Rebecca Davis 1/20/23 Rebecca Davis 1/20/23

Turkey and spinach meatloaf

This turkey meatloaf is quick, nutritious, gluten free, and delicious!

So, meatloaf. A bad one is dense, bland, kind of pasty, and just all around gross. This version is different! One of my secrets is adding in other stuff like onions and spinach to increase the water content, which adds steam while it cooks, which makes for a lighter and fluffier loaf.

The almond meal makes this gluten free, but I also find that it makes the loaf a little lighter because the traditional breadcrumbs and milk can add to the pastiness.

Basically, this meatloaf is a lighter meat and lots of veggies and aromatics held together with just enough egg and almond meal to make it a “loaf.”

I top mine with ketchup, but if you’re watching your sugar, tomato paste or sugar-free ketchup also work really well. My kids love BBQ sauce, so I’ll top one or two of the mini loaves with that instead of ketchup to suit their tastes.

One note about how I make these loaves: I make them as mini loaves because they cook so much faster individually. If you like a traditional meatloaf made in an actual loaf pan, this recipe also cooks well in a pan, but it takes quite a bit longer. Still delicious either way!

Turkey and spinach meatloaf

Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 4 mini loaves

1 lb ground turkey
1.5-2 cups spinach or greens, roughly chopped
1/2 large onion, minced
1 egg
1/2 cup almond meal or almond flour
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp kosher salt
pepper, to taste
Ketchup, tomato paste, or BBQ sauce, for topping

Preheat the oven to 400.

Roughly chop the greens. Mince the onion. Add these chopped veggies to a large bowl and add the rest of the ingredients, except for the ketchup, tomato paste, or BBQ sauce.

Using your hands or a spatula, mix the ingredients until just combined and distributed.

With a large spoon, plop four equal portions onto a sheet pan and smooth each into a rough loaf shape.

Top with ketchup or sauce of choice.

Bake for 15 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 165.

Rebecca Davis 9/3/21 Rebecca Davis 9/3/21

Cucumber, seaweed, and soba noodle salad

This easy, light salad combines a few ingredients into a subtle, delicious vegan dish that’s ready fast and is a great lunch or dinner option. #meandthemoose #lunch #dinner #recipes #easyrecipes #vegan #vegetarian

Before the well of summer cucumbers runs dry, make this easy, light salad that’s ready in a snap and is, at least in this house, very kid-approved!

Take me to the recipe!

We eat a lot of Japanese food in our house, so my love for these ingredients runs deep. I absolutely can’t turn down a seaweed salad. Ditto nutty buckwheat soba noodles. Unlike whole wheat or other whole grain noodles, soba doesn’t have that gummy (unless you WAAAAAY overcook it!) or gritty texture that can plague say, whole what spaghetti, so the flavor of the noodles really shines.

Everything about this salad is subtle. There aren’t any overwhelming flavors and all of the elements are in harmony with each other: A little salty, a little sweet, a little nutty, a little tangy, a little briny, and a little cool. The seaweed adds a salty, funky flavor and a little crunch. The cucumber adds even more crunch and and is a cooler counterpoint to the sauce that’s made of soy, rice vinegar, brown sugar, and sesame oil.

While this is a light salad that we usually eat as a side (though I’ve had it alone for lunch and it’s V satisfying), the soba offer some heft that leaves you feeling pretty full. My 6-year-old loves it because he loves anything with soy sauce and my almost 18-month-old loves it because he would eat noodles all day, every day.

But the real key to this salad is getting rid of the excess water from the cucumbers, noodles, and rehydrated seaweed. It’s a funny recipe because you have to add water to each element before you get rid of it. But the more you squeeze out, the more potent the sauce tastes. It’s worth a little elbow grease!

A couple of notes:

I used hijiki seaweed in developing this recipe because I love it, but have JUST NOW learned that it naturally contains a really high level of inorganic arsenic, which can be carcinogenic to humans. Whoopsie daisy. Instead, sub in wakame, which doesn’t contain the same levels of arsenic and is prepared roughly the same way—just rehydrate in water while you prep the rest of the salad.
In the US, you can find dried wakame seaweed in Japanese grocery stores, health food stores, or in the all-purpose grocery store (our Whole Foods has it).
Before you add the rice vinegar, check your bottle’s label and see if you have plain rice vinegar or “seasoned” rice vinegar. The “seasoned” variety has some added sugar already, so I decrease the brown sugar a little bit to avoid over-sweetening the sauce. See recipe note for exact changes.

Cucumber, seaweed, and soba noodle salad

Time: About 35 minutes
Yield: About 6 cups of salad

6 Tbsp dried seaweed (wakame or hijiki, but see note above!)
2 cups hot water
1 large cucumber, thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
9 oz buckwheat soba noodles (2 bundles)
3-4 Tbsp unseasoned rice vinegar*
1.5 tsp brown sugar*
4 tsp soy sauce
4 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp white or black sesame seeds

*if using “seasoned” rice vinegar, decrease the sugar to 1 tsp

Combine the dried seaweed with 2 cups of your hottest water from the tap (you can use boiling water, but hot water works just fine, in my experience). Set aside.

Slice the cucumber into very thin slices. Using a mandolin is great here, but if you don’t have one, a vegetable peeler also does the trick. Or just practice your knife skills- whatever works!

Place the cucumber slices in a strainer and top with 1 tsp salt. Massage a little with your hands and let sit in the sink to drain while you make the rest of the salad.

Boil the water. When the water boils, add the soba noodles and cook according to the package directions (usually about 5 minutes).

While the noodles cook, make the sauce. Combine the rice vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil in a small container and shake to combine.

When the noodles are cooked, drain very well. I even use a few paper towels to dab up some of the excess water.

Add the noodles to a large bowl and set aside.

Drain the seaweed really well. Again, I use a few paper towels to soak up some of the excess water, but I DO NOT squeeze out the seaweed.

Add the seaweed to the noodles in a large bowl and set aside again.

Rinse the salt off of the cucumbers and drain well. Add the cucumbers to a paper towel, cheesecloth, or dish towel and squeeze to remove as much excess water as possible. Add to the bowl of noodles and seaweed.

Stir the cucumbers, seaweed, and noodles to combine. Top with the sauce and stir well to coat.

Just before serving, top with sesame seeds.

Rebecca Davis 8/19/21 Rebecca Davis 8/19/21

Zucchini with sage and caramelized onions

This simple dish celebrates summer produce and herbs like zucchini and sage. #caramelizedonions #sage #simplerecipes #dinner #lunch #vegetarian

This 5-ingredient dish (I’m not counting water, salt, and pepper) is super simple, but tastes surprisingly complex and can be customized in endless ways to suit your family’s tastes.

Take me to the recipe!

So, I love zucchini. I actually kind of grieved when my glorious early zucchini plant withered and died thanks to a hungry squash vine borer this summer. But, truth be told, zucchini is kind of a zero in the flavor department. One of its best qualities is that it takes on the personality of whatever it’s paired with, right?

Take zoodles, for example. You would think the titular veg would be the star of the show, but those fake noodles are nothing without a great sauce!

Anyway, THIS zucchini dish has caramelized onions and plenty of salt for flavor, sage for herbiness, and goat cheese to give everything a creamy, saucy vibe. The zucchini is really there for body and to provide a base for the other flavors and it totally does the job!

But can we talk about sage for a second? Where our zucchini flopped, our sage flourished and we ended up with the most gigantic and brilliant green leaves. But sage feels so autumnal that I struggle to use it in the summer time. And in all fairness, the combo of caramelized onions, goat cheese, and sage does have an autumn vibe. But when paired with the summery zucchini, you can totally eat this in July without feeling like you’re trying to speed up time.

A couple of notes:

I spiralized the zucchini, but when cooking the zoodles, they produce a lot of water. If you want something a little dryer or just don’t have/don’t want a spiralizer, just chop the zucchini into 1/2 inch cubes. They’ll be less wet, but no less delicious.
We added white fish to this dish the first time we made it and it was my favorite iteration by far. You can absolutely add a can of beans, shredded chicken, or any other protein as well. But anything that requires more than a few minutes of cooking time (the white fish was thin and cooked in about 6 minutes) should be pre-cooked and added along with the zucchini to heat up during the veg’s short cooking time.

Zucchini with caramelized onions and sage

Time: 30 minutes, all active
Yield: 2 large adult servings, 2 kid servings or more if you add protein

2 large onions, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 -3 cups water
1 tsp salt, divided, or to taste
5-10 x-large sage leaves (about 1½ to 3 Tbsp chopped fresh sage), to taste
2 large zucchini, chopped or spiralized
Pepper, to taste
½ cup soft goat cheese, or to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large pan with a tight fitting lid until a drop of water sizzles.

Turn the flame to medium* and add the onions. Stir frequently until some browning begins on the onions or in the pan. Once this happens, add 2-3 Tbsp of water (or, enough to loosen those browned bits from the bottom of the pan), stir and scrape to loosen the browned bits, cover with the lid, and let cook for 2 minutes.**

Repeat this process until the onions are soft and have turned a dark brown color.

*If the onions or the pan are browning too fast, turn down the flame.

**If there is too much water in the pan when you take off the lid after letting the onions cook for 2 minutes, turn up the flame and let the onions cook with the cover off until there’s more browning on the pan that can be deglazed.

Once the onions are browned to your liking (I usually stop after about 20 minutes), add ½ tsp salt and pepper to taste.

Add the sage and stir well.

(If adding protein to the pan, add it now and cook to your preferred doneness.)

Add the zucchini and stir into the onions and sage. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the zucchini is slightly wilted. I like the zucchini to have a bit of crunch, so if you like it cooked a bit more, add a few more minutes here.

Add the rest of the salt and pepper to taste.

Top with the goat cheese and serve.