Naturally Sweet Agave Glazed Carrots

This is part of my cooking for a month series.
Who doesn't like carrots? I mean they are pretty awesome, this recipe is no different. Tasty, easy to make, easy to freeze, easy to reheat. Tada!
You can find agave just about anywhere now, I get mine at costco mainly because it's a good deal and I never think to look when I'm at the grocery store. Agave can be substituted for honey in equal parts.

Naturally Sweet Agave Glazed Carrots

Serves 8

2lbs carrots, cut into batons

¼ C water

¼ C freshly squeezed orange juice

3T unsalted butter, melted

2T agave

3T fresh lemon thyme

S&P

In a large skillet over medium heat, combine carrots, water, and orange juice. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until carrots are just tender (remember you are freezing these so don’t over-do it).

Add butter, agave, thyme and cook uncovered, stirring often, until liquid has evaporated and carrots are glazed. Season with salt and pepper, stirring one last time. Remove from heat and let cool completely.

To Freeze – pour cooled carrots into gallon size freezer bag.

To reheat – thaw completely overnight in fridge then reheat carrots in a skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes until heated through.

My notes

I don’t know what batons are and I don’t really care. I just diced the carrots.

Good luck finding lemon thyme in your grocery store. I used regular thyme and it turned out just fine.

Fast Fix Zucchini Slaw

This is part of my cooking for a month series....

I like zucchini and I am always looking for ways to add it into our menus. It's a versatile veggie. This dish is perfect for a summer meal, it's fresh and bright tasting.

Fast Fix Zucchini Slaw
Serves 15

6 large zucchini, ends trimmed, coarsely grated or cut into matchsticks
1/2C finely chopped fresh parsley
1/2C chopped fresh dill
1T fennel seeds
1C dried currants
2T white wine vinegar
1T dijon mustard
1/3C extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

In a large bowl, combine zucchini, parsley, dill, fennel, and currants.
In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, mustard, and olive oil.  Pour over zucchini and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper.

To freeze put the slaw in a 1 gallon freezer bag, removing as much air as possible before sealing.

My notes
While typing this up I realized I left the currants out of the recipe. I should probably add them when I thaw out the slaw.
I cut the zucchini into matchsticks but next time I might coarsely grate them, it took me forever! My knife skills need some help apparently.

Grilled Ginger Sesame Chicken Breasts

This is part of my cooking for a month series....
My family grills a lot. Like just about every weekend so we have a lot of recipes but oooh boy this recipe was good! It's definitely a keeper.  We had it for a Sunday night dinner and everyone enjoyed it.  I assembled on a Wednesday, froze it and then thawed and served the following Sunday.  The cook book says to serve with soba noodles tossed in peanut sauce or Ginger and Veggie fried rice. I served with pasta salad.

Grilled Ginger Sesame Chicken Breasts
Serves 8

1/4C olive oil
1/4C tamari
3T sesame oil
3T minced fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
juice and zest of 2 limes
3 scallions, chopped
pepper
8 boneless skinless chicken breast halves

In a large plastic bag or container, whisk together oil, tamari, sesame oil, giner, garlic, lime juice and zest, scallions, and pepper. Place chicken in marinade for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Pour marinade into a saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Preheat grill to medium-high and oil the grate.
Gill chicken breasts for 5 minutes and flip. Baste the cooked side with reserved marinade.  Grill for 5 more minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Baste with marinade. Remove from heat.


My notes
The cookbook says that tamari is a wheat free salty condiment that is richer and more complex in flavor than soy sauce..... I didn't have tamari, neither did my store so I used soy sauce. It still tasted great. I also forgot to baste with the marinade, but in my defense I wasn't the person doing the grilling.....
I did not grill this before freezing, I threw the chicken in the marinade in the freezer... it worked great.

Mushroom Enchiladas

This is part of my cooking for a month series....
The cook book calls this Cream Mushroom Empanadas but I think that is a typo because these are not like any empanada I've ever seen and the look suspiciously like an enchilada. Therefore I call them enchiladas. With this recipe we discovered that freezing and reheating tortillas just does not work. They get soggy and gross. So, while I think the filling (chef's treat) for these was quite tasty Jeff said they were absolute mush so I didn't eat them after they were reheated. But he said it tasted good so I think this recipe is a keeper but only when not frozen first.

Creamy Mushroom Empanadas
10 servings

2lbs mix of wild mushrooms
2T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 t dried thyme
pinch of salt
pepper
3T finely chopped fresh cilantro
1C light sour cream
8oz neufchatel cheese, cut into small cubes
1 can mild green enchilada sauce
8 burrito size whole wheat tortillas
1/2C shredded monterey jack cheese

Spray a 9in backing dish with non-stick cooking spray.  Chop mushrooms and set aside.  Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.
Add garlic and cook, stirring constantly for 1 minute.  Add mushrooms, thyme, salt, pepper, and cook stirring often until mushrooms release their moisture and become tender and brown, about 7 minutes.
Transfer to a large mixing bowl and stir in cilantro, sour cream, neufchatel, allowing the cheese to melt and the mixture to get creamy.
Heat enchilada sauce in a large skillet over low heat. Dip tortilla in sauce to coat both sides and allow excess sauce to drip off.
Lay tortilla in the baking dish and fill with mushroom mixture, rolling tortilla around filling and placing enchilada seam-side down against the side of the baking dish.  Repeat with remaining tortillas and mushroom mixture.  Pour remaining enchilada sauce evenly over tortillas and sprinkle with cheese.Put in oven for 20-30 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and lightly browned.

This is before freezing.

My notes:
I froze this. It didn't work out so well. Also this made two (13X9) pans of enchiladas. I used regular sized tortillas instead of burrito sized because my store doesn't have whole wheat burrito sized tortillas. I think this would be quite tasty fresh out of the oven. Frozen it turned to mush during reheating. Not terribly appetizing.

Cooking for a month.......

I have decided to try something new. I recently decided that I am kind of tired of my evenings being spent in the kitchen and us not eating til 8pm.  I love cooking however sometimes I don't feel like cooking on those nights we end up eating fast food and that my friends is a bad thing when trying to change eating habits.

I have been thinking about buying one of those books fix and forget it or one of the freezer meal books I see all the time. Problem is when I looked at some of the recipes in the books they were all cream of ___ soup and highly processed foods. That does not make for a healthy meal. Then I found this little gem Make Ahead Meals Made Healthy by Michele Borboa. The reviews on Amazon were all pretty good and the few recipes I looked at appeared to be pretty good. So I bought the e-book version.
I am cooking our meals for a month (with the exception of Friday night pizza night) and storing them in our deep freeze. Sounded pretty simple in theory. But here it is August 14th and I still have 4 of the recipes from this book to make. All in all for the first attempt I'd say that isn't bad but I over-ambitiously assumed I could bang all these out in a day or two. Boy was I wrong. So far I've put over 16hrs into cooking. Yikes. However I chalk that up to inefficiency on my part. I've been working one recipe at a time. Next time I am going to cross-reference my recipes looking for ones that use similar ingredients prep all the ingredients for those meals, cook them, and then start all over again. And I will probably prep all my staple ingredients (onions, cheese that needs shredding) ahead of time.

Here's a list of everything that has been or will be cooked....
Whole-grain Pesto Pasta Casserole
Better Than Takeout Asian Beef Strips
Make It A Meal Meatloaf
Asian Pork and 5 Spice Apples
Good for You Mu Shu Pork
Mom's Green Chile Chicken Breasts
Cajun Pasta*
Grilled Ginger Sesame Chicken Breasts
Mushroom Enchiladas
Quick Fix Paella
Asian Spiced Tuna Cakes
Naturally Sweet Agave Glazed Carrots
Fast Fix Zucchini Slaw
Tender Roasted Vegetables
Smashed Garlic Potatoes
Weeknight Stuffed Shells
Beer Can Chicken*
Chicken Stuffed Cannelloni with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce*
Crockpot Thai Chicken*
Spaghetti* - already made
Tacos* - already made
Tater tot casserole*
Dark Chocolate Almond Scones
Lowfat Chocolate Cherry Brownies


*these are not from the book

This isn't even 1/2 of it.....

Better Than Takeout Asian Beef Strips

This is part of my cooking for a month series...
We had this recipe last night. Jeff and I found it to be somewhat bland* which is disappointing it seemed to have a lot of good flavors in it while I was making it. I would say this was not better than takeout but it was edible. The kid seemed to like it quite a bit.

*as I am typing this recipe I realized that I let out the red pepper flakes. So that might have had something to do with it.

Better Than Takeout Asian Beef Strips
1/2 C fresh squeezed orange juice
1 T minced orange zest
1 T minced fresh ginger
2 T rice wine vinegar
3 T shoyu
2 T honey
Pinch of hot red pepper flakes
2lbs flank steak, sliced diagonally into 1/4 in slices
1 T cornstarch
1 T canola oil
1 T sesame oil
4 C cooked brown basmati rice, cooled completely

In a large bowl, whisk together orange juice, orange zest, ginger, vinegar, shoyu, honey, and red pepper flakes. Place steak in bowl and toss to coat. Cover bowl and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Remove meat from the marinade and whisk cornstarch into marinade. Heat oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Swirl to coat.

Stir-fry the meat for 2-3 minutes add the marinade and cook, stirring, until sauce is thickened. Drizzle with sesame oil. Remove from heat and let cool completely.

To freeze
Individual Servings: Divide steak and rice into 1qt freezer bags or freezer and microwave safe containers.

For a crowd
Place steak and rice in 2 separate 1 gallon freezer bags, removing as much air as possible before sealing.

To reheat
Let steak and rice thaw in fridge overnight.

Microwave method
Reheat individual servings in the microwave on high for 2-3 minutes or until heated through.

Oven method
Preheat oven to 350F. Place rice in a baking dish and top with steak.  Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes or until heated through.

My notes
I got this out of the freezer Sunday night after dinner. The rice was still rock hard when I got it out to start cooking at 5:30 yesterday. so that was a bit of a problem. I also didn't like the fact that there were no vegetables in this dish so I added some bell pepper. Jeff said mushrooms and onions would be good as well. I also used agave in place of honey as my honey had crystallized. Oh and my store doesn't have shoyu or basmati brown rice so I used soy sauce instead of shoyu and regular brown rice instead of basmati.