So, I’m going to post a few super easy dishes that might help take some pressure off during the season.  These cheese sticks are a great side to soup or any other meal, but could also be made as an appetizer with dip or even served alone if you’re responsible for taking a dish to share at a holiday party.  My family devours them when I make them.

These cheese sticks have just two ingredients:  frozen puff pastry and parmesan cheese.  It’s one of those things you can always remember to buy, or is easy to keep on hand for nights when you’re in a pinch.

Here goes:

Crispy Cheese Sticks

Ingredients:

1 package frozen puff pastry, thawed
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Thaw puff pastry according to package directions.

Lay pastry on baking pan lined with parchment paper.  Carefully cut each pastry sheet lengthwise into 1 inch strips, then cut the strips in half to make them a nice finger food size.  Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese over pastry.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve!

I saw this recipe on page 124 of the October 2011 issue of Country Living magazine and have had it sitting on my kitchen counter ever since.  One of my favorite things to do every fall is try new pumpkin recipes (as well as make old favorites) so this was a great opportunity.  I also love finding ways to use pumpkin in savory ways as well as sweet.

And so, last week I served this pasta to my family for dinner.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure what they would think, especially my husband, but they all raved about it and were relieved I had made two pans full.  I guess that means it’s a keeper!

So here is the recipe, in case you don’t have the magazine.  My family recommends that you try it!

Pumpkin-Ricotta Stuffed Shells

Ingredients:

24 jumbo pasta shells
1 Tb. olive oil
22 ounces fat-free ricotta cheese (2 1/2 cups)
1  (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree  *make sure you don’t get pumpkin flavored for pumpkin pie!
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces) grated Romano cheese
1 large egg white (I just used a whole egg)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup fresh basil, chopped  (you can certainly cut back on this if you don’t love basil)
1 Tb. fresh sage, finely chopped (I used dried)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground pepper
1 (26 ounce) jar store-bought tomato sauce (I used spaghetti sauce)

Preparation:

Cook pasta shells according to package directions.  Drain and transfer to a baking sheet (or piece of aluminum foil) and drizzle with oil.  Let cool.

In a medium bowl, stir together ricotta, pumpkin, 3/4 cup Romano, egg, garlic, basil, sage, salt and pepper.  Mix well.

Spread spaghetti sauce in bottom of a 9×13 inch baking pan.  Fill each pasta shell with about three tablespoons pumpkin-ricotta mixture.  Arrange shells in pan.  Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  Remove foil, sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake 15 minutes more.  Serve and enjoy!

Note:  I prepared this dish the day before, stuffed the shells and stored them between layers of plastic in an airtight container overnight.  On the day I served them, my only prep was to pour the spaghetti sauce in the pan, arrange the pasta and bake!  They tasted delicious, and the few we had left were delicious the next day as well.

This was a delicious recipe.  It’s meatless and relatively low in fat, considering that it’s mostly “cheesy”.  According to the nutrition information provided by Country Living, one serving contains 321 calories, 22 grams protein, only 9 grams fat, 39 grams carbohydrates, 6 grams fiber, 977 milligrams sodium and 19 milligrams cholesterol.

I hope you’ll try it!

Hopeful Homemaker

Don’t be intimidated by the long list of ingredients!  It’s really easy to make, especially if you cook the bacon and prepare the cashews in advance.  If you do that, then it’s no more chopping than your average salad.

There is something for everyone in this salad.  The salty crunch of bacon, the sweetness of pears and grapes, a bit of onion, and the curried cashews have a nice bite to them, yet the curry is toned down by the brown sugar and other spices.  I was surprised by how much my family loved this salad.  Everyone wanted third or fourth helpings.

Curried Cashew Salad

Ingredients:
5 slices bacon, cooked until crisp
3/4 cup cashews or cashew halves
1 Tb.  butter
1 Tb. brown sugar
1 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 large pear
1 cup red grapes, sliced in half
1 large bunch green or red leaf lettuce
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup finely chopped green pepper

dressing ingredients:
3 Tb. white wine vinegar
3 Tb. Dijon mustard
2 Tb. honey
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Cook bacon until crisp.  Remove from pan, cool on paper towels.  Crumble and set aside

For the curried cashews:  In a small microwaveable bowl, melt butter.  Add brown sugar, rosemary, curry powder, cayenne pepper and salt.  Mix together well.  If mixture seems to get thick quickly, re-heat in microwave for 5-7 seconds.  Add cashews and stir to coat nuts.  Set aside to cool.

For the dressing:  Combine all dressing ingredients and mix vigorously with a small wire whisk until oil is fully combined with the other ingredients.  Note:  you might want to double the dressing ingredients if your family likes a lot of dressing, or if everyone will be serving their own dressing.

For the salad:  This salad is prettiest served in a wide, shallow bowl or platter.  Cut or tear lettuce and arrange in serving dish.  Sprinkle green onion and green peppers over lettuce.  Sprinkle with grapes and crumbled bacon.  Carefully slice pear into 1/2 inch (or slightly bigger) cubes.  You can peel the pear or leave skin on, depending on your preference.  Garnish salad with pear cubes and finally, sprinkle with curried cashews.  Depending on your tastes, drizzle salad dressing over salad, or reserve in small dish for individual servings.  Serve immediately.

Additional notes:  This salad would also be the perfect start to a formal dinner.  In that case, prepare individual salads on salad plates.  On the other end of the spectrum, I have small children, so when I served this salad to my family I reserved the cashews and offered them in a separate bowl.  That way only those children that were interested in adding a bit of spice to the salad had the nuts (thus leaving more for my husband, and sparing us a crying two year old!)  Interestingly, as family members commented on how the nuts really rounded out the whole salad, almost everyone tried the curried cashews and no one complained that they were too spicy.

I hope you love this recipe like we do!
Jennifer

This salad is a family favorite year-round.  It has only a few ingredients in it, most of which I always have on hand.  My family has loved it for years.

Pina Colada Fruit Salad

Ingredients:
1 can (20 oz) chunk pineapple
1 can (any size) mandarin oranges
1 small container (the individual serving size) pina colada flavored yogurt
1-2 bananas, sliced
1/4 cup shredded coconut

Drain pineapple and mandarin oranges, placing fruit in a medium serving bowl.  Slice banana and add to fruit.  Add yogurt, stirring to coat all fruit.  Add coconut last.  You can stir it up, or leave it on top.  Serve and enjoy!

I store pineapple, mandarin oranges and coconut in my food storage.  This means that I only need to buy a banana and a container of yogurt to make this salad, making it an easy salad to add to any menu.   It can also be a nice fruit salad to add to a breakfast menu.  It doesn’t make a great leftover, as the bananas eventually brown, but we usually don’t have leftovers anyway.

Enjoy,
Jennifer

Simple and healthy yet delicious, this dish always receives rave reviews.  I must also credit this recipe with making huge spaghetti squash fans of my children.  I love looking outside at our spaghetti squash in the garden, knowing how many times I can make this in coming months.

The dish consists of a creamy tomato sauce with chicken in it, served over spaghetti squash.  Delicious.

Ingedients:

1 spaghetti squash
2 Tb. olive oil, divided
1/2 to 1 lb. chicken
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (15 oz) can petite diced tomatoes {diced stewed tomatoes work also}
1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
4 Tb. heavy cream
1/4 cup chopped parsley

Preparation:

To cook the spaghetti squash, you have two options.  First, you can poke a few holes in it and bake it, whole, in the oven (350 degrees).  This is a great way to cook it but you must start early; depending on the size of your squash it will take over an hour to become tender and sometimes much longer than that.  The second option is to halve the squash lengthwise.  Remove seeds.  Place cut side down on a microwave safe place.  Again, depending on the size of your squash you may need to cook each half separately.  Cook on high power for 5 minutes, check for tenderness.  Cook for another 3-5 minutes.  (Mine usually take 10 minutes for each half.)  The squash is done when the meat scrapes out easily in long spaghetti-like strings.  Scrape squash into serving dish, add 1 Tb. butter (if desired) and salt and pepper to taste.  Toss and cover to keep warm.

If you are baking the squash you must start it well before the rest of the dish; if using the microwave you can cook the squash while you cook the sauce.

In a skillet, heat 1 Tb. oil.  Add chicken and one clove minced garlic.  Cook until chicken is done but do not dry out!  Remove chicken from pan and set aside.  Add the second tablespoon of oil to the skillet.  Add onion and second clove of garlic.  Cook until onion is softened.  While onion is cooking, cut chicken into small pieces  (I usually cut it in 1/2 inch cubes.)   When onion is tender, add tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, oregano, basil, marjoram, salt and pepper.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Add diced chicken.  Stir in heavy whipping cream and heat through, about 2 minutes.  Reserve 2 Tb. chopped parsley and add the rest to the tomato sauce.

To serve, place spaghetti squash on plate, top with tomato sauce.  Garnish with parsley.  Enjoy!

Hopeful Homemaker

This is one of my all-time favorite recipes.  It is so inexpensive, so healthy, but so tasty that I can’t get enough of it.   In fact, I love it so much that I always save myself a bowl of the filling to eat while the enchiladas cook in the oven.  It’s fabulous, I tell you.

Here goes…

Zesty Vegetable Enchiladas

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups dry lentils
4 cups water
1 Tb. vegetable oil
2 cups thinly sliced carrots
2 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste
4 cups quartered, thinly sliced zucchini
2 cups chopped fresh tomato
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese  (I like to use a blend)
14-16 corn tortillas
1  can green enchilada sauce or try my homemade green enchilada sauce recipe

In a small saucepan, add water to lentils.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 20-25 minutes or until tender.  Drain, rinse in cold water.

Heat vegetable oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add carrots, chili powder and cumin.  Cook, stirring constantly, for 3-5 minutes.  Add zucchini and continue to cook and stir until veggies are crisp-tender.  Remove from heat.  Stir in lentils, tomato, and 1 cup cheese.   Add salt and pepper to taste.

Heat corn tortillas.  Spoon veggie mixture down center of each tortilla, roll up and place in 9×13 inch pan.  Pour enchilada sauce over enchiladas and cover with aluminum foil.  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, remove foil and sprinkle with remaining cheese.  Bake another 10-15 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.  Serve with sour cream and salsa, if desired.  And, like I said, it’s amazing in a bowl all by itself!

Hopeful Homemaker

The combination of basil and zucchini was delicious and the whole family loved it.  This is definitely a new favorite.  I adapted the recipe slightly from the one linked to above, but it’s essentially the same.  I used only zucchini but increased it to six squash so it would fill a 9×13 pan instead of an 8×8.  I also used more basil and green onions.

Basil Zucchini Bake

6 medium zucchini
1/4 cup chopped basil
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste (I added about 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper)

Slice zucchini into half moon pieces about 1/8 inch thick.  Spray a 9×13 inch pan with non-stick spray.  Toss zucchini with basil, green onions, thyme, garlic powder, salt, pepper and mozzarella cheese.  Put in pan.

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.  Sprinkle parmesan cheese over zucchini and bake another 15 minutes or until squash is tender.

Enjoy!

A friend shared this recipe a few weeks ago and I can’t count how often we’ve made these smoothies since.  They’re easy to make and so refreshing!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups ice cubes
2 cups chopped watermelon
1 pint strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
juice of half a lemon
1 cup water

Place ingredients in blender and mix until smooth.  My son started adding 1 tablespoon lavender to the mix as well and it’s actually quite good.

Served in my favorite juice glasses for the 4th of July makes them even better.  (Glasses from IKEA on clearance last year)

I hope you’ll try these refreshing summer smoothies!

Jennifer

Looking for a refreshing summer drink?  This is our family favorite, and a favorite of mine because it’s easy to make, clear (meaning no stains) and because I can store most of the ingredients and make it in a pinch.

Good Water

2 Tb. citric acid
1 T lemon extract
3 cups sugar
5 quarts water
1/2 tsp. vanilla
ice cubes
sliced lemons and limes

Mix together sugar, water, citric acid, lemon extract and vanilla until sugar is dissolved.  Add lemons, limes and ice cubes.  Serve and enjoy!

A note about the citric acid.  For many years I purchased it in the pharmacy section at a local grocery store but I found an online source for a better price.  If you buy it, it stores well and will last a long time.  I get mine here.

Jennifer

A couple of years ago I tasted a salad at an adorable birthday party.  It’s the only marshmallow salad I’ve ever tasted that I like  (thanks Tiffani!).  It’s been on our summer menu ever since.

Ingredients:

32 ounces strawberry or raspberry yogurt
8 ounces cool whip
1 bag small marshmallows
fresh strawberries
fresh blueberries

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and enjoy!

What I love about this salad is the yogurt.  It adds just enough tartness that I can handle the marshmallows.  My children, of course, gobble it up.  Sometimes it’s fun to serve it in small dishes with an extra strawberry and blueberries as garnish.  It’s also a nice addition to the table at a barbecue or potluck.

I hope you try it!

Jennifer