Sweet Potato Carmelized Onion Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 sweet potato, sliced
• 2 c. kale, chopped
• 1-2 onions, carmelized (a recipe on how to do that here)
• Feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 jar tomato sauce, or 2 c. homemade tomato sauce
• 4 pitas

Directions:

1. Spread tomato sauce evenly on each pita. 
2. Add onions, sweet potatoes, and kale.
3. Top with feta cheese.
4. Bake at 400 degrees about 5 min. or until slightly browned.

Roasted Chickpeas

I've been wanting to try and make roasted chickpeas for a while now and I finally did it.  My kids thoroughly enjoyed them as you can see by the little hands helping me.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans chickpeas, drained
• 1 T cumin
• 1 T chili powder
• 1 t seasoning salt
• 1 T oil

Directions:

1. Drain chickpeas well and toss in oil.
2. Mix in seasoning and spread them out on a large pan.
3. Roast for 30-40 minutes at 450 degrees.  Check on the chickpeas every 10 minutes and stir them.  

Note: Make sure the chickpeas are brown and crispy before taking them out. 

Tostadas

Ingredients:

• Fried tortillas, (directions on how to do that here)
• 1 onion
• 1 T olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 can of black beans
• 2 T taco seasoning
• 2 c lettuce, shredded
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• Optional toppings: cheese, guacamole, sour cream

Directions:

1. Heat oil. Add onion and garlic and fry for several minutes.
2. Add black beans and taco seasoning, and continue frying for about 5-10 minutes.
3. To assemble your tostada, ladle on black beans. Top with lettuce and tomatoes.
4. Add desired toppings.

Quinoa Tabouleh

Ingredients:

• 2 c quinoa, cooked
• 1/2 of a cucumber, diced
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1/2 c green onions, sliced
• 1/2 c cilantro
• 3 T olive oil
• 3 T lemon juice
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Cook the quinoa and put it aside to cool.
2. Add the vegetables to the quinoa and stir.
3. Toss is oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. 

You can eat this as a salad, or it is also great with pitas. 

Dirt Cake

We had a special little boy turn 2, and he loves playing in the dirt, so it was very fitting to have dirt cake and worms for his birthday :)

Ingredients:

• 1 box of Oreos
• 2 packages of instant vanilla pudding
• 1 block of cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• Gummy worms

Directions:

1. Put all of the Oreos in a ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin.
2. Prepare the pudding according to instructions on the box.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together softened cream cheese and sugar.
4. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding and mix until smooth.
5. Layer the Oreos and the pudding mixture, starting and ending with the Oreos.
6. Top with gummy worms.

Summer Garden Ratatouille on Polenta

Here is another great recipe from Simply in Season.  It's the Summer Garden Ratatouille.  The recipe can be found here.  I put the ratatouille over fried polenta and topped it with parmesan cheese.

Quinoa Wrap

A few years ago someone gave me a copy of Simply in Season, which is a fabulous recipe book!  It is a great resource to have, especially if you have your own garden.  One of my favourite things about it is that they have an index at the back that you can look up recipes according to ingredient.  They also have a great selection of vegetarian recipes.

For my Quinoa Wrap, I used the Stoplight Salad recipe from Simply in Season.  I added quinoa to it and topped it with cheese and sour cream.  Then I put it in a warm tortilla and wrapped it up.