Category: Food

Make a Quick Nutritious Meal

Do you ever find yourself dragging in after work, tired, hungry and ready for a quick meal? Standing in front of the refrigerator, shuffling from one foot to the next, moving to the pantry and wishing for something to fly off the shelf ready to eat? The temptation to call for pizza delivery is strong.

This week I experienced one of those nights. I was wiped out and muddling around the kitchen, my brain was tired of thinking. Coming up with an idea for supper was almost beyond the remaining energy available.

For times like this, I have found the best solution is to always stock the ingredients for one or two simple meals. One of our Farm favorites is pasta with homemade marinara.

Pasta is a simple food, quick to prepare and easy to find a dried version that has limited mystery ingredients. Our marinara is made in the summer when tomatoes are plentiful, then frozen in one cup portions. (You can find the recipe in my book Simply Delicious, but if you stock canned crushed tomatoes and Italian herbs in your pantry, you can make an excellent version.)

On this particular evening I did not want to eat meat so used mushrooms sauteed with garlic in olive oil to give a meaty texture and extra flavor to the sauce. Pour over hot pasta and serve.

Pasta like this needs a green salad. We were blessed to have fresh late season garden lettuce and a few remaining tomatoes. The tomatoes were picked green just before frost and allowed to ripen in the garage. I added some crumbled home made buttermilk cheese, salt, pepper and a simple dressing of balsamic glaze and olive oil.

In less than thirty minutes a salad, pasta and bread were on the table. My desire for fast home-cooked natural food was satisfied.

The time it took to prepare and freeze the sauce in the summer made tonight’s meal warm, easy and satisfying.

You can do this too. Decide on a few meals with simple quick cooking ingredients that can be stored in your pantry or freezer. Keep those items on hand and you will be ready to fix a homemade meal at a moment’s notice. You will be glad you did.

Pasta with Marinara for Two

1 cup home made frozen marinara or 1 can crushed tomatoes + 2 tsp Italian herb seasoning blend

4 ounces diced fresh button mushrooms

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp olive oil

Pasta of choice cooked according to package directions

Heat olive oil in saute pan over medium heat. Add mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally for 3-4 minutes, then add garlic. Continue to cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. If using canned crushed tomatoes and Italian herbs, add the herbs and saute for 1 minute, then add canned tomatoes. If using home made tomato sauce, add to the mushroom mixture and cook until flavors are blended and heated through. Serve over hot pasta.

Kitchen Experiments

Do you ever find yourself in a cooking rut, making the same boring meals over and over?

When that happens, we do kitchen experiments here at Five Feline Farm. No, not the mad scientist kind where you blend chemicals while cackling wildly.

The mystery food ingredient kind of experiment. No, not the “wonder what this fuzzy stuff in the back of the fridge is?” kind either.

We do the kind of experiment where random ingredients are combined to make a meal. Like the TV show “Chopped” but without the time limit and pressure. And, sadly without the possibility of a cash prize.

One recent round had the following ingredient list:

Canned Pumpkin

Cheddar Cheese Soup

Quick Cooking Barley

A Blood Orange

Sprig of Fresh Rosemary

Yes, that is the actual randomly selected list of ingredients awaiting me (Julia) when I arrived home from work. This was going to take a few minutes of brain time to come up with something for supper. But this is how I learn to be creative with cooking.

The rules are simple: use each of the mystery ingredients at least once in the meal. Any other items from freezer, refrigerator or pantry can be used.

Here’s the menu I devised:

Green salad with blood orange sections, a chunk of blue cheese and an oil and vinegar dressing

Pumpkin ravioli with a mushroom rosemary cream sauce

Cheddar barley focaccia

How did it turn out?

I was mostly concerned about the cheese soup and how to make that palatable. I’m not even sure how a can of cheddar cheese soup ended up in the pantry. It worked out fairly well, adding texture, moisture and flavor to the focaccia. The ravioli filling needed something to mellow out the intensity of the pumpkin and the focaccia was best hot from the oven. The mushroom rosemary cream sauce was really good.

This will not make it into the grand repertoire of meals. But it does inspire me to make more flavored homemade pastas. It also helped use up a few random ingredients and step away from another boring weeknight meal.

If you want to learn more about how I cook and meals designed to use up leftovers, pick up a copy of my book Simply Delicious, available in digital and print formats in our Mercantile or on Amazon.

As a special bonus, email your receipt to simplydelicious@fivefelinefarm.com and get a free photo ebook download.

Don’t forget to follow all the happenings here at the Farm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

A Twist on Eggs Benedict

Wondering what to do with the last of your Thanksgiving leftovers? Tired of just reheating the same old thing? Try a twist on Eggs Benedict.

It’s that time of year again. The Thanksgiving leftovers never seem to end. If you are looking for something new, read on. Below is an excerpt from the inaugural book of Five Feline Farm Press: Simply Delicious by Julia Miller.

One year I stood in front of the refrigerator door. My mission: find something different to eat after 2 days of re-heated Thanksgiving leftovers. Frankly I just couldn’t stomach even one more plate of my favorite noodles. I shifted from one foot to the other. Thinking, wishing for something else in the refrigerator. Close the fridge and head to the pantry. Nope. Nothing there sets off the salivary glands. Back to the fridge.

After a relentless loop of trips between the fridge and the pantry, I started dragging out all the leftover containers. I might as well clean out the fridge while I’m at it. A corner of dressing, a few slices of ham, a scoop of mashed potatoes start my synapses firing. I wonder if that dressing could be cut with a round cookie cutter? What about a riff on Eggs Benedict? The following recipe was born.

Thanksgiving Leftovers Benedict

Serves 4

2 cups leftover sage dressing

2 cups mashed potatoes

4 pieces of turkey or ham

4 eggs

1/2 cup hollandaise sauce

Cut leftover dressing into rounds with a biscuit cutter. Toast in a 425º oven until warmed through and lightly browned. Meanwhile, pat out mashed potatoes into a half inch layer and cut with biscuit cutter. Coat both sides of potato cakes with cornmeal and fry in a blend of olive oil and butter. Add ham or turkey slices to the pan while cooking the potato cakes to warm the meat. For each “leftover Benedict” layer a slice of meat and a potato cake on each of the dressing rounds. Top with a poached or scrambled egg and hollandaise sauce.

There are many more recipes in Simply Delicious plus stories about how the food at Five Feline Farm is created. Simply Delicious is available in both print and digital formats at Amazon.com or in our online Mercantile. You can also see more food creations on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.

5 Ways to Eat Healthier

Are you looking for simple steps you can do to make your life better, healthier and more productive?

So are we.

We are on a mission to improve our health by improving our diet. It is hard to make sweeping changes. Slowly the deprivation eats away at our willpower and before we know it, old habits have taken over.

The answer is to use simple, straightforward action items that can be implemented easily. Below are five suggestions you can do today:

1. Read food labels. 

This will help you understand what you are putting into your system. Really give yourself a minute to think about the building blocks your body needs. Your body is a machine. Water, protein, minerals, and trace elements will help it run most efficiently; not long chemical sounding ingredients.

2. Cook at home. 

The best way to take control of your diet is to cook at home. You will know every ingredient included. Plus, it’s a lot cheaper to make your favorite foods at home.

3. Eat an apple every day. 

Remember the old adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”? Did you ever wonder about the meaning behind it? Apples and other fruits have a lot of natural nutrients, fiber and vitamins. Mix it up with pears, bananas, oranges, grapes, berries; pick your favorite, there are plenty of options to keep you from getting bored. Just serving of fruit a day will build a habit of including natural whole foods in your diet.

4. Eliminate sweet drinks. 

This may be difficult at first, especially if you have a hardcore habit. It also includes no artificial sweeteners. If you make a conscious effort, you will find over the period of a week or so it gets easier. Sweet drinks add empty calories to your diet with no nutrients in return. 

5. Limit meat. 

Start with one or two meals a week without meat. Beans, eggs and nuts are good sources of protein. Meats are harder to digest and can leave you sluggish without realizing why. To compensate for less meat, add more complex carbohydrates and vegetables to your meal.

We have been implementing these steps. Some times life happens and we miss the mark, but each day is an opportunity to choose wisely.

Challenge yourself and your family to implement one of these steps each week over the next five weeks. At the end of the challenge, check in with yourself about how you feel. Do you feel better physically and mentally?

What other action items will you implement? Let us know your plans in the comments. 

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest updates on all things Five Feline Farm. If you are in the Charleston, IL area, stop by our Farm Fresh Mercantile Grand Opening this Saturday, October 7 from 12:00PM to 4:00PM.