Potatoes, Sausage and Cabbage

This is a favorite recipe of ours!

Peel and slice some potatoes, chop an onion and put in a large skillet with some water about half way of the veggies. Add some crushed garlic and salt and pepper. Cook on medium heat until potatoes are getting soft. Add some chopped cabbage and let it wilt. Add a sliced kielbasa sausage and cook till it is all warmed up. You will probably have to add more water as it cooks, don't let it stick to the bottom of the pan.

Hamburger Enchiladas

This recipe comes from the Betty Crocker's Hamburger Cookbook. It's been a great resource to me, especially for back in the day when hamburger was cheap.

MEAT FILLING

1 pound ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1/2 cup dairy sour cream

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (4 ounces)

2 tablespoons nipped parsley

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

TORTILLA BASE

salad oil

8 tortillas

HOT TOMATO SAUCE

1 can (15 ounces) tomato sauce

1/3 cup chopped green pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons chili powder

1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

2/3 cup water

Cook and stir meat in large skillet until brown. Drain off fat. Stir in remaining inredients for Meat Filling. Remove from heat; cover and set aside.

Heat 1/4 inch salad oil in skillet over medium heat. Dip each tortilla quickly into oil, turning once with tongs, just until limp; drain on paper towel.

In small saucepan, heat all ingredients for Hot Tomato Sauce except water to boiling, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered 5 minutes. Pour sauce into 8- or 9-inch shallow dish.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Dip each tortilla into sauce to coat both sides; place about 1/4 cup Meat Filling on center and roll tortilla around filling. Arrange in ungreased baking dish, 11 3/4 x 7 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches. Pour remaining sauce and the water over tortillas. Bake uncovered until bubbly, about 20 minutes. If you wish, garnish with slices of ripe olives, avocado, hard-cooked egg or shredded lettuce.

4 or 5 servings

A BIT ABOUT TORTILLAS

The Mexicans know all about the care and handling of the tortilla, their traditional flat, unleavened bread. So take a tip from south of the border. When it comes to making Enchiladas, it's best to dip the tortillas in oil first--it makes them soft and easy to roll. Then drain off the excess oil so that the zesty sauce will cling to the surface. And this holds true whether you have chosen either corn or flour tortillas--canned, frozen or refrigerated.

The tortilla is also the basis for the taco shell, which you can purchase already crisply friend and folded into a half-moon shape--ready for its many fillings.

Okay, now it's me again. I have followed this recipe before, and it is really good. The "bit about tortillas" is right on when it recommends that you really do dip the tortillas into the oil. They are easier to handle and they taste good when you do that. However, as you can probably guess, I do try to avoid having all that oil. So I usually do not do that. Heating them in microwave also softens them so they're easy to handle, or just on a hot ungreased griddle. The sauce does not stick them so well, though, as it does when you heat them in the oil. But I don't mind because I put the sauce on them anyway. Again, though, it tastes really good when you follow the recipe as written.

Tonight I will use the half-pound of cooked hamburger that I already have in the fridge, and add a can of pinto beans. I don't have sour cream, so I will leave that out, although it is really good with the sour cream. Yogurt works too--yes, I've done it with yogurt. And I'll probably just use some salsa mixed with a can of tomato sauce for the sauce, rather than mixing up my own as the recipe says to do.

That's it. Let me know how it works for you.

Chocolate Revel Bars

When I typed this title, the auto-fill filled it in. So I must have posted about these yummy cookies before. But I can't find the post, so I'm going to do it again. These are really, really good cookies, and I made them yesterday. The recipe calls for sweetened condensed milk, which I do not have in my cupboards, so I made some following Crystal's recipe*. It worked out just fine. I will never buy sweetened condensed milk again.

1 cup butter or margarine

2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon soda

a teaspoon salt

3 cups quick or rolled oats

Mix above ingredients and press 1/2 in a greased and floured 11x17 pan (see Hint, below). Mix and heat up until melted:

1 can sweetened condensed milk*

1 12 oz. package chocolate chips

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons margarine

Add 2 teaspoons vanilla and 1 cup nuts if desired.

Pour over oatmeal mixture. Crumble other 1/2 of oatmeal on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

*Sweetened Condensed Milk in a Blender

In a blender combine for several minutes until very smooth:

1/2 cup hot water

1 cup non-instant powdered milk OR 2 cups instant powdered milk

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon butter

Hint: When pressing the mixture into the pan, I use a piece of wax paper to keep the dough from sticking to my fingers.

Chicken pot pie #2 report

Keeper!

The biscuits weren't the best, but they were good, and the sauce and filling was really good.

There are many variations that could be done with this recipe. Just so you know, the original idea came from that Cooking for Two Bride and Groom (I think it's called The I Do Cookbook) cookbook that my cousin wrote. She has a recipe in there for biscuits that are made with sour cream, and they are very light and fluffy. Whatever works!

Since you requested...

Homemade Pizza Pockets

You will need:

1 recipe pizza dough

Your favorite pizza toppings

All you do is:

Roll out the dough into a rectangle. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into smaller rectangles (the size is all up to you). Put on the sauce and whatever toppings you want then fold it over to make yet a smaller rectangle. Seal the edges with your fingers or a fork or whatever floats your boat. Bake at 400 for about 10 min. or until it looks done.

The dough recipe I used was from page 57 of The I Do Cookbook and so the dough got all fluffy and tasted like fresh baked bread. We all really liked it. However, if you don't want the dough to poof and be all bready than here is a recipe that you might like to try. It's supposedly flaky, but I made this recipe once to make this ladies pop tarts and it didn't turn out very flaky for me.

Banana Ice Cream

I made this last night along with homemade pizza pockets and the kids declared it the best dinner ever and what we should have every night.

Banana Ice Cream

2 1/2 frozen banana's

5 TBS frozen OJ concentrate (I just eyeballed it)

1 cup milk (I used half coconut and half rice milk because that's what I had on hand)

12 ice cubes

Blend banana's, OJ, and milk until smooth. Add ice cubes and blend until slushy. Serve cold!

I told the kids that it was a slushy and they didn't believe me. They wanted to call it ice cream.

Oh, yummy!

When your picky five year old raves about something, it's probably worth sharing. So here you are:

So Incredibly Easy Black Bean Brownies

1 15 oz can black beans

1 package brownie mix

That's it. I'm serious. Just open the can of beans and blend them in the blender, undrained. Unless you really want to drain them, then you better add about 1/4 cup water while blending. Then just mix it with the brownie mix and bake it like the directions say. Oh, and don't forget to let the kids lick out the bowl because you don't have to stress about any raw eggs.

One of the things I learned in my children's nutrition class long ago was that you don't need to deceive kids. My daughter and I had these first at a food storage activity put on by our stake. When she saw them and asked what they were I told her they were bean brownies. She wanted to try one anyway and then ended up eating about 5 while declaring, "these don't even taste like beans! They taste sooooo good!" (like she would know anyway, she has never tasted beans!) Now hopefully since she knows she has eaten beans, she will be more likely to try them again in the future. She asked if we could make some so I got the ingredients today and we made them for family night. Big hit people, and if you've been putting off trying to bake something yummy with beans in it because it seems too complicated or you think it won't turn out, put it off no more. Go try these.

Recipe 2:

Tortilla's! I finally found my recipe! I mean, I didn't make it up, it's just the one I'll be using from now on. These turned out so good that my same picky five year old was eating them right off the grill as I was making them. And they are even more nutritious than the bean brownies. So here you go:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup white flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix those and then mix in 1/2 cup softened (but not quite melted) coconut oil.

Then dump in 3/4 +1/8 cup boiling water and stir around pretty good and even knead a little if you want to.

Roll into about 16 little balls and put them on a cookie sheet. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and let sit for about an hour. Then roll the balls out into tortilla's and grill on a hot griddle for about 30 seconds on each side.

You can find the original recipe here: http://www.survivingthestores.com/homemade-flour-tortillas-with-coconut-oil-recipe-meals-with-my-deals.html

I halved it again though.

I have tried other tortilla recipes before and never had this kind of success. These were not only yummy, but behaved the way tortilla's should, you know, wrapping around your fajita's without crumbling to bits.

I gave up on my no dairy experiment and went back to buying cheese today. I feel happy and inspired and excited about making meals again! I really love cheese. And that's all for now folks.

Three Berry Pie

Friday night is a ward party wherein we're supposed to bring a pie. Since I was making a pot pie for dinner anyway, I decided to make the pie for Friday. And you can't make one to give away without making one for yourself, right? I have all three of these frozen berries, so it made sense to use them in a pie recipe that I found here. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Meat pot pie

Today I made some cream-of-something soup with the white sauce mix that I talked about a couple of days ago. I thought I needed it thick in order to imitate the can of condensed soup, but realized that I didn't need it that thick for my tuna-noodle casserole that I had for lunch. So I ended up using only half of it. Talena had a great suggestion for the other half: chicken pot pie for dinner. Yay! So that's what we're having for dinner tonight.

I cooked half a bag of frozen carrots along with a cup of mixed vegetables, with a teaspoon of chicken bouillon in the cooking water, then stirred in half a can of green beans (also left over from my lunch), a can of pork that I rinsed and drained (I meant to get a can of chicken, but I guess it was pork) and the leftover thick creamy stuff. Poured it into a pie crust, but a top on it, and now it's baking.

Creamy Oatmeal

I'm sure I saw this recipe and a picture tutorial for making it on a blog somewhere this week, but now I can't find it. And soon after I saw that, I came across the same recipe in one of these food storage books that I have. But now I can't find it, either. However, that didn't deter me from trying it this morning. The recipe is simple, and it turned out good. I think this will be my new way of making oatmeal on the mornings that we have it.

1 part oatmeal (1/2 cup per person)

1 part milk (see proportion, above)

1 part water (see proportion, above)

Put this in a pot, add a shake of salt and a handful of raisins if you like, and turn the heat to medium. Stir it every two or three minutes, keeping the heat on medium, until it begins to bubble. Still keep the heat on medium and keep stirring it every couple of minutes, until it thickens up and looks nice and creamy. This takes about 15 minutes or so, I think. While it was cooking I ironed Jim's clothes for the morning and checked my email (gotta set a timer for that one so I don't get lost in my own world and let the oatmeal burn!).

Serve with whole wheat toast and butter, milk and a little sugar and cinnamon if you like.

Keeper!

Basic Hot Cakes

Here's the recipe:

1 cup wheat flour (may use part white flour)

1 level teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1 scant cup milk

2 tablespoons oil

1 large egg, beaten lightly

Sift dry ingredients. Combine milk and oil and egg and add to dry ingredients. Then stir until moist but not too much. Cook on hot griddle over medium heat.

Here's the variation I made this morning:

1 cup wheat flour

1 level teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon powdered egg, pressed through a sieve to "sift" it

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sour milk (hey, it was going bad, so this was a good way to finish it up)

2 tablespoons oil

Stir dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl combine milk and oil then add to dry ingredients. Let it sit a couple of minutes while you preheat the griddle, then cook 2 minutes on one side and one minute on the other over medium heat.

And here's the variation I would have made if I didn't have sour milk needing to be used:

1 cup wheat flour

1 level teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon powdered egg, pressed through a sieve to "sift" it

1 heaping spoonful powdered milk (about 2-3 tablespoons)

1 cup water

2 tablespoons oil

Stir dry ingredients together. Combine water and oil and add to dry ingredients. Cook as above.

Comment: I think the sour milk might make it a little lighter and flufflier, kind of like buttermilk or sour cream would do. But, whether it does or not, it's the best way I know of to use up sour milk and feel like I'm not making it go to waste.

Spinach tortellini

This recipe from Leanne Ely's menu mailer meals is one that I've tried before, and Jim didn't seem to mind it (even though it has spinach in it). So when I saw tortellini on sale because it was the last day of the expiration date, I bought it and fixed it for dinner. Basically, you cook the spinach-cheese tortellini according to the package directions, and in another pan you sautee stuff like canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, spinach, and some seasonings. When the tortellini is done you drain it and then stir it in with the mixture, along with a can of tuna or half a can of chicken.

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!

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!

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!