savory Valentine

Believe it or not, I try to limit the amount of sweets my kids eat.  It's challenging when the counter tops are littered with chocolate covered spatulas and freshly baked scones are cooling on racks every day!  But, I always insist they eat a healthy dinner.  I try to force them to eat vegetables every day.  Some days they eat a pound of broccoli and love it, other days they turn their noes up to anything green.  What gives, right?

My kids never lack for sweets to nibble and this Valentines Day won't be any different.  I have heart shaped pumpkin muffins in the works for a special Valentines breakfast.  So for dinner they are getting vegetables all packaged up with cute little heart biscuits.

Heart shaped biscuits with roasted broccoli and white beans

Roasted broccoli and white beans
4-6 oz prosciutto
1 cup of roasted broccoli (I used leftovers from the night before.  If you want to roast it fresh just cut the florets in small chunks, drizzle with olive oil and salt in a 375 degree oven until the edges are crisp and brown with a nutty flavor).
1 8 ounce can white beans drained and rinsed
olive oil, salt and pepper
1 large carrot diced in small chunks
1 large white onion chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Brown the prosciutto in a dutch oven, remove and let it cool and crisp up on a paper towel.  Using the same dutch oven add 1 Tbsp of olive oil, the onions and carrots.  Saute until softened, about a few minutes. Chop the roasted broccoli into smaller pieces and add to the dutch oven along with the parsley and finely chopped prosciutto.  Cook a few minutes and then transfer the vegetables to a bowl.  Add 1 Tbsp oil to the dutch oven and 1 Tbsp flour.  Whisk until the flour is coated and turning a light brown.  Slowly add the chicken broth and whisk so no clumps will form.  Bring to a boil to thicken.  Add back the vegetables along with the white beans.  Simmer on low. Taste for salt and pepper.  The sauce thickens and coats the vegetables and beans, making it an easy dish to scoop on biscuits.

Heart Shaped biscuits is from this recipe here.  This time I added a bit of chopped Gouda cheese to the dough.  I used a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut the biscuits.  They were baked at 425 degrees for 16 minutes.

The girls liked their biscuits cut in half and each half topped with the broccoli and beans.  The prosciutto adds a nice flavor to the sauce as well as enhancing the nutty roasted broccoli flavor.  All around it was a super kid friendly meal.