Turkey and Quinoa meatloaf

Yay!  Made a new recipe tonight - Turkey and Quinoa meatloaf!  I forgot to take a photo of the dish, but it's definitely a hit!

I love this recipe - it's a healthy spin on meatloaf, with quinoa replacing the breadcrumbs.  No sugar-laden ketchup either - only some tomato paste.  There is a "paste" of brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce, but it wasn't a paste at all - it was a runny fluid.  Husband said he liked the "paste", but I think it wasn't necessary.  He is curious if we could add diced carrots to the recipe, but we're unsure of how to par-cook them first.  The onions were definitely not cooked enough, even though I cooked them for twice as long.  I will definitely make this recipe again!

Here's the recipe, with my changes and comments in italics:

Turkey and Quinoa Meatloaf
Recipe By: Andrew Benoit 

Ingredients

1/4 cup quinoa
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, chopped (I used 2 teaspoons garlic powder)
1 (20 ounce) package ground turkey (I used 16 ounces)
1 tablespoon tomato paste (I used 2 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce (I omitted)
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 egg (I used 2 eggs as suggested in the comments for this recipe)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon water

Directions

1. Bring the quinoa and water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender, and the water has been absorbed, about 15 to 20 minutes. Set aside to cool.
2. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onion; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute; remove from heat to cool.  (I cooked the onion for 10 minutes, and it wasn't softened enough sadly.  Since I didn't have fresh garlic, I added the garlic powder to the mixture in the next step.)
4. Stir the turkey, cooked quinoa, onions, tomato paste, hot sauce (omitted), 2 tablespoons Worcestershire, egg, salt, and pepper in a large bowl until well combined. The mixture will be very moist. Shape into a loaf on a foil lined baking sheet. Combine the brown sugar, 2 teaspoons Worcestershire, and 1 teaspoon water in a small bowl. Rub the paste over the top of the meatloaf. (this was not a paste - perhaps skip the water?  It ran all over the baking sheet)
5. Bake in the preheated oven until no longer pink in the center, about 50 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 160 degrees F (70 degrees C). Let the meatloaf cool for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Veggie pancakes

I'm not a fan of most vegetables - especially green veggies like broccoli and spinach.  But I am trying to broaden my horizons so my son can try more of these things too.  I've been reading a ton of blogs and am intrigued by many of the things I've found on weelicious.com :)

Last night, I tried her green veggie pancakes recipe, with some modifications (of course!) - and it was great!  Naturally, I forgot to take photos... but I did like this recipe so much that I made two more batches of it immediately.  Here's what I did:

Shannon's Veggie Pancakes
(inspired by weelicious.com's green veggie pancakes)

Ingredients

• 1 cup zucchini, broccoli, and/or cauliflower (I used 3/4 broccoli to 1/4 carrots - see note)
• 1/4 cup flour 
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 
• 1 large egg 
• 1 teaspoon dried basil 
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder 
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• canola or vegetable oil 

Preparation

1. Place the vegetables in a food processor and pulse to chop fine. (I measured the 1 cup of veggies after this step.)
2. Add the chopped vegetables into a bowl along with the flour, salt, egg, basil, garlic powder and onion powder. Mix to combine. 
3. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat and place 1 tbsp of the batter into the pan for each pancake. 
4. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side. (First batch cooked 4-5 minutes each side)

Notes:

• I measured the 1 cup of veggies after pulsing them in the food processor.  I don't know how much it was pre-processed.
• I used a nonstick skillet and only had oil in for the first batch - I would skip this entirely next time given this skillet.
• As a special treat, for the last batch to go in the skillet, I mixed in 2 tablespoons of grated Asiago cheese -- added a wonderful depth to the flavor!
• I used all-purpose flour this time but would definitely try whole wheat next time, maybe even toss in a tablespoon of ground flax in there as well.
• This recipe easily doubles ;)  
• My two-year-old DEVOURED these and kept asking for more!
• I plan to pop the leftovers in the toaster oven for lunch tomorrow :)

Hungry Girl pumpkin brownies

I remember reading this recipe aaaaages ago on Hungry Girl's web site - pumpkin brownies. Basically, you take a can of pumpkin and dump it into a box of cake mix, bake and eat. You don't add anything else to the batter, so it's ridiculously thick. I had a ton of pumpkin from my garden this year, so I used pureed pumpkin instead of a can. I used a triple chocolate cake mix, and made the brownies in muffin cups. When I tasted the raw batter, I was bummed that I could pick out the pumpkin flavor. After baking though... no pumpkin! Sweet!

These aren't as brownie-like as I had hoped - definitely cakey. Fresh out of the oven, they're really good, but it is hard to limit yourself to one (or two...). Curious how they'll taste tomorrow!

Each cupcake is roughly 180 calories, so 2 of them is way more than I should have for a snack. Maybe if I had made them as mini-muffins... no, I'd still want to eat a dozen of 'em. ;)

Still doing the EA workouts several mornings a week - hoping the weight will eventually come down.

Wonton pizza bites!

As I posted yesterday, wontons have been calling my name. So I took inspiration from Roni's recipe and had fun tonight. I didn't pay enough attention to all the quantities, unfortunately. Here's what I did, roughly:

• Sauteed half a package of sliced mushrooms (I think the package is 1/2 pound? - about a cup) in a small non-stick skillet until all the moisture was gone, and put aside in a small bowl. I minced these up later.
• Sauteed a minced small yellow onion in the same skillet (after wiping it clean) until the onion was cooked. I put this aside in another small bowl.
• Sliced up eight slices of light salami ("Gallo Light Italian Dry Salame is made with turkey and pork and has 60% less fat and 40% fewer calories than regular dry salami") into teeny tiny pieces and then sauteed them to cook out some of the moisture.
  
• Added a chunk of tomato paste (sadly way too much, I think about 1/2 of the can) to the skillet, then added two garlic cloves, minced. Added back in the mushrooms and about half of the onion.
  
• Heated this through, and then added 1/2 cup of light mozzarella, finely shredded. Bad idea - I should NOT have put this in with the hot items, it was a horrible idea and made making the wontons very much a pain.
• On each of the wonton wrappers (I used the round variety, 30 total), I put a small scoop of the mixture, wrestling with the melty cheese. Sealed 'em up and finished them all.
• I put them on a foil-lined cookie sheet, after spraying first with non-stick spray. I also did another light coat of spray on the wontons after I put them on the sheet.
• Into a 450 degree pre-heated oven. Seven minutes was one minute too long.
• They're hot when you take them out of the oven. ;)

Good stuff! Sauteeing everything ahead of time took some effort, but the wontons weren't soggy at all. I didn't taste much of the salami, and the cheese flavor was overwhelmed - too much tomato paste for sure.

total nutrition info for the whole shebang:
30 wonton wrappers: 480 calories, 1.5g fat, 3.0g fiber, 18g protein
1 cup mushrooms: 15 calories, 0 fat, 0.7g fiber, 2.2g protein
1/4 cup onion: 12 calories, 0 fat, 0.4g fiber, 0.3g protein
8 slices light salami: 90 calories, 6g fat, 0g fiber, 10.5g protein
1/2 can tomato paste: 64 calories, 0 fat, 5.2 fiber, 2.6 protein
1/2 cup light mozzarella cheese: 160 calories, 10g fat, 0g fiber, 14g protein

totals:
821 calories
17.5g fat
9.3g fiber
47.6g protein

or for 10 of 'em, 274 calories, 5.8g fat, 3.1g fiber, 15.8g protein

Will definitely be making these again!

Wonton!

I've been in a wonton phase lately - we made oodles of wontons at a friend's house last weekend: chicken, pork, and TVP (a vegetarian protein), and ate them in homemade chicken and vegetable stocks as appropriate. So very tasty.

Wonton Pizza Bites? I haven't tried these yet, but Roni made them & they look fantastic. Check out Green Lite Bites for the recipe and instructional video.

I really want to make some crab rangoon this weekend - also baked, of course, but with tasty crab and cream cheese melty love inside.

It's so cold and rainy out here, I think wontons of many varieties must be enjoyed... :)