Author: a.simple.mama

I'm a Mama of two, living a full life and discovering all the adventures of parenthood along the way!

Green chili, Artichoke & Egg-white Quiche

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I had a craving for Quiche the other day, and since I’m the only one in the family that would eat it, and avoiding the grocery store is at the top of my list right now, I checked out some Pinterest recipes to get myself in the mood for cooking.

I actually stated looking for a recipe for a zuccini quiche as I had 1 more zuccini to use in the fridge, but from there it blossomed into using more canned items that i’ve had in my pantry for…a long time…such as artichoke hearts and green chilies. I also found a super easy pie crust from scratch on Pinterest (link & recipe below) which used only 4 ingredients – all of which I had on hand = bonus!

Lets start with the crust:

Here’s the recipe I found and followed: Super Easy Pie Crust

To make this successful, you’ll need:

  1. ice water (add very slowly until texture matches what the recipe says)
  2. flour
  3. cold, partially frozen butter
  4. food processor or blender with dough blade ( if using a blender, use a short pulse)

The recipe amounts in the link above will make 2 crusts, so I cut those in half since I only needed to make 1 quiche. I followed the rest of the directions exactly and, I’m serious – this is the BEST crust of all time. AND SOOOOO EASY TOO! Win Win Win! I do have to say, rolling it out into a “circle” was interesting, but I made it work eventually and laid it into a glass pie dish. Mine didn’t look near as pretty as the recipes author’s, but it worked well enough, and hey it looked a little more “rustic”!

Onto the filling:

I used the following:

  1. 1 zucchini
  2. 1 cup of egg whites (or 4 whole eggs)
  3. 1 cup Parmesan cheese
  4. 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
  5. 1 can artichoke hearts, diced
  6. 1 small can diced green peppers
  7. 1 cup milk
  8. 4 oz cream cheese (softened)
  9. 1/2 tsp baking powder
  10. 1/4 cup flour

Cooking Directions:

  1. Preheat Oven to 350 degrees
  2. grate zucchini, drain green chili
  3. saute veggies to remove excess liquid and until zucchini is soft (5 minutes or so), season with salt & pepper to taste
  4. whisk together egg, milk, cream cheese, baking powder & flour
  5. combine cheese, cooked veggies & egg mixture together
  6. pour all into raw crust-filled dish *it will be very full*
  7. Bake until eggs are set ***you’ll want only a little bit of jiggle when you move the dish, for me, this took around 60 minutes, you can test it with a knife or tooth pick to check for raw egg, if in doubt, cook it longer! The top will be dark brown and the crust will be flaky. If you use a glass dish, you can see if the crust looks wet anywhere – which would warrant a few more minutes in the oven***
  8. Let stand 15-30 minutes before cutting.

In the fridge, this quiche lasted me a full week, the crust NEVER got soggy or wet, but stayed flaky and crisp (WHAT?!) Microwave a slice for 1 minute and it tastes as fresh as the first day. No joke!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Round 1 & 2

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Amidst all this COVID crazyness and hype, we’re getting hit by a spring Colorado snow storm and have a minor blizzard going on outside today. In a way, the snow brings us back to reality a bit, giving my family the sense of “it’s just another snow day” instead of the recent anxiety over every day life. A snow day also give us a reason to stay in our jammies, snuggle on the couch, and bake!

I had a full batch of bananas that were past their prime, and THE best way to put those to use is Banana Bread! AND, what makes that even better?!? Chocolate chips! If you haven’t had banana bread with chocolate chips, just DO IT. I’ve even converted my Hubby over the years, and he’s now 100% on the choc chip train. And that was a battle, let me tell you!

This time around, I, of course am completely out of eggs – and amidst the grocery crazyness, finding eggs is near impossible at the moment. SO, I looked up egg alternatives and found apple sauce (1/2 cup per egg) – which we have in abundance at the moment, in our fridge and pantry. Ding ding ding! We have a winner! I also found an “eggless chocolate chip banana bread” recipe, and figured I’d give it a shot along with my tried-and-true recipe with the apple-sauce-for-egg substitute.

Round 1 – Eggless Recipe

note: I used 1/2 cup brown sugar & 1/4 cup white sugar, I find that adding brown sugar in place of some of the white brings a different type of sweetness without being over the top. I also found that the cooking time was a bit too short, but that may be due to our altitude. So be sure to check with a knife or toothpick for gooeyness before you stop the cooking.

Round 2 – Tried & True

note: replace egg with 1/2 cup applesauce & omit milk as applesauce will provide the extra liquid needed for the mixture. I used 1/2 cup brown sugar, & 1/4 cup white sugar as I find brown sugar adds a little extra to the recipe 🙂

Of course the moment that these were slightly cooled and out of the over, we dug into each of them. Here’s the comparison:

Round 1 taste test

  • more dense
  • less crispy exterior
  • good in flavor
  • darker in color

ROUND 2 TASTE TEST

  • fluffy & light
  • crispy exterior
  • good in flavor
  • lighter in color

SO, drumroll, pleaseeeeee

Here’s the biggest differences in the recipes:
1 – has only 4 tbs butter vs 2 – has 1 stick of butter
1 – baking power only vs 2 – has both baking powder & baking soda
1 – 1 1/2 cup flour vs 2 – 2 cup flour

Our Tried & True recipe is the winner! The applesauce vs egg was not noticeable and did not effect the texture or flavor that I could tell, and PLUS, that means you could totally eat the batter if wanted to 😉 😉 The Round 1 recipe wasn’t bad either, but I think I’ll stick with the good ol’ tried & true for the future!

Pet food option #2

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Our First “special needs” pet was our Kitty, Chloe. At 10 years old she started throwing up multiple times a day. She was still eating and drinking normally but the amount of cat puke was ridiculous. I figured, Cat’s throw up hairballs, and that’s “normal”, right? So we didn’t give it too much thought, although it was a daily occurrence and we had to spring for a carpet cleaner to take care of the ever-growing stains throughout the house.

Should have been a red-flag, but ignorance is bliss…right? It’s not as if we didn’t try to address the problem, though. We did try a couple different dry foods, we tried wet food only, and used Dr.Google to try and find some other suggestions. Nothing seemed to really “fix” the problem, and we eventually gave in to putting up with the puking.

Fast-forward to about 2 years ago – we’d recently moved to the mountains and a vet-change was in order. We had liked our old vet, but wanted a local vet. We looked for recommendations from neighbors and eventually tried out one close to home. This particular vet didn’t offer many suggestions when we brought our kitty in for throwing-up issues. They suggested a daily pill (of which was $1 per day), but that didn’t do much to change the puking issue. I asked about dietary options, but wasn’t given much feedback, and left feeling pretty defeated. I was sure there was some way out there to make Chloe’s life, and ours, easier.

Luckily, I found a Vet focused on Holistic treatments in addition to standard Vet practices. My first appointment was enlightening. I left feeling like there was hope for our poor kitty.

Enter Home-Made food! Out Vet has written articles about home-made and vegan based diets for pets. (Original post here) It seemed like such an easy answer. Less processed items, more veggies, natural proteins, and no/limited meat – which I found out can be very hard for kitties with intestinal issues to digest. Why not give it a try?! What could it hurt?!

So onward I delved into making home-made food for the Chloe and her brother, too. He wasn’t showing any signs of issues, but it sure didn’t hurt to feed him the same diet and it kept Chloe from sneaking her “old” food. We also decided to do a supplemented diet, with wet food being added to the home-made so that we were sure both kitties would be getting the vitamins & minerals that are added to commercial pet food. Our vet believes in the healing abilities of a vegan diet, but it is also important that our pets get all the nutritional value they require – and the easiest way to do that is by supplementing with a commercial food of some type. Since Chloe seemed to be specifically sensitive to dry food, we chose to add some canned wet food to the home-made for these vitamins.

If you’re worried about jumping into home-made pet food, let me put your mind at ease. This method is really easy, quick and uses items that you likely have in your house already. There’s so many options for ingredients that you likely could make up a batch with what you already have in your pantry. In our case, I make 1 batch of food for the kitties once every 8-10 days. Total cook & prep time is about 30 minutes, then I put it in a Tupperware and keep it in the fridge. Our kitties get 1 large scoop of home-made food, and 1 small scoop of wet canned food mixed together, twice a day.

Kitties Favorite Meal

Ingredients:

  • 2 large Sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • 1 box chicken or veggie stock (4 cups)
  • 3 cans garbanzo beans, drained & rinsed
  • 1 1/3 cup dry Polenta

Directions:

Combine chocken stock and dry polenta in medium pot. Stir, bring to a boil. Stir, remove from heat, cover. Let stand until liquid is absorbed (about 10 min).

2. & 3.

Dice sweet potato, add to medium pot with 2 cups water. Cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and leave covered until veggies are soft (5-10min) Drain beans, rinse the. Add to blender. When veggies are soft, add to blender with some/all veggie liquid. Blend until smooth.

4.

Blended bean/veggie recipe will have a simial conaistency as the polenta. Pour all cooked ingredients in a large bowl and mix together.

5. Allow to cool, then store in containers in the fridge for about a week. You may choose to add water to the mixture throughout the week as the liquid content will decrease as the polenta continues to absorb liquids in the fridge. We do this to increase the amount of liquid in Chloe’s diet as well, just to make sure she’s staying hydrated.

Easy, right?! And the combinations are endless. We found that our kitties prefer a blended combination, as opposed to larger chunks. Some pets may enjoy more of a “dog food” style as mentioned in my previous post with chunkier ingredients. Our kitties also prefer Polenta as opposed to oatmeal or quinoa, and they like sweet potato over peas or carrots. The beans used don’t seem to make much of a difference, although the light colored ones do make for a more pleasant appearance in the container. But really, the sky is the limit for options and combinations. If you start out with a few smaller batches – think 1 can of beans and reduce the rest to match – you’ll find your pets preferences pretty quickly.

Happy pet food making 🎉

Dear spouse, the bathroom is not a time warp…

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Like clockwork…

As soon as dinner is on the table *ding* “I have to poo”

When we are walking out the door for errands, which we’ve been rounding the kids up for for the last 15 minutes for *ding* “restroom”

When it’s time to put away laundry or clean up dinner *ding* “be back in a bit”

Each time, 15-25 minutes pass before you vacate The Time-warp. I’m not the first, and certainly not the last to experience this sudden time-suck.

Dear Spouse, guess what?! Time outside of the bathroom, life outside of the restroom, chores and cleanup continue on. It doesn’t slow down, stop, or hold still until you’re done pooing and surfing craigslist for everything under the sun. Yup, I know that’s what you’re really doing in there. The pooing probably lasted 2 minutes, but your cell phone or tablet turns this “quick trip” into a half-hour endeavor!

I know what you’re going to say…”when I gotta go, I cant help it” or “I can’t help that it takes so long”…blah, blah, blahhhhhh. Sorry, not sorry. As a Mom I’m lucky to pee with the door closed, so take your “alone time” at the office and when you’re home, do us all a favor and leave your electronics outside of the potty.

My 5 year-old yelled at me for a half-an-hour today…and I let her.

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Have you ever had a day where you are exhausted, over worked, overwhelmed and feel like not one thing you’ve said or needed all day has been heard by anyone? I’ve had these days. The days when all you have energy for is frustration. When the one thing you want to and need to express doesn’t have an appropriate space or time in the day. When I have these days, my “safe” space is the shower. That’s where I find I can just release all of the strain and stress of the day and let my feelings overflow, following the water down the drain and off of me.

Yesterday, I picked C up from daycare like usual. She was in good spirits and hugged her friends as we left. She was laughing and talking and telling me about her day…BUT the minute she buckled into the car seat, something else snapped and a 5 year old blonde Dr. Jekyll appeared. All kids (and esp. sassy pants 5 yo girls) have their moments of attitude, power struggle, and fits. But this…THIS was a whole other animal.

Have you ever hear Tom Segura’s bit about little kids being story tellers? (Skip to 2:55 to hear the bit in the clip below)


Basically, until they’re old enough to verbalize a single thought into a sentence, their stories consist of multiple overlapping and incomplete pieces of sentence that all run together without any punctuation or pauses other than to breath…

Ok, so take that rambling and incomplete mob of words and translate that into a FULL YELL at the TOP OF YOUR LUNGS…

THAT is what came flying in my direction from the 30 lb blonde in the backseat.

“I want to watch TV you don’t let me stay home i’m mad at you for making me stay home I want a snack you will open this now I will make you open this snack you didn’t open my snack at school so i’m not going to stay home with you i will only watch TV in the car, I will sleep in the car I’m not going to live with you unless you open this snack i will not eat dinner unless i can have a cookie i only eat cookies you are mean and i don’t like you i want to stay home i need water i’m mad…”

I’m not kidding when I say this went on for a full 30 minutes…

After trying to reason with her and rationalize why a snack right before dinner wasn’t happening, asking her to stop yelling and ask for what she needed, it dawned on me. She just needs an outlet. So, I let her have it. In the safe space of the car, with me as an ear and nothing more. I let her get it alllllll out. And you know what, after 30 minutes of all.out.yelling…she stopped.

And the next thing she said, in a perfectly normal volume was “Mommy, when we get home can I have a snack and watch TV until dinner’s ready?” Dr. Jekyll had left the building!

5 years old or 35 years old…Sometimes. Sometimes we all just need a minute, a safe space, to let it all out.