Our Favorite Recipes

Today's meeting was a big success. We were pleasantly surprised to have such a great turn out on this rainy morn. Melanie and Kate chose to lead a discussion on planning meals and snacks for the family. It can be a challenge at times to keep it interesting with 3 meals and probably 2 snacks a day; feeding ourselves and our yungins something delicious and nutritious is a grand task. I am so glad to have had this discussion as I wanted us all to have a recipe share months ago, and I failed to write this post as I had promised. Well, better late than never ; )

Thanks to Emily for coming to the meeting with not one, but two recipes in hand with copies for all!! I plan to try the oatmeal bake very soon, and maybe next time we can get you to bring your famous spanakopita recipe. Mmmmmm Many of us have enjoyed it at a couple previous LLL picnics. It was great to have a couple new faces join us, and one mama brought a favorite vegan cookbook, How it All Vegan. I enjoyed looking through it, and I will be putting that one on hold at the library. I don't know about the rest of you, but after todays meeting I found myself super hungry!

Oh, and I cannot leave out one of my most inspiring people...Cynthia Lair. She is the author of Feeding the Whole Family, one of the titles that Melanie mentioned today. Her quirky little video blog can be found here:

http://www.cookusinterruptus.com/

Here is my contribution to the recipe exchange. If you would all leave a comment to this post and share your favorite "old stand-bys," perhaps anything/everything you think of as just ho-hum because you make it so regularly, we will all find that the things one person thinks of as the usual boring meal, everyone else will see as a new and great food idea.

Christina

Spinach Tortilla Pie

This is great warm or room temp, so something good to take to a pot-luck. It is a snap to prepare. Total time about 30 minutes.

6 tortillas (I like the Ezekiel sprouted grain tortillas) the original recipe called for corn, but in the 100 times I have made this, I have yet to get around trying it with them :)

1 - ten ounce package frozen chopped spinach - prepared according to package directions

aprox. 6 ounces good quality feta cheese - crumbled (our fave is Split Creek Farms through Locally Grown)

1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes when in season - when they are not, I use about 3/4 can of diced

3/4 can pinto beans

olive oil

Preheat oven to 375. Brush olive oil onto both sided of tortillas, and fan them out into a round pie pan so that they overlap to make a "crust." Bake for about 8 minutes. Spoon the spinach evenly over the tortillas followed by the tomatoes, feta, and beans. You can top with a small drizzle of olive oil. If you desire, you can season with salt and pepper. Bake about 15 minutes until tortillas are crispy, but be careful not to overcook. Enjoy now or later when cool. It really is delicious, and although I have a mental block against making it at times because it is just our old tortilla pie recipe, whenever we do, I always declare how tasty it is, and my husband and I proceed to inhale large servings and nibble through any left sitting on the stove, polishing it off by night's end.

Bon Appetit