Apples, squash, sweet potatoes, OH MY!

What a great weekend!
Let's start at Thursday night!  On Thursday night I ended my fast of 12 days and made a delicious meal I found off of Gojee.com called Moroccan Chickpea Stew.  I was originally planning on going for 14 days, which would mean I would have been waiting till this Saturday to eat.  My body was no longer craving food just because I felt like eating, I started experiencing true nutritional hunger.  So I broke my fast with eating a meal of Moroccan Chickpea Stew and baked sweet potato and carrot fries.  I have to say, it was delicious (Not only because it was the first thing I had eaten in two weeks)!  The sweet potato and carrot fries recipe was given to me by my mom and is as follows:


Sweet Potato and Carrot Fries

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes

2 large carrots or several small

2 TBSP olive oil

1 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp salt

Directions: Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Peel the carrots and sweet potatoes.  Cut both into fry size cuts (approximately the width and height of a dice, and a couple inches in length).  In a bowl mix oil and spices, then add the cut potatoes and carrots.  Stir to coat the "fries" well.  Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.  Arrange sweet potatoes and carrots in one layer on baking sheet.  Bake for 30 minutes or until the flesh is tender and the outside is lightly browned and the edges are slightly crisp.  Serve plain or with a favorite dipping sauce.

Amy's Note:  I used 1 TBSP olive oil and 1 TBSP water in my coating mixture, and the fries still turned out great (and with less calories and fat)!  I also left the salt out of the mixture and lightly sprinkled some salt before placing the "fries" in to bake.  This is one of the best ways to keep salt to a minimum while still getting the salty flavor: by putting a small amount of salt right on the top where you can taste it and not mixed in with masking ingredients.

The Moroccan stew was very good as well, but left me with a TON of leftovers.  I served it hot over quinoa and topped with green onions.  I ended up mixing the leftover quinoa with just enough of the stew and put it in the fridge for a cold salad dish.  The rest of the stew was frozen; I'll probably use it on a Crockpot Monday when I'm low on other ingredients and will add an additional can of chickpeas, a cup of barley, and another can of vegetable broth.  One of the best things about leftovers is that you can make a completely different meal out of them later in the week!

So on to Friday, after waking up very early for me I had a ton of time in the morning to myself since I no longer had to take time to juice my breakfast and lunch.  Since juicing I seem to be getting up early in general and sleeping amazingly at night.  I spent that time to study for an exam and enjoy a whole apple and some grapes.  Then for lunch I had leftover sweet potato and carrot fries, which turned a little limp when microwaved in a sandwich bag.  Then Kevin and I were off to Spokane to spend the weekend with my parents!  We all met up at The Noodle Express when Kevin and I got into town.  The Noodle has pretty good nutritarian options with salads and brown rice dishes with asian cabbage and vegetable slaw.  The rest of the night was spent admiring my dad's new Macbook Air and watching Goldfinger on Netflix.

My absolute favorite day this week would have to be Saturday! Woke up early to help my mom get sweet potato chili in the crockpot (I will be making this Monday and will provide pictures), then we all headed out to Walters' Fruit Ranch at Green Bluff orchards.  We picked a few boxes of gala and honey crisp apples.  Kevin and I got an unbaked frozen marionberry pie that we will be having Tuesday night this week with an organic roasted "engagement" chicken, mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli for a date/cook night. My mom also picked up a bunch of corn, a pumpkin-shaped winter squash, and sweet onions.  My dad and I also got some kettle corn, which we can never resist.  It was a lovely fall morning spent getting truly in touch with the source of our food.

 Later that afternoon after enjoying our sweet potato chili with fresh corn on the cob, my mom and I got into a baking frenzy!  We used the winter squash we got to make Sweet Squash Supreme (if you'd like the recipe please ask, I will get it from my mom).  I served this recipe hot and mixed in with oatmeal this morning.  It was delicious and a great way to fit some veggies into your breakfast.


Sweet Squash Supreme

We also made Banana Oat Cookies from a recipe provided to members of Dr. Fuhrman's website.  Here is the recipe:


Banana Oat Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 c raisins

2 medium "riper" bananas, mashed

1 1/2 c. old fashioned oats

1/3 c chopped walnuts

1/4 c unsweetened coconut

1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp (sprinkle) cinnamon

Directions: Add two tablespoons of water to raisins and soak for 30 min.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Combine mashed bananas, oats, walnuts, coconut, vanilla, and cinnamon.  Mix well by squishing and mashing with washed hands.  Roll golf-ball sized portions onto a sprayed cookie sheet and flattened if desired.  Bake for 13 minutes or until golden brown.  Serve alone or with fruit spread.  Enjoy!

Amy's Notes:  We soaked the raisins for a little under 30 minutes in the pineapple juice left over from Sweet Squash Supreme.  I don't think this made too much of a difference, but was very good.  Also, please note that this recipe only makes 12-15 cookies depending on how big you make each one.  Double the recipe if you're planning this for sharing instead of snacking.

Today (Sunday) we drove back to Pullman for Sunday football watching for Kevin and chores, homework, and grocery shopping for me.  Overall such a great weekend and a great start to my post-juice eating.  Can't wait to share my recipes this week.  Get ready for First Crockpot Monday!

Do you have pick-it-yourself farms close-by?  Have you gotten any strange produce and made something great with it?