Scott: I think you should post about this.

Me: Post about what?

Scott: Dinner.

Me: What? Like what we’re eating right now?

Scott: Yes.

Me: But it’s nothing, just some veggies and pasta.

Scott: Right.

Me: ‘Splain yourself.

Scott: Well, what did you do?

Me: I made an easy and quick dinner because it’s crazy late and we need to eat.

Scott: Exactly.  Maybe people would be interested in this.  Maybe folks want to know how to just put something together quickly when they don’t have a lot of time. Or when it’s late and they are hungry but still want something healthy.  This is a good example of that.

Me: Well I’ll try.  I did just toss this together, no exact measurements or anything.

Scott: That’s the point!

This was the conversation that Scott and I had last Wednesday when it was late, we were hungry, and I needed to put some food in our bellahs.  I attended…

This summer has been notable for two reasons: heat and farmer’s markets.  Because of the heat, I have only wanted to eat a lot of cool things.  The HQ has been seeing various kinds of salads for meals this summer.  We have also been frequenting Farmer’s Markets because local towns have picked up hosting mid-week markets which fits our schedule a little better.

I noticed a lovely batch of green beans on a recent trip to the Farmer’s market and I had to have some.  I’m not the only one in this house who loves green beans, Rocky loves them too.  I picked up enough for all of us to enjoy!

Green beans are a bean that I have always been in love with.  I don’t care how you serve them up, I will eat them.  That includes fried green beans although I won’t…

The first time that I came across the concept of cheddar and dill, I was watching an episode where Ina made some cheddar dill scones.

Oh?

I love dill very much.  It is probably my very favorite herb and no I’m not kidding you.  I also love really great cheddar and combing the two seemed like a great concept.  While I didn’t really want a scone to snack on, I did think that this could be transferred to a great biscuit.

The first time I made this was years ago using a drop biscuit method.  I used really poor cheddar, factory farmed milk, and some Bisquick.  Oh yeah totally not something that would be considered healthy but instead more likely to be found as an option at The Red Lobster.   You know what I mean.

Now I have several years of baking under my belt which has given me…

If you’ve been reading here for any length of time  then you know that I love my oats.

Probably a little too much.  Oats bring me joy! And comfort and a full belly.  I eat oats everyday in some shape or form.  Typically a bowl of oats that I just made but I also have been known to inhale oatbran and a yogurt mess with granola often as well.

Recently with the very hot temperatures we’ve been having and the ridiculous amount of humidity that has made itself known, the idea of a hot steaming bowl of oats is less than appealing.  All I want is COLD stuff.  I don’t mind hot coffee but everything else must be as cold as it can get!

Even making and eating dinner is not so much fun because I don’t want to deal with the hot and my appetite has gone down a bit…

It’s the end of the month which means we are wrapping up Quinoa Month!  What better way to end the month than with some chocolate!

I originally set out to make brownies but this experiment turned out a lot more quick bread-like and not so brownie-like.  However it’s still super tasty and full of chocolate goodness!

Andrea’s Chocolate Quinoa Bread

• 1C Whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2C Unbleached All-Purpose flour
• 1 1/2C Cooked quinoa
• 1/4C Cane sugar
• 1/4C Unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2tsp Baking powder
• 1tsp Baking soda
• 1/2tsp Ground cinnamon
• 1TBSP Ground flax
• Pinch salt
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• 1/2C Crushed walnuts
• 1/2C Dark chocolate chips
• 1 1/4C Soymilk
• 1/2C Coffee
• 2tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a brownie pan or 8inch square casserole dish with nonstick spray, set aside.   In a medium size mixing bowl combine the soymilk, vanilla, and coffee.  In a large mixing bowl combine all other ingredients except the walnuts and chocolate chips.  Whisk to get all ingredients combined and…

I love cornbread and I mean LOVE it.  Like real love and not just like-like, you know?  I’m also really picky about my cornbread.  I like it sweet, not too sweet, but it definitely needs to have some sweet background to it.  I also do not like things in my cornbread.

Things include:

• Corn
• Jalapenos
• Bacon
• Green onion

And any other variety of “things” that have the potential of throwing off the texture of the sweet divine bread.  Also?  Do you know when I like to eat cornbread?

For breakfast or for dessert.  Although if you ask me to pick a favorite time, it’s going to be with breakfast because sweet cornbread goes amazingly well with morning coffee.

At least in my world it does.

When I discovered that I could make cornbread on my own, goodness I was ecstatic! We rarely had cornbread at my parent’s house growing up.  In fact the best memories I have of…

Naturally when I started playing around with quinoa, I immediately went the dessert route.  ”Hey I bet I could make cookies.  How awesome would that be? Protein powered cookies!”

This was actually my first baking experiment with quinoa.  I wanted something that sort of reminded me of fall, cozy times, and early sunsets.

These cookies totally deliver and are actually one of the few cookies that get better with time!

Andrea’s Quinoa Spice Cookies

• 1.5C Cooked Quinoa
• 1C Whole Wheat Pastry Flour + 4 TBSP
• 2tsp Cinnamon
• 1/2tsp Allspice
• 1/2tsp Ground Clove
• 1/2tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4tsp Baking Soda
• 2TBSP Sugar
• 2TBSP Ground Flax
• 1/2C Dried Cranberries
• 1/2C Crushed/chopped Walnuts
• 1C Soymilk
• 2TBSP Molasses
• 2tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven at 350 degrees.  In medium sized mixing bowl, combine soymilk, vanilla, and molasses.  Whisk until combined, set aside.  In a large mixing bowl combine all remaining ingredients.  Mix until everything is combined.  The flour will start to coat the quinoa.  Add in the liquid mixture to the quinoa mixture…

For those of you that read Mama Pea’s blog, you got a sneak peak of these babies last month.

I had a bit of leftover quinoa that I needed to use up and wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with it.  Seeing as how it was Sunday and Sunday Breakfast time, I decided, what the heck, and tried making pancakes out of it.

I was really pleased with the way these turned out!  Healthy pancakes with added protein punch?  I’ll take it!

Andrea’s Quinoa Pancakes:

• 1 1/2C Cooked Quinoa
• 1C Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
• ½ tsp Baking powder
• 1tsp Ground cinnamon
• 1TBSP Maple Syrup
• 1 1/4C Soymilk
• 2TBSP Wheat Bran
• 2TBSP Ground Flax
• 2tsp Vanilla Extract

In a small mixing bowl combine the soymilk, vanilla extract, and maple syrup. In a large mixing bowl, combine all other ingredients. Gently add the liquid mixture to…

Pizza!!  I don’t know why it took me so long to finally post my dough recipe but here we are, woo!

Scott and I started Pizza Thursday I think in early 2009.  We love pizza and we decided that if we have it every week then we would be more open to playing with toppings and sauces.

Also because we have had trouble finding pizza we like in Columbus.  I know everybody has places they like but some of them are a little too far for us to travel for pickup for a Thursday night.

In order to satisfy our love for pizza we had to make our own.  I originally started out buying pizza dough from Whole Foods which was fine but it wasn’t awesome.  Plus it was pricey.  Yes it was still cheaper than buying a pizza out but if I made my own crust, I could save us loads…

Scott and I love seafood.  Like LOVE it, in what probably results in something verging on ridiculous.  I try to make sure that we have seafood at least twice a week since that is our preferred “animal” protein source.  Tuesdays we have fish so that leaves another day free for whatever.

And while I don’t eat a lot of meat, one thing I love is sausage.  My love for it would be just a few levels down from seafood.  Seafood I would eat everyday if you gave it to me, sausage I have to be in the mood for.  I swear I’m not trying to make a joke with that statement.

Sometimes those two wants just happen to collide with each other.

I will tell you that because I love food so much, I am constantly thinking about it.  I would guess this is the way most foodies behave.  Wondering…