Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Kefir and Muesli, Cruesli or Granola

The best cold breakfast ever!!!

This is one of my favorite combos.  If you've never tried it, do yourself a favor.

Kefir, if you're unfamiliar, is a smooth yogurt-like liquid with a slight tangy effervescence.  It comes from fermenting milk (or coconut milk) with kefir grains - a symbiotic blend of yeast and bacteria.   It is great for intestinal health and tasty to boot.

Muesli is a breakfast cereal made of rolled oats, fruit, nuts and sometimes chocolate....
Cruesli is a name brand granola/muesli type cereal from Quaker sold in Europe. I picked up a few boxes the last time I was visiting.  Yes, I bring back food from my travels.

The combo above is a classic vanilla (kefir) and chocolate (Cruesli) pairing, but the combinations are endless.  This past week we picked up some banana granola and mixed it with strawberry kefir, which was equally delicious.

As they say in The Netherlands, schmecklekker!

Monday, June 27, 2011

The Giant Garlic Spaghetti Monster

aka The Spaghetti Sandwich

I've been wanting to make this for a while, and actually found a recipe for a spaghetti sandwich in this awesome kids cookbook- Cooking with Herb: The Vegetarian Dragon.  When I recently had a big craving for spaghetti and meatballs, I decided to go for it.  I made one adjustment though,  I used egg noodles instead of a longer stringier pasta like spaghetti, fettucini or angel hair.  The fluffy egg noodles took some of the 'weight' out of the dish allowing for more face stuffing! 

Quantities are vague hear, because I assume everyone has their own way of making spaghetti and meatballs.  For the record, I used a 12 oz bag of basil egg noodles, almost a full jar of Newman's Own Marinara, and one 12 oz bag of veggie meatballs.  For the garlic bread, I just followed the directions on the box but homemade garlic bread is easy to concoct if you have some bread, garlic and butter lying around.  Here's a good recipe from a fellow blogger. Oh, and we were able to eat off of this for almost a week, so, let's say serves 8-10.

Noodles (spaghetti or egg noodles work well)
Tomato Sauce
Meatballs (Try a great meatless version- Nate's Zesty Italian 'balls)
Garlic Bread (Trader Joe's frozen variety was used in this experiment)

Boil up some water for the noodles.  Heat up your tomato sauce and meatballs in another pot.

 Add a heaping spoonful or 2 of pesto to your tomato sauce.  Drain the noodles and heat up the garlic bread in the oven with provolone on top for extra cheesiness.  Mix noodles with the sauce and meat balls.   When the garlic bread is done, top a piece of garlic bread with  some saucy noodles.

Top with another piece of garlic bread.  Smash down real hard.  Try to fit it in your mouth, then give up and eat it with your hands and a fork like a normal person.