Chicken Tostadas

We call this quick family friendly meal Mexican pizza!  This was adapted from 100 days of real food. If you want an easy, non processed, healthy meal this is it!

Ingredients:

* 3 cups shredded or diced cooked chicken (slow cook, roast or boil it)

* 1½ cups freshly grated Monterey Jack cheese

* 2 tablespoons water

* 1 teaspoon cumin

* ½ teaspoon salt

* ¼ teaspoon chili powder

* 1½ limes (1-2 tablespoons)

* 1 cup cooked black beans (organic canned or dried and then soaked and cooked in the crockpot)

* 8 whole-grain 5" to 6" corn tortillas,

* Recommended toppings: Tomatoes, avocado and cilantro

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

2. In a large bowl thoroughly combine the chicken, cheese, water, spices, and juice of 1 lime (or eye ball more if you want). Stir well then add black beans and toss gently so you don't smash the beans up!

3. On a large baking sheet lay the tortillas out in one even layer. You will probably need more than one baking sheet. 

4. Evenly distribute the chicken mixture on top of the 8 tortillas (the top layer should be about ½" tall) and bake until cheese begins to brown, about 12 to 13 minutes.

5. Squeeze the remaining lime juice, to taste, on top of the cooked tostadas and serve warm with diced tomatoes and avocado, and cilantro leaves.

**tips: cut into pizza triangles; 

serve with some cilantro lime rice; 

WORKING/BUSY MOMS: Make the chicken/cheese/spice/bean mixture the night before then simply top it on the tortillas 15-20 minutes before mealtime for a SUPER quick and healthy meal

Serves: 4 people (so we double)

Difficult: 1 out of 5; for a dinner, it doesn't get much easier than this. The make ahead option makes this meal super appealing too!

Timing: 15 months of its chopped up well!

Epicutie Rating: 

Little Joy: yummy in the yummy--always easy to please at meals she gobbled up two toastadas!

Little Asher: somewhat yummy--despite being the tough critique he still ate half a tostada with no complaints. He wasn't chomping at the bit for more, but was not gagging either. Gagging is common when he has beans!

Little Juliette:  yummy in the tummy; while we had to cut hers quite a bit she ended up eating an entire tostada. I think she would have eaten more but she got a sharp piece of tortilla and then seemed discouraged. 

Raw Green Applesauce

I know that I have yet to post on Green Smoothies as I promised and as my penpal reminded me , but I sat down to do it and realized that it was going to be much more involved than I had originally thought… and I just have not had the time. I wanted to try a few new recipes before I do that big post, but while I was searching I found this recipe at RawFamily.com. I love raw recipes! Its not a movement that I see myself joining, but raw usually translates to “easy” and “healthy” and I need to start frequenting more raw recipe websites and cookbooks!
Anyway, I found this recipe and I had to try it! It was just what a raw recipe should be – easy, fun. I enlisted the help of Little Frances to help me make it! Its so fun to have extra hands in the kitchen as our epicuties get bigger!
Ingredients:

• 4 apples
• 1 banana
• 2 to 3 cups chopped romaine lettuce
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• up to 2 cups water

Steps:

1. Chop apples into pieces, removing the core.
2. Place half the water and the rest of the ingredients together in a blender or a food processor.
3. Blend/process!
4. Add more water if needed until you reach desired thickness.

Yield: 3 cups
Storage: This can be kept in the freezer for up to 2 months. In the fridge, I would recommend no longer than 2 or 3 days since it is a raw recipe.
Difficulty: 1 out of 5. Easy, like most of the recipes I post on here.
Timing: 8 months. This is about the average age for introducing greens to small babies from what I can find.  Some recommend earlier, some recommend later. If you have concerns, speak with your pediatrician.
Miscellaneous: Our applesauce turned out a little brown since I had bought a pre chopped and rinsed salad kit that contained both red and green romaine lettuce. I also made the mistake of adding all of the water at once so it came out a little more soupy than saucy!  I recommend starting with a more conservative amount of water and adding as desired.
Epicutie Ratings (see left side of the page for ratings):
Little Frances: Somewhat Yummy! Little Frances’ enthusiasm may be due to the fact that she helped make it but she seemed to like it. It lost her interest after a while.

Little Elizabeth: Yummy in the Tummy! I failed to take a picture of Little Elizabeth, but she has loved it all three times she has eaten it!

Turkey Sloppy Joes

I got this recipe from "Once a Month Mom"'s dairy free gluten free menu---I LIVED on this site when I was on the elimination diet with Little Asher and a lot since then because he dairy intolerant....still.  The original recipe makes 8 servings and its just too much so I halved it to see if it still worked well and it does--I had to alter the cooking times a bit too, so here is my version!

I also LOVE slow cooker meals because I can get it in there before the kids are up or when they are busy :)

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 3 carrots, finely minced
• 1 pounds ground turkey
• 1/2 cup gluten free ketchup, fruit juice sweetened preferred
• 1 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons gluten free yellow mustard
• pinch of salt, optional
• pinch of ground pepper

Steps:

1. Heat oil in skillet over medium to medium-high heat.  Sauté onion and carrots until onion is translucent, then add ground turkey.
2. Using a heat safe spatula, break up meat in skillet until turkey is completely cooked about 5 more minutes.
3. Transfer to crock and add rest of the ingredients.
4. Mix well, cover then cook on high for an hour and lower to low for about 4-6 hours until flavors are combined and  vegetables are softened.  
5. Check about 1/2 hour before eating and see if the sloppy joes look too “juicy”.  If they are, I remove the lid of the crock and cook on high, stirring periodically until the right consistency is reached.  When the recipe is halved it is usually the right consistency when ready to eat.

Difficulty 3 out of 5; I only give it a 3 vs 2 because it is not a dump into the crock pot and go---you have to brown the meat and cook the veggies first.

Tip:  This is a GREAT freezer meal.  Do steps one and two, allow to cool, place in a freezer bag along with all other ingredients--FREEZE!  When you are ready to use it, thaw over night, place in crock pot and cook on low for about 7 hours and ENJOY!  I am thinking of all you working moms out there!

Timing:  Unless this is pureed, I would recommend waiting until around 14 months or so.  It can be strange to eat and difficult unless you have a palete used to these things or VERY good chewing skills.

Serve:  We serve this over a piece of homemade bread (also easy to do before you leave for work) along with another veggie!  Double veggies is always good in my book!

Epicutie Ratings:  (see left side of page for rating descriptions)

Little Joy:  Somewhat Yummy; when we first had this about a year ago she went crazy over it but now she eats it just without huge zesto--which is fine.  Cant love EVERY food, but tolerate every food is the goal!

Little Asher:  Yummy in the Tummy; it took him a little while to grow into liking this, but he is ON BOARD!

Meat and veggies sauteed 

Everything mixed and ready to cook in the crock pot

4-6 hours later!

Served with potaoes and lima beans (we were in desperate need of a grocery store run!)

Tomato, Carrot and Kale Spaghetti

So this recipe was created by my friend Meg for her little boy Calvin, and I asked her if I could feature it on LTY.  I made this recipe last month and I think that it is going to be my new go-to spaghetti sauce.  I doubled the recipe and froze the sauce and its so nice to have on hand in a pinch.  Please ignore Little Frances’ reaction – she may be the only child in history to not like marinara sauce! This recipe is delish.
Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 of a large onion chopped, about 1/2 cup
• 2 cloves of garlic, or a teaspoon of jarred garlic
• a handful of baby carrots chopped, about 1/2-2/3 cup
• 2 16 ounces cans of whole tomatoes, no salt added.
• 1/2 teaspoon basil
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 shakes of red pepper flakes or 1/8 teaspoon – omitted
• 2 handfuls of chopped kale, approximately 1 cup
• Spaghetti or other type of pasta – we used spinach spaghetti to add just a little extra green to our meal!

Steps:

1. Heat oil in a saucepan.
2. Add onion, garlic and carrots and cook for 5-7 minutes.  Stir occassionally.
3. Start water boiling for pasta.
4. Drain juice off the tomatoes and add the tomatoes to the pan.
5. Add basil, oregano, salt, red pepper flakes if using, and kale.
6. When water boils, begin cooking pasta.
7. Bring sauce to a boil, crushing the tomatoes.
8. Reduce to simmer and cover and cook on low.  A minute or so before the pasta is done, blend the sauce using an immersion blender, or place it in a blender or food processor
9. Serve the sauce over the pasta and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Misc: Don’t you think Little Frances’ spaghetti looks a little bit like a heart? Serve it with salad or a side of steamed broccoli and you have a nice family meal.
Timing: The ingredients can technically be introduced at 1 year, although with noodles I would suggest waiting until 18 months or you feel like your little one can handle chewing the noodles.
Difficulty: 3 out of 5. It was pretty easy, but it did have a lot of steps and you can’t just throw everything in at once and let it cook.
Epicutie Rating (see left side of page for rating descriptions):
Confused. So Little Frances does not like spaghetti!  Until fairly recently she did not even like noodles, although now she loves them.  Usually even if she does not love something, she will eat it if I give it to her by hand and/or add a little cheese, but this she was not willing to eat this after a bit or two.  We are going to keep working on spaghetti sauce until she likes it!

Little Joy and Little Asher:  YUMMY IN THE TUMMY

Although Little Elizabeth is not yet old enough for solids, it seems she wanted a little taste of what we were eating and she reached down and helped herself to some of my salad!   More on her first foods in the next few weeks.

Lovely Lentil Stew

This is another great one from Dr Joel Fuhrman.  Its probably the easiest family food I’ve made, and can be eaten at as young as 8 months (as long as you leave out the pepper)!

Items:

• 1 cup lentils
• 3 cups water
• 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 3 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped

Steps:

1. Cook lentils in water for 30 minutes with onion, pepper, and basil.
2. Add tomatoes and celery and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

Difficulty: 1 out of 5!  Its so easy and only takes one pot, my kind of dish!

Timing: 8 months.  I would leave out the pepper and add it later if serving to children under 1 and using it as a family good.

Epicutie Rating: (See left side of the page for descriptions) Somewhat Yummy.  Little Frances ate this like a champ, but I wouldn’t say that she loved it.  For the record, mom and dad liked it pretty well for such a healthy food with no salt added!

Cream of Spinach (revised for Dairy Free)

I love the Cream Spinach with Lentils Over Brown Rice that we posted in April 2011; I have made it countless times for Little Joy and still do!  Little Asher cannot have dairy at all until he is 15-18 months so this limits me on what I can cook for him and I prefer not to cook separate meals for my two epicuties (even though I know it is inevitable as this stage).

I decided to really test my cooking abilities and wing making this recipe dairy free, below is what I came up with and it was quite tasty, surprisingly.  If you look at our previous post, you will see it is very similar.  

Oh and for the record, this tasted great to me too!

Ingredients:

• One bag baby spinach
• 1 tablespoon grated sweet onion (about 1/3-1/2 of a large onion)
• 1 small clove garlic, minced or through a garlic press
• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup imitation cream cheese (see photo below)
• 1/4 cup firm tofu
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 tsp dried fresh basil
• Cooked red lentils (cooked according to package)

Steps:

1. Cook red lentils according to package instructions or if there are not any, check out this website about cooking lentils
2. Wash and trim  spinach (if needed), place in food processor along with minced/pressed garlic and grated onion.
3. Pulse it in food processor several times until the spinach reaches your desired consistency.  Be careful not to over process it, the goal is the finely and evenly chop it (in the previous post I said to chop it with a knife, but I found the spinach gets to a better size for a younger baby when the food processor is used--not to mention its MUCH quicker).
4. Combine cream cheese and tofu in small chopper and puree until smooth (you might be able to use 1/2 tofu and omit the imitation cream cheese but I wanted the consistency to be smooth since the original recipe called for yogurt).
5. Place spinach mixture in large sauce pan (spinach cooks down a lot so if your pan looks full...do not worry).
6. Cook over medium heat covered for approximately 5-8 minutes. Be sure to shake the pan often to ensure the veggies do not get burned.
7. Drain veggies well (if needed).
8. Stir in Olive Oil and continue to cook for 3-5 minutes, continue to stir constantly (I am not good at doing anything constantly when the epicuties are awake, so just do your best)
9. Remove from heat and stir in tofu mixture, salt, pepper and basil.
10. While warm, mix in about a 1/3 lentil to 2/3 spinach mixture.

Yield: 3-4 servings

Serve:  Warm; can be served over cooked brown rice.  I spoon fed this to my 10 month old (Little Asher) and my toddler fed herself with the cream of spinach on a cracker.

Variation for a Toddler:  Little Joy enjoyed the dairy version of this on top of crackers (in the original post it was served over brown rice, but tried something new to liven things up).  So it was kinda like a dip!

Timing: 10 months or later; there are some strong flavors in here and lentils are best to wait to introduce until 10 months. This food does not require much chewing/grinding so if your Little One does not have many teeth, do not despair!

Storage: I would say 3-5 days in the fridge; freezer for about a month.  I froze the dairy version of this and it tasted fine frozen and reheated.

Difficulty: 2 out of 5 using the food process made this quick and easy

Epicutie Rating:  (see left side of page for rating descriptions)

• Little Joy:  Yummy in the Tummy: She loved eating this as a dip.  We also tried it in a quesadilla and she was not as keen on it.
• Little Asher:  Yummy in the Tummy:  He kept opening his mouth for more!!!  He even loved it on the second day.

Step 3:  Pulse spinach, onion and garlic in food processor

Step 9: After adding tofu mixture

Step 10:  Add lentils and stir

Little Asher's Meal; served with lima beans and tofu cubes dusted with graham crackers (post for that coming soon)

Little Joy's meal; cream spinach served over crackers with tofu cubes, cheese and lima beans

Little Joy trying it

She's saying "Its gonna be yummmmy"

"I like it Mommy" she said

Little Asher getting ready for the first bite

Seeing if Big Sister liked it

After several bites, he got into it and he liked it!!

Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes (Gluten, Soy AND Dairy free!)

We are still Gluten, Dairy and Soy free over here so a friend sent me a link to a pancake recipe that nearly fit the criteria.  I altered it so that even I could enjoy this dish with my family!  AND we LOVE LOVE LOVE this!  It will be great to try on Little Asher in a couple of months since we are avoiding all dairy and gluten with him. Let me know how you all like it!

Ingredients

• 1 very ripe medium banana
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg (you can substitute a flax egg here, COOL---1 Tbsp flaxseed meal + 2.5 Tbsp water)
• pinch salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 Tablespoon natural Jif peanut butter (Jif natural peanut butter has no dairy or soy; you could use any nut butter like almond butter, hazelnut butter etc.)
• 1 Tablespoon canola oil (or other oil such as coconut oil)
• 1 Tablespoon honey or molasses
• 3 Tablespoons unsweetened coconut milk (or substitute any other milk such as almond or rice; if you do not care about being dairy free regular milk is fine too)
• 1/2 cup quick oats rolled oats (gluten free)
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour (or substitute other flour; if you do not want to be gluten free use whole wheat flour)
• 3 Tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips (non-dairy kind)

Instructions

1. Preheat a griddle to medium heat (about 225-250 degrees.
2. **IF you using Flax eggs prepare those here by mixing flaxseed meal and water and letting set for 3-5 minutes.****
3. Mash banana with baking powder.
4. Add egg, oil, salt, vanilla, butter, honey, milk, and stir.
5. Stir in oats and flour until just combined.
6. Sprinkle in chocolate chips and fold gently.
7. Scoop scant 1/4 cup measurements onto griddle.
8. Cook for 4 minutes on each side or until golden brown.
9. Serve plain or with a small drizzle of maple syrup.

Yield: 7-8 2 inch pancakes.  I will double this next time I make it.

Serve:  Serve immediately and warm. 

Storage:  Refrigerate leftovers and use within 2 days.

Timing:  Since there is honey in here I would wait until 2 years.  BUT if the honey is omitted I think a skilled 12 month old could easily eat these and be ok with all the ingredients.

Difficulty: 2 out of 5; this does not take any longer to make than any other homemade pancakes.  Easy and delicious!

Epicutie Rating:  YUMMY in the Tummy<---see left side of page for rating descriptions

Little Joy LOVED these, in fact...it only made 7 pancakes and she ate three leaving my husband and I only 2 each.  She ate more than us!  But let's be honest, what toddler does not want a few chocolate chips in their breakfast?

YUMMMMMMM!

Little Asher---Eating Gluten and Dairy free puffs while we enjoyed the pancakes.  It wont be much longer that he will be spectating!