Pumpkin Pancakes

I LOVE these things so much!  I pick them up and eat them out of my hand without anything on them. They are sweet but not syrupy sweet. The kids love them too! I like them hot, cold, room temperature... They are great to make extra and refrigerate or freeze. 

Pumpkin Pancakes

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I use half allspice/ half nutmeg)

1/8 tsp cinnamon

Dash salt

2 tbs sugar

1 tbs honey

1 tbs molasses 

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 tbs canola oil

1/2 tsp vanillas

1/3 cup canned pumpkin

1/3 cup yogurt

Powdered sugar (optional for garnish)

Mix everything well and make small pancakes over medium-low heat. I tap the pan once or twice to get the batter to spread. Wait until you see bubbles throughout and flip. When the inside doesnt feel squishy anymore femove from heat. Garnish with powered sugar if you would like. This is a very moist, dense batter and needs to be cooked slowly over lower heat. No need for syrup!

Perfect Asparagus

Big or small these asparagus turn out perfect every time. 

I put my asparagus in water as soon as possible and they stay like new for a week or two in the fridge.

Trim the bottoms by letting them snap where they want.  Hold a small handful in one hand and pull on the bottoms one at a time creating a 90* angle and let it snap where it wants. It usually snaps about a fourth of the stalk off the bottom but  some will take up to half. It will snap where it's tender and that's exactly what you want. 

In a large (at least 12" wide), shallow pot (with a lid) add about 1/2" water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil. Add 1 bunch on asparagus (fat or skinny) and cover. Cook for 7 minutes without lifting the lid. Shake the pot a couple of times to move them around. When they are done use the lid to hold asparagus back and drain the water off.  Drizzle with 1-2 tablespoons of melted butter and dust with salt and pepper. Use as a side, on salads or chopped in a dish. 

Add Asparagus To Your Next Veggie Tray

Trim them as directed above and cut them in half. Place both halves in a ziplock and zip it almost completely leaving about an inch unzipped. Microwave for two minutes. Be careful when removing from microwave. The bag will be very weak and very hot. Open the bag and let the asparagus cool. Asparagus are done and ready for your veggie tray. They will be lightly steamed but crisp and perfect for dip. 

Pork Chop Stew

A little something different:

Pork Chop Stew

4 pork chops

Salt & pepper

1 Tbs olive oil

4 potatoes, peeled & sliced thinly

6 carrots, peeled & sliced thinly

1 can cream of celery soup

1 Tbs Kitchen Bouquet

1 tsp dried thyme

Season the pork chops with salt and pepper. In a large, heavy pot brown the chops in olive oil. They do not need to be cooked through. Remove pot from heat. Arrange the potatoes and carrots on top of the chops. In a mixing bowl throughly mix the cream of celery soup, one can of water, Kitchen Bouquet and thyme. Pour soup mixture over potatoes and carrots. The soup mix should come to the top of the potatoes and carrots, if not you can a little more water. Bring to a slight boil on medium-high then reduce the heat to medium low and cook for about 25 minutes or until your carrots and potatoes are tender. Stir a couple of times but be careful not to stir too much and break up the carrots and potatoes. 

Grilled Lamb...Amazing!!!!

Wholly cow this lamb is amazing!  Yogurt is the marinade and you would never be able to tell. 

Grilled Lamb

1 leg of lamb

1 cup plain yogurt (split)

2 onions

2 green bell peppers

1/2 mild purple onion, diced (for yogurt sauce)

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

Whole wheat/grain tortillas

Beware lamb is expensive, but its worth it for a treat every once in a while. 

Marinade 30 mins to 8 hours ahead of grilling:  Cut the lamb off the bone in large chunks that are all about 1 1/2" thick. 

Mix 1/2 cup yogurt, 2 tsp kosher salt and 1 tsp freshly ground pepper (if you have it, otherwise use about 1 tsp table salt & 1/2 tsp regular pepper). 

Roll lamb chunks in yogurt mixture, cover and refrigerate up until 30 minutes prior to grilling. 

Grill

Preheat/prep gas grill on high heat.  Gas grill is necessary or the yogurt drippings will extinguish your fire. Wash, trim and cut bell peppers into about 4 pieces (top, bottom, then middle cut in half). Peel onion and cut in half. Toss is about 2 Tbs olive oil, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. 

 

If you have a grilling basket use it for the veggies and break up the onions. If not, pull half of the onion out and cook in fourths directly on grates over the fire. Do the same with the bell peppers. Cook lamb and veggies at the same time directly over the fire. Turn lamb chunks every 2-3 minutes until done to your liking. We like ours medium-rare and it takes about 15 minutes. This is the perfect amount of time for the veggies to cook as well.

Yogurt Sauce:

Mix remaining 1/2 cup yogurt with 1 tsp Kosher salt, 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper and diced purple onion. (I had some roasted garlic leftover so I threw that in too.)

Slice lamb thick or thin depending on your preference. And, cut onions and peppers into smaller chunks. 

We like to eat ours on wheat tortillas stacked with the yogurt sauce, lamb, peppers and onions-similar to fajitas. 

Delightful!!!

This was my 1 and 2 year olds' plate. They ate every bit! 

Roasted Garlic - Appetizer Idea

I use roasted garlic as an appetizer either with toast, crackers, cheese, olives, etc.  This is what I had leftover from 10 bulbs of roasted garlic. I usually make a ton so that I maximize oven usage and so that I have some to keep in the fridge to cook with later. I cook mine on a pretty high temperature to give it some chewy, textured parts on each clove but if you want all of it soft lower the temperature to 350*. 

Roasted Garlic

Garlic bulbs

Olive oil

Foil

Preheat oven to 400*. Tear foil pieces into roughly 6"x6" pieces for as many bulbs of garlic you have. With the skin on cut about 1/2" off of the top of each bulb making sure that almost every clove's top is cut off. Place each bulb into the center of a piece of foil and drizzle with about 2 tsp of olive oil.  (This one is already cooked but you can see the cut here.)

Bring all four corners of the foil in and crunch together lightly sealing the garlic packet. Repeat for each bulb. 

Place the bulbs in a baking pan (just incase of leakage). Bake for about an hour. I try to bake garlic at the same time I'm roasting something else like meat or sweet potatoes so that you maximize your oven usage. Serve a few bulbs in the skins on a plate with a butter spreader or small spoon to dig the garlic out.  Eat by itself or spread on toast or crackers.

Cranberry, Pear & Oatmeal Bake

I threw this together with the intention of it being a crisp. I knew there was too much juice for it to be crispy but I went with it anyway. Glad I did. It turned out great and it can be used for dessert or breakfast!

Cranberry, Pear Oatmeal Bake

1-29 oz can of pears in juice 

Or 3 fresh pears, peeled & sliced

Optional with fresh pears:  apple juice

2 tbs dried cranberries

1 cup old fashion oats

3 tbs brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Sprinkle cinnamon

2 tbs butter, softened 

Or 1 tbs butter 1 tbs olive oil

Optional: vanilla ice cream

The more juice you have the more the oats will cook. This is a great way to go for a breakfast dish. You can use additional apple juice if needed for fresh pears. I would suggest a total of about 3/4 cup of juice/water. If you would like it more crispy use less juice. Preheat oven to 400*  Pour pears (with any juice) into an 8x8 baking pan and sprinkle with cranberries. In a bowl combine oats, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and butter and/or olive oil.  Mix well until mixture is moist and butter/olive oil make small clumps in the mixture. Spread the oat mixture evenly over the pears and bake for about 45 minutes. For dessert I served it warm and toped it with a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Summer Salad

I know it's not summer but I've been craving this scrumptious salad!

Summer Salad

1 cucumber, peeled and finely chopped

1 green bell pepper, finely chopped

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

3 green onions, sliced (whites & greens)

1 tomato, finely chopped 

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

3-4 Tbs mayo

Salt & pepper

Everything should be uniformly chopped a little smaller than the whole kernel corn. Mix well and serve!  

Bryan loves when I use the Extra Heavy Mayo. 

The flavors mix into an incredible, fresh explosion for your taste buds!

Dark Chocolate & Green Tea Truffles

Holy cow these things are amazing. They definitely taste way better than they look. And, I got the recipe from South Beach so pretty low in sugar too! 

Green Tea Truffles

South Beach

3/4 cup Half & Half

2 green tea bags, family-size

1/2 lb bittersweet chocolate (60% cocoa), chips or chopped

1/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)

Powdered sugar for garnish (optional)

Bring the half & half to simmer over medium heat. Remove the half & half from heat and add tea bags.  Steep tea for 5 minutes. Remove tea bags and carefully squeeze excess into the warm half & half. Return to simmer over medium heat.  While waiting pour chocolate chips into a glass bowl. Once half & half starts to bubble around the edges, remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Mix until chocolate is smooth. Place in the freezer and remove every 2 minutes to stir until it starts to harden (about 10 minutes). 

Place unsweetened cocoa powder in a small dish. Scoop out about 2 teaspoons of the chocolate mixture and roll into a ball. Drop the ball into the unsweetened cocoa and roll around until covered. Tap excess powder off. Repeat until all of the chocolate mixture is used. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Optional: Right before serving dust very lightly with powdered sugar using a fine strainer.  

Magnificent!

Chocolate Covered Strawberries Milkshake

What a treat!  A true milk-milkshake. 

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Milkshake

Dark chocolate chips

Strawberries (fresh if available)

Milk

Sugar or Splenda 

Ice

Blend well and serve. 

I used to make this at the hotel bar with leftover chocolate covered strawberries and loved it. You get the same result with strawberries and chocolate chips. Either way most of the chocolate usually falls to the bottom and you're left with a very nice treat at the end.  

You could definitely use ice cream to make it richer and more decant or yogurt for protein but this is my preference for a light yummy treat. 

Eggplant Rollatini

My Mom's specialty:

Eggplant Rollatini

Eggplant, peeled & sliced 1/4" long 

Salt & pepper

Egg, split

Flour

Breadcrumbs

Oil for frying (vegetable, peanut, canola)

Ricotta

Frozen chopped spinach

Parmesan

Marinara

Mozzarella

Fried Eggplant:

After slicing the eggplant lightly dust with salt and lay them out on paper towels to sweat for about 15 minutes. In the meantime prepare your dredging bowls. One bowl with a well beaten egg, one with flour and another with breadcrumbs. Blot the moisture off the eggplant and preheat grease in wok (if available). Dredge eggplant slices in the following order: egg, flour, egg, breadcrumbs. Then, deep fry until golden brown and cool on a rack (with paper towels underneath). Dust the fried eggplant with salt and pepper while they are still hot. 

Filling:

Defrost the chopped spinach in the microwave for 3 minutes, flip over and heat an additional 3 minutes. Drain by squeezing handfuls of spinach over the sink. Mix spinach with ricotta, 1 egg and Parmesan. 

Build:

Preheat oven to 375*. Grease a glass baking dish and lightly cover the bottom with marinara. Spread ricotta filling over each slice of fried eggplant and roll up tightly. Place in a baking pan pretty close together. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and pour marinara over each roll. Sprinkle with mozzarella and bake an additional 20 minutes. They are truly heavenly!

Whole Grain Pasta With Fresh Tomatoes, Basil, Olive Oil and Parmesan. 

While the pasta is draining heat some olive oil in the pot you boiled your pasta. Throw your tomatoes in and cook for about 5 minutes over high heat, stirring a couple of times. Add salt, fresh ground pepper and freshly chopped basil in with the tomatoes. Stir once and add pasta. Mix well and top with Parmesan. This was a nice simple accompaniment to the very hardy and flavorful Eggplant Rollatini 

Amazing Fresh French Green Beans (from Sam's)

Bring salted water to a boil and cook for 13 minutes. Drizzle with 1-2 Tablespoons of butter and dust with salt & pepper. 

The men were gone so we vegged out with a homemade Italian feast. 

Fish Tacos With Sautéed Veggies

Fish Tacos:

Whole wheat or whole grain tortillas

Olive oil

Tilapia

Salt & pepper

Cabbage, thinly sliced

Cilantro mayo (below)

Mix cabbage and cilantro mayo together and refrigerate until ready to serve. Season tilapia with salt & pepper. Heat cast iron over medium-high heat and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Sear each side 1-2 minutes. This should cook it through since its so thin. I use my spatula to cut the filet in half at its natural seam. There is usually a fat side and a thin side. The fat piece is a nice portion for the taco and two thin sides together work well. After all your fish is cooked add another tablespoon of olive oil and heat each tortilla on both sides until it starts to bubble. Plate the tortillas with the seared tilapia and top with chilled cilantro slaw. Eat immediately to preserve the hot fish/tortilla and cold slaw combo. 

Cilantro Mayo

South Beach recipe

Mayo

Cilantro, freshly chopped

Soy sauce

Minced garlic

Salt & pepper

Mix well and serve on burgers, sandwiches, as dressing, etc. 

Sautéed Veggies

Maybe a South Beach recipe

Squash, sliced 1/4"

Zucchini, sliced 1/4"

Onion, thinly sliced

Grape tomatoes

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

Heat cast iron over medium-high heat. Add olive oil then squash, zucchini and onions.  Cook down and dust with salt and pepper. About 5 minutes before you are ready to remove them from the heat add your grape tomatoes. Season again as needed. 

Creamed Brussels Sprouts

I got this recipe from a Healthy Cooking Magazine and LOVE it. 

Trim brussles sprouts and boil in salted water until tender. Drain. Sprinkle a little salt & pepper, splash of cream or Half & Half, small squeeze of Dijon mustard, generous sprinkle of grated Parmesan. Mix well and serve. 

New Take on Mac & Cheese

1/2 lb Whole grain/wheat pasta (I used bowties ALA Farfalle but you can use anything you'd like)

1 1/2 cups Half & Half

1 1/2 cups Cheddar cheese

Salt & Pepper (Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper preferred)

Use a small deep pot/ pan so that the cream builds up on the noodles and doesn't spread out. Preheat oven to 400*  Boil pasta in salted water as directed on the package. Drain. Grease a 8x8 baking pan or small, deep oven safe pot. Spread  just enough pasta to cover the bottom of the pot. Pour 1/2 cup cream over the pasta.  Take a small pinch of salt and  sprinkle over pasta and grind pepper over the layer. Then, top the layer with  1/4 cup of cheese. Repeat until all of the ingredients have been used. You may have to slightly adjust the measurements to make everything come out evenly on the layers, reserving about 1/2 cup of cheese at the end to top off the dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is golden and bubbly. Let set for about 20 minutes before serving. 

Variations:  

Use thinly sliced potatoes instead of pasta for Potatoes Au Gratin. Still pre-boil potatoes in salted water until tender. Then, follow the rest of the recipe. 

Use other cheeses to change it up such as Gruyere, Munster, Monterey Jack,etc. 

My Original Favorite Salmon

Baked Salmon

Salmon large filet

Italian dressing

Dill (fresh preferably)

Place the salmon in a ziplock with 1/2 - 1 cup Italian dressing.  Marinate 20 minutes - 2 hours, turning every once and a while.  Preheat oven to 400*. Make a foil packet by taking two x-large piece of foil one and a half times the length of the filet. Lay the foil pieces flat on top of each other and fold one of the long edges over about 3/4". Fold it over again sealing that side. Fold it one or two more times (depends on how much foil you have to spare) securing the seal. Open the two pieces up so that it is now one large piece with a seam down the middle. Place your salmon filet down the middle and spread dill evenly over it. Pull the foil up over the salmon and fold the two long sides together just as you did to seal the other side. Once the top is sealed roll the ends up and crunch them to seal it completely. Bake for 20-25 minutes depending on how thick your salmon filet is. (Think about if you got the biggest filet there was or the smallest to judge the size). Remove from oven and let it rest for about 5 minutes before tearing into the foil. Be careful of the hot steam that will be very eager to escape. 

Side salad made with Romaine, grape tomatoes, tiny tender cucumbers, homemade buttermilk ranch dressing and lightly dusted with salt & pepper. 

My Attempt At Bacon Bowls

Not too bad for an upsidedown muffin tin. 

Preheat oven to 375* Place a muffin tin upsidedown on a foil lined baking pan with a lip to catch the grease. Thin bacon works better for me because its playable and sticks in place better, but you may have to do a couple of layers to get complete coverage. Mine pictured could have used more layers. Also, make extra incase there are casualties when you remove them after they bake. Cut half of the bacon into 1/3's and the other half is used in whole slices. Drape 3 cut pieces over the flat part of the tin letting it hang down over the cup. Then, wrap the whole slices around the cup several times pulling tight at the end to make it stick. Bake for about 45 minutes until bacon appears to be thoroughly cooked. Remove them from the oven and let them sit for 5-10 minutes before removing them from the muffin tin. Don't wait too long before they start to dry out. Use a firm but gentle twisting motion to remove them. 

They looked delightful but we weren't sure what to put in them. We tried twice baked potatoes that were pretty outstanding. I think quinoa with feta and cranberries or corn dip/salad would be nice in them also. Next time I think I'll try wrapping the bacon around a bigger dish and make it as a serving bowl for dip. 

Extra Good For You Chili

Nice snowy day chili

Chili

Adapted from Healthy Cooking magazine

Ground meat (beef, turkey, pork, deer)

Onion (purple, yellow or both), diced

Red bell pepper, diced finely

Zucchini, diced finely

Tomatoes (fresh, peeled or canned)

Garlic, minced

I'm listing these in order by amount used:

Chili powder

Beef base/bullion

Kitchen bouquet (optional for dark color)

Cumin

Paprika

Salt 

Pepper

Garlic powder

Red pepper flakes

Cayanne pepper

Preheat your crock pot to high. Add meat and let sit in hot crock pot covered for about 5 minutes. Start to break the meat up.  Next, add tomatoes with juice. Continue stiring to break up the meat and tomatoes (if needed). Add spices and mix well. Then, add onions, bell peppers and zucchini and mix well. Let cook in crock pot on high for 5-6 hours or on low for 8+ hours. 

Leftovers With Eggs

Add a egg and cheese (optional) to anything: peas (the kids' favorite), broccoli (my favorite), asparagus, avocado, peppers & onions (Mom's favorite), taco meat, steak, salmon, chicken...

Bell peppers, onions and tomatoes (above) scrambled with eggs and toped with Swiss (below). 

Leftover pasta with tomatoes, peppers and onions scrambled with and G&G and topped with Parmesan. 

Peas with eggs. For the kids I sprinkled it with cheddar.