Hi friends!!! Here are some meals from last week. KERF has never been about fancy recipes {there are many wonderful blogs for that!} Instead it has always been my goal to show people how to eat real food 90% of the time without giving up food groups or fun nights out on the town. That’s why you can find 5 years of daily meals in the archives – really busy times and slower times in life. And of course now meals prepared with a baby underfoot. Hope you get a taste of food inspiration here.
Pancake day! Matt made Mazen and me Sunday pancakes from our Great Harvest mix. Packed with peaches and berries and topped with chia seeds, almonds and almond butter.
Pancake eater!
I gave the new Banana Walnut {aka Banana Bread} scuffin a try with a side of eggs and banana and blueberries. Yum! It’s made with 100% freshly ground whole wheat flour, so I felt good about having it for breakfast despite the fact that it’s dense and sweet.
MY OTHER RECIPES
Day 3: toast with Naturally Nutty Maple Almond Butter and Greek yogurt with berries
Next up: cereal!
365 Wheat Waffles {one of my favorite cereals} with raspberries and blackberries, chia, coconut and milk.
And finally my favorite breakfast of the week:
A Virginia roll hamburger bun from our bakery with almond butter, jam and egg. It tasted like a jelly donut!!! These rolls are SO good.
Fruit on the side –
Maze had many breakfasts of scrambled egg, banana and berries!
Smoked salmon salad with summer tomato, green pepper, local greens, Caromont Farm Bloomsbury cheese (AMAZING!) and sweet potato chips {more directly from the bag}
This was an egg and cheesy omelet with frozen spinach cooked throughout. Mazen and I each had half a circle. On a whole wheat tortilla with peach on the side. I ate it like a soft taco 
Lunch at the bakery – curried tuna salad on a salad! Whole wheat cinnamon chip on the side.
Lunch meeting with The Juice Laundry, a new-ish juicery in town. We shared a cashew milk, which was incredible. I’ve had their Refresh green juice so far, which was most refreshing, and this cashew milk was like a milkshake!
#3
Big salad with leftover grilled veggies and a side of Blueberry High Five. Toppings included avocado, Bloomsbury cheese and honey almonds
Lastly: another smoked salmon delight with avocado, almonds and greens. Mazen stole a good amount of my salmon after rejecting his own lunch of chicken and beans!
Pesto extravaganza! I took 3 of our pesto ice cubes and coated some whole wheat bowtie pasta with them. Plus tomato (green and red), peppers, asparagus, zucchini, parmesan and toasted pine nuts.
Spaghetti night! We made some homemade tomato sauce and combined that with patty pan squash from our garden (yum!), eggplant and lots of asiago served over whole wheat angel hair.
The Chicken and Bean Bake is back! I cooked a blend of dried beans I found at Whole Foods from scratch and used that as the base for this simple recipe.
Served with Popeye rolls from the bakery.
Karen came over and brought this amazing tortellini casserole!! {She has promised to share the recipe soon.} It was topped with smoked cheddar and was oh-so-good.
We served it with sautéed veggies – patty pan, zucchini, eggplant.
And shared some vino
Final dinner: leftover bean bake over a salad when Matt worked late.
I’m all about the real food/meals on the blog these days– my blog and the blogs I love to read as well. It can be really fun to look at the fancy food blogs, but frankly, my life just isn’t in a place where those recipes are realistic for me to make on any given night, haha. Someday!
Amazing look pesto pasta! Grilled Peaches & Pancakes is my idea of breakfast heaven when they’re in season…yum! Happy Week to you guys too!
That is what I love so much about your blog Kath. Using real food doesn’t have to take long to prepare a delicious meal. I have learned so much from your site and have incorporated many of the things you prepare in my own meals. It’s great to see how Mazen is trying all different foods. Love the picture of him crawling with all the pan covers in the background:)
Great looking food, as always. I like having the switch from recipe-heavy meals to ones where you just put good stuff together. Easier 🙂 Loving the chia seeds, almonds and almond butter combo for pancakes. I have a huge bag of chia seeds but really haven’t been eating them much. I need to put them on the counter so I have that visual reminder!
Fancy recipes intimidate me! Just so many things that could possibly wrong, lol. I am so ready for the day when I can put a bunch of food at once on my son’s tray. He is big into throwing food across the room, even when its something he likes and is hungry. 😛
I am obsessed with Karens’s veggie lasagna so I can’t wait to try her tortellini casserole!!
Is that tortellini from Giada’s recipe? Cheesy Baked Tortellini. It’s delicious!
It might be – Karen loves her
YES – this is the recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/cheesy-baked-tortellini-recipe/index.html
Did you find the veggie lasagna recipe here?
For someone who is busy with a baby, you do such a good job of creating healthy, varied meals. That pesto in particular looks great.
I love getting all these ideas as I look ahead to a busy fall and making food for my family while working just about full time this coming school year. I am reluctantly going to eliminate wheat (gluten) because of tummy issues but I am inspired by your salads and simple dinners and the rest of my family can still enjoy the bread!
I am always SO jealous of all the delicious breads you get to eat from the bakery. Whole wheat everything! I am from Chicago, and I wish we had a place like Great Harvest around here. I guess I’ll just have to make some time to bake my own creations!
I grew up near a Great Harvest in Chicagoland. If your up for a trip up the purple line check out the great harvest in Evanston!
Yep….it’s on Central Street on the north end of Evanston, close to the Wilmette border! 🙂
Thank you!!!
Paige: There is a Great Harvest in Naperville, IL if that’s not too far for you to travel!
I’ve been really curious about egg + nut butter lately! I keep seeing it pop up everywhere.
If you look at your pancakes with peachs on top NOT closely, it kind of looks like wontons! It took me a minute to find out that it wasn’t some sort of fruit wonton 😉
picture of baby crawling away from pots & pans disaster — adorable! must try bean bake!
Mmmmm! The eats!!!! 😛
I love that you post pictures of real meals and food that is easy for everyone to make! Thanks for always sharing. You show how easy it can be to eat really healthfully without excluding whole foods groups. It seems these days that all the new diet trends are excluding food groups. It is refreshing to see something different.
Hey Kath how long do you usually roast your chicken for? I am wondering if I am overlooking mine because it usually comes out looking brown on the outside and kind of crispy with inside kind of whitish when you cut into it, but yours looks way different. I was a vegetarian for 5 years and am just now learning to cook meat and sometimes I overdo it because don’t want to give myself food poisoning!!!
Also, that banana scuffin sounds awesome. I loooove banana bread!!!!
The best way to tell if it’s done is a meat thermometer – cooked to 165*. That’s how we always gauge.
I love the real meals you create that are simple and delicious! I tend to cook the same way – throwing whatever I have on hand into a meal. Life is easier that way! Can’t wait to see what goes into Karen’s casserole!
WOW! Everything seriously looks so wonderful and very photogenic! The roll from your bakery looks incredible and so soft! Yum!
I rarely comment on blogs, but for some reason I feel the urge 🙂 … while fancy foodie blogs can be fun to read, they don’t offer realistic options for the majority of us busy, workin’ ladies. I much prefer your style of cooking/sharing! As you said, it’s inspiration and ideas in leau of specific recipes, which is far more helpful to me. Cheers!
That hamburger roll with the egg and jam looks awesome! My mouth is watering!
Looks delicious Kath! I am intrigued by the cashew milk. I wonder why it is thick and not thin like store-bought almond milk. Perhaps they don’t strain it? That’s something I’d like to try.
It was the slightest bit gritty so I bet it wasn’t strained
I make my own almond and coconut milk and they come out a bit thicker, and I strain through a nut milk bag I found on amazon. It’s super easy and the flavor is so much stronger!
The cashew milk from juice press here in nyc and from blueprint is made with the whole cashews, vanilla, water and salt- like a sweeter and very thin cashew butter, but contains all the nut so its also much higher calories than almond milk
You should totes make a dessert section in your lately posts! That is unless you actually don’t eat any on a semi-regular basis. (In which case I commend your superior willpower!)
I cannot wait to get my hands on the tortellini recipe…looks like the perfect week night meal! Also, I’m just newly married and cannot wait to start a family, seeing Mazen’s face makes me even more excited to have a family some day, he’s too cute for words!
That Virgina roll hamburger bun looks so fluffy and heavenly! I want one! 🙂 I can’t wait for you to share Karen’s tortellini casserole recipe. It looks amazing!
I recently had a pumpkin cashew milk that tasted like a milkshake it was so good! Must recreate at home.
These posts do really inspire me! I strive to live a balanced lifestyle like you, some day! 🙂
Thanks for these “Lately” posts. I have been tring to make more interesting salads lately. Do you dress your typical lunch salads, and if so, what do you use? Thank you.
usually just dribble of olive oil honey and salt
your salads always look so good! and Mazen is adorable as always 🙂
Your food always looks so amazing! I’m using some of these meals as inspiration for my grocery trip after work today!
How does Mazen like the bib these days? I remember you saying there was a time when he would get too distracted by them- same here! Probably time for me to try again.
He’s much better with the Tommie Tippie ones!
I’ve gotten so many delicious ideas for eating real food from your blog. I actually fell in love with breakfast because of KERF! Can’t get enough nut/seed butters either 😉
The banana bread scuffin looks to die for! I really need to go back to GH Cville to pick up more scuffins. They are the best! Have a wonderful week!
love an egg taco/quesadilla. That tortellini casserole looks delish. Tortellini is one of my daughters faves.
OMG, that tortellini casserole looks amazing! Also, that last pic of Mazen crawling just might be the cutest pic ever…haha. Random question: do you have a suggestion of a good, creamy, semi-thick organic plain yogurt? Not Greek yogurt…just regular. Thanks!
I really like everything by Stonyfield. And Whole Foods organic is quite good too.
Kind of random, but what are your thoughts of AND changing the title Registered Dietitian to Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist? Will you start referring to yourself as a RDN instead of RD?
I think it makes sense for RDs to have “nutrition” as a root word in their titles, although with all of the information on what is or isn’t a nutritionist I think it would be a really confusing change! But overall I’m for it.
All of the baked goods from your bakery look heavenly! 🙂 And oh my that pasta….I feel like I could eat it right out of the picture!
Can you share the brand of the sweet potato chips? They look so yummy!
Garden of Eatin. So good!
I really like how relaxed your blog is these days! You seem very happy and that little boy is adorable 🙂
Your meals always looks so beautiful and delicious! I am always so inspired by your salads!!
I had Kodiak Cakes for the first time today and they were phenomenal! They were the lightest, fluffiest pancakes I’ve ever had. Topped with banana, peanut butter and coconut shavings made for one scrumptious breakfast! I have seen Kodiak Cakes on your blog forever, and I couldn’t believe it when I happened upon them at Target this past weekend. I had to try them of course, and then share my experience with you. Thanks for bringing Kodiak Cakes into my life 🙂
I have to say I love your blog! I love that you show people ideas of what to eat instead of complicated recipes. I find that really helpful! Thanks for all the hard work you’ve put into your blog! I’m finding myself making a lot of use of the post you did about lunches (the compilation one) when you did your internship, I believe. Since I’m going back for another degree, I’ll be in a similar boat.
Is M gonna be a leftie?!? I think my girl is for sure (she sucks her left thumb and always grabs food with her left hand!), which would be cool because I’m a leftie and so is my mom! I just made some pancakes this morning with grilled peaches on them. I could seriously eat a 3L basket of peaches in a few days! haha
I love these posts for the lunches. They are always the hardest for me.
Are the 365 Wheat Waffles the Whole Foods brand?
Yes
Your blogs really get me going. I love the pics of the food that you post.
I’m always looking for breakfast ideas. Thanks!
Your pictures of your salad beasts for lunch has inspired me to recreate them for my lunches I pack to bring to work 🙂