My friend Mel asked for an oatmeal tutorial.  My first thought was “I can’t do an oatmeal tutorial, that’s Kath’s thing.” But then I realized that I have my own method, and I’ve been making them this way (with a few tweaks) since college, so here’s my how to.  For a complete tutorial on Kath’s method, check out her Tribute to Oatmeal. She even has a video!

First the ingredients:

-Old Fashioned Oats (not quick cooking)
-Banana
-Milk (I use Rice Milk because of my lactose intolerance)
-Water
-Salt
-Vanilla
-Cinnamon
-Nutmeg

Instructions:

Before we get to the actual instructions you’ll want to figure out how much you want.  The basic ratio is the same as with rice-1 part oats to 2 parts liquid. If I’m really hungry I do 1/2 cup of oats or if I’m not as hungry or I’m going to put a ton of toppings on I do 1/3 cup oats.  Today I did a double batch of a 1/3 cup serving.

1) Mash your banana up until it’s glistening. I use 1/2 a banana per serving.

2) Add your oats, liquid (to cut calories do 1/2 milk and 1/2 water-so today since I did 2/3 cups oats, I did 1/3 cup milk, and 1/3 cup water-when I was preggers I did all milk, no water), and spices. For the spices I just eyeball it-a dash of salt, about 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, about 1/4 tsp of nutmeg, and a splash of vanilla.

3) Cook on medium to medium/low heat, stirring occasionally. If you cook them at too high a heat they stick and burn-boo!

4) After about 10 minutes, they get to this consistency:

(I should have taken a better close up) When they’re almost at a consistency that you like, turn off the stove and let them sit for a minute or so-this helps them not to stick to the pan and makes clean up easier.  If you have Teflon you probably can just cook them to where you want them and don’t have to worry about this step.  We can’t have Teflon or any nonstick surfaces in out house because it’s potentially lethal to birds.

5) Dump into a bowl and top with whatever.  Today I just put some pumpkin butter and almond butter on a spoon.  Kath made a very important discovery to oat eating that if you put your nut butter on a spoon and eat the oats off of that you get a bite of the butter with every bite.  If you mix it in, the flavor gets lost. Other toppings that I love: coconut, granola, berries, maple syrup-be creative!

6) In my house, you can’t forget the bird!  She knows what oatmeal making looks/sounds like and she BEGS for hers.  She get’s a serving (notice the dab of almond butter for her):

She eats it greedily:

I hope you enjoy!  I now make a big batch on Sundays and just reheat it at work.  It’s not quite as good as freshly made but it’s still better than instant!

Finally right? It was worth the wait!

Ingredients:

-1 lb leanest ground beef
-2 tsp olive oil
-1/2 onion chopped
-4 cloves of garlic chopped
-1 carrot chopped
-~1/2 lb of green beans trimmed and chopped
-2 cups frozen peas
-Worchester Sauce
-1/2 tsp fresh chopped rosemary
-1/2 tsp fresh thyme de-stemmed
–Tony’s Seasoning to taste
-S+P to taste
-1 bouillon cube + 2 cups of water or 2 cups of stock
-Flour to thicken
-Mashed sweet potatoes and/or mashed white potatoes

Instructions:

-Preheat the oven to 350*

-Over medium high heat sauté onions and garlic in olive oil. Once translucent, add meat and brown.  Once meat is browned, drain.

-Add carrots and sauté for about 2 minutes

-Once carrots start to cook, add green beans and cook for about 5 minutes.  Add all spices.

-If using bouillon, add water and bring to a boil.  Once water is boiling, add cube. If using stock, add and bring to a boil.

-Once bouillon is fully mixed in or stock is boiling, add flour (I like to use whole wheat) and mix (trying not to get any clumps of flour) until you reach a gravy like consistency. 

-Add peas.

-If using a pan that can transfer straight to the oven, top with mashed potatoes.  If not using a pan that can transfer, transfer meat/veggie mixture to a casserole and top with mashed potatoes.

I used frozen mashed potatoes from TJ’s for Shaun and I mashed my own sweet potatoes for me.  Next time I would prepare the frozen potatoes per the package and then put them on top.  I thought the little balls would melt down, and the really didn’t.

-Place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes.

-Serve and ENJOY!

Shaun gave it 3.5 stars and I give it 4.5-I REALLY liked it.  Lucy ate an entire serving (what you see above). She LOVED it.

I seem to have comfort food on the menu this week.  It must be the chilly weather.  Mexican Pasta is an old favorite in my household.  My Dad made it up one day when the cupboards were pretty barren and we all fell in love with it.  He used to make it MUCH more fattening than I do but it was oh so good.  I had to “healthy it up” as this is one of my favorite comfort foods of all time.  I will warn you though, that I described it to a friend at work and he said it sounded absolutely disgusting.  *I* think it’s delicious and so does everyone else that’s ever tried it.  I’ll let you decide what you think.

Ingredients:

-1 pound leanest ground beef-if you want to make this veggie you can use 1 can of black beans-it’s good this way too
-1 pound of small pasta (macaroni, rigatoni, farfalle-I prefer macaroni. I used brown rice penne tonight)
-1 onion diced
-1 can of diced tomatoes with chilies (chilies optional)
-1 can of corn
-1 can of sliced olives
-1 taco seasoning packet or 1 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp onion flakes, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (omit cayenne to make it less spicy)

For Garnish:
-Cheese (my Dad used to mix a bunch of cheese in)
-Avocado
-Sour cream or plain yogurt

Instructions:

-Boil water and prepare pasta according to the package.

-While the pasta cooks sauté the onion until translucent, then add the beef and brown.

-Drain the beef/onion mixture if needed (I find 96/4 doesn’t need to be drained)

-Add spice packet or spices, mix well.

-Add can of tomatoes, drained corn, and drained olives to meat mixture.

-When the pasta is done, add the meat mixture and mix well.

Serve with cheese, sour cream, avocado and Tapatio!  Shaun takes all the fixins’:

I take just the Tapatio and avocado:

Lucy takes everything but the Tapatio:

In the future I would omit the cayenne because it was a little too spicy for Lucy.  She LOVED it but kept making a “Woah that’s spicy” face as she shoveled it in and drank double the milk that she normally does.

Shaun commented numerous times that this was “Awesome,” “Amazing,” a “Home Run,” and “Delicious”.  He even gave me a high five. And? Even with the weirdo brown rice pasta, he gave it 4.5 stars!!! For a meal that takes less than 30 minutes start to finish, that’s pretty awesome!

A good friend send me a link for stuffed pizza rolls that she raved about.  Their family refers to them as pizza bombs and now so do we.  I’ve altered the recipe quite a bit but you can always see where the inspiration came from. 

Shaun requested pizza bombs and I put them on the menu not even thinking that I’m not doing well with dairy right now.  I know he loves them, so I made them and they were a hit once again! (I ate pulled pork-it was still good!)

Ingredients:

-Whole Wheat Pizza Dough (I buy Traders but you could always use Rhodey Girl’s recipe-yeast still scares me for some reason), we’ve tried this with regular pizza dough and we, hands down, like it better with whole wheat
-Mozzarella Cheese
-Things you would normally put on a pizza-tonight I did:
-Chicken Sausage
-Mushrooms
-Bell Pepper
-Olives
-cooking spray

For dipping:

-Pizza Sauce

Instructions:

-Preheat the oven to 400*
-Chop up all your ingredients and if you’re using ingredients like I did tonight, you should sauté them first. If you’re using pepperoni, ham, pineapple, etc. no need to sauté. I’ve found that pepperoni is too greasy for my taste thought and I prefer chicken sausage. Here’s my filling sauté-ing away!

Until nice and steamed:

-While that’s steaming get your dough ready. I let mine rest for about 20 minutes:

-Roll out the dough-attempting to make a square:

-Stop when your two favorite people come home

-Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into squares

Put cheese on each square-I’ve found that the more cheese you put, the better they taste-not surprising!

-Stop while your husband celebrates PIZZA BOMBS!

-Put the filling on the squares

-Pull the corners in to seal the bombs and then place in a greased (in my case sprayed) pie dish:

-Bake in the oven until golden brown 10-20 minutes

-Serve with Pizza Sauce for Dipping

Enjoy!

Shaun gives this a 5.  He REALLY likes Pizza Bombs :)  I hope you do too!

This is one of Shaun’s favorite things that I make-and it’s chicken!  He requested that this go on the lineup and I happily obliged.

It’s a super simple and pretty quick meal.

Here are all the ingredients you’ll need:

Plus:

For the Chicken

Ingredients:

-Chicken
-1/2 cup Soy Sauce
-1 TBSP Agave Nectar
-1 TBSP Honey

Instructions:

-Mix the soy sauce, agave nectar and honey and place then add chicken. I used a glass dish trying to be environmentally aware but I prefer zip top bags.

(I used drumsticks for Shaun, breasts for me)

-Marinate for at least half an hour but up to 24 hours. If you’re using a glass dish or bowl, make sure you flip it every so often.  With a zip top bag it is covered more easily but I still flip it a couple of time.

-Cook using your preferred method.  I BBQ’d tonight but I also live in California where it’s 45 at night in December.  You could use a grill pan on the stove or oven.

For the Rice-I made a ton-but you can easily modify this down-just divide by 3!

Ingredients:

-3 cups cooked brown rice
-10 oz bag of frozen peas and carrots
-3 strips of bacon
-3 eggs, beaten
-3 TBSP Soy Sauce
-Pepper to taste

Instructions:

-Chop the bacon into small pieces (I’ve also used ham before)

-Spread evenly in a pan and cook over medium heat

until done to your liking

-Drain the fat
-Add veggies

-Cover for about 2 minutes, until just steamed

-Add rice and soy sauce and cook until warm
-Make a well in the middle of the rice mixture-this helps your eggs stay fluffy, if you just add it to the rice, it’ll stick to the rice and you won’t really get much egg flavor

-Add eggs and scramble

-Once the eggs are scrambled, mix in the eggs with the rice and season with pepper

My plate (which I enjoyed!)

Shaun said that the rice is “FABULOUS” and gives the entire meal 4 stars.

Tonight the plan was to make salmon casserole inspired by this recipe.  When I got home it turned out that I didn’t have 2 cans of salmon like I thought and so I had to get creative.  I came up with this:

Ingredients:

1 can salmon
1 package mini apple and chicken sausages
1 package frozen veggies (carrots, peas, and green beans)
1 package chopped mushrooms
3-4 handfuls of spinach
1/2 cup of low skim mozzarella cheese
1 TBSP of vegan butter
2 TBSP whole wheat flour
1.5 cups chicken broth
1 package egg noodles
3 tsp paprika
2 tsp Tony’s Seasoning
S+P to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350*. Boil water for noodles and cook according to package. 

While the noodles cook, melt the “butter” and add the flour and stir until a roux is made (kinda like a paste).  Slowly add the chicken broth while whisking.  It will thicken.  Add to that the seasonings.  SIDENOTE: Whenever a recipe calls for cream of anything soup, I do this instead.  It’s MUCH healthier and gives you a similar result-plus no dairy!

Add to that the frozen veggies and mushrooms.

In a casserole pan add the salmon and sausages and the spinach.  When the noodles are done, add them to the casserole dish and add the veggie/chicken broth mix.  Mix it up well and add the cheese (I find that a little cheese helps casseroles and I can handle a little bit of part skim mozzarella-it’s fine without).

Cover with foil and cook for 20-30 minutes or until spinach is wilted and cheese is melted.

I cherry picked so that I had more spinach.

Lu liked it.

But not as much as she likes cookies.

Shaun gave it 3 stars 🙂

Really you can throw almost anything together like this and it’ll work.  You just need a starch (noodles, rice, potatoes), veggies, protein, and either cream of something soup or a roux. Voila dinner is served!

I got a bug up my butt to make pumpkin butter without any refined sugar.  I LOVE pumpkin butter.  So much so that I bought 12 jars of it last year at Trader Joe’s so that I wouldn’t run out when it went out of season.  That may have been overkill as I still have 6 jars in my cupboard.  The second ingredient in that pumpkin butter is sugar-BOO! Before I embarked on my “clean” pumpkin butter I did a TON of research.  I probably looked at 50 recipes before putting mine together.  As you know my first batch was an big huge FAIL-too many spices.  My second batch, however, is DELICIOUS!

Ingredients:

3 Sugar Pumpkins (or 40 ounces of canned pumpkin though it won’t be as flavorful)
3/4 Cup Honey
3/4 Cup Maple Syrup
1 Cup Apple Juice
1 TBSP Cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp Ground Ginger
1/4 tsp Ground Cloves
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
Zest of 1 Meyer Lemon
Juice of 1 Meyer Lemon
2 tsp Vanilla

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350*. Wash pumpkins well. De-stem and cut in half. Scoop out guts-I found that the scoop you get in carving pumpkin kits works the best.

Place pumpkins face down on a foil lined cookie sheet and cover with foil.

Bake in oven until soft. ~1.5 hours.

When pumpkins are cooled, scoop out the insides and discard the skin.

Run it through the food processor in batches to get pumpkin puree.

Place pumpkin puree, honey, syrup, apple juice, lemon zest and juice, and all spices EXCEPT the vanilla in a crock pot and stir WELL. Alternately you can do this on the stove and bring it to a low simmer and stir it often and WATCH it.

Cover with a splatter guard or put the lid on half way.  If you leave the lid on it won’t reduce because the steam will be trapped in the pot.

Splatter guard (preferred):

Lid:

Then cook:

On high for 4 hours:

Then on low for another 2 or so hours:

Stirring occasionally.  Some people just put it on low and let it go overnight or while they’re at work.  That made me nervous and I wanted to stir it so I did it while I was home.

Once it’s to a consistency you like, place it in a container and store overnight in the fridge.

The next day, run it through a food processor again and add the vanilla.

ENJOY!

*Please Note: Some recipes out there will tell you that you can put pumpkin butter in a warm bath to can it and that it will be good for up to a year.  The USDA does NOT recommend canning pumpkin butter-it does not keep well and can grow dangerous bacteria.  It can however be kept in the freezer up to 1 year and in the refrigerator for 3-4 weeks.

Lucy gave it 2 thumbs up!

*This made 10 pint jars of butter.

Can you tell I’m a little obsessed with my crock pot right now? I found this recipe on Crock Pot 365-a great crock pot recipe site.  I made a modified version of this recipe. It was really good-I thought better than the other Apricot Chicken that I made.  That one was more Asian influenced and this one wasn’t (despite some soy sauce).

Ingredients:

• 1 pound frozen skinless chicken meat-I use thigh since Shaun hates breasts (chicken breasts…)
• 10 ounce jar of apricot preserves-no sugar
• 1 tsp dried onion flakes (sorry Kath!)
• 1 TBSP garlic aioli mustard
• 1 TBSP Braggs Amino
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp red chili flakes

Place the chicken in the crock pot. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl:

And then smother the chicken:

Set the crock pot on

And then:

For:

hours (6-8 for frozen. 4-6 on high for defrosted).

I made brown rice and just chopped some brussel sprouts and carrots and sautéed them in a little vegan butter, S+P, and cider vinegar.

Look at how pretty it was:

Here’s the finished product in the pot:

Plated:

Lucy didn’t have any-her appetite has disappeared 🙁 She has croup poor thing.  Shaun took his first bite and said “Wow this is AWESOME!” Later I asked him to rate it and he said 3 stars.  I asked how something could be awesome and then only get 3 stars.  His response? “It’s chicken.”  So many people comment on how Shaun will eat anything.  No one believes me when I tell them his particular. Do you believe me?

On Sunday I threw together a soup using a bunch of stuff from my cupboards.  It wasn’t supposed to be a soup originally but I changed my mind mid recipe.  It was seriously good and easy.

Ingredients:

-Tri Tip

-1 TBSP Paprika

-2 TBSP Montreal Steak Seasoning

-S+P

-1 Box Chicken Broth

-2 Cans of Navy Beans, drained

-1 Can Chopped Tomatoes with Roasted Garlic

-1 Can No-Salt Corn

I took a big hunk of tri tip that I had in my freezer from Lu’s birthday party-probably around 1.5 pounds and put that into the crock pot frozen.  I topped it with the seasonings and a little chicken broth.  Cook on low for 4 hours. 

I added the rest of the ingredients (including all the broth) and cooked on low for an additional 2 hours.  I had envisioned the meat shredding but that didn’t happen.  So I took it out and that end and sliced thin pieces of meat (like Carne Asada) and added it back to the soup.  I think the sliced beef ended up much better than shredded beef would have been.

I topped mine with Fage and Avocado.  Shaun got Sour Cream, Avocado, and Cheese on his.  I think it would have been great with some corn chips too.

Lucy gave it a “mmmm-mmmm-mmm-mmm” and Shaun gave it 3 stars-big praise from a man who claims to “HATE soup”.

Shaun and I have developed a rating system for dinner.  5 is a favorite, special occasion meal, 3 is make again, and anything below a 3 is either relegated to lunches (if I like it) or never made again.  I made Peanut Butter Pork tonight (recipe found here) and he gave it the first ever 0. *sigh*  It was pretty disappointing.  It got rave reviews on Crock Pot 365 but it was a big disappointment in this house.  It was TOO peanut buttery and just heavy.  Oh well.

Tomorrow night is tried and true winner in this house!  Meatloaf, mashed “potatoes”, and corn.  Isn’t she on a diet? You ask.  Why yes I am and my meatloaf is on a diet too (and my husband doesn’t even know).  I put it together tonight, that way I can just throw it in the oven when I get home tomorrow.  On normal nights I have 30 minutes from the time I get home until dinner needs to be on the table so that Lucy can be in bed by 7 (to avoid monster child).  I’ll be able to just throw the meatloaf in the oven tomorrow and have dinner on the table by 6:30.

Doesn’t that ^ look appetizing?  Believe me, it’ll be great tomorrow 🙂

Here’s the recipe:

Crush 3 Ryvita Crackers and place into a bowl

Add to that:

1 egg

1 pound leanest ground meat (I used grass fed 9% from Whole Paycheck)

~1/4 cup grated onion (it has to be grated or else it’ll be too over-powering)

Salt and Pepper

Garlic Powder

Mustard Powder

White Pepper

Some glugs of Worcestershire Sauce

Mix it all up with your hands and place it in a pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray (you can also do mounds on a cookie sheet but I think that makes too much of a mess). Score the top with a knife. Cover the top in ketchup and cover with foil and then bake at 350* for about 30 minutes.

Pictures of it done in tomorrow’s blog 🙂

I also peeled 2 potatoes and cut up 1/2 a head of cauliflower to put on the stove when I pot the meat loaf in. I’ll mash those with chicken broth, some vegan spread (I’m lactose intolerant) and some seasoning salt and pepper.

I put it all in the fridge and I’ll be able to just pop the meatloaf in the oven, put the cauliflower and potatoes on the stove and then just heat up some corn and we’ll have a dinner!

I’ll get to play with Lucy while it cooks-which is the BEST way to spend 6-6:30 in this house.

Obviously, I’m feeling MUCH better 😉  Thank goodness for some mindless tv and knitting.