Green Spaghetti

We all LOVE this pasta around here. I probably make it once a week or so. Sawyer, who won't touch any vegetables if he can help it, devours this in no time. The kids honestly cheer when they see me making it for dinner. It's that good.
It's a great, good for you side dish that adds a little more color to your plate as well!

Green Spaghetti:

about 12 oz. fresh or frozen spinach
1/4 c. broth

(I really like to use vegetable broth, but chicken works just fine too)

1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 c. milk or plain yogurt
1 lb. spaghetti, cooked and drained
(I use thin spaghetti or angel hair; 1/2 regular, 1/2 whole grain)
4 tbsp. butter

Steam the fresh spinach until just wilted, or the frozen until warm. Put spinach and its liquid into blender. Add warm broth and liquefy. Stir cheese and milk into the puree. Toss cooked spaghetti with butter, then with green sauce.

This is a totally painless way to eat spinach, and if you cook the spaghetti while the spinach is steaming, this is about as fast as making up a box of macaroni and cheese--and far better!

more fish

We had Crunchy Yogurt "Fishsticks" last night and I have to say it's hands down my new favorite. Maybe not the best fish I've ever had, but easily my #1 pick coming out of my own kitchen. Sooo yummy.
So yummy in fact that the kids both ate their whole serving!!
And that is big news people, because aside from processed freezer fishsticks, my kids do not eat fish.
But they gobbled these up.

I had tilapia fillets and wanted to make them fishstickish, but tasty enough for us adults, so I was "fishing" around the internet for ideas and came across this one. Which was a spin off of one of PW's chicken recipes. And since we all know PW recipes are a pretty sure bet, I went for it.

I had four fillets and cut them each into fourths, trying to go for the fishstick feel. They were really more like mini fillets, but oh well.
I mixed up some plain yogurt (I just used all of what was left in my container which was about 2 cups), garlic (two cloves, minced), parsley (dried; just sprinkled til it looked good) and the juice of a lemon (actually a lemon and a half) and some salt and pepper.

I added the fish chunks, made sure they were well covered with the yogurt mixture and let it sit for a good hour. (my fish was still partially frozen so I let it sit out on the counter instead of in the fridge.)

Then I simply dredged the yogurty fish in plain Panko whole wheat breadcrumbs, pressing the crumbs on to coat. I put the breaded fish in a 9x13 cake pan sprayed with cooking spray and then put the teeniest pads of butter on top of each piece of fish and covered the whole thing with foil, putting it into the oven at 400°.
I baked mine for about 20 minutes and then removed the foil, baking for another 10 or so. (my oven is off kilter and I would guess in a correct oven that these would probably be good for 20 minutes total.) At that point they were done, but didn't look golden or all that crispy so I turned on the broiler real quick to just let them brown a tad. Beautiful!

These were absolutely the perfect breaded fish... golden crunchy on the outside and moist and flavorful on the inside. Ryan commented that it didn't even have a fishy aftertaste at all... just delicious. And my kitchen didn't smell like I was baking fish... it just smelled yummy!

I am so glad I tried this way of preparing tilapia; it's a fabulous way to use more of the plain, unflavored yogurt I've been buying and trying to incorporate into our recipes, and the whole family loved it. I think that's a first!!

Protein Pancakes

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law.
She made these one morning for us while we were visiting and I have never seen my kids gobble up more pancakes in my life. Let alone chocked-full-of-protein pancakes.
Which I like because they're not big meat eaters and with Sawyer being allergic to peanut butter, I have to get in the extra protein where I can.

These pancakes are basically made of eggs and cottage cheese.
I know, yum right?
Yeah, I was weirded out at first too.
But they are really so yummy.

You just dump all of this into your blender:

1 c. cottage cheese
6 eggs
1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. oil
1/4 c. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt

Blend on high for 1 minute, scrape down sides and blend for 30 seconds more or until all incorporated. Pour pancakes out onto hot griddle or skillet sprayed with cooking spray.
Easy as that.

These are really yummy with any sort of fruit compote on it.

Normally I just slice up some lemons into wedges and we squeeze a bit of juice onto the pancakes and then sprinkle with powdered sugar, roll it up and eat it with your fingers. The kids love that part too!

Sawyer likes to squeeze orange juice on his

And then use too much sugar!

Tilapia and Veggies

This was a super quick and easy meal that we'll definitely have regularly around here.
I pared down this recipe here for what I had on hand.

Three tilapia fillets for the four of us (the kids split one), a handful of fresh green beans, grape tomatoes, 2 tbsp lemon juice, olive oil, oregano and some salt and pepper. Oh and I chickened out at the last minute, thinking the fish might be just a little on the plain side for me and added just a tiny splash of lite Italian dressing to the veggie mix before I put in on the fish.

I quartered the tomatoes and cut the green beans into about 1 inch lengths and mixed all the ingredients (minus the fish) together. Then I put each fillet on a piece of foil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and topped with a few spoonfuls of the veggie mix. Fold up and seal the foil making little packets around the fish (leaving enough room inside for everything to steam nicely) and bake at 425° degrees for 20-25 min. That's it!

It was really good! Ryan and I really liked it and Savannah ate most of it, though she wouldn't admit that she liked it. Sawyer (after making him try it) said he loved it (with ketchup) but only ate a few more bites. Over all I think it was a hit for us and I love how simple and healthy it is.
I served it with brown rice, and sides of peas and mandarin oranges.