Peanut Butter Cups

Oh my my, these are killer!



Ingredients:

1 C Peanut Butter
½ C Sugar
1 Egg
1 t. Vanilla

Milk chocolate to melt

Directions:

Mix all ingredients and roll into balls. Flatten a little
Bake 350 for 8 min,
After they cool dip into chocolate! Yep , I said it. DIP IN CHOCOLATE

White Bean Soup

Would you believe that my kids ate this, even with the Kale? It really is super good and healthy and I wouldn't put it on here if it wasn't right?!!!!
(I'll get a picture soon!)

Ingredients:

2 Cups Chicken or Vegetable Stock
3 Cups Water
2 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion peeled and chopped
2 Med Carrots peeled and sliced
1 large rib celery, cut into pieces
Two 15-ounce cans great northern beans, drained and rinsed
2 ½ C chopped fresh kale
Salt /Pepper

Directions:

Sauté Onions
Add all other ingredients into stock pot nad cook over stove 15 min or so. 

This would be good also in a crock pot before church. the flavors would "marry" really well.

Lunch Made Easier Ideas

I try to make lunches the night before school for the kids- but I usually end up not doing it! So, to make it easier I have started freezing the sandwiches that I make all at once on my Saturday baking day. This is when I also make the mini muffins and freeze them too. By the time they are ready to eat they have thawed and are just perfect. My kids never said one thing about something still being frozen. 

I also know that my kids love the lunchable pizza's and well, mira and I started making our own! (pictured above)

These are baked then cooled then put in a baggie, stuck in the freezer until that morning when i yank it out and stick it in the lunch box. 

TIP- if you are doing PB&J. Put peanut butter on both sides of the bread, jelly in the middle. It wont get soggy this way. 

TIP- if you are making turkey sandwiches. Use miracle whip not mayonnaise. Miracle whip wont separate like Mayo. 

This is a great time saver for me. Really, I love this idea.

Taco Soup

Gotta have this in your food storage recipes! This freezes beautifully!
One our most favorite comfort meals. You can be versitile with what kind of beans you use!

(picture from Dinners ready)
Taco soup

½ lb ground beef, browned
1 can tomato soup
1 can water
1 can corn (drained)
1 can kidney beans (drained)
1 can chili beans (drained)
1 can stewed or crushed tomatoes
1 can green chilies
½-3/4 package taco seasoning
Fritos
sour cream
shredded cheese
Combine all ingredients, except Fritos, sour cream and cheese. Cook over med heat until heated thoroughly. Top with Fritos, cheese and sour cream.

Wheat Crepes

I love crepes! They are easy, and you can be creative as you want! I love to have them for a meal, some with sweet some savory filling! These are made with whole wheat flour!



Whole Wheat Crepes
(recipe by Stephanie)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 1/2 cup milk
1. Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Scrape down sides as necessary.
2. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, (or overnight).
3. Lightly oil a preheated crepe pan, or a small non stick skillet. Pour a little less than 1/4 cup of batter into the skillet and quickly tilt the pan in a circular motion until batter is spread evenly around the bottom of the skillet. (If you like thinner crepes, use 2 tablespoons of batter. I like mine thicker.)
4. Cook the crepe until bubbly and browned on the bottom (about 30 seconds). Carefully flip the crepe over using a long spatula. Cook for another 20 seconds or until bottom is lightly browned.
5. Fill with desired toppings and roll or fold. Enjoy!

Some desired filling ideas:
Savory- Scrambled eggs and cheese, salsa, sauted onion
Sweet- dice up any fruit you have. I used blueberries, oranges, apples, and some almonds. Mix with yogurt and cool whip.
Also, I like to use fresh or frozen strawberries, toppped with whip cream and chocolate sauce
Lemon juice and powdered sugar is good too! Enjoy!

Taco Bowls

Home Made Taco Bowl. I LOVE these!

Press a flour tortilla into a lightly sprayed baking bowl, place on cookie sheet

Bake @375 for 15-20 min, or until golden brown. Pop out of bowl and cool on rack
Fill Taco Bowl with all your favorites. 

I like to just make vegetarian ones and use black beans and corn mixture, lettuce, cheese, tomato, olives, avocado, & sour cream

Chicken Pot Pie's

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients: 

1 Home made Pie crust
1 Egg for crust
4 chicken breast halves or 2 C left over cooked chicken
Salt / Pepper
1 T Butter
¼ C butter
½ C Flour
2 C Heavy Cream
2 T Chicken Stock
½ T minced Garlic
¼ small yellow onion, minced
½ C Frozen Peas, cooked
½ C Chopped Celery, cooked
½ C Chopped Carrots, cooked
Pinch fresh nutmeg

Par bake bottom crust- Top crust will be strips

Filling:

Cooked Chicken – chop in pieces
In saucepan, melt butter and then slowly add flour- light roux color
Slowly add cream and keep stirring. Add chicken base, garlic and onion and stir until thickened. Add peas, carrots, celery, nutmeg, cut up chicken and remove from heat.
Fill pie shell- add strips- brush with egg
Bake 350 until crust is done

I like to make this recpie into little pot pies. Here are some pictures of the process.

Make your own trail mix

I love to make homemade trail mix and keep it in a clear jar on the counter. It helps curve snack attacks, and keeps James happy when dinner is not quite ready yet!

The best thing about it is you can use what you find on sale and mix it together and there you go!

Here is what I like:
raisins or crasins
dried aprocots, apples, dates or anykind you find on sale
almonds, peanuts, and or cashews
spoon sized shredded wheat or any othe cereal
M&M's ( chocolate chips or Carob chips)
Pumpkin Seeds
coconut

Mini Meat loaves

This idea came from the magazine Kraft Food & Family. I subscribe to their quarterly magazine and it’s FREE! It has great easy recipes with lots and lots of pictures (every recipe book needs pictures!) They do advertise using almost all Kraft products, but I just use whatever I’ve got at home already.

Mini Meatloaf Recipe:

Favorite Meatloaf recipe
bbq sauce
salt & pepper
cheese - cheddar, or something stronger would be yum
(Source: Makeandtakes)
Spray your muffin tin with cooking spray. Place in a handful of prepared meatloaf into each muffin tin. Press your thumb into each meatloaf ball, making a space for toppings. Squirt a dollap of bbq sauce into the space and salt and pepper. Bake in a pre-heated 375* oven for 30 minutes or until cooked through (160F). Add your favorite cheese and bake for another 5 or so minutes.

Pumpkin Muffins

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 t pumpkin pie spice
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 eggs
1 cup canned or cooked pumpkin
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups finely chopped peeled apples

STRUDEL:
1/4 cup sugar
2 T all-purpose flour
1/2 t ground cinnamon
4 t cold butter or margarine


DIRECTIONS
In a bowl, combine the first five ingredients. In another bowl, combine the eggs, pumpkin and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in apples. Fill paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. In a small bowl, combine sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over batter.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Tomato Basil Soup

This is Amazing- truly

Ingredients:

4 Cups Canned Whole Tomatoes- use fresh garden ones too!

4 Cups Unsalted Tomatoe Juice

12-14 Fresh Basil Leaves (fresh is what makes it but it's fine with dried. Use 3 T)

1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream- or Plain Yogurt if your watching the calories

1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter

And I add 1 can artichoke hearts- chopped

Directions:

Puree tomatoes and basil

Put all ingredients in slow cooker about 4 hours

Top with Homemade Croutons and Parmesan Cheese

*We dip the homemade rolls in it, ohhhhh

I have this on my food storage list but it's one of those that I stock up on the the things that are no perishable but rely on the grocery store for the rest. So this would not be my full proof FS meal.

Fruit Balls "Ballie Balls"

A great way to get all your fiber in! These are an all time favorite of mine from Aunt Marian. She made them up, and she's Italian so no recipe. Just a little of this and a little of that! But here is how I make them, and it's very easy to do your own thing with these.

Dried Fruits:

1/2 Cup of each, and chop in food processor

Apricots

Dates

Prunes

Cranberries

Raisins

Place all chopped fruit in a bowl and add

1 Cup Peanut Butter (I use the crunchy)

Add In's if desired

Flax

Oat bran

Powder Fiber

Walnuts

Mix all together and roll into balls. Then roll into coconut or chopped nuts. Or leave it alone. What ever! I prefer the coconut because then it becomes a little dessert for me!

Keep covered and store in fridge.

I'll get a picture of these soon!

Oat Flour Cut Out Cookies

Here is one I came up with: let me know if you like it.

Ingredients:

1/3 C Crisco

1/3 C Butter

1 C Sugar

2 Eggs

1t. Vanilla

1T Milk

1 C Cake Flour

2 1/2-3 C Oat Flour

2 T Baking Powder

1 t Salt

DIRECTIONS:

Cream your fat and Sugar until creamy. Add in the Vanilla and Eggs (one at a time) and Milk.

Combine all dry ingredients omitting about 3/4 C of the Oat Flour. 

Sift dry ingredients with your whisk then slowly add to the wet ingredients. 

Now if needed add the 3/4 C oat flour your omitted slowly until you get the desired consistency. I like it to be fairly sticky still. You definitely do NOT want to over flour these, they are already drier because of the oats. 

Then dump it out onto Saran wrap, fold up and put in fridge for 30 min. 

Roll out- Cut shape- Bake 350 6 min. 

These will be different from what you are used to in a sugar cookie- dryer, flakier, but good flavor!

Frost and it will be even yummier. 

Note: 1 1/4 Cup Oats after you grind it will equal 1 C Oat Flour

Flour Substitutes

To make a standard recipe free of white flour, substitute one of the follow:

1- 3/8 cups barley flour for 1 cup white flour
1 cup corn flour for 1 cup white flour
7/8 cup corn meal for each cup white flour
3/8 cup potato flour for 1 cup of white flour
7/8 cup rice flour for each cup of white flour
1 cup rye meal for 1 cup white flour
1-1/2 cups ground rolled oats or 1 cup oat flour for 1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour for 1 cup white flour.

1 cup of wheat flour equals...
7/8 cup amaranth
7/8 cup garbanzo bean
7/8 cup chickpea (garbanzo)
3/4 cup corn flour
1 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup millet flour
3/4 cup oat flour
5/8 cup potato flour
3/4 cup potato starch
7/8 cup rice flour
3/4 cup soy flour


Important - Always use a double portion of baking powder with dark flour. Recipes when converting a white flour recipe to a dark flour. Average use is 2.5 tsp. baking powder to each cut of flour.

Substitution of various flour for white flour recipes gives new and exciting flavors. Corn flour thickens sauces better than cornstarch and may be used in the same proportions as white flour. It also combines well with other flours in making muffins

Oat Flour

Oat flour tends to make the mixture pasty or gummy, almost a glue-like texture. Using only oat flour would not work as a white flour substitution for that reason.
Mixing oat flour with rice flour, though, works quite well since their characteristics offset each other.

Rice Flour

Rice flour tends to make the mixture more granular, loose or grainy in texture. This nicely offsets the nature of oat flour when the two are used in combination, making the result a quite acceptable substitute for white flour.

I also read that short grain is what you want to use for baking. Long grain use for breading, sauces and as a thickner but NOT for baking.

And rice flour in cookies will make for a crunchier cookie!

Buckwheat Flour

Despite its name, buckwheat flour has no wheat or gluten in it. It will work the same as white or lite wheat flour in theory, but in practice has such a strong, unique flavor to it that a little of it in any mixture goes a long way.
Of course, if you absolutely love the taste of buckwheat, you could certainly use it as a one to one substitute for white flour.

We add buckwheat to stabilize the other flours and add a touch of that unique flavor to the mixture.

Flax Seed

Ground up flax seed doesn't hold together well enough to be a main ingredient in a flour substitution, but it works well as a minor ingredient.
Flax seed adds in a nice texture and taste to whatever you're baking, and of course comes with numerous nutritional benefits.

No Regrets Chocolate Cake!

Ingredients:

1 3/4 C All-Purp Flour

1 3/4 C Packed Light Brown Sugar

3/4 C Cocoa Powder

1 1/2 t. Baking Soda

1 1/2 t. Baking Powder

1/4 t. Salt

1 1/4 C Reduced- fat buttermilk (add 1T vinegar to low-fat milk, let sit 10min. for buttermilk sub)

3 Large Egg Whites

4 T Light Margarine, melted

1 1/2 t Vanilla

1 C Boiling Water

1 T Confectioner's Sugar

Preheat Oven to 350

Lightly coat a 9x12 baking pan

In a large Bowl, combine first 6 ingredients (flour through salt)

Mix well with a fork to break up brown sugar. Set aside

In a large mixing bowl, combine buttermilk, egg whites, melted margarine and vanilla. Mix on low speed until blended. Gradually beat in boiling water (temper so it doesn't scramble eggs)

Then slowly add flour mixture and, again, mix on low speed until blended.

Pour batter into prepared pan

Bake 25 min. or until toothpick comes out clean

Cool and dust with confectioners sugar

1/2 of the cake has:

245 calories

3g Fat

50g Carbs

2g Fiber

* I actually used whole wheat flour to up the fiber and it turned out great!