Peach Toast

I'm still living off avocado toast most of the year, but in the summer, this is my breakfast of choice! 

The inspiration came from here: https://avocadoskillet.com/air-fryer-peach-cottage-cheese-toast/ but mine is simpler. 

I buy sourdough bread at Sam's Club. It's less than $5 a loaf and it's really tasty. I toast a slice in the toaster (takes two turns to get both ends toasted). Then I spread that with cottage cheese. Then I line up thinly sliced peaches across it. Sometimes I fill in the gaps with raspberries, which we always have on hand. 

I put it in the air fryer at 400* for seven minutes. 

Then I drizzle honey over it. And it's delicious! 

Apple Pie Spice + Chex Mix!

In an on-going attempt to have "normal" foods while still avoiding "issue" foods, we've been eating some chex mix! I forgot how much I LIKE sweet chex mixes. Personally, I really don't care for savory mixes...... 

This is a blend of several recipes, and is the faster variety, ha, so here you go: 

Apple Pie Chex Mix!

Ingredients:

9 cups Chex - any variety

1/4 cup melted butter

1 tbsp Apple Cider 
1 tbsp apple pie spice

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Instructions: 

Measure the chex into a large, microwaveable bowl. 

Melt the butter, add the sugars and spices, blend thoroughly. 

Pour butter mixture over cereal, stir to coat as much cereal as possible.

Microwave for five minutes- stirring every minute. 

Spread onto a cookie sheet to cool.

Store in an air tight container.  

*I have thought about adding chopped dried apples, but I forget every time...

To make Apple Pie Spice: 

1/2 cup cinnamon

2tbsp allspice

4 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cardamom (which I don't have, so I just leave that one out.)

Refrigerator Kosher Dill Pickles

This is a keeper. The original recipe can be found here: www.food.com/recipe/refrigerator-kosher-dill-pickles-380632. Of course, I made some slight modifications.

Pickles

You can pickle just about any vegetable, but my favorites are cucumbers, English (long) cucumbers, white onions, and purple onions. You will need enough of the vegetable, cut up in whatever chunk you want, to fill the jar up to a 1/2 to 3/4 inch head gap at top of the jar. 

Pictured in this batch are English cucumbers, sliced into 1/4 slices, on a mandolin with a wavy pattern.

Pickling Brine - Per One "1 Quart" Jar

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar

Bring both the water and vinegar to a boil in a saucepan, then take off the heat and let cool completely before using.

Pickling Spices - Per One "1 Quart" Jar

You can put the spices into the jar before adding the vegetables or on top of them. It won't matter once the liquid is dumped in and the you shake it up.

• 1 tbsp salt
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp dill seeds
• 1 tsp dill weed
• 1/4 tsp celery seed
• 1/2 tsp mustard seed
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped. 
• Use fresh garlic here not the pre-minced stuff in a jar. You want the full strength of the garlic on display. 

Put one batch of spices in each jar of pickles. Add the cooled pickling brine and fill the jar to the top, covering the pickles best you can. Leave at least a 1/2 inch air gap at the top between the liquid and the top of the jar. Screw on your lid on your jar and shake for a few seconds to distribute the salt and spices evenly.

Refrigerate for 7 days, shaking the jar for a few seconds every day. These will last approximately 6 months in the refrigerator. If you can't wait a full 7 days, let the jar sit for at least 24 hours before trying your pickles. I recommend making at least two jars. The first jar can be ready to eat in 24 hours, which, hopefully, will last a full seven days so the second jar will be fully matured. 

Ham & Cheese Crescent Rolls

I saw the pizza calzones while looking for dinner ideas one frustrating afternoon, ha. I tried to think of something I had the ingredients for, and knew I had seen something like this before, and honestly I think many times! ...but on that day I couldn't find anything to tell me if I needed to adjust the baking time or anything. No recipes like this to be found on the whole entire internet that day. What?! Sooo now there is!! 

I had all of these ingredients already in my fridge, so I put them together and it made a great dinner! I actually used two cans of crescent rolls, to make enough food for us.

I rolled out each crescent roll a bit...then laid half a slice of muenster on the edge

then half a slice of ham

and finally half a slice of swiss cheese

and rolled it up! 

When I had four left, I ran out of Swiss cheese slices, so I used a small handful of shredded cheddar instead. It worked great!

I asked a friend if she knew how long to bake it. I really wondered if the meat and cheese affected the baking time! She said to follow the instructions on the can, so I did. It said to bake at 375* for 9-12 minutes. I am pretty sure I broiled them a couple minutes to get some good browning, but everyone liked these! 

a close up of the melty cheddar....!

Avocado Toast

I know, I know, suuuper late jumping on this particular bandwagon. The thing is, even tho I like avocado, it also makes me gag, haha. My mom often slices up an avocado and puts the slices on bread for lunch. But I can't just take a bite of avocado... So in recent weeks I looked up what's so great about the super trendy "avocado toast".

I liked THIS LINK best, and I read somewhere that pomegranate goes great on avocado toast, and I do love pomegranate! So here's what I've been doing:

I use a stick blender to puree a whole avocado, plus a pinch of salt, some lime juice (maybe a tablespoon?) and some dried cilantro (roughly a tablespoon of that too). Then I store that in a container in the fridge. I like it better on toasted wheat bread for sure, but whatever is in the house works. I butter the toast, then sprinkle a tiny pinch of salt over both slices. I hold the black pepper grinder several inches above the toast and use two turns. Then I spread the avocado all over the bread. I sprinkle a bit of red pepper flakes over that (the photo has too much red pepper, haha!) and then some pomegranate seeds all over that! YUM! The mix makes at least 6 slices of toast. It's healthy, quick and yummy! Yeay for that!!

2 slices toast
butter
1 avocado
lime juice
cilantro
salt
black pepper
red pepper flakes
pomegranate seeds

Pumpkin Dip

I made this recipe several years ago for a small gathering. This year, after making pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, I had left over pumpkin and remembered this dip! It took me a while to find it again, so I'm sharing and saving it here so I don't forget. A friend blogged it HERE, and it was yummy!!

Her recipe is:

1 8oz package cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 15oz can pumpkin
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp pumpkin spice (or nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon)
1 tbsp frozen orange juice concentrate

In a medium bowl, blend cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth.
Gradually mix in the pumpkin.
Stir in the spices and orange juice until smooth and well blended.
Chill until serving. Serve with the best gingersnaps you can find for dipping.

Fruit Yogurt Parfait

I saw this recipe ages ago on a Yoplait ad. I forgot all about it and then went thru the drafts on this blog and found it again. Sooo now that I've made it frequently for months, I'm sharing it!

This is what the original post said: 

"This Spiced Pear Yogurt Parfait with crunchy granola layers and a little bit of cinnamon is exactly what we need to bring in the holiday season.

To make: Layer a glass with your favorite granola (we used Nature Valley) and spoon Yoplait Greek 100 Vanilla yogurt on top. Sprinkle in chopped pear and repeat. Top with a little extra granola, cinnamon and pear then break out the spoons!"

So when I make it, I have used vanilla yogurt and I've used vanilla greek yogurt- whichever I get works fine. I have used Nature Valley granola, Cascade Farms granola and Kashi Go Lean. I like all of them. Most of the time I use chopped up bottled pears, but you can see I've used raspberries, peaches, and blueberries. I'm guessing any fruit will work great! When I use pears or peaches I add a dash of cinnamon.
Personally, I scoop up some yogurt, add the fruit and sprinkle on the granola, then I stir it up!
And it is delicious! I eat it anywhere from 3-7 times a week, sometimes as breakfast or lunch, sometimes as a snack! 

Apple Nachos!

Originally I saw this recipe all over Pinterest and I pinned the idea HERE.
I started making it just after school started last August, as a welcome-home-after-school-snack....and then we sort of forgot about it. Today my daughter asked if we still knew how to make that, haha, so I thought I'd blog it.

1 apple, thinly sliced
1 tbsp creamy peanut butter
small handful shredded coconut
smaller handful semi-sweet chocolate chips.

I only used green apples until today- this time I used a Gala apple. I slice it into a lot of thin slices and arrange them flat on a plate. I microwave a tablespoon or so of peanut butter til it's more runny (about 15-25 seconds). Drizzle that over the apple slices. Sprinkle shredded coconut and a few chocolate chips on top.
Depending on the size of your apple, it can serve a quick snack for 1-2 kids.

Grilled Peaches: Revisited!

Something about "teaching a man to fish..." comes to mind...hahaha!
I have wanted to grill peaches for several days now and my husband hasn't had a chance except when we have plenty of other food ready to eat, ie: dinner time. (see the previous post HERE)
So today when I asked for it at lunch time, I also asked if there was a way *I could 'grill' them inside and just do it myself, hahaha....
Here's how we did it:
Put a sheet of tin foil over a 6-cup muffin pan. Lay a peach half, cut side up, in the cups. Put under the broiler for 3 minutes. Pull the pan out of the oven and turn it to 500*. Sprinkled on a bit of brown sugar. When the oven reached 500*, I put the peaches back in for 5 mins.
Yep! That worked great!!

*however, this time it was much tastier with the peel pulled off...maybe the peel burned? I don't know, it just wasn't very tasty.

Bagels!!!!

6 cups bread flour
2 cups warm water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
4 tbsp dry milk powder
1/4 cup potato flakes
1 1/2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp dough enhancer
2 eggs

Egg wash:
1 egg
2 tbsp water

Breadmaker version:
Put all of the dry ingredients, oil, and eggs into the breadmaker set on a dough only cycle. Put the yeast and the sugar into the two cups of warm water (110 degrees), stir to thoroughly combine and let sit for about 10 minutes or until the yeast water is bubbly. Pour into the breadmaker and let go through the dough cycle. At the end of the cycle, pull out the dough, knead a few more times and form the dough into a big round and smooth dough ball. Pull the dough into a big bowl (punch bowl size at least) with a couple of tablespoons of oil. Turn over the dough to completely to coat with the oil, cover with plastic wrap or a clean dish towel and let rise until it is about 2 1/2 times it's size or fills the bowl. Should be between 60 to 90 minutes total.

Turn on the oven to 400 and position two racks in the center part of the oven. The racks should have enough space between them to allow the bagels on the lower rack to bake without touching the upper rack. Punch down the dough, put back on the counter and roll it into a long log. Using a kitchen scale, cut off 4 or 5 oz portions. 4 oz dough balls will give you about 18 bagels. 5 oz dough balls will give you about 15 bagels.

Form each portion into a small dough ball and then flatten out into a dough disk on the counter. Using your finger, punch a hole into the middle of the disk then widen the hole by spinning the disk in between your two fingers.

Lay the formed bagels onto parchment lined half sheet pans. Allow them to rest and relax (raise) another 10 minutes.

Once all of the bagels have been formed, start dropping them into boiling salted water (2 tbsp salt to 3 qts of water) 3 or 4 at a time depending on the size of your pot, starting with the first bagel formed working until the last. Drop the bagels into the boiling water one at a time. Let them boil on one side for 1.5 minutes (90 seconds), turn them over and allow them to boil on the other side for another 1.5 minutes.

After a total of 3 minutes of boiling, place the bagels back onto the baking sheets and brush them with the egg wash when they have mostly dried off. They dry off fairly quickly so it won't take long. After all of the bagels have taken their boiling bath and been brushed with the egg wash, put both pans into the oven and bake for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, rotate the pans back to front, move the pan on the upper rack to the lower rack and move the pan on the lower rack to the upper one. Bake for another 10 minutes then rotate in the same manner. Rotation of the pans will ensure even baking/browning. Bake for an additional 5 minutes then pull them out. They should have a honey/golden color to them. Place the bagels on a dish towel or tea towel on the kitchen counter to cool. Once cooled, bag them up and leave on the counter or place in the freezer. Do not put them in the fridge as it will only dry them out!

Fried pizza egg rolls!

This post is to let the new readers know the real me, and that health food is not 110% normal around here...giggle...

The other night for dinner we had deep fried pizza, haha! (sort of)

The "recipe" (instructions, really) was found HERE.
It really is just a string cheese, with a few pieces of pepperoni, rolled up in egg roll wrappers!

This time they were fried for 3 minutes each. The cheese was not melty like we hoped, so my husband decided that he would fry them less, and then put them in the oven under high heat to better melt the cheese.
He whipped up some pizza sauce, based on our spaghetti sauce recipe HERE, but with a bit of Worcestershire sauce and maybe a few other changes. He and I dipped our pizza sticks and the kids preferred it without the sauce. Also, with the salads, 3 sticks filled up my husband and I, and the kids could only finish 2 each.
Then we had salads and carrot sticks on the side to help round it out a bit, haha!

ETA: Fried 2 minutes, put in a 300* oven as they come out of the fryer, serve about 10 minutes after the last batch goes in the oven.

Hummus!

I really like hummus, but the cheapest way to get it is at Costco and I get tired of the one flavor over and over. I was excited when I saw this link on pinterest to try making our own! So here's our journey...

After trying 4 local stores, I couldn't find tahini anywhere, but we did finally find a bottle of sesame seeds...and my husband checked google and learned that tahini is just sesame seeds and olive oil!! We used our Blendtec to make it smooth and tada- that step was done!

fresh tahini!

If I can get it frozen or whole, I try not to buy canned foods, believe it or not. So I bought a bag of dry chickpeas for this. Chickpeas soaked for 13 hours, simmered on the stove about an hour, until tender. (can I just say how amusing it was to find myself sorting dry beans, late at night, to soak in my grandmother's pot...when she's the reason I remember sorting dry beans ever)
And then the mixing began! He used the food processor to make the different hummus blends.

Classic Hummus

First my husband made the CLASSIC variety on that link-
16 oz chickpeas
1/3 cup tahini
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 scoop minced garlic
 It came out really thick, so he just drizzled more olive oil while it mixed til it was smooth. Then he still added more lemon and some salt and pepper. Pretty good- but the tahini was really strong, so next time we'll use less. Maybe because it was fresh?

Guaca-Hummus

Next up- the GUACA-HUMMUS!
16 oz chickpeas
1 avocado
1 jalapeno
1/4 cup cilantro
2 tbsp. lime juice
salt
pepper
ok, I absolutely love guac, and this was UH-mazing!! It was like a lighter, clean guac, if that makes any sense at all... it is SO good with tortilla chips or pita chips! YUM!

Southwestern Hummus

Then, he was going to make the tapenade variety, but I was raving about the guaca-hummus so much that he said he could just make that again. Since I only bought one jalapeno, he swapped out that for the roasted red peppers (shown below). So here's a different SOUTHWESTERN HUMMUS and um, it might be the winner!!!
1 avocado
2 cups chickpeas
1/4 cup cilantro
1/2 bottle roasted red peppers (about 6oz)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp chili powder
2 tbsp. lime juice
drizzled olive oil to make it a smooth paste
 It has a kick, but it's a good one!

 

Classic, Southwestern & Guaca-Hummus, ready to be enjoyed!

and incase you have as much "fun" looking for the roasted red peppers as I did- they're by the pickles, (not the vegetables, nor the Mexican, nor the Italian) and this is the bottle I grabbed.

*Hummus, as far as I know, is used in two basic ways- as a dip or as a sandwich spread. I'm allergic to the fresh vegetables I've heard of dipping into it, so I usually eat it with Keebler Townhouse Flatbread crisps, or Keebler Pita crackers. The Bagel Chips are really good with it too, and I am absolutely going to use tortilla chips with the other flavors we made tonight! I'm also considering sandwichy ideas to use it in!

Let me know if you make your own hummus and what you think! :) I am looking forward to meals this week!

**Edited:
1/27: Tonight he made the Tapenade variety in the same link. We were very low on parsley so he threw in some dried oregano, and some onion powder and it too is fantastic! Have you tried these yet??

Vegetable Appetizer!

This post got lost in my drafts...not sure why I never shared it, so here it is, just in time for harvest season!

Today for lunch I ate a zucchini. I made THIS recipe for zucchini fries (which I found on Pinterest) and here's how mine looked:

Zucchini Fries

It was messy and time consuming but they were super tasty!! I think its worth making a few times a year, haha. I'm really lousy at the dipping dry-wet-dry process, but that's ok.
I just dipped them in a basic marinara sauce and it was a very tasty (and mostly healthy) lunch!

Canning Pears

My daughter loves pears, but when she sees them at the store and asks for them, they always seem to be about $1 per pear. That is outrageous to me, so she really gets maybe 3 a year and one of those is in her stocking on Christmas day! I decided to get a half bushel of pears from a local fruit stand, and bottle them myself.

My friend gave me her instructions on bottling pears and the process was quite easy, although time consuming. Here's what I did -

Washed each pear and peeled them, using a potato peeler. I cut them in to about 4 slices, just like an apple, cutting out the core. And yes, it was easier to peel the whole pear rather than cutting first and peeling after.

I would do about 8-10 pears at a time, so I kept the peeled slices in a bowl that had 2 cups water and 1tsp lemon juice to prevent them from browning while I was cutting the others.

When I thought I had enough pears to fill enough bottles to fill my canning pot, I would start stuffing jars with pears. I could fit about 3.5 pears per bottle, but it really depended on how the pears were cut and what the jar was shaped like.

In my 4 cup glass measuring cup, I would microwave 4 cups water and 1 cup sugar for about 2 minutes, then used a whisk to help the sugar completely dissolve. When my 7 jars were full of pears, I poured that sugar water mixture over the pears to fill the bottles.

Then, make sure to wipe the rim of the bottle clean so that you get a good seal, pop a heated, new lid on top, screw the ring on tight and put the bottle in the processing pot! Once the pot was full of its 7 bottles, I let it go for about 40 minutes, so that it was boiling at least 30 minutes.

I ended up with 26 bottles of pears, but one burst in the processing time. So, that's 25 lovely pints of pears into our food storage! Yeay!!!

*and yes, a few of them are pink. My husband's parents added red and green food coloring to their pears when he was growing up so he requested that I do that too. I think its awfully funny to add artificial coloring to what should be healthy food, but hey, that's what he wanted so he got a few.

Breakfast Cookies!

Since my kids are back in school, I need filling, nutritious and QUICK breakfast ideas! Today, I gave these cookies a try! The cookies are breakfast-sweet but not candy-sweet. My son and I really liked them. My daughter, not so much - but she didn't like the craisins. Maybe next time I'll leave it out?

I stuck with her original recipe, except for my own edits, LOL. For one thing, I didn't have walnuts on hand, but I did have a big bag of almonds! Rather than attempting to chop them, I stuck them in my blender, along with the craisins, to make them both smaller and less noticeable, for picky eaters, haha.

Also, I used 1/3 cup craisins because I had that, and no raisins.
And a tip I learned? Flatten the cookie when you put it on the pan to bake! The first pan, I didn't know if they would spread so I gave them plenty of space. I don't think they spread even a millimeter! So the second pan I fit more on, and flattened them so they might bake a little faster. Between the flatter cookie, and my elevation (she's east of CO and I'm pretty sure 4,700 feet is higher than anything east of CO) it only took me about 18 mins to bake, rather than her 30-35mins.

Guacamole!

This is one of my favorite things for my husband to make. It is SO yummy and I swear its nutritious becuase its made out of nothing but produce!
5-6 ripe Avacados
3 Roma Tomatoes
5 jalapeno peppers
2 Tbsp Lime Juice
1/8 cup dehydrated onion
1 Coconut
garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, sea salt, hot sauce to taste

Here's what he does:
Peel avacados, chopped and pureed with a stick blender til smooth (unless you like chunks, then a fork is fine) Add 2 Tbsp lime juice, or more if you want more citrus flavor. Chop tomatos and sort of smash them (if you use other tomatoes, squeese the seeds out). Rehydrate your dehydrated onion in about 1/2 cup water. Drain off the water, squeeze out in paper towels. (he thinks it would probably taste better to mince fresh onion but we always have dehydrated on hand). Roast the jalapeno peppers on an open burner or in a steamer basket on the stove, until the peppers are charred all the way around. Run them under cold, running water and rub the charred, waxy skin off. Cut off the ends, butterfly the peppers open and cut out the seeds and middle spine, mince up finely. They'll be very soft to work with. Now you want to add about 3 tbsp fresh coconut water (as in, crack open a coconut, pour the liquid thru a strainer and use the liqued) *You can leave this out but it adds a yummy, rich flavor. Do not use a canned coconut milk product, you need the fresh stuff. and, if you don't like to eat a coconut, give it to us, thanks! haha!
Add about 2 tsp salt, some garlic powder, onion powder and black pepper to taste.
Use a dash of hot sauce if you want more bite, but the peppers may be hot enough for you.

Eat with chips all day long, LOL!
Actually, we often freeze about half of it, becuase if you keep it in the fridge too long it turns brown and doesn't look so great. It will freeze and thaw extremely well.

Peach Season!

Around here, its peach season! We took a trip to a local farm and bought half a bushel of peaches to enjoy! We'll be making jam out of most of them, but we're eating them fresh and look at this- we grilled them!!
The grocery ad showed them grilled and I thought that sounded fabulous. I'd never had grilled peaches, but I have had grilled pineapple. Peaches are sweet and juicy like pineapple so I thought it would be just as great...I was RIGHT!
My awesome husband cut these in half, removed the pits and placed them on the grill cut side down. About five minutes later he turned them over and let them cook another three minutes. He sprinkled just a touch of sugar over them and they were AH-mazing!!!!
Summer side dish? Oh yes. Dessert? Sure, that works too!
*the peel was left on and that was just fine with me too.

Its like pizza...

A few years ago, my kids and I were camping with my parents. {By camping, I mean in a 7-person camp trailer with a fridge, stove, etc. just so you aren't picturing us cooking over a firepit. *giggle.} One of the meals my mom had planned was biscuit pizzas, which is simply flattening out a canned biscuit, spreading tomato sauce mixed with Italian spices over it, adding pepperoni or ground beef or browned sausage and then sprinkling cheese on it, and baking it. That night I am sure we had either ground beef or sausage to work with, which was too time consuming to make that particular night. So to eliminate the meat idea, but still feed people a quick dinner, I suggested this twist-
Bake the biscuits topped with cheese, and dip it in the spiced and herbed tomato sauce!

This works nicely for a summertime lunch too!

Granola bars!

Last week, with the intent to control the ingredients and save a buck or two, I tried this snack - homemade granola bars!
I edited the recipe to be 1/2 cup pb, 1/2 cup honey and 1/4 cup cocoa powder.  I think her comment about cutting the honey is not actually a good idea. They are pretty dry... my daughter will not eat them and she would live off store granola bars if I let her. My husband said they taste good but need a few glasses of milk. My son and are working our way thru the pan. I think they make a decent breakfast!

They are cut into bars here, one cut down the long center and then every 2 inches or so across.

Pretzelmaker at home!

Pretzelmaker is my very favorite mall food.
THIS is a darn close imitation, and can be made at home!
(which I'm sure is JUST what I need...hahaha!)
I intended to take pictures of the process but um...that didn't happen. Then I didn't get a picture of the finished product either! They were devoured much too quickly! 

These are about to be boiled...!

....I'll add pictures the next time I make it! hee hee!
Until then, here's my husband's tip. We made salted pretzel bites, parmesan pretzel bites and cinnamon/sugar pretzel bites, as per each of our personal orders, lol. The first pan he brushed with butter and salted...but we were on our way out the door and wanted our pretzels to go with us. We put them in brown paper lunch sacks to go. So for the other flavors, he brushed them with butter, put them in the sack and sprinkled the parmesan or the cinnamon/sugar straight into the bag and shook it up! Ready to go and soooo yummy!