Squash and Carrot Casserole

About a week ago I got a Vegetable cookbook from CostCo.  Since I am eating so many vegetables I need more ideas on creative ways to make them.  I came across a recipe in the book on how to make a Squash casserole.  The first thing it wanted was stewed squash.  I had no idea how to do that so I looked it up on my iPad.  After I realized it was a method that would make the dish that was already full of calories more fattening I decided to skip that step and steam the squash.  I also decided to add carrots.

Usually in the stewing step the squash gets mashed.  However since we are skipping that all together we have to mash the squash and the carrots after steaming them for 20 min.

 Once the veggies are mashed melt some butter in a skillet.

Once the butter is melted add the mashed vegetables and simmer for a while.

 While the veggie mash is simmering  mix an egg and some milk and a small amount of sugar or your favorite sugar substitute in the bowl.

 Then add the mashed veggies.  If you want you can add a bit more sugar too.

 Now get two slices of bread.  buttermilk was my choice this time.

 Cut up the bread in cubes

 Put it in your skillet to soak up left over veggie mash and the left over butter.

 Add the cubes to your egg and mash mixture.

 Coat the bread cubes with the mixture.

 You can add some more sugar if you like or other spices.  One its all complete you put it in a pan.

 Cook the casserole for 30-40 min at 350 degrees.

 When its lightly golden brown on top and most of the liquid has been absorbed by the bread it is done!

Healthy snack Sandwich and celery

This is a fairly simple snack.  Its a ham sandwich with leaf lettuce and mayo and mustard with celery on the side.  Eating healthy does not have to be a chore it can be delicious and look good.

Steamed Beets and Carrots

This is an extremely easy little meal and the carrots look so pitiful next to the beets lol.

Wash two beets then slice them  follow that up with washing two carrots and slicing them up.  Then steam the vegetables for 15 minutes.  Add to your plate and add a little butter and enjoy.

Stir Fry Vegetable Medley

The beauty of the words Vegetable Medley is it covers any number of combinations of vegetables mixed together and cooked in some form.  This time the food was Stir Fried.

In this delicious meal there was one summer squash, one zucchini, two stalks of celery, several flowerettes of broccoli, and one tomato.

Add oil of your choice to your wok or frying pan and wash and slice and cut into bite size pieces.  add everything but the tomato.  Stir everything around until its almost done then add the Tomato.  Complete the cooking until the food is cooked to your preference or until most of the tomato has made a fine paste on the entire set of vegetables.  Then eat and enjoy.  :) 

Summer Squash Stir Fry

In this stir fry you gather the following ingredients, one summer squash, broccoli, two stalks of celery, one quarter of a green pepper,  two leaves of collard greens, brown rice and seasoning.

First wash the vegetables then slice them or cut them up depending on the vegetable.  In this case of these vegetables I put everything but the collard greens in the pan and stir fried them in olive oil.  I cooked them until they were softened and then added the collard greens.  Further stir frying  until the collard greens were limp.  Then I added the pre cooked rice to warm it up and have it  soak up the flavors in the pan from cooking the vegetables.  In this batch I also added a little bit of soy sauce for a different flavor.  You can add whatever you want.

Roasted potatoes and zucchini

I know that most of the food I am showing you in this blog seems fairly simple.  Well that is the entire point of these dishes.  Many people think that eating more healthy will be more difficult than its worth.  Well this blog is a prime example of how wonderful foods can be added to your diet improving your health and life with very simple ways without taking too much time out of your life.

The potatoes and the zucchini were sliced and then put on a cookie sheet sprayed with  some cooking spray. They were cooked at 450 degrees for about 30 min.  You can go a little shorter if you dont want the potatoes so dark and the zucchini a tad crunchier.  I like my zucchini soft.  :)

A delicious salad

The wonderful thing about having many vegetables on hand is you can create unique salads to your taste.  In this salad there is large green leafy lettuce, celery leaves, collard greens, broccoli, and celery.  Its a very green salad which means its full of useful iron. Generally when I make a salad I do enjoy some color but that day I was in the mood for green only.  It was very delicious.