Roasted Vegetables + Lemon Feta Quinoa

Well it's Tuesday and I don't know about you but I feel as though it should be Thursday, no? Last night I worked a little late, came home and caught up on Shameless followed by Castle. Is anyone watching these shows? Castle is one of my favorites (can never get enough Nathan Fillion) and this week's Shameless really solidified its place in our TV viewing schedule.

Aside from wishing the weekend would hurry up, I want to tell you about how I hate cold lunch. It's true. I'm a hot lunch kind of girl. I'm typically not a big salad eater, unless its accompanied by something else on the side. So in order to keep the whole bring-your-lunch-to-work thing going, sometimes I have to get a little creative.

My current love? Roasted vegetables and lemon feta quinoa. Both can be made on Sunday and packed away for a few days of lunches. Oh and they couldn't be easier.

Lemon Feta Quinoa
1 shallot, finely diced
1 C quinoa
2 C vegetable broth (though since the cans are sold in 14 oz, I use that and a 1/4 C water to make up the diff)
1 lemon
1 tsp dried basil
1/3 C crumbled feta cheese
olive oil + light butter

In a small saucepan, heat the olive oil and butter. Add the shallots and cook a few minutes until soft. Pour in the vegetable broth and quinoa. Stir to combine and bring to a boil. Cover and turn the heat to simmer for about 15 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed. Stir in the juice of 1 lemon, basil and feta.

I also think this would be utterly fabulous with some chopped up tomatoes, string beans, asparagus or any other green vegetable! Perhaps even some spinach or kale!

Roasted Vegetables
*Adapted from Cooking Light
3 sweet potatoes, cubed
3-4 parsnips (depending on size - I had particularly dinky parsnips for this batch), peeled and sliced
1 1/2-2 C carrots, sliced
1 onion, chopped into cubes
1/4 C honey
3 tbsp olive oil
kosher salt
black pepper
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and prep your vegetables.

With all vegetables chopped up, mix them together in a big mixing bowl. Add honey, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Coat a baking dish with cooking spray. Pour in the vegetables.

Roast for about 30 minutes or more, depending on size of the vegetables and until they are tender and starting to carmelize.

These are so delicious and reheat in a snap in the microwave. The honey really brings out the sweetness in these vegetables while the onion balances that out. Paired with a piece or fruit or Greek yogurt, this is a fabulous, filling and well-rounded lunch!

So there you have it. Two easy peasy recipes that are perfect for a quick lunch or even a weeknight dinner! What do you think? And for the question of the day: Are you a cold or hot lunch person? What are your go-to's?

Oat Bars: Peanut Butter Chocolate + Almond Cherry Coconut

Happy Friday! Thanks to everyone who entered this week's giveaway! Your outpouring of support for our blogoversary had me perma-smiling all week long :) I wish I could give a cookbook away to all of you, but stay tuned for more giveaways coming up! For the Rocco Now Eat This! giveaway, the winner is: Stephanie! Stephanie, please email me at theavidappetite@gmail.com with your address so I can get your goodies out to you!

This week completely flew by, but I'm not complaining! Meatless week is still going strong. Last night, I made a mushroom pizza and a peanut butter banana mousse that I can't wait to share with you - it's a chilled, pudding-like dessert that's actually healthy and delish. Sound good?

Meanwhile, in our quest to keep eating healthy and use up this ginormous canister of oats that Shaun brought home from the store for me (I love me some morning oats),

I decided to whip up some homemade granola bars.

Those Quaker ones just don't cut it in my book. They aren't nearly hearty enough and are so tiny that immediately after I inhale one, I'm still hungry. Not my favorite. So on Sunday, I whipped up two separate batches of oat bars, chocolate peanut butter and cherry almond coconut. And because they are so similar and super easy, I'm sharing 2 recipes with you today? Are you cool with that?

Almond Cherry Coconut Oat Bars
2 C oats
2 tbsp Splenda brown sugar blend
1/2 C dried cherries, chopped
1/4 C slivered almonds, chopped up
1/2C sweetened coconut
1/4 C honey
1 egg white

Preheat oven to 350 and line an 8x8 baking dish with parchment paper, with the sides hanging over so that you can pull the bars out after baking. In a mixing bowl, combine the oats, splenda, cherries, almonds and coconut.

Pour in the honey and egg white and mix until entire mixture is thoroughly coated. Press into parchment-lined baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes or until edges start to brown. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack. This is where the excess parchment comes in handy - simply (and v. carefully) lift bars out of pan and onto wire rack to cool. Once completely cool, cut into bars.

Though these are a bit crumbly and the edges may fall apart, they are so delicious! A perfect breakfast on the go or mid-afternoon snack to get the juices flowing.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Bars
2 C oats
1/3 C creamy peanut butter (I like Smart Balance)
1/2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 C honey

Preheat oven to 350 and line pan as above. Melt the pb in the microwave. Mix ingredients altogether until completely combined...

Press into pan...

bake for 20 minutes, let cool and cut into bars.

So there you have it. 2 super simple recipes that Shaun and I both love. The best thing about these is that you can get totally creative and add any chocolate chips, nuts or dried fruit you want! What do you think? Have you ever tried making your own unprocessed snacks? What's your favorite on-the-go snack?

*Note, our giveaway winner was chosen at random by random.org. I also wasn't perked for the Rocco book, I just really, truly love it and want to share the wealth with my fantastic readers and friends!

Baked Potato Chips

It's snowy in NYC today, though not quite as snowy as I had hoped. Here's a little snapshot from my walk this morning:

On one hand I'm thrilled since I'm flying out to Atlanta tomorrow night and was dreading the whole travel with snow thing. I just hate travel in the winter! It's so unpredictable.

Anyhow, today I'm sharing a pretty wonderful creation with all of you. I still had a big bag of potatoes stuffed in a cabinet hiding in my pantry from my vegetable tarts and while my first inclination was to whip up some mashed potatoes, I didn't think that would play so well with the whole lose 10 pounds plan. Instead, I came up with an easy and absolutely delicious creation - baked potato chips.

Put down that bag of Lay's Baked Potato Chips because they taste like cardboard and go out and get a bag of potatoes. Right now. These are chips of the never-going-back-to-the-bagged-kind variety. Though I know Shaun was secretly skeptical about my plan for these when I told him about it (he's more of a fry guy), one taste tested chip later he proclaimed that he will only eat these from now on. Score one for healthier eating.

Oven baked and crispy, these chips are fresh, salted and the perfect vehicle for a low fat dip, some blue cheese sauce or even some plain 'ol hummus. Oh and did I mention they require no more than 3 ingredients? True story.

Baked Potato Chips
potatoes
olive oil
kosher salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash and slice up your potatoes.

I used my fancy new mandolin that Shaun got me for Christmas which made it a snap. If you don't have a mandolin, you can absolutely - and carefully - slice them by hand or even in your food processor with the slicing attachment (though I haven't tried it yet, so let me know how it goes if you go this route).

In a bowl, drizzle the slices with olive oil and kosher salt. And any other spices you want. I also added a little bit of black pepper.

Lay the slices on an oven safe wire rack resting on a foil-lined baking sheet (I'm all about making clean up easier!)

Bake for 30-45 minutes until desired crispiness is reached. I wanted mine extra crispy so I went for about 45 minutes. The result was a semi-kettle cooked tasting chip.

Sprinkle with a bit more salt to taste and enjoy!

So there you have it. An easy, healthy way to dish up some potato chips without breaking the proverbial calorie bank. Don't they look delicious? I am craving some right this moment. Too bad Shaun and I gobbled them all up in a jiffy during the football games on Sunday. I can't wait to try out this method with sweet potatoes and maybe even some beets. So for the question of the day: Are you a chip eater? Or do you prefer something of the sweet persuasion?