Chinese Salad

Okay, I really don't know if this is a salad that the Chinese people would eat, or even if they eat and enjoy salad. But it uses some ingredients that are sometimes found in Chinese cooking (at least, the kind of Chinese foods that I've had here in America), and together they make a green salad that, so far, is my favorite. Here's what I put in it:

1 head red lettuce, chopped or shredded

1 bunch spinach (washed, stems removed, etc., etc.)

1 small head Napa cabbage (I found this to be young and tender and mild, with just the right amount of crunch), sliced thinly

1 package cherry or grape tomatoes

2 tomatoes, sliced for salad

1 or 2 carrots, peeled and shredded

1/4 to 1/2 head of cauliflower flowerettes

1/2 cup or so (not a lot) of purple cabbage, chopped small

Combine all those ingredients, and any others you like, and serve with a bit of ranch dressing and some Chinese noodles and slivered almonds sprinkled on top.

I just ate this for my mid-morning snack, but I ate it over the top of the leftover sweet-and-sour pork, brown rice, and sauteed vegetables. It was soo good.

For the sauteed vegetables, I put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a heated pan, and sauteed the following until tender:

1 cup celery, sliced on the diagonal

1 cup onion, chopped

1 can bean sprouts, rinsed and drained

1 can mushrooms, drained

You may not like the mushrooms or the bean sprouts, so feel free to leave them out. You may like to try some other vegetables that I did not want to put in, such as bamboo shoots or water chestnuts.

Serve over a bed of brown rice, with sweet and sour pineapple pork on top, followed by the above salad.

I'm liking how I can eat a big mid-morning snack and it's okay. I mean, sure, I ate two pieces of toast and two eggs and a plum for breakfast. But that was three hours ago, and I was hungry for more than "six almonds" or "1/2 cup of cottage cheese" or some other ridiculously unsatisfying suggestion from some of the diet advice that I've read. The emphasis in the Lean and Free 2000 Plus book is on feeding our bodies, not starving them, and I really like that!

Cinnamon rolls

This morning I made these cinnamon rolls from Dana Thornock's Lean and Free 2000 Plus book. They are light and yummy, and I highly recommend trying them.

Ellen

Crockpot Bean Soup

I threw some things in the crockpot last night around 5 p.m., knowing that we would be hungry after our session at the temple. It turned out pretty good, so I thought I'd share the "recipe" on here.

In a crockpot combine:

2 quarts water

1 cup dry soup mix from the cannery

1 cup 12-bean soup mix (this is a combination of dry beans--pinto, red, kidney, black, lentils, black-eyed peas, Navy, split peas, etc.)

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons chicken bouillon powder

1/2 large onion

2 huge carrots peeled and diced

2 ribs celery cut up

1/2 pound ground turkey, broken into pieces

Cook for 4 hours on high. Then add a can of corn (I included the liquid) and a can of stewed tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste.

We ate it with toast and butter, and a big plum for dessert. It hit the spot for me.

My Menu for the Week

I'm writing this here partly to share with you all, and partly because I lost my menu and I want to remember what I have planned so I'll do it :)

Tue: Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken

Put the chicken (whatever kind you want, I used chicken breasts, but you could use wings or thighs) into the crock pot. In a bowl mix 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 cup water. Pour over chicken and cook on low or high for as long as you need to. I did about 7 hours on low. Half an hour before serving, put some rice on to cook and add some pineapples to the crock pot. I served with broccoli and green salad. I was still hungry afterward, but it was delicious! Oh, and I also tried to add some cornstarch when I added the pineapples to thicken the sauce but it didn't work. I think I should have transferred it to another pan and warmed it more but I didn't want to do all that.

Wed: Taco soup and twice baked potatoes

Thur: Hawaiian Haystacks (using the leftover pineapples I saved from Tue)

Fri: Leftovers (and get a roast out to thaw for Sun.)

Sat: Homemade pizza (and make extra dough for rolls tomorrow)

Sun: Roast and mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls

Mon: Chimichanga's using leftover roast

Let me know if you'r interested in any other recipes, and I would love to see your menu's too!

Depression Cooking

Hey Josie, check out this YouTube TV series. It features 96-year-old Clara as she teaches you how to cook meals from the Depression. It looks like the series is about five years old, as the first two I've watched say she's 91 years old. Anyway, it's pretty cool. Basic, cheap, filling and nutritious meals for your family.

http://youtu.be/3OPQqH3YlHA

Meatless Chili

Last week when I was really on a healthy-eating kick (I still am, but I'm okay with eating meat this week, lol), I came up with this meatless chili recipe, again made from the ingredients I have on hand. I had leftovers for lunch today, and it still tastes good. And, just so you know, this recipe is made possible because Jim (Dad) bottles our dry beans for me so they are convenient to use, so that I will use them.

Easy Meatless Chili

1 pint bottled (or canned, I suppose) pinto beans, rinsed and drained

1 pint bottled (or canned, I suppose) black beans, rinsed and drained

1 pint bottled homemade salsa (made from the USU's Extension Service approved recipe)

2 pints canned whole tomatoes (or a quart bottled if you like)

1 tablespoon chili powder

That's it. Combine it all in a pan and heat through, letting it simmer on low for a bit. Between the chili powder and the salsa, it had just the right heat level for me, and I didn't need to add any salt, I suppose because of the canned and bottled stuff.

Also, when we bottle beans, no matter how hard we try to guestimate the right amount of beans to put in the bottle, they always swell more than we think and end up being crammed in there. So if you use store-bought canned beans, you may need an extra can of beans, in which case you might consider another kind of beans, such as Navy or Kidney or something.

Spinach-Fruit Salad

With our dinner last night I wanted to serve a salad, but the only greens I have on hand are from a bag of spinach that I bought a few days ago. Usually I think of spinach salad as having strawberries in it, but I don't have any fresh strawberries on hand. I do, however, have lots of apples, and a few walnuts. Oh, and look!, there are some dried cranberries, too! So I looked up a recipe for spinach-apple-walnut salad. I found several to choose from. I guess the main thing I needed was a dressing recipe. So here's an approximation of what I came up with (measurements are approximate):

Divide evenly between two serving plates:

2 handfuls of spinach

1 apple, cored and cubed

a few walnut halves, broken (I actually heated a frying pan and put these in it, along with a sprinkle of sugar, and stirred them around til the sugar melted and coated them a bit)

a few Craisins or dried cranberries

In a blender combine:

2 tablespoons frozen cranberry juice concentrate

2 tablespoons water

4 tablespoons safflower oil

2 tablespoons vinegar (I used cider)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon Mrs. Dash

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Blend all together. Taste to see if you need to add more salt or sugar or vinegar or something to give it a bit of pleasing tang. Then pour a little over the two salads just before serving.

We also had some hamburger-stroganoff for dinner, which I made as roughly follows:

1 pound hamburger, cooked with

half a large onion, chopped

When the hamburger is longer pink and the onion is soft and cooked through, drain the juices and add:

a can of cream of mushroom soup

a can of mushrooms

a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

Stir till heated through, then remove from the heat and stir in a big spoonful of sour cream or plain yogurt. Serve over cooked rice or noodles.

Cooked carrots and broccoli were the vegetable(s) we ate with the meal, and I had a slice of bread and butter with honey on top for dessert.

Anyway, it was a good meal.

Pumpkin Pancakes

Last night I tried out these Pumpkin Pancakes from allrecipes.com for dinner. They were so good! I think I will start buying pumpkin puree now and trying other pumpkin dishes because even my kids liked the pancakes. I wanted to share the recipe here so besides posting the link I will copy and paste it too. I hope that's ok:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, ginger and salt in a separate bowl. Stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

I just put all the wet ingredients in my blender and blended them a bit then mixed all the dry ingredients together and dumped in the wet. These were the fluffiest pancakes I've ever had. They were a little bland but I think that's because I was missing the ginger and allspice. I still loved them though!

Couponing

So I've decided to actually plan some menus based on what's on sale, and use coupons to help me find some good deals. The thing that triggered this decision was when the Deseret News sales person called us last week and practically begged us to sign up for the newspaper again. They have a deal going on where you just get the Fri-Sat-Sun paper for one low price. The best part about the Fri paper is the crossword puzzle; the best part about the Sat paper is the Church news and the crossword puzzle; and the Sun paper--well, I guess I'll learn to use the coupons.

My new effort has coincided with the grand opening of Salem's new grocery store. Stokes, of Idaho, has come to Salem and opened a combination grocery store and Ace Hardware store. Today was their Grand Opening. I stopped by there twice, and Jim stopped in once. Everybody in Salem stopped in there today, I think. It's been crowded every time we've been there. They had some good sales, comparable to what I mapped out for Smith's and Macey's. Their boneless skinless chicken breasts were on sale for $1.29 a pound, so I bought two packages, along with some pork chops and some chicken thighs. I came home and put together some freezer meals. My hope is that these will last us for at least a week, hopefully two, when combined with what we already have on hand. Broccoli and cauliflower were 79 cents a pound, sour cream 98 cents, fresh pineapple 79 cents a pound, and a package of coleslaw was 99 cents.

The freezer meals I put together include:

barbecue crock pot chicken (for sandwiches)

ginger chicken to be served over coleslaw

peanut butter chicken (to be served over spaghetti noodles and snow peas)

apricot-honey-glazed chicken (I kind of made this one up)

and one other chicken one, I forget.

and 2 packages of apple-honey pork chops

I still have some coupons and lists for Smith's, Wal-Mart, and Walgreens, but they'll come as I am in the area.

Fresh Salsa

I was at Fred Meyer last week and they were having a cooking demo to try to sell me on a nifty product that chops stuff up and makes life oh so simple. Anyway, the lady doing the demo threw together this salsa in like two minutes. It was so good! I almost paid $30 for the cheap plasticy product she was selling. Instead I just bought the ingredients I saw her use, came home, and made myself some salsa with a good old fashioned knife. Mine was almost as good as hers! And it took me longer to make but it was still easy and delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 of a yellow bell pepper
• 1 roma tomato
• 1/2 of an onion
• handful of chopped cilantro (cutting it in with your shears works nicely)
• Big squeeze of a fresh lime
• a snip of a hot pepper (optional, I didn't do this)


Chop up vegetables and cilantro and combine them in a bowl. Squeeze in the lime and stir it all up. Scoop with some chips and enjoy the super fresh flavor!

• 

As you can see this recipe doesn't make much. I was worried mine wouldn't work out so I didn't make much for starters. It did work though and even my youngest two kiddos enjoyed it!

Danish Sweet and Sour Cabbage

A couple of years ago, when Jim was serving as a bishop at BYU, we were invited, along with the other bishops and leaders in the stake, to a dinner with President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, when he was there visiting for stake conference. So the meal that was served was planned and prepared by a member of the high council and his wife, based on a Danish-style menu. The foods were not what I was used to, but I enjoyed them all, very much. I remember some cabbage that must have been similar to this recipe. Sometime soon I hope to try it, but in the meantime I've posted it here so I can find it again when I'm ready:

Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
• 1 2-pound red cabbage, thinly sliced (about 12 cups)
• 6 Tbsp sugar
• 2/3 cup balsamic vinegar

Method

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add cabbage and sauté until slightly wilted, about 5 minutes. Add sugar, toss to coat evenly. Add vinegar. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover, simmer until cabbage is tender, stirring often, about 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 6-8.

That Zucchini Casserole Stuff

Okay, so I didn't really care for this. Jim said he liked it. The spices in the cornbread stuffing mix give it a good flavor. Also, I have to confess that we had a recipe similar to this posted in the RS bulletin on Sunday, so it wasn't totally my own idea. However, I did it my own way, including substituting the yogurt I had on hand for the sour cream. Also, just for the record, I don't feel an overwhelming need to use zucchini. It's nutritional value is not that great compared to other vegetables, but it's better for you than, say, candy. I don't plant zucchini, and it's a vegetable that I can take or leave.

Here is a webpage that shows the nutritional value of baby zucchini. It says:

The good: This food is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Thiamin, Niacin and Pantothenic Acid, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, Folate, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Zinc, Copper and Manganese.

Caloric Ratio Pyramid

53%	16%	31%
Carbs	Fats	Protein

I Made This One Up

Chicken Zucchini Cornbread Stuffing Casserole
Spray a fry pan with cooking spray, and saute over medium-low heat:
1 zucchini, sliced
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced
Add a little butter and let it melt in there too.
Add:
1 can chicken, drained
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 container strawberry-banana-flavored yogurt
1 box cornbread stuffing mix
Stir all together, then put in a casserole dish and put a lid on it. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbly on top.
I'll let you know how it turns out!

Roast Beef

Last week when I knew we needed something to eat for meals the next day, but we wouldn't be home due to the temple and Education Week and work, and we didn't want to eat out, well, I got this idea, and it turned out really well.
Wednesday night before we went to bed I put in the crockpot:
a small beef roast
a cut up green pepper and half a red pepper
1n onion cut up
2 16-oz cans of whole tomatoes
Canadian steak seasoning
And put it on low all night long.
IN the rice cooker I put:
2 cups brown rice
4 cups water

Then we went to bed. During the night I heard the rice cooker going off, but managed to ignore it until sometime after midnight, when I got up and unplugged it and put the rice in the fridge. Then, in the morning, I shredded the beef from the roast, stirred it back in with the veggies, and then spooned a cup of it into a container over a cup of the rice, topped it with cooked green beans from the garden, and there was our lunches for the day. It was really, really good.

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.