Manic Menu 9/27-8/1

Wow, so I've been so busy that to try to work a Monday menu into my blog is just a little much right now. My schedule allows me to grocery shop on Tuesday mornings, so I end up doing a menu and my grocery list on Monday night. I'll still post what we had for Monday, but often it's a cheater meal...take out pizza from Eduardo's. :)

Monday: Eduardo's
Tuesday: Creamy Root Vegetable Soup
Wednesday: Fajitas
Thursday: Spaetzle and Veggies
Friday: Baked Zucchini with Peas & Potatoes

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Blessings,
e

Spanish Tortilla

Not what you think of when you hear tortilla. This is a Spanish fritatta with potatoes, eggs and veggies. It was fun to make and tasted pretty good. I served it with chorizo sausage for David. Two thumbs up!

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs waxy potatoes, thinly sliced (the thinner the better)
• 4 Tbsp canola oil
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 green bell pepper, deseeded and diced
• 2 tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
• 1/2 can of sweet corn
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (I didn't have parsley so, I used green onions)
• salt & pepper

Directions:

1. Parboil the potatoes in a pan of lightly salted boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain well.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet, add the potatoes and onion and then saute over low heat, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes until the potatoes have browned
3. Add the garlic, green pepper, tomatoes, and corn, mixing well
4. Pour in the eggs and add the parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook for 10-12 minutes until the underside is cooked through.
5. Remove the skillet from the heat and continue to cook the tortilla under a preheated medium broiler for 5-7 minutes or until the tortilla is set and the top is golden brown.
6. Cut the tortilla into wedges and serve. Or cut in cubes and use as an appetizer (or tapas!)

Enjoy!

e

Orange-Coconut Crescent Rolls

I found this recipe in the April/May 2010 edition of Farm and Ranch Living magazine. David loves just about anything with coconut and these sounded great! Hope they turn out! Pictures and taste review to come!

Ingredients:

• 3-1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 egg

Filling:

• 2 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1/2 cup flaked coconut, toasted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp grated orange peel

Orange Glaze:

• 1 cup confectioners' sugar (powdered sugar)
• 1 to 2 Tbsp orange juice

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine 2-1/2 cups flour, sugar, yeast and salt. In a small saucepan, heat milk and butter to 120 to 130 degree. Add to dry ingredients; beat just until moistened. Add egg; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a firm dough. Cover and let rest for 15 min.
2. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 mins. Divide dough in half. Roll each into a 12 in circle. Brush with melted butter. Combine the coconut, sugar and orange peel; sprinkle over dough. Cut each circle into 12 wedges. Roll up wedges from the wide ends and place point side down 2 in apart on greased baking sheets. Curve ends to form crescents. Cover and let rise until double, about 30 min.
3. Bake at 375 degrees for 12-16 mins or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire rack to cool. For glaze, combine the powdered sugar and enough orange juice to achieve desired consistency. Drizzle over warm rolls.

Yield: 2 dozen

Manic Monday Menu 9/20-9/24

Wow! September is almost through! Where has the time gone? I guess it's true that even when you're busy and have a lot of long days, time still flies. We are looking forward to a wedding this weekend in the Chicagoland area. David's cousin is getting married and we get to see a lot of his family! Can't wait! In the meantime though, we still have to eat! Here's this week's menu:

Monday: Gnocchi w/ zucchini; salad--a fav in our house

Tuesday: Spanish tortilla; fruit

Wednesday: Pizza; salad

Thursday: Loaded Baked Potatoes

Friday: BLT sandwiches; fries; fruit (for the vegetarians out there, my sandwich will be a "Bean"-LT--recipe to follow & for the carnivorous bunch, I'm using turkey bacon for David's)

A few new recipes this week. Looking forward to trying them out! Especially the Spanish tortilla! Yum! Enjoy and have blessed week!

e

Potato Leek Soup-Vegan

This potato leek soup is one that I modified (as I so often do) from a Fugal Gourmet cookbook that my parents had for years. It's about cooking food from our immigrant ancestors. It is a great cookbook that I highly recommend. I was able to use our homegrown potatoes-freshly dug, I might add! I also recommend the Jewel brand organic veggie broth (Wild Harvest) or homemade broth is always good too. Of course you could use chicken broth if you prefer. I wish I could grow my own leeks too, but alas, I had failed ever time. We really enjoyed this soup last night and I hope you will too! (sorry, no picture this time...I forgot-too hungry :)

Ingredients:

• roughly 6-8 medium sized yellow (Yukon Gold) potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 3 leeks, trimmed, washed, halved and cut into 1 inch chucks
  
• 1 to 1-1/2 boxes of veggie broth (about 32-48 oz)
• course sea salt & pepper to taste

Directions

• In a large soup pot, place potatoes, leeks and broth. Bring to a boil over high heat.
  
• Allow to boil for about 10 minutes, then reduce heat to medium and let simmer for another 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
  
• Remove from heat and blend to desired consistency with an immersion blender.
• Season with salt & pepper
  

So simple! Really yummy too! Enjoy!

e

Emmy's Thrown-Togther Omlet Dinner

So last night I had to get creative quick. With no plan and no new groceries for the week, dinner turned out pretty good! Using some of the ingredients from Sunday night's calzones at my parents, I made an omelet for 2! And of course with our plethora of potatoes, I roasted some of those up too!

Here's the recipe (for 2 people):

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp butter or margarine
6 eggs, beaten
1 Tbsp milk

2 Tbsp (approx) canola oil
1/2 of a medium onion, chopped
1/2 of a bell pepper (any color, we used orange), chopped
1 clove garlic
1 small crown of broccoli cut in to small pieces
1/4-1/2 cup cheddar cheese

*note, you can use anything you like for the omelet. use what you have and what you like.

Directions:

• Add oil, veggies and garlic to a small skillet. Saute until tender.
• In a larger NON-STICK!!!! skillet, melt butter/margarine
• Add milk to beaten eggs and whisk to combine
• When butter is melted add eggs
• Stir eggs in pan until they start to clump up. (sort of like you would for scrambled eggs but don't break the egg up) Run spatula around the edge of the eggs to loosen it from the bottom.
  
• When egg is cooked how you like it, add veggie mixture and cheese to one half of the egg patty
• Fold egg over the filling and slide onto a plate (this is why you want non-stick)
• Enjoy!

Tortilla & Black Bean Pie

Ingredients:

4 flour tortillas (10in)
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp ground cumin
coarse salt and fresh ground pepper
2 cans (15 oz each) black beans, drained and rinsed
1-1/2 cups water (of if you prefer 12 oz of beer-what the recipe calls for)
1-10 oz package of frozen corn
4 green onions, thinly sliced
2-1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (I use sharp cheddar, but a Mexican blend of cheese would be good too)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Trim tortillas to fit a 9-in springform pan using the bottom of the pan as a guide.
• Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, chile, garlic and cumin; season with salt and pepper. Cook until the onion is soft.
  
• Add the beans and water to the skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer until the liquid has almost evaporated. Stir in the corn and scallions and remove from the heat. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Fit a trimmed tortilla in the bottom of the pan; layer with one quarter of the beans and 1/2 cup of cheese. Repeat three times using 1 cup of cheese on the top layer. Back until hot and the cheese is melted, 20 to 25 minutes. Unmold the pie; sprinkle with scallions. Slice into wedges and serve immediately

Two thumbs up from my hubby! :)

This recipe came from my Great Food Fast cookbook from Everyday Food. I LOVE this cookbook! So many yummy recipes-especially for fall and winter.

Enjoy!

e

Recipe Week

So, this week's menu is a little sparse because we'll be gone a lot for dinner. So instead of a menu this week, I'm just going to share some recipes. I've got a few meal ideas and some extras too. I guess I can post the three dinners I am actually making this week:

Last night: Veggie omelet with roasted potatoes

* this was my thrown together meal that actually turned out to be delicious! I hadn't gone shopping for the week or planned anything for dinner. I used what I had. An omelet is perfect for those kind of nights!

Tonight- Tortilla & Black Bean Pie (it got substituted for Eduardo's pizza after a very long day for the cook)

Wednesday- Cobb Salad

Thursday- Potato Leek Soup (first time this fall! YAY!)

We decided to go out to Olive Garden on Friday for the endless pasta bowl.... Don't worry, we'll pay for stuffing ourselves with carbs later and enjoy it while we can! :)

Hope everyone as a good week ahead of them. We are staying busy as ever! Don't forget to take time to enjoy the little things in life!

Always in love,
e

Applesauce Time!

Well, I've failed miserably this week in keeping up with my blog. Between school, clinicals, church and planning for the Memorial Park dedication today the time just flew by. But now in the midst of a busy, but fun day we're making applesauce. Our new neighbors have a large apple tree, but didn't want any of the apple from it this year, so this is the second time we've attempted applesauce with them. The first attempt with about a 1/4 bushel of apples gave us 6 pints of sauce. We need more than that. :) SO we did about 1/2 a bushel today. It's a big job, but I had the best helper- my husband! He's an expert at running our corer/peeler machine. Here's what we did.

Peel and core apples and cut into small-ish pieces. In a large stock pot (depending on how much you're doing you may need more that one pot) fill with water about 1/3 full of water. I packed a lot of apples in my pots, but they float so you have to watch them. I've already had one boil over. Let cook for about 45min to 1 hour, or until the apples are soft and can be blended easily. Drain water from the pot and blend or mash apples to desired consistence (we like chunky). I suggest using a good immersion blender or stick blender. Mine works wonderfully for this job. Add sugar if desired or depending on how sweet of apples you use. I use about 3/4 cup for 6 pints. I add cinnamon to mind, but plain is good too. I've even added apple pie spice. I don't measure it, so use at your leisure. Another great freezer product. I pack the sauce into freezer containers just like the peaches and corn and it will keep for a year or so. Great to pull out in late fall or winter for Christmas. Hope this was helpful! Happy cooking!

e

Manic Monday Menu 9/6-9/12

Happy Labor Day! I hope that today was as relaxing or as productive as everyone wished it would be. We tackled our upstairs room today and tried to organize some of the stuff we have. Congerville town-wide garage sales are September 16th, so we were hoping to put together some things to combine with my sister-in-law who is having one. It's amazing how much stuff two people can bring into a marriage. I don't even want to know how much stuff we'll accumulate in the coming years. Spent the afternoon in town shopping for things for the house and car batteries...we discovered David's truck battery died sometime this weekend. That was one purchase that we could have done without. But we did still get our groceries this week. We are so blessed by God with all the things he provides for us. We know that too many people go without many things we would consider necessities. I would encourage all of you to take some time today or this week to thank God for all that he has provided in your life. Now onto our regularly scheduled menu...

Monday- Pasta bake; salad; garlic bread made with ciabatta
Tuesday- stir fried veggies; egg rolls; fruit
Wednesday- Veggie noodle soup (with some of the chicken that I froze earlier this summer for David); bread; cheese
Thursday- Tortilla & black bean pie*; chips and salsa
Friday- one of our favorites...Gnocchi with zucchini; fruit
Saturday- Congerville Fundfest! Come for the chopped BBQ pork sandwich supper at the grade school 4-7pm; auction at 7pm
Sunday-Dinner with my parents: homemade calzones!*

*watch for the recipe later this week!

Have a wonderful short week!
e

Vegetarian Meatloaf

I know some of you are cringing at the thought of a "meatless" meatloaf. Honestly, I would love to have a nice meatloaf with ground turkey, but alas, it is not to be...right now anyway. I did some internet searching and found this "meat"loaf that uses lentils-one of my favorite legumes. David and I love lentil-barley burgers, so I'm hoping this is just as good. Being a woman I crave comfort food-although I know you don't have to be a woman to want comfort food. So, tonight I'll be experimenting with the recipe and trying it out. One of the ingredients in BBQ sauce, which makes everything better. I also topped it with BBQ sauce instead of ketchup. Sweet Baby Rays is our house sauce (even though it has HFCS...we'll let that one slide). Here is the recipe that I tweeked from a recipe submitted from food.com

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup lentils
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
  
• 3/4 cup grated cheese ( cheddar, swiss, jack or american)-I used sharp cheddar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1-1/2 cups tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup BBQ sauce
  
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Add salt to water and boil in a saucepan.
2. Add lentils and simmer covered 25-30 minutes, until lentils are soft and most of water is evaporated.
3. Remove from fire.
4. Drain and partially mash lentils.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
   
6. Scrape into mixing bowl and allow to cool slightly.
7. Stir in onion, oats, panko and cheese until mixed.
8. Add egg, tomato sauce, bbq sauce, garlic, basil, parsley, seasoning salt and pepper.
9. Mix well.

9. Spoon into loaf pan that has been generously sprayed with non-stick cooking spray or greased another way...like butter...mmm butter
   
10. Smooth top with back of spoon.
11. Bake at 350 degrees for 30- 45 minutes ( add some bbq sauce to the top 10 minutes before done) until top of loaf is dry, firm and golden brown.
12. Cool in pan on rack for about 10 minutes.
13. Enjoy!

    

It was really good! We had mashed potatoes from our garden and I couldn't resist breaking into some of the freezer corn I did earlier in the summer. :)

e

Organic Strawberry Freezer Jam

After my weekly shopping trip to Meijer, I decided to make some freezer jam. Organic strawberries were on sale for a decent price. I only needed about 3 lbs. to make 5- 1/2 pint jars. I found "No cook" freezer jam pectin. I think you can find it in Walmart or really any store. The whole process took about 15-25 minutes. The jam can stay in the fridge for 3 weeks or in the freezer for up to a year. I just have the leftovers in the fridge.
Strawberry Freezer Jam

1 packet of "no cook" freezer jam pectin
1-1/2 cup sugar
3 to 4 lbs. strawberries, tops removed and crushed

Stir packet of pectin and sugar together then stir in crushed strawberries. Stir for 3 minutes. Fill freezer containers. Tighten lids. Let sit on counter for 30 minutes to allow the jam to thicken. Place in freezer.
On the back of the packet they give these directions, as well as the quantities to make different fruits into jam. For example, it takes about 12 medium peaches peeled and crushed to make the same amount of jam.

This was really fun and easy! I know we will enjoy the jam this winter, along with our other freezer goodies. Hoping to make applesauce with our neighbors apples on Saturday! Cinnamon applesauce too! YUM!