Chili-Cheese Potato Casserole

Tonight I made up a new dinner that was super easy to do, and I really liked it. I decided to call it:

Chili-Cheese Potato Casserole

8 small-to-medium potatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt to taste
1 can chili beans
1 cup grated (mozzarella) cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel potatoes and cut into 1" (or so) cubes. Place in a casserole dish or 9"x13" pan and drizzle with the olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and stir around to distribute the oil. Do not cover the dish. Place in oven and bake for about 30 minutes, until potatoes are mostly tender when poked with a fork. Add the chili beans and stir to mix. Return to oven and bake another 10 minutes or so. Sprinkle the cheese on top and bake 5 more minutes.

We served it with some sides of carrot sticks, apple sauce, and a slice of bread.

Healthy Banana Bread

My mother-in-law makes the most delicious banana bread ever. My kids and I love it. She shared her recipe with me, and it involves a lot of sugar and some shortening. I'm getting a little stingy about putting that stuff in my food, especially when it's a substantial amount. So I did a search and found this healthy banana bread recipe that actually tastes pretty good. It has no oil and very little sugar. I actually didn't even add as much sugar as it called for and it still tasted fine. It definitely isn't as tasty as my mother-in-laws, but it's healthy so it's what we'll eat. And when we visit Grandma we can eat her's. Here's the link to the recipe: Healthy Banana Bread.

Black Bean Enchilada's, Homemade Almond Milk and Other Stuff to Say

This week I tried this recipe for "sloppy joe's" or sloppy lentils as the case may be. They were surprisingly tasty and super easy to make and I'm pretty sure you would like them Mom. Even Wayne had one. The only thing I changed was that I used brown sugar in place of the molasses and sucanat (I don't have those on hand) and I didn't have canned tomatoes either. Other than that I followed the recipe exactly and it was quite good. The seasoning was what made it good though, I still can't say I like lentils.

Anyway, making that recipe left me with a half a can of leftover tomato paste so last night I made some black bean and cheese enchilada's. They turned out quite tasty so here is kind of the recipe of what I did.

Mix:

6 oz tomato paste

1 little can of tomato sauce

1 can cream of chicken soup

about 3/4 cup salsa (I'm not sure how much, I just dumped some in until it looked about right)

1 Tb onion powder

1 Tb garlic powder

2 Tb chille powder

Then dump some black beans in a bowl and mix about 1 cup or more of the sauce with the black beans as well as a handful of cheese. Use that as the filling for your enchilada's. Dump the rest of the sauce over the top and bake it covered at 350 for about 35 minutes. Remove from the oven, top with cheese and then let it bake again while the cheese melts. Remove again and top with chopped green onions and tomatoes if you have them.

I think I make my enchilada sauce different every time I make them depending on what I have on hand. I learned this from my old roommate Meagan.

I also tried my hand at Almond Milk again this week because I have a huge bag of almonds that needs to be used! The recipe I tried this time worked out wonderfully and the milk was pretty good. Here's what I did:

Soak 1 cup of Almonds in 3 cups of water with 3 dates overnight. In the morning blend it up for awhile. Then I stretched an old clean t-shirt over a large bowl and pretended it was a cheese cloth and used that to squeeze the milk through. Then I dumped the strained milk back into the blender and added ice cubes to bring the level up to about 4 cups and blended it again. Then I dumped it into a pitcher and enjoyed it on my oatmeal that morning.

Now, I don't really know what to do with the left over almond meal stuff. I made some cookies the other night and threw a bunch of it in them. They didn't add to the flavor or texture, but maybe they added some fiber or something. I don't know. Any other suggestions of what I can put it in?

Trying new things

Since coming home from out little family vacation I am feeling motivated again to get back to healthy eating. The constipation that I thought we had gotten under control is back again in full swing so here we go again. We are going to cut out cheese and I am also cutting out milk for a bit to see if that helps. I bought almond milk this week and I really liked it, but I'm not the constipated one, and she won't drink it without chocolate mixed in, just because it had bubbles when I poured it into her cup. That's ok though, she'll get used to some small changes. I tried this quinoa pilaf from my cousins blog and I really liked it! If you like rice pilaf, you would probably like this recipe too. It's really not anything too terribly different. I also tried this quinoa bread recipe and it turned out great too. The only problem with it is that it's incredibly crumbly and a little hard to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches with. I think I will make it again occasionally, but not as my normal bread. Just because of the crumbliness though and it also takes longer than my normal bread making routine. The taste is delicious and I like that it has oatmeal and quinoa in it. So I still have a bit of quinoa left and I will probably try a breakfast cereal recipe with it and let you know how that goes. Oh, and another new recipe I tried was this cheese less mac and cheese and I'm sorry, but she must have an awful memory! The stuff was awful! I'm not meaning to be rude, but it's not a recipe I recommend. Luckily I was pretty sure my family wouldn't care for it so I made that as a side dish to our waffles last night. None of us liked it and it is not a recipe I will ever try again. I am finding that trying to pretend something is cheese when it really isn't is proving to be almost more disappointing than I can bear. So instead of trying all these cheese substitutes we will just try real recipes that don't include cheese for awhile. We will all miss it dearly but after the issue is under control again I think we might be able to add it in once or twice a week again.
So I am now off to make my shopping list and get some healthy food. Wish me luck!

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

These are fat-free except for the egg yolk, and if you use two egg whites instead of one whole egg, they would be totally fat-free. I like them. I like them a lot. Of course, the chocolate helps. But I think it also helps that in this case the beans are replacing the shortening, no the flour. Here goes:

1/2 cup cooked mashed beans (I used a can of white beans and mashed up about half of them to get my half cup. I'm sure pinto beans or black beans or any other kind of legumous bean would work just as well!
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cocoa
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup rolled oats
(I just realized these should probably have 1/2 teaspoon of salt or so. But although I missed putting it in, I didn't miss it in the taste. Suit your own.)

In a mixer combine beans, sugar, egg and vanilla. Then put in the flour, cocoa, baking soda and oats. Mix thoroughly. Drop on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Herbed Lentils with Rice

Yesterday I did some sewing on the binding of Melinda's quilt, and while I worked on that, I watched Zonya's Healthbites on KBYU. She was talking about how to eat healthy on a slim food budget. She emphasized using fruits and vegetables as snacks, and buying them on sale. For the main course, though, Beans and other legumes are definitely the way to go. They are much less costly than meat and they are filled with protein, iron, fiber and lots of other good stuff.

She likes lentils because they don't have to be soaked ahead of time, and they only take about an hour to cook, and they are versatile flavor-wise in that they absorb the flavors of whatever you put with them. She shared two recipes, one for a casserole and one for a soup. I grabbed my pencil and paper and wrote them down. I had a red pepper in the fridge that needed to be used, and a 1-lb. bag of lentils in the cupboard, so I went ahead and made this casserole. I'll do the soup another day. She said that if you were to have a lentil casserole such as this just once a week in place of a macaroni-hamburger-cheese-type casserole, you would cut out a lot of fat over a year's time, enough to amount to a six-pound body weight loss.

I really liked this casserole, but not everyone would. For me it hit the spot. Dad didn't want to try it, although he has tried beans-and-rice type stuff in the past and been fine with it. This is supposed to serve six people with 1 1/2 cup servings. That's a lot. You may want to cut it in half.

Lentil Casserole: Herbed Lentils with Rice

1 3/4 cup water

1 can chicken broth

1 1/2 cups lentils, sorted, rinsed and drained

2 onions, finely chopped (mine were chunky and they are better finely chopped, trust me)

1 cup dry brown rice

1/2 cup additional liquid such as more broth or water

1 teaspoon dried basil, rolled in fingers to release the flavor as you add it to the pot

1 teaspoon oregano

2 oz. jar chopped pimientos or 1 chopped red pepper, optional (this is to add some color to the casserole)

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

15 grinds fresh pepper (I'm not sure how much this is, but I added about 1/2 teaspoon)

Stir all of these ingredients together in a casserole dish and bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Remove from oven and sprinkle some grated mozzarella cheese on top, then return to oven for another 10 or 15 minutes to melt the cheese.

Gooey

And here's the finished product. I just now put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes to see if it will set up some more. Honestly, it's not that great. Maybe it's because I'm all beaned-out from the bean quesadilla I had for dinner. But if it wasn't for the chocolate flavor and the nuts to give it some texture--well, let's just say regular old brownies are better, in my opinion. Maybe a little frosting on top would help, once they're set up, that is.

Stay tuned for Brownies #2 when I try making my brownie recipe substituting beans for the shortening instead of the flour. Maybe Friday.

Ellen

Brownies #1

Right now, even as we speak, I have a batch of brownies in the oven. These are grain-free brownies that are supposed to be made from black beans; however, I don't have a can of black beans, and I'm too lazy to open the 25-pound bag of black beans and soak them overnight. So I opened a bottle of home-canned pinto beans and used those instead. I figure, hey, the beans are taking the place of the flour, and flour is white or brown, not black--it's the cocoa powder that makes brownies dark--so why should it matter? Well, I like the color from using pinto beans.

It's the easiest brownie recipe I've ever made. You put everything in a blender and blend it together.

Then pour it into an 8x8 pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Oops! I forgot! You're not supposed to blend up the chocolate chips and walnuts, but instead fold those in to the mixture before you pour it into the pan. After I put the batter into the pan, and after I took this picture, I sprinkled them on top and used a knife to stir them in.

While we're waiting for them to cook, I'll share the recipe. It's a gluten free recipe that came from this blog and it goes like this:

Healthy Grain Free Brownies

2 cups black beans (I used pinto), or 1 can beans, rinsed and drained

3 lightly beaten eggs

1/3 cup melted coconut oil or butter

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup honey or other sweetner

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup walnuts, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8-inch pan. Blend everything but the chocolate chips and walnuts in a blender (I suggest putting the eggs in first so your blender has some liquid to work with. The motor on mine started to smell a little funny, if you know what I mean) and blend until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Pour into pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

2 Winner's and my weeks menu plan

I was talking to my friend on the phone recently and she asked me how I was doing with this whole diet thing. It was a hard question to answer. I feel like I've been a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other. If I'm not doing extremely well with eating, then I'm pigging out on ice cream and not knowing what to fix for dinner because I feel so overwhelmed lately. Overwhelmed by all the contradicting information out there. Overwhelmed by trying to force my family to enjoy "healthy" foods. Overwhelmed by my kids whining at me because they are not eating what I make and they are hungry and grumpy, and quite frankly, so am I! So here's how I'm doing. The thing is, when I started this I said that the main reason was to help my daughter get over her constipation problems. She is doing wonderfully! It all started with one dose of mirilax, cutting way back on cheese (really, cheese was a huge staple at our house) and talking, talking, talking to her about foods that are pooper helpers and pooper stoppers and going when she needs to go. She is doing so well and I'm so glad. So now I am pretty much back to where I was before. I realized that we already do eat pretty healthy around here. I mean not to any extreme, but we eat home cooked meals, home baked bread, tons of fresh fruit, and really not much in the way of processed foods. And that's ok with me for now. Even if my bread is 60/40 wheat to white. That's the way we like it. That being said I want to share two delicious recipes that we will be incorporating into our snacks. The first is the granola bars that Mom already tried. I finally tried them today and WOW!!! They are so delicious not to mention so incredibly easy to make! And the possibilities with them are endless. So, no more sunbelt granola bars around here. The second is a wheat thins recipe I posted about on my blog about a year ago, but never actually tried yet. But they are amazing and easy too! When Audrey tasted one she said, "Wow! I like these crackers!" And then when Wayne tried one he said, "You made these??!" and then he kept asking me, "wow, how did you make these? These are better than wheat thins!" Here are the two links: Granola bars Wheat thin crackers I love how with the crackers you can make a bunch of dry mix and store it in your freezer, which brings me to my next goal. I have been so busy lately that it gets to be 5 or 6 at night and I haven't thought yet about what we are having for dinner. It's frustrating and stressful for everybody so I need to plan better, and that means planning meals I can make mostly in the morning, or doing freezer meals (hint, hint, Jessica!) or of course the crock pot. So here is my menu for the week (Oh, and I only plan dinners. Lunch is leftovers and breakfast is whatever):

• Tue: Cornflake chicken and potato salad


• Wed: Chicken tortilla soup (crock pot)


• Thur: Chile and twice baked potatoes (crock pot and I will make tons of potatoes whenever I can and then twice baked potatoes freeze well for future)


• Fri: Stuffed shells and bread sticks (the stuffed shells can be made ahead and refrigerated or frozen)


• Sat: Pizza


• Sun: Roast (crock pot) and mashed potatoes


• Mon: Fajitas (from leftover roast)

Whew! I feel so much better about this. For now. I already have my chicken marinading in the fridge (in buttermilk with garlic salt and some pepper) so I can just shake it and bake it before dinner (we call it chicken nuggets and the kids love it). I also pretty much have the potato salad made already. So dinner will not be stressful tonight, even though I will be leaving when Wayne gets home around 3 to go get some dirt and stuff for my garden and will probably be working in the garden until 5!

Basic Vegetable Soup

2 carrots, sliced

1/2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/2 cups cabbage, chopped

1 14.5-oz. can tomatoes

1 can water

1 tsp beef bouillon

1 cup frozen cut green beans

1/2 dried basil

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1 small zucchini, sliced

Spray a large saucepan with cooking spray and saute carrots, onion and garlic over low-to-medium heat until beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the cabbage and continue to saute a couple of more minutes until cabbage begins to soften slightly. Add tomatoes, water, bouillon, green beans, basil and oregano. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and let cook for about 15 minutes, or until green beans and cabbage are cooked. Add the zucchini and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until soft. Serve warm.

Black Bean Brownies

I've been curious about trying black bean brownies, and today I happened across a couple of recipes for them.
http://coffeebeankisses.blogspot.com/2011/01/black-bean-brownies.html
http://kingdomfirstmom.com/2011/03/healthy-black-bean-brownies.html
Both of these people are interested in cooking without gluten, so apparently the beans take the place of the flour. I am not concerned about gluten-free cooking, but rather low-fat cooking. I'm wondering if I can make regular brownies and substitute the black beans for the shortening? When I bought my bags of black beans and white beans at the dry-pack cannery a couple of weeks ago, I overheard the lady telling someone that you can substitute cooked white beans for shortening, cup-for-cup. I've been curious to try it ever since.
I hope to experiment with this concept this week, and as I do I'll share what I find.

Menu and Shopping List

Brown Rice
Cucumbers
Lemons
Zucchini
Cabbage
Potatoes
Onions
Squash
Oranges
Spinach
Bananas
Strawberries
Lettuce
Peppers
Cauliflower
Pork chops
Fish
Frozen green beans

Monday
Breakfast: Grain Compote with fruit
Lunch: Tuna Sandwich with spinach and celery, orange
Dinner: Apple pork chops, mashed potatoes, broccoli and carrots, spinach-strawberry salad
Snacks: Apple, Popcorn, green smoothie popsicle from freezer (last week's green smoothie)

Tuesday
Breakfast: Pancake and peaches
Lunch: Vegetable Soup (see below), bread and cheese
Dinner: Pizza with veggies, strawberry-banana smoothie, chocolate chip cookies
Snacks: green smoothie, apple, popcorn

Wednesday
Breakfast: Grain compote with strawberries, apples
Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: Bean enchiladas, corn, green salad
Snacks: green smoothie

Thursday
Breakfast: pancake and peaches
Lunch: Vegetable Soup
Dinner: leftovers
Snacks: apple, orange, veggie tray

Friday
Breakfast: Grain compote with strawberries, apples
Lunch: Tuna sandwich with spinach and celery
Dinner: Spaghetti noodles with chicken-vegetable prima vera
Snacks: apple, orange, green smoothie

Saturday
Breakfast: pancakes and peaches
Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: fish, mac & cheese, carrots-broccoli-cauliflower
Snacks: apple, orange, green smoothie, popcorn

Here's the Vegetable Soup Recipe that I plan to use. I got it from Weight Watchers when I did that program a couple of years ago:
2/3 cup sliced carrot
1/2 cup diced onion
3 cups fat-free broth (beef, chicken or vegetable)
1 1/2 cups diced green cabbage
1/2 cup green beans
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup diced zucchini
Spray a large saucepan with nonstick cooking spray, heat. Saute the carrot, onion, and garlic over low heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add broth, cabbage, beans, tomato poaste, basil, oregano, and salt; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, covered, about 15 minutes or until beans are tender. Stir in the zucchini and heat for 3-4 minutes. Serve hot.

Cookies revised

I followed the cookie recipe, below, but this time I added a cup of oatmeal and a cup of nuts. It gave it some texture and, while they were still soft, they weren't so mushy. Very good. I've eaten too many already!

Ellen

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm going to post the recipe for the chocolate chip cookies from Lean and Free 2000 Plus. But before I do I want to mention that I tried that whole grain compote from the recipe in the Deseret News, using the cracked grain cereal that I bought, and I really liked it. The cracked grain cereal already has flax seed in it, and I'm not interested in buying flax seed and making it a part of my diet, so I left that out. I think I left out the orange juice, too. But I did do the cut up apple and used cut up strawberries for the berries, and raisins for the dried fruit, and I poured milk over it and ate it like regular hot cereal. I like it a lot.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/3 cup butter
2/3 cup applesauce
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
4 egg whites (I used two whole eggs)
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (6 oz) chocolate chips
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix applesauce, butter, sugar, egg whites, and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients. (I then chilled the dough overnight.) Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet (a little cooking spray is helpful). Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown. Cool slightly before removing from baking sheet.

These make a soft, cake-like cookie that is easy to eat (a lot of!). I'm going to make them again and try it with an added cup of oatmeal. Or, rather, rolled grains. Hey, why not?

Whole grain cereals

I finally made it to the Roller Mills and bought some whole grain cereal. Above is the six-grain rolled cereal that includes a mixture of red wheat, white wheat, rye, oats, barley and sunflower (seeds?). It comes in a 3.5 lb. ice-cream-size bucket and costs $7.00. You can also buy it in a 25-lb or 50-lb bag, but I figured I'd try it first.

Below is a picture of the 9-grain cracked cereal. It includes red wheat, white wheat, rye, oats, barley, corn, millet, flax, and buckwheat. The bucket is the same size as the other one, but with being cracked rather than rolled it weighs 4.5 pounds instead of 3, and the cost is cheaper for $6.25. It also comes in either a 25- or 50-lb. sack if you like. I'm going to put it on to soak overnight so I can try that recipe from my last post for breakfast tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how I like it.

I wonder if you could use the rolled cereal in oatmeal cookies, and if it would taste any different or alter the nutritional value. I'm sure it's probably more expensive than just the plain rolled oats, but still, it might be fun to try.