Herb Balsamic Tomatoes

Yummy, healthy, side dish. appetizer, or snack. My kids gobble these up!
Picture above is one tomato. I personally consider that one serving, but others may not. So I will write the recipe for one tomato/serving. Multiply as needed!

Ingredients:
1 tomato, sliced
A couple fresh basil leaves, chopped
A couple fresh mint leaves, chopped
A couple fresh parsley leaves, chopped
A pinch of fresh dill
Sea salt and ground pepper to taste
A drizzle of balsamic vinegar, organic
A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, organic

Lay sliced tomatoes on a plate. Sprinkle with herbs, salt, and pepper. Drizzle with vinegar, and then oil. Enjoy!

Guacamole Egg Rolls

This is a variation of a recipe I saw at www.mommybistro.com She has some great comfort food recipes, you should check it out.
These are fun! Serve them with a side of salsa. As for the egg roll wrappers, I found egg roll/spring roll wrappers in the frozen section but after reading the ingredients I put them back. I would have put them back just for the fact that bleached white flour was the first ingredient, but scroll down a little and there was propylene glycol (aka anti-freeze, ick). Then there was Sodium Benzoate, which is a pretty bad preservative. So I went over to the Japanese isle and they had some spring roll wrappers with something like 4 ingredients, none of which were a deal breaker, so I got those. The only hitch with those is they are hard and crispy. I had some in my house a few years ago that I could not figure out how to use. Everytime I tried to wrap anything they would snap. Now, if you know how to use these you're probably shaking your head at me right now. If you don't, you have to soak them in water for a few before you try to wrap anything. Boy did that make an amazing difference =) The first thing I ever successfully wrapped with them were bananas, chocolate, and almond butter...THAT was super yummy! Though I've learned since then to use more than one wrapper for each roll so they are less likely to tear while wrapping and cooking. This recipe will call for two wrappers for each roll, feel free to use more, honestly three might be better, adjust accordingly. A ton come in the package I got so I didn't even come close to using them all.  Here's a pic of the ones I got:

Ingredients: (Makes 8 egg rolls)
16 egg roll or spring roll wrappers (Please read the ingredient label!!!)
2 avocados, diced
1 medium tomato, diced
1/2 organic onion, chopped
Handful of cilantro, chopped
1/2 ts sea salt
1 organic egg, beaten
Coconut or olive oil for searing or deep frying (See instructions below)

In a large bowl, gently stir together avocado, tomato, onion, cilantro and salt.

Fill a plate with water and place 2 wrappers in the water to soak for a minute. Remove from water and place on a sheet of wax paper. Place a couple of scoops of avocado mixture down the middle.

Fold the bottom flap up a quarter to halfway up the mixture. Brush the beaten egg along all the edges.

Fold the top flap down, and roll up. Repeat with all rolls.
Now at this point, you could go ahead and deep fry them if you so desire. If you do, coconut oil would be the healthiest choice.
Or, you could heat a skillet with about 2 TB of coconut oil. Sear all sides of the roll, and place roll on a baking sheet. Repeat with all rolls. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes, flipping half way through.

Baked Jalapeno Poppers

First off...wear gloves when dealing with jalapenos...I know better, and I didn't...ouch.
I love jalapeno poppers. I love that I can bake them instead of frying them and use organic ingredients. Have you ever ordered poppers at a restaurant and they taste like fryer grease? Eww, I'm gagging thinking about it. So not only are these better for you because you use organic ingredients, hot peppers are borderline high in pesticides. Plus organic eggs, flour, dairy products....you get the picture. Dairy and eggs are seriously not good for you if not organic....hormones, antibiotics, gross unhealthy living conditions for the animals. What I do when making these is make a HUGE batch and then I freeze them. If I want a snack, I can pop a few in the toaster oven and in 5-10 minutes I have yummy poppers to munch on! By all means you do not have to make as big of a batch as I do, it's really time consuming. But I really only do it maybe twice a year. So if you think of it that way, it's not that bad. I'll start off by telling you that the batch I made today took 2 hours, start to finish, including baking time. By the end I was getting a little annoyed by the whole process, but now I'm happy about the huge amount of poppers in my freezer! So it's all good ;)

Ingredients:
25 large jalapenos, organic (They don't have to be large, but I quarter them so I get more poppers this way)
2 packages organic cream cheese, softened (you could also use neufchatel, less fat and tastes pretty much the same)
1/2 cup mayonnaise Here's my recipe for homemade
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, organic
6 cups breadcrumbs (I don't buy breadcrumbs, for this I toasted 9 pieces of bread and threw it in the food processor with a ts salt and garlic powder)
5 eggs, organic
2 TB organic milk
2 cups organic flour, non-bleached


Slice jalapenos in half, scoop out seeds, slice each half in half. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Mix together the cream cheese, cheddar, and mayo. Place a small scoop on every piece of jalapeno.

Put the flour in one bowl. Eggs and milk, beaten, in another. Breadcrumbs in a third bowl.
Roll each piece around in the flour, then the egg mixture, and finally the breadcrumbs. Place on baking sheet.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Enjoy!

Veggie Rolls

I love Japanese food! Since moving to western NY from California, there is definitely a lack of great restaurants. I was very happy to learn how to make veggie rolls (like california rolls minus the un-kosher fish)

You will need:
Half a Cucumber, sliced very very thin
One Avocado, sliced thin
Sprouts, optional
A couple pieces of nori (roasted seaweed, available in the Japanese section at the grocery store)
One batch of sushi rice (see below)
3 tb, Wasabi powder, (please don't buy premade wasabi, awful awful ingredients!)
3 tb, Water
Sushi mat (amazon sells them)
Plastic wrap
Sesame seeds


First, make a batch of sushi rice:
2 cups, sushi rice. Lundberg makes an awesome organic non-gmo one!
2 cups, water
2 tb rice vinegar
2 tb sugar
1 tb salt

Place the rice into a fine strainer and run cool water over it. Continue until the water runs through clear.

Place the rice and 2 cups of water into a medium saucepan and place over high heat. Bring to a boil, uncovered. Once it begins to boil, reduce the heat to the lowest setting and cover(please don't forget to turn the temp down...your pot will thank you later...may mine rest in peace). Cook for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand, covered, for 10 minutes.

Combine the rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a small bowl and heat in a small pot for a few minutes until warm. Transfer the rice into a large wooden or glass mixing bowl and add the vinegar mixture. Fold thoroughly to combine and coat each grain of rice with the mixture. Allow to cool to room temperature before using to make sushi or sashimi. Continue to fold periodically until cool. You can also fan it with a paper plate, or a Japanese fan if you so happen to have one.

While the rice is cooking and cooling, prepare your veggies.
Cover your sushi mat in plastic wrap. Now I'm not keen on this, I don't like plastic wrap touching my food at all. Maybe wax paper would work, I don't know (let me know if you try it). If you really want to avoid this, you can make your rolls with the nori on the outside. I don't like the first thing I taste to be seaweed, so I put my nori on the inside. Here's how I do it:

Lay your sushi mat on the counter. Cut nori in half lengthwise. Lay nori on top of sushi mat, shiny side down. Spread 1/2-1 cup of sushi rice to cover nori. Sprinkle sesame seeds over rice. Flip it over so rice is now facing down. (to avoid using plastic wrap, skip this step) Lay pieces of cucumber, avocado, and sprouts all along the nori lengthwise. While holding veggies in place with your fingers, use mat to roll into a cylinder. Give it a couple squeezes all over. Unroll and set roll aside under a damp cloth on a cutting board. Repeat with the rest of the rice and fillings. Once done, lay all the rolls next to each other and use a long knife to cut into individual rolls (each roll should make 6 small ones).
Prepare wasabi. Taking equal parts of water and wasabi powder, mix together in a small bowl. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes. Organic soy sauce is widely available for dipping. I also like to Braggs Liquid Aminos. I don't consume soy normally, but organic fermented soy is the best choice for consuming soy.

Note: It may take a few times practicing making the rolls so they actually look like rolls instead of sandwiches, so don't plan to make this the first time for a dinner party =)