 cup of black beans, red beans, and white beans into my crockpot and cooked them overnight. My plan was to mash them up in my food grinder and turn them into baby food for Katelyn (which I did.) But before I did that, I decided to use some of them in a soup. I was inspired to make this recipe by Robin Miller (a show I often watch), but I changed quite a bit. Here's what I did:

Ingredients:
1 medium to large onion diced
2 large carrots diced
2 celery stalks diced (don't be afriad to use the leaves of the stalk too-they are good!)
1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes (and juice)
1 medium zucchini (diced)
1/2 package of frozen spinach
Beans (see above for amount) but you could use just one kind of bean too and you could use them from a can instead of dry and cooking them ahead of time.
1 cup of noodles of your choice (I used egg noodles)
2 bay leaves
2 teas thyme
1 teas rosemary
1 teas celery salt
1 teas onion powder
black pepper to taste


Put onions, carrots and celery into your crockpot. Add tomatoes (with juice!) and 1 cup water. Add spices (feel free to add more of any of the above spices to taste :)) Let simmer on low for 6-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours. Approximately 1/2 hour before you are ready to serve, add zucchini, spinich and noodles (cooked.) Enjoy!

Apple Crisp

Yum, yum, yum. Who doesn't love fall? It's the time of soups, stews, crock pot recipes galore, and of course, APPLES! This Friday Dr. and Mrs. Hock (my in-laws) came over for dinner. For dessert I decided to make apple crisp... delicious! The recipe is Mrs. Hock's to begin with, but I modified it (just slightly) to make it even healthier!!!! Enjoy :)

Ingredients:
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 teas ground cinnamon
1/2 ground nutmeg (if you like nutmeg flavor, you can add almost a full teas)
2 teas wheat germ (optional...it's just a really healthy ingredient, but it isn't needed)
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups butter
4-5 large apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
2 teas lemon or lime juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg, wheat germ and brown sugar. Cut butter into mixture until crumbly. (Important: make sure the butter is room temperature and very soft. Do not have it melted though. Also, make sure you use "cutting" motion to incorporate. Cutting is using a fork and knife and pulling it apart through the mixture. This keeps it crumbly rather than mixing which will form a big lump.)

Put half of mixture in bottom of 8x8 or 9x9 greased pan. Cut apples in thin slices and place in separate bowl. Add lime or lemon juice and toss. Then layer apples on top of the oatmeal mixture. Finish by adding the remaining oatmeal mixture on top of apples. Cook for 45-50 min until top is just turing brown and apples are tender. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Hawaiian Pizza!

Well this past week, we tried something I've never done before. I made my own pizza. Crust and all. And you know what? it was GOOD! Now I will admit I think I can make it even better but for a first try, not bad :) One of the best things about this crust is that it doesn't contain yeast or kneading (which is nice!) I also got the concept of Hawaiian pizza from a cooking show I watch, "Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller", but I added more to mine than hers.



Crust:

(First of all, let me credit my mother in law here. This is her recipe. She is a SUPER healthy cook and you'll probably see alot of my recipe inspirations come from recipes that are hers.)

2 1/4 cups white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 teas baking powder

1 teas salt and sugar

1 1/4 cup milk (her recipe calls for buttermilk, but I used skim milk)

1/4 cup safflower oil (I used canola.)

Mix above ingredients and put in deep dish pizza pan. (Or you can put on a baking sheet which is what I did because I didn't have a deep dish pizza pan.)

Cook for 5 min. at 425.



Sauce:

1 can tomato sauce

2 teas soy sauce

2 teas honey

Mix and spread on pizza crust.

Add 1/4 cup mozzeralla cheese and 1/4 cup monetary jack cheese.

Add toppings.

(For toppings I used canned pinneapple, chicken and ham.)

Add additional 1/4 cup mozzeralla cheese and 1/4 cup monetary jack cheese.



Cook in oven at 425 for additional 15-20 min.

Pardon the picture... we were so excited to dig in that I forgot to take a picture until we were eating!!!

Vegetarian Stuffed Green Peppers

Now, if you told me 15 years ago that I'd be eating, much less COOKING, stuffed green peppers, I would have laughed. Growing up I hated green pepppers, but in my adulthood have grown to like them... along with alot of other foods I hated as a kid. This is a pretty easy recipe to make and is not only very healthy, but super economical! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

-3-4 Green Peppers (depending on how many you want to serve. Figure 1 pepper per person.)

-1 cup cooked brown rice (you can substitute other faster cooking grains if you want--such as quinoa or a minute rice-but keep in mind minute rice isn't as healthy as the stuff that takes longer to cook :))

-2 large tomatoes (if fresh tomatoes are in season. Otherwise use one large can of diced tomatoes)

-1 medium onion

-1/2 cup corn

-2 cups cooked black beans (or 1 can. Make sure if you use canned beans, to rinse them very well first to get the oils off.)

-1 cup shredded "yellow" cheese (feel free to pick the cheese you like best.)

-2 teaspoons oregano

-2 tablespoons Worcester sauce

Cut up tomatoes, onion. Combine with corn and black beans in a bowl. (Suggestion: if you get to this point and it looks like you have ALOT more filling than you need, set aside some of the filling and make it into salsa by adding a bit of fresh cilantro, lime juice (approximately 2 teaspoons), and 1 teaspoon cumin.) Add cooked grain (rice, etc.) Add oregano and Worcester sauce. Add 1/2 cup of the cheese. Mix together and set aside. Cut green peppers in half and scrape out inner skins and seeds. Fill green peppers with mixture and top each pepper with the remaining cheese.

Put peppers into crock pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours. (**Note, you can also do this in the oven. If you do, it is important that you "flash" cook the peppers before you fill them. Bring a pot of water to boil and put the halves of green peppers in the boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Then fill them and put them in oven safe cooking dish. Cook at 350 degrees for 20 min.)

Add salt and pepper on top to taste.

The Healthy Hocks!

Welcome to the Hock Family Blog #2!!!! I've decided to combine two things I love: cooking and blogging! I've always loved cooking, but have never had the time/energy/courage to really cook and try new things. With the advent of cooking shows (which my husband and I love to watch together) and a husband who is SO encouraging of everything I try to make, I've found a new attraction to my kitchen! My goal is to post a recipe a week... something I've tried and hopefully was a success. I'm aiming to make healthy recipes. With my daughter only months away from eating everything we eat (she's almost 9 months old,) I want to make sure she's eating really healthy. I'll give credit where credit is due (if the recipe isn't mine) and hopefully it will be something you and your family will enjoy eating as well!

Stay tuned for more and get your aprons ready!