Moroccan Couscous with Saffron

This is a dish from The Kind Diet that I wanted to try for a long time but never seemed to have winter squash on hand. When I finally had the winter squash, I was out of carrots or summer squash. It took me three months to get all of the ingredients together and make the recipe, the result was yummy. I love this dish: love the texture of the couscous, love the sweetness of the winter squash, and love the spices.

Vegetables:
2 cups peeled butternut or banana squash, cut into 1/2" cubes
2 cups yellow onion, diced
1 1/2 cups carrots, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 1/2 cups zucchini or yellow squash, cut into 1/2" cubes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon Real salt
1 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375F. Place the vegetables on a baking sheet and toss with the olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast for 30 minutes. Turn and mix the vegetables after it has roasted for 15 minutes.

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth (vegan) or chicken broth
2 tablespoons Earth Balance butter (vegan) or butter
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads

1 1/2 cups whole wheat couscous
2 scallions, white and green parts, chopped

While the vegetables are roasting, bring the vegetable broth to boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat, add the butter, cumin, saffron, plus salt and pepper to taste. Cover the pan and let steep for at least 15 minutes. Reheat the broth to a boil when the vegetables are ready.

When the vegetables are done, place them in a large deep skillet pan and add the couscous and the scallions. Pour the hot broth over the couscous mixture in the deep skillet pan, mix gently, and bring it up to boil (this should happened very quickly) As soon as the broth starts to boil, turn off the heat, cover the couscous mixture, and let it sit on the stove top for 15 minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork before serving.

Sugar Snap Peas with Miso Sauce

This recipe is inspired by a show I watched on Food Network:  Healthy Living with Ellie Krieger. She microwave the sugar snap peas with a little water similar to steaming or blanching the peas. She then made the sauce in a sauce pan and then toss the sugar snap peas with the sauce before serving. I don't like to cook with microwave so I simply sauté the peas and simplify the ingredients list by using the Brown Sauce (see the article on Stir-Fry Sauce). If you don't have miso, it is not the end of the world. You can simply skip it, the dish taste different but it is still good. If you skip the miso paste, you may need a little more brown sauce to balance the sweetness of the orange juice.

1 pound sugar snap peas or snow peas
2 teaspoon olive oil
2 scallions, white and green, sliced
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger, optional, there is ginger in the brown sauce add the ginger if you like a stronger finger flavor.
1 tablespoon of brown sauce
1 teaspoon of frozen concentrated orange juice or 1/2 teaspoon of orange marmalade jam
1 teaspoon low sodium white miso paste
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Heat the oil in a stir-fry pan over a medium high heat. Add the sugar snap peas and sauté until tender; if you like the sugar snap peas softer, add a little water (one tablespoon) to the pan and cooked until the liquid has been absorbed. Add the scallions and ginger and saute for 1 more minutes. Turn the heat to low and add the brown sauce, concentrated orange juice/jam, miso paste, sesame oil and stir until miso paste is dissolved.

Celebrity Sherbet

Aunt Cindy made this ice cream at Bear Lake a few years ago and it has been one of my kids favorite homemade ice cream ever since. Lately I have been having trouble with dairy product so I made it with coconut milk and it is still so yummy!

1 1/2 quarts Half'n Half  for non-dairy version use So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk Beverage
1/2 pint whipping cream Thai kitchen or other brand canned coconut milk or light coconut milk
18 oz pineapple juice
juice of 9 oranges
juice of 4 1/2 lemons
6 cups sugar   use agave for those who are trying reduce sugar consumption; I use half the amount

Mix all ingredients together until sugar is dissolved. Put in a large ice cream maker and follow the ice cream making instructions. I like to use Cuisinart ice cream maker because there is no salt or ice involved and much easier to clean up. If you have use the Cuisinart,  use 1/3 of the recipe and it fit perfectly.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

When Kimberly was training for the Park City half marathon, she asked me to be supportive of her training and her effort of to eat health which means "stop making sweet treats". I agree to be helpful and decided to drastically reduce sugar from of our diet and make treats with as little sugar as possible. Cutting white sugar and high fructose corn syrup years ago was easy; I replaced them with organic evaporated can juice. But how do you make treats with very little or no organic cane sugar?
This recipe came to the rescue for me since I like peanut butter and chocolate. The recipe is adopted from the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups from The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone but I must give a word of caution for those who feel incline to read the book since I have mentioned many recipes from this book on my blog. Even though this book has great recipes, it is not for people who love, enjoy, and plan to eating meat and dairy; her recipes are either vegan or are based on the macrobiotic diet. But her philosophy about dessert is great: "You may not think of desserts as health foods, but I beg to differ. By eating scrumptious vegan desserts on a regular basis, I maintain my mental health, for there is no life without dessert!"

I prefer the mini muffin tin to the regular size tin and one batch makes about 30 mini cups. I can have one or two mini Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup at night and be happy and satisfied.

3 Table spoons vegan butter; I use 4T if using malt sugar
1/4 cup maple sugar or other granulated sweetener  I use 1/4 cup malt sugar since maple sugar is expensive.
3/4 cup crunchy or creamy peanut butter, unsweetened and unsalted; I use Costco's organic creamy peanut butter
10 graham cracker squares or 16 Health Valley amaranth graham crackers, crushed (use a ziplock bag and wooden rolling pin). I prefer the Health Valley graham crackers; they are so good that I tend munch on them for snacks.

Chocolate Sauce
1 cup grain sweetened, non dairy chocolate or carob chips (I love unsweetened carob chips but my kids do not, so I stay with the grain vegan sweetened chocolate chips)
1/4 soy, rice or nut milk; I use So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk beverage
1/4 cup chopped pecans, almonds, or peanuts

Line a 12 cup muffin tin (regular size) with paper liners and set aside.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs, and maple sugar and mix well. Remove the mixture form the heat. Evenly divide the mixture, approximately 2 table spoons per cup, among the muffin cups. Be sure to let the mixture completely cooled before you continue the next step.

Combine the chocolate and milk in another pan. Stir over medium heat until the chocolate has melted. Spoon the chocolate evenly over the peanut butter mixture. Top with chopped nuts. Place in the refrigerator to set for at least 2 hours before serving.

Run and Swim to End the Summer

What a way to end the summer! Kim ran a half marathon this morning at Park City and Cassidy swam a mile with her swim academy this afternoon.

We awoke at 5:15am this morning to get ready. We arrived at the starting location, Newpark Resort and Hotel, at about 6:15am and met up with cousin Kati and her family. It was still dark and there were a lot runners there! It's amazing how many people run marathons or half marathons.

The marathon started at 6:30am. After all of the marathoner took off, runners started to line up for the half marathon. Kim and Kati decided to be in the front of the second wave in stead of the end of the first wave so they lined up right after the orange tape.

The first wave moved out at 6:45am and the girls move to the starting line waiting for the signal.

Waiting, waiting . . . 

They sure did not look like they were about to endure a lot of pain and suffering.

                                               6:50am, time to run!

The half marathoner had to run around the parking lot to get on the trail so we went toward the west end of the parking lot to catch our first photo opportunity of the girls running.

As soon as we took the above photo, we headed to the east end of the parking lot. Here was our second and last opportunity to watch them run, until the end that was. It's funny that we only took a few steps while they ran abut one mile around the parking lot.

These two had been running for a few minutes and they sure look happy to be in the race.









I thought I'd include the course map for those who what to check out the Park City half marathon course. This map is intended for IE browser so it may not work for Firefox or other internet browser.


While Kimberly was sweating and breathing/running hard, Cassidy was getting compensated for having to get up bright and early to watch the marathon.

It just so happened that within 20 steps from where we where watching the girls getting on the trails, there was a Kneaders. Happy Day!

I did not ordered anything at Kneaders; it was too early to eat such a big sweet breakfast. But Cassidy was always hungry. She ordered the Chunky Cinnamon French Toast. It looked delicious! I wounder how many calories it had?

I was so surprised to see a runner back in the parking lot around 8am while we were sitting in Kneaders. That meant he finished running 13+ miles in just over an hour. Wow! We headed toward the finish line at about 8:30am. The girls were running about 10 minute mile during training. We figured that it would take them about two hours and ten minutes to arrive at the finish line. Because the half marathon was an out and back course, the finish line was where the girls started the trail. I was sure that they were looking forward to see the beautiful word "FINISH".

While we were waiting for the girls to cross the finish line, I started to worried a little about Kimberly. She had had a lot of pain ever since her training runs were longer than 7 miles. She had suffered shin splint, her hips would locked up after a run to where she could hardly walk, or sometimes her hip would grind during a run. I was not sure that she would be able to run the course and was afraid that her body would fall apart during the half marathon. 

 

We saw Kati!    

There was no words to describe the feeling of seeing her coming towards the finish line. She was faster than we had anticipated. Her official time is 2 hours 3 minutes and 34.9 seconds.

After Kati came in, I was more worried that Kim was injured. The girls' running speed was about the same, so we expected them to stay pretty close to each other. With every passing moment, I thought that there was a real possibility that Kim was hurt.

Here come Kimberly!

She was smiling, what a great sight!!!

 Her official time is 2 hours 5 minutes and 38.5 seconds.

Way to go girls,

We are so proud of you!!!

In the 19-24 age group, Kati finished 9th and Kimberly finished 12th.
  

After the half marathon was over, we had to hurry back to Marriott Summit Watch so Kimberly could sit in the hot tub for a little while to relax before we had to check out. We had stayed at Park City for the week and it was time to pack up and head home. Actually, Cassidy and I stayed the full week; Roland and Kaydn were visiting grandpa and grandma Brown in Canada. Kim had to work everyday so she only stayed some nights. Kimberly felt pretty good after four Advils (thank you, Dan!), so we did a little shopping on Main Street after we checked out of the hotel. We discovered that there was a bike race going on Main street; a marathon and a bike race all in one day in the same town; pretty impressive.

After returning home, unloading luggage, and running errands with Kimberly to help her get ready to move down to BYU for her senior year, it was time to take Cassidy to the swimming pool for the swim academy semi-annual mile swim. She was wearing her brand new swim suit we purchased before the mile swim. This girl has been growing taller again.

Cassidy and Kaydn joined the swim academy last September, so this is Cassidy's first mile swim.

One mile is 36 laps, or 72 length of the pool, a lot of back and forth. Here is a photo of the swimmers and the counters.

What a great feeling to finish the mile swim; she should wear the goggle indentation proudly!

She finished the mile swim in 31 minutes and 57 seconds.

Three cheers to Cassidy!

One ran the half marathon, one swam a mile, I guess I'd better stay up late to finish this entry on the blog.

 What a special day!