justJENN recipes

This is a kid food recipe for ‘vegetarian croquettes’. I prefer to call them by their God given name, POTATO BALLS. Who doesn’t like potato rolled in more potato? Yes, I’ve got my hand raised…

Ingredients:
2 large baking potatoes
1 Tablespoon butter
salt
1 medium carrot
1/4 cup frozen,chopped broccoli
1/3 cup frozen corn
some cubes of cheddar cheese (if you so desire)
potato chips!! (crushed)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Let me start by telling you, the frozen food thing is a huge factor here as far as time saving. The veggies are cooked and simply need to be defrosted. As far as the carrot, let me give you a secret tip for steaming a carrot without any effort at all. Chop the carrot into itsy bitsy pieces. Put in a bowl with water covering about half of the carrot pieces. Cover with plastic wrap, leaving a little bit open as a vent. Now microwave for about 1 minute. There you go. Steamed carrots.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cut the potato into chunks, boil for about 10 minutes - drain.

Transfer to a bowl, mash with a masher or fork, add butter and salt.

Add in the defrosted corn, broccoli and “steamed” *wink wink* carrots. Mix up into a nice mash.

Now the fun. Form little balls and put a small square of cheese in the middle. (If you are going vegan, leave that out obviously). Cover it up and roll into crushed potato chips.

Place on a baking sheet, and bake for 15 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes. The potato chips will be crispy and the cheese will be…cheesey.

Sure these are ‘kid’ food, but they are tasty and I’m sure if you spiced them up a bit they’d be even tastier. Also if you have an aversion to potato chips (you heathen) then I guess you could try breadcrumbs, but I guarantee it won’t taste quite as yummy.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Let me start by telling you, the frozen food thing is a huge factor here as far as time saving. The veggies are cooked and simply need to be defrosted. As far as the carrot, let me give you a secret tip for steaming a carrot without any effort at all. Chop the carrot into itsy bitsy pieces. Put in a bowl with water covering about half of the carrot pieces. Cover with plastic wrap, leaving a little bit open as a vent. Now microwave for about 1 minute. There you go. Steamed carrots.

Add in the defrosted corn, broccoli and “steamed” *wink wink* carrots. Mix up into a nice mash.

Sure these are ‘kid’ food, but they are tasty and I’m sure if you spiced them up a bit they’d be even tastier. Also if you have an aversion to potato chips (you heathen) then I guess you could try breadcrumbs, but I guarantee it won’t taste quite as yummy.

I promise you, you will LOVE these. They don’t taste sweet-potatoey at all, more like a lovely, moist, little spice cake. They came to me in a dream. Seriously. I wondered, how could I use them so that we had SOME sort of thanksgiving dish that incorporated sweet potatoes? I figured if pumpkin cupcakes worked, these wouldn’t be that far off. They turned out better than the pumpkin ones, then again…the marshmallow topper is KEY.

ingredients:
1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter melted, cooled
2 large eggs - beaten
1 cup roasted sweet potatoes
1 teaspoon maple syrup
3 TB orange juice

If you haven’t already done so - roast two sweet potatoes (prick them with a fork) on a baking sheet in a 350 degree oven for one hour. When they come out the skin will peel off easily and they can be mashed - you don’t even need a food processor. Set aside 1 cup for later.

Preheat the oven to 350. Prep your cupcake pan with liners and set aside. In a medium sized bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, white sugar, butter and add the eggs. Add the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Stir in the sweet potatoes, syrup and orange juice.

Divide batter evenly among the cups, it should fill 12 easily about 2/3 full. Bake for approx 20-25 mins depending on your oven. Let cool on a wire rack.

Now for the topping so it’s just like REAL sweet potatoes! No involved frosting here (although I have a recipe for that if you like) no, I was going for more of the traditional sweet potato side dish look - by simply topping it with a roasted marshmallow. But how?

Take 2-3 marshmallows and put them in a microwave safe glass dish. Microwave for just 20 seconds. They should come out nice and puffy. Using an offset spatula I carefully lifted one whole puffy marshmallow on top of the cupcake. I did that for each, then put them on a baking sheet, and broiled until the tops were just bruleed.

Lovely. Toasty. Delish.

This is my go-to side dish. Quick easy, and loved by all. Well. Except for people who hate squash and/or mushrooms. Oh well.

ingredients:
2 TB olive oil
1 clove crushed garlic
1 italian squash
1 yellow squash
1 carton of whole mushrooms
1 TB butter
salt
pepper

Wash the squash and the mushrooms well. I like to take a peeler and take off stripes of the squash, but you don’t have to, it just looks nice.

Slice the squash into rounds, set aside. In a pan over medium high heat, warm the olive oil and garlic, then add the squash. Keep turning and watching them until they get a little soft, keep ‘em moving.

Once they start to brown a tiny bit, add the mushrooms and the butter. The mushrooms will act like little sponges and soak up all the flavorful goodness. Season with salt and pepper.

Eggplants from the farmer’s market are gorgeous right now. This is an easy way to serve up a small side of eggplant parmigiana for your whole family.

ingredients:
2 Italian eggplants
flour
2 eggs
breadcrumbs
salt
pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic

1 28 oz can tomatoes
2 teaspoons oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
fresh ground pepper

1-1/2 cups mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup parmigiana cheese

Slice the eggplant into rounds and sprinkle with salt. Let dry out on paper towels.

Prep your dredging ingredients. On one dish, flour, the next, 2 eggs beaten (add a dash of milk, if you like), the last dish, your breadcrumbs, mixed with some salt and pepper.

After the eggplants are dry (about 30 mins) prep a pan on medium high heat with the olive oil and garlic, don’t let the garlic burn! Dredge the eggplant, going from the flour, to the egg, to the breadcrumbs, into the frying pan. Cook a few minutes until brown, then turn over and brown the other side. Drain on a rack or papertowels and set aside.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, pour in the can of tomatoes, adding the oregano, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and fresh ground pepper. Chop up and mix well. Now you can use a marinara of course, but this is another easy way to throw some ingredients together to make this dish quick and easy.

Using a 2 quart baking dish, lay down half the eggplant slices. Top with the tomato mixture and then half the mozzarella. Lay the rest of the eggplant slices on top of that. Top with the rest of the tomato mixture, the rest of the mozzarella, and then the parmigiana.

Put your baking dish on a baking pan before you put it in the oven, in case it bubbles over. Bake for 30 minutes, and you’re ready to serve.

This is a really nice side dish to pasta, and allows people to serve themself, frankly, making less work for you in the end. Not only that, the baking allows all the flavors to combine in the best possible delicious way.

In an effort to get the kids to eat AND make meals fun, I thought I’d make dinner interactive. I made baked potatoes and had a little toppings bar. There weren’t a lot of options, but it made them feel like they had a choice in the matter. But you, YOU can have all the options your heart desires…

ingredients:
potatoes
olive oil
salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Wash your Russets good. Scrub ‘em. Then pat them dry and rub olive oil over the skin. Why? This softens it up while it bakes and makes for good eating. Eat the skin, it’s good for you. Then sprinkle salt and place in the oven. Now, you can put it right on the rack, but if that freaks you out - it sort does me - I place them on a wire cooling rack and then stick THAT in the oven.

Why don’t you want to wrap it in foil like at the crap buffets? Because that is not baking a potato that is steaming it, sucka. Don’t do it. It’s better this way. Trust me.

After an HOUR your potato is all done. Stick a fork in it, it’s done. Literally. Now for the toppings. The options are endless. Cheese is always good, as is a little veggie, perhaps some meat. Who knows. Go for it.

toppings:
shredded cheese
broccoli
tomatoes
salsa
olives
chicken
bacon
guacamole
sour cream
chili
mushrooms
shrimp
Whatever makes you happy…me, I like to make a BTC. Bacon. Tomato. Cheese. YUM.