Tuna Salad with Raisins

Tuna Salad with Raisins  Rating: 9

Thought this would be perfect on some dried out sprouted bread we had sitting in the fridge.  Just toasted the slices and loaded them with this yummy recipe. 

The salad had a good mix of flavors and textures--creamy, crunchy, slightly sweet, fresh.  The dill was amazing in this.  Besides the crunch of the celery, the walnuts added a different layer of crunch and offered a slight, well, nuttiness.  This is way better than your average tuna salad.  Would be good on just a bed of lettuce as well. 

I did use 1/4 cup mayo, 1/4 cup full fat plain Greek yogurt and healthy tablespoons full of fresh dill.  It was great!

Beet Hummus Wrap

Can you tell we bought beets at our farmer market and are trying to use them up?  They are a nutritious vegetable and I am glad we are finding different ways to use them.

Beet Hummus Wrap  Rating: 8

We created this wrap using beet hummus, spinach, grated carrot, cucumber slices, red bell pepper, and I can't believe I forgot the feta!  We wrapped it all up in whole wheat tortillas.  Seriously pretty!  Talk about eating a rainbow.

Very fun and satisfying.  I know it would get a higher rating with feta and/or chopped kalmata olives mixed in the bunch because we lean toward those flavors.  It's a wrap so it's pretty flexible.

Beet Hummus  Rating: 8

Easy to make and striking in appearance.  I tasted as I went and started with less lemon and cumin than called for based on comments that were left.  I ended up using about 2 1/2 Tbsp. tahini (a sort of ground sesame paste), 3 Tbsp. lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon ground cumin.  Worked for me.  It's a bit different than the typical chickpea hummus, besides the obvious pop of color.  But mixed with a bunch of awesome veggies made it easy to try.  I liked it for just dipping veggies too.

I think kids would enjoy this as a dip because of the vibrant color.  But if your kids are messy eaters this may not be the day to wear a new, white shirt.  Beet stains are a bummer.

Quinoa Black Bean Burgers

Quinoa Black Bean Burgers  Rating: 6

These had decent flavor but we weren't excited.  Neal and I also are bummed that we haven't found a bean patty with enough firmness to meet our textural desires.  I mean, we know we're not biting into a meat burger but we just want it to be more like that.  We served it up with roasted turnip, carrot, and buttermut squash slices and a green salad.  By the way, this is a second try on turnips and we still dislike them.

Roasted Red Pepper Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Tomato Salad with Buttermilk Basil Dressing

Roasted Red Pepper Grilled Cheese Sandwich  Rating: 8

Plain and simple: 2 slices of provolone, half a roasted red pepper (we canned these ourselves when they were super cheap at the market), buttered seeded rye bread.  Such a treat.

Tomato Salad with Buttermilk Basil Dressing  Rating: 6

We had an abundance of sweet tomatoes from our garden so I made this side.  I didn't have fresh basil like I thought so I used dried and I used plain Greek yogurt in place of sour cream.  It wasn't amazing, and quite possibly because of the substitutions I made.

Cashew Orange Spread and Apple Wrap

Neal and I are trying to slip a few more raw meals into our diet when we find something that's inviting and not to much prep work.  This one fit the bill.  It looks iffy but it tastes great.

Cashew Orange Spread and Apple Wrap  Rating: 9

So the original recipe uses Swiss chard and I thought I have kale growing in the back, I'll just use that.  The taste was right but the size of my leaves was wrong.  I had to do a "taco" if you will instead of a wrap.  Still yummy though.

The Cashew Orange Spread is to die for and it made this a real treat.  I would slice the apples into thinner slices next time just for easier handling when eating.  For the kids, I knew this was not going to be difficult to handle so I just threw theirs into a food processor and hit the chop switch a few times.  It was a chapped salad for them and I just served it in a bow with a spoon.  They ate it up.

This is pretty light so I'd keep it as a lunch.  We added more bulk to our meal by offering raw carrot and celery sticks and cauliflower florets.  I put the bowl of veggies in the middle of the table and threatened that they could not have any of them until they ate what was in the bowl first.  Inject evil laugh here.  They liked the salad version of the recipe and were downing the cru de te as their special treat in no time.  I love freaky child raising moments like this.  I feel like such a genius!

Cheese Melt with Apple and Candied Pecans

Cheese Melt with Apple and Candied Pecans  Rating: 8

I got my inspiration from the link above but things certainly were changed for ours.  We used Jarlsberg (Swiss) cheese.  I bought Gouda for this specifically and tossed it into the freezer until this recipe's turn came around.  When it did, I pulled out the Jarlsberg accidentally to defrost but I'm fine that I did.  It was still a good match for the other flavors.

We used homemade whole what bread instead of a croissant, red leaf lettuce instead of spinach, and candied pecans from this recipe made earlier in the week.  Just melted the cheese under the broiler and the rest came together quickly as well.

Nice change from the usual oatmeal, pancake, and egg based breakfasts we lean toward.