Middle Eastern Mason Jar Salad

The combination of kids and jobs recently prompted us to get our heads into the extreme food prep game. Mornings run so much more smoothly when we've just got to grab lunch and go, especially with all of the time necessary to feed and clothe three often grumpy kids. We've gotten pretty good at having lunches and dinners for the week mostly prepped over the weekend.

One of our mainstays is the mason jar salad. It's healthy and delicious and, when layered correctly, super easy and fresh. This particular one is inspired by Middle Eastern flavors, but you can easily improvise and put your own spin on one of these bad boys.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup tahini
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 Tsp cumin
1/2 Tsp garlic powder
1/2 Tsp salt
3-4 Tbsp water, more if needed

1 can chickpeas
1 Tsp Ras-al-Hanout*
1 large cucumber, diced
1 large tomato, diced
1 bunch of greens

*If you don't have Ras-al-Hanout, substitute 1/4 Tsp each of paprika, cumin, coriander, and cinnamon

Directions:

First, the dressing. If you've never made lemon tahini dressing before, get ready, because it's magical. Put the tahini into a medium bowl, add the lemon juice, and start stirring. It's going to get weird and clumpy, but don't worry. Keep stirring. At some point soon, all of a sudden, it will get smooth and thick and several shades lighter than it started. Magic! At that point, mix in the cumin, garlic powder, and salt. Add a little bit of water at a time and keep mixing until you reach your desired consistency. We like it thin, but not too thin.

In another bowl, toss the chickpeas with the Ras-al-Hanout until they're well mixed and set aside.

Take 4 clean empty pint jars and first divide the lemon tahini dressing among them. Next, divide the diced cucumbers and tomatoes, followed by the chickpeas, and finally the greens. The order is very important, so that the dressing doesn't cause the greens to get soggy.

When you want to eat, just upend the whole thing into a bowl, maybe using a spoon to get all the remnants of dressing out on top of your salad, and eat. These generally keep in the fridge for a week or so.

Gluten-Free Low Sugar Summertime Peach Crumble

Big brother helping feed little sister.

About a week ago we decided to take the kids peach picking. It was a gorgeous day and they were in uncommonly good spirits. We saddled up and got to our local orchard, grabbed a box, and started picking. The kids, to our surprise, loved the peaches, both to pick and to eat.

Unfortunately for us, we wound up a few days later with a box full of rapidly softening peaches, some of which started to go profoundly bad. We needed a way to get as much use out of the peaches we had left as we could. We’ve been pretty good about eating healthy lately, so a dessert treat felt right up our alley. With peaches as sweet as ours, this feels like an extravagance even though there’s nothing unhealthy in it!

Ingredients:

5 peaches
1 Tbsp cornstarch
2/3 cup almond meal
2/3 cup spelt flour
1 Tsp almond extract
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp maple syrup

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Slice the peaches into pieces as big or small as you want, and peel them or don’t according to your preference. We peeled about half of ours and then got lazy with the rest. Toss the sliced peaches in a baking dish with the cornstarch. You can add some sugar or maple syrup to taste, but our peaches were sweet enough that we didn’t need it.

In a medium bowl, stir together the almond meal, spelt flour, almond extract, olive oil, and maple syrup, until it is well combined and crumbly. Sprinkle this mixture over the peaches in the baking dish. Bake the whole thing for 25-30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the peaches are bubbling, or until the smell drives you crazy and you can’t stand it anymore and just need some peach crumble in your face.