Cauliflower Soup!

Tonight, I mixed up my potato soup recipe and created this:

1 head cauliflower
4 small potatoes
3 cubes chicken bouillon
2 cups milk
4 cups water
granulated garlic
black pepper
1/3 cup dehydrated onion 
When the veggies were soft I pureed it all together using my stick blender...

Then added 1/3 cup crumbled bacon
chives
frozen carrots
frozen corn
1 can cheese sauce
handful parmesan cheese

and served it with french bread. YUM!!
*My husband thinks it needed some shredded cheddar or other cheese to make it smoother, but the kids ate it just fine.

Dark Chocolate Caramel Apple Crisp

I mean, with a title like that, what's not to love?!
I found THIS recipe in a Betty Crocker email last year...or maybe the year before that? and I finally got to make it tonight!

This is what * I * used tho, because apparently I'm learning to be a little more creative in the kitchen, haha!
5 granny smith apples
1 golden delicious apple
cored and sliced, and put into a greased 9x13 baking dish.
Sprinkled the flour and cinnamon the recipe states, and mixed it all up.
Chopped 12 caramels into quarters and not so much sprinkled as placed them throughout the apples.

Melted 1/2 cup butter and mixed it in a bowl with the Betty Crocker oatmeal cookie mix. I used my mini food chopper to turn a bunch of almonds into crumbs and mixed in 1/2 a cup of that, and added then closer to 1/2 a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, because that was the end of the bag. Sprinkled that mixture all over the apples and stuck it in the oven for 35 minutes to bake.

my house smells SOOO good.....
and it is DELICIOUS!

Liz's Apple Crisp

My friend Liz posted this recipe on facebook about a month ago and I have been anxious to give it a try. I actually made it right after we enjoyed the minstrone last week! Apples are my favorite part of autumn baking! Apples of all kinds were on an awesome sale this week, so it was a great time to make it!

Her instructions and ingredients are as follows:

Slice 10-12 apples into bottom of 9x13" pan.

Sprinkle 3/4 c. white sugar on top.

Dot with butter (I slice off maybe 2-3 tbsp and cut it into bits over the top) and sprinkle appx. 2 tbsp. flour evenly over the top.

Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg over the top (I do quite a lot of cinnamon).

Combine 1 c. brown sugar, 1 c. oats, 1 c. flour and 1 c. butter (cold). Use pastry blender (or forks if you don't have one), and cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.

Sprinkle oat mixture over apples, sprinkle more cinnamon over the topping and

bake @ 350 for appx. 1 hour.

It was soooo good!!! I did let it cool for about 45 minutes before serving it, because that sauce was BOILING, as you can see in the photo! We had whipped cream on top while it was hot, and that was great, but plain, and cold was delicious too! It was the perfect balance of autumny cinnamony apples, hearty oatyness and butter, lol! YUM!

Minestrone, by ME!

 

My husband is coming home today after being gone most of the week. I wanted to surprise my him with dinner, but I also wanted to use the crock pot. I started by searching my food emails for crockpot dinners that I was

a- interested in eating and
b- had all the ingredients for!
I found THIS minestrone recipe and was inspired!

However...it seemed to me that recipe was lacking ingredients from minestrones I have had before. Off to Pinterest I went in search of more ideas!
And that's where I found THIS recipe!

buuut that seems to cook faster than a crockpot allows. HMM.
And so I present, my own minestrone recipe, and goodness I hope its tasty! LOL!

1 15 oz can kidney beans
1 15 oz can black beans
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 8oz can tomato sauce
4 cups broth (I used 4 crushed chicken boullion cubes and 4 cups water, microwaved for 3 minutes)
1 cup water
2 carrots, grated
2 celery stalks, minced
1 zucchini, minced
1/3 cup minced green beans
dehydrated onion
3 tbsp olive oil
basil
salt
pepper
oregano
thyme
parsley
minced garlic
onion powder
1 1/2 cups small elbow pasta
baby spinach

I put most of the ingredients (everything but the pasta and spniach) into the pot to cook on high heat for about an hour, and then low heat for three more hours. Then I turned it back to high (my crock pot only has two settings) tossed in the pasta and spinach til softened, which took about 20 minutes. We sprinkled Parmesan and cheddar cheese, and serve with a slice of bread and you're set! YUM!

The four of us ate and I had enough left over to set aside two lunches for my husband and I'm pretty sure there's plenty for still another nights' dinner!
(oregano at the top, then going around like a clock: thyme, parsley, basil, sea salt, and onion powder in center)

just LOOK at all those fresh veggies, ready to go into the pot! (I prepped these all the night before becuase I knew I wouldn't have time in the morning!)

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.

Blueberry Bran Muffins

This spring my maternal grandmother, and last of my four grandparents, passed away. Fortunately, four years ago she had the foresight to give each of her children and grandchildren a small photo album STUFFED full of her recipes, as a Christmas gift. She wrote a lot of the recipes herself on 4x6 cards, and my aunt and cousin (that I know of- maybe others helped too) wrote some of them. Copies were made so that each recipe didn't have to be handwritten twenty-something times, but its really cool to have Grandmom's recipes in Grandmom's handwriting. *grin

This recipe for bran muffins is one such recipe. I knew it made "like a million" muffins, which meant I could make one batch and freeze it, providing warm breakfasts for a few months to come.

This batch actually made 67 muffins, which is really a ton, LOL. They are sooo yummy straight out of the oven! And they're almost as good reheated in the microwave, straight from the freezer!

Ingredients & Instructions

2 cups Kellogg's All Bran cereal

2 cups boiling water 

Mix these together in small bowl and set aside.

In a very large bowl mix

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 generous cup Shortening (I used margarine because I discovered my shortening was rancid)

5 cups Flour

1 1/2 tsp Salt

4 tsp Baking Soda

4 Eggs

1 qt Buttermilk* (well shaken)

Then add small bowl of soaked All Bran and mix well.

Add 4 cups dry All Bran and 1 can drained blueberries. Fold in carefully and scoop mixture into sprayed muffin tin. Bake at 375* for 20 mins.

The notes say to call my mother if you have any questions on the recipe. That made me laugh!

* My parents never bought buttermilk, ever. When a recipe calls for it, my mom would sour the milk by putting the required baking soda into the milk, as soon as she started the recipe so it had time to turn sour. My husband follows Alton Brown's advice on just about everything, and he sours milk with apple cider vinegar. So when I made these, I poured my quart of milk and added 4 tbsp of the vinegar and let it sit while I mixed everything else together. It works just fine!

Banana Puff Pastry

How fabulous is this treat? Oh yes. Its amazing. Want to make it? Keep reading!

Ingredients:
Banana Pastry Cream

• 2 packages Dream Whip
• 2 boxes instant banna pudding mix
• 1 tsp vanilla
• milk as instructed. (2 3/4 cup)

Pastry Shell:

• 1 sheet puff pastry, cut into 9 squares
• dusted with cinnamon & sugar

Chocolate topping, and filling:

• 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

About 2 hours ahead of time, mix up dream whip, milk, pudding and vanilla according to the Dream Pie recipe found on the box of Dream Whip. Put mixture into gallon zip top bag, (we kept the bag in a pre-chilled bowl) and chill for at least 40 minutes, about 2 hours would be better.

Thaw one sheet puff pastry. Whatever baking sheet you use, use parchment paper or greased pan so they come off easily. Dust entirely with cinnamon & sugar mixture, cut into 9 squares. *pizza cutter works great! Bake at 400* for 15 minutes, until golden brown as instructed. Allow the squares to cool.

While its cooling, melt the chocolate chips and vegetable oil in a glass bowl, in the microwave, heat for 2 minutes at half power. Stir chocolate til completely smooth, keep warm til done using it.

When pastry squares are cool, slice in half, paint both inside halves with chocolate. Retrieve bag of pastry cream, push whole mixture to one corner, and snip off corner of bag. Then pipe two half-inch thick layers of pastry cream as shown.

Make squares into sandwiches, drizzle remaining chocolate all over the top of squares, dust with powdered sugar.

Try not to eat them all...maybe share with neighbors! *grin!

Twist & Shake!

Or rather, a New Twist on an Old Shake!

I have posted THIS basic shake before, which I frequently have for a quick and mobile breakfast. (meaning, I can eat it while doing other things)
It has evolved to become more like this:

• approx 3/4 cup frozen berries (or 1/3 cup peanut butter and 3 ice cubes)
• 1/3 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
• 1/2 packet chocolate instant breakfast powder
• 1 cup milk

 But yesterday my cousin posted this recipe on facebook...

• 1 cup of whatever milk you use
• 2 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa
• 1 banana
• 1 1/2 c. of rolled oats/quick oats /whatever oats you have
• 1 scoop protein powder (I used vanilla cause that's what I had on hand )
• 2 tbsp peanut butter
• Then add ice to the consistency you want

So I tossed in 3/4 cup oats into my shake this morning! Today I only used blueberries and blackberries, and with the oats it really tastes like a pie or a cookie! Also the oats give the added benefit of extra fiber, and this breakfast will stick with me longer, making me feel less hungry and snacky before lunch. And its a pretty darn healthy breakfast!

Meatless Lasagna-ish Casserole!

Recently I had some zucchini and some tomatoes that needed used up. A year or two ago I pureed a huge squash of some kind and hid it in a lasagna, so I thought I'd try that method again. But I only had half a pkg of cook-first lasagna noodles and half a pkg of no-cook lasagna noodles so I couldn't do that. As I stared at my pantry wondering how to make this work, I remembered that I'd seen a recipe for a similar concept in a cookbook before!

This recipe is based off the Pampered Chef Pronto Pasta Bake and is listed below. But what I did this night is listed first.

I started by pureeing the zucchini, and the tomatoes, using my stick blender!

I mixed oregano, basil, thyme, sage, onion powder, minced garlic and a bit of brown sugar into the tomatoes, along with a can of tomato paste to make it thicker. (fresh tomatoes are very, very juicy, and somewhat watery!) Then I mixed the zucchini in with it to hide it well, haha! I cooked up some bowtie pasta and created my own layered pasta dish: pasta, sauce mix, cheese, pasta, sauce mix, cheese.

and, since no one knew I used fresh tomatoes and zucchini in their dinner, I added carrot sticks on the side, for a very healthy dinner!

Pronto Pasta Bake:
12 oz rotini pasta
2 medium zucchinis, chopped
2 garlic cloves
1 48 oz jar spaghetti sauce
1 tsp dried basil leaves
2 oz fresh parmesan, grated
2 cups shredded mozarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375*. Cook pasta & drain. Mix zucchini, garlic, spaghetti sauce and basil. In 9x13 pan, layer 1/3 of the sauce mixture, half of the pasta, 1/3 of the sauce, and half of each of the cheeses. Repeat. Cover with foil and bake 45 mins. Uncover and bake additional 5 minutes.

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.