Happy July 4th!

Don't forget to make a Jello Cake decorated with whipped cream and berries.

Have a happy 4th of July!!

Meatless Monday

While I'd never consider myself a vegetarian, I have no problem going days without eating meat.

Really, I don't. Much to the displeasure of my husband, I'm sure.

We've posted some great main dishes that don't require any meat, like Okonomiyaki and Sweet Potato Enchiladas.

There are thousands of vegetarian cookbooks out there, but I don't own a single one. Not. One. Which makes me a "non-expert" of all things vegetarian. However, I've been incorporating at least one meatless dinner every week. Just to mix things up, if you will.

I've mentioned we're fans of Japanese food at our house. Here's another meatless, Japanese recipe for you to try.

JAPANESE TEMPURA

1 cup flour
1/3 cup corn starch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/4 cups cold club soda

Heat oil to 350° before you begin to mix the batter. In a bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together. Add cold club soda and stir with a fork. Batter will be runny and may have lumps, but don't over mix it. When oil is heated to 375° begin frying your batter dipped vegetables.

Use care in not adding too many vegetables to the oil at once, or crowding them, this will cool the oil and make the tempura greasy. Serve hot!

Soy Sauce with Fresh Ginger:
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 Tbs. water
1 Tbs. fresh minced ginger
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. hot chile sesame oil or toasted sesame oil
1 green onion sliced
juice of 1/2 a lime

Black Bean Chicken

You know I love me a good slow cooker recipe, right? There's something about preparing dinner in the morning when life is a little easier, then coming home from your errands/lessons/school/activities and having the great aroma of dinner hit you as you walk in. And it's done...with no stirring/mixing/50,000 steps/etc. And it rarely burns.

My kind of cooking.

Plus it doesn't heat up your house when it's 100+° outside like your oven will.

Even better.

You also know that I love me some black beans, right? Seems that this recipe is just about perfect.

Creamy Crock Pot Black Bean Chicken

Ingredients
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (you can dice or leave whole, or you can shred when it's all cooked)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can corn, drained
1 jar salsa, any kind
1 8oz package cream cheese
I like this wrapped in flour tortillas, but it'd be good over rice too.

Directions
Place chicken breasts in a crock pot. Add black beans, corn and salsa. Cook on high for 4 to 5 hours. Add cream cheese the last 30 minutes. Serve any way you would like!

Extra, Extra, Read All About It!

I'm featured today on one of my favorite blogs...actually, Shane and his pantry with a little of me thrown in are featured today onOther People's Pantries. Head on over and check it out. Just a little FYI, since I sent in all the photos the garage and spice shelves are much more organized.

I promise.

If you've arrived here from Other People's Pantries, we welcome you! Comments are always welcome, so are followers,readers, and suggestions! I think we'd actually welcome pretty much anything but hate mail and death threats. (and even then at least we'd know that people were reading!)

I've got some fun ideas planned for the upcoming weeks, including some new features and some old ones (like Meatless Mondays, y'know)

See you soon.

"Bran" New Recipe...at least to you

Mmmmm, Muffins! Normally not much of a muffin fan, but with this really easy and yummy recipe I may turn into a muffin fan soon. Even the kids loved these ones!

Watch the changes I made, because that means you can customize it to your tastes too. I replaced dates with Craisins, and used Raisin Bran instead of just plain bran flakes.

It seems like it might be a little complicated with the three separate mixtures, but really, you can just dump it all together if you'd like.

Plus it keeps in the fridge for 3 months! Yay for convenience!

Beautiful Bran Muffins

1 cup margarine/butter

2 cup sugar

4 eggs

Cream together in a large bowl.

1 quart buttermilk

2 cup boiling water

Mix together in a pitcher.

5 tsp. soda

5 cup flour

1 tbsp. salt

Mix together in a separate bowl.

Add mixtures 2 and 3 alternately to mixture 1. Then stir in 1/2 box All Bran cereal, 2 cups Bran Flakes (I used Raisin Bran), 1 cup chopped pecans, 1 cup dates (I hate dates, I used Craisins - it was delicious!)

Bake at 400° for 13 minutes. The original recipe called for a 20 minute baking time, totally burned, then tried 17 minutes, still burned, then I tried 13 minutes, they were perfect. I would watch them in your oven to see which time works for you...

This recipe makes 5 dozen muffins. I know that's a lot of muffins, but this will keep in your refrigerator for up to 3 months, just keep it in a covered container. This way, you can totally make a dozen or one at a time! Perfect!

Japan - easy...

I love Japanese food. I live in the South. The two don't really mesh so well. I'm sure that somewhere in this town is a place where I can buy really good Asian ingredients, but so far when I look I find aisles of Latino food and barbecue sauce.

My husband loves Japanese food. He ate it for two years straight and he's the one to blame for my love of it. He got me hooked on sushi, tempura, sticky rice and this recipe: Okonomiyaki.

Rhymes with teriyaki. Only different.

I think it's my husbands favorite dish. Maybe. It's technically a Japanese pancake. But without sweet syrup, or sugar, or fruit, or cream....but you do make it just like a pancake. But you do put sauce on it.

Photo courtesy of resshin.com because I really didn't feel like taking pictures. Of course, mine had bacon on top...

mmmmm, bacon

It's super easy to make and my kids love it. Yes, I know they also like liver, but that doesn't compare and this recipe has 0 (zero) liver in it. Plus my husband loves this and hates liver, so there.

OKONOMIYAKI

12 oz sliced bacon

1 1/3 cups water

4 eggs

3 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 medium head cabbage, sliced

1 tbsp. ground ginger

1 tbsp. garlic salt

tonkatsu sauce (recipe follows)

1. In a large bowl, stir the water and eggs together. Gradually stir in the flour, salt, ginger and garlic salt. Add the flour and cabbage and stir until all ingredients are incorporated. Set aside.

2. Fry bacon in a large skillet until slightly crispy. I used my plug in skillet and it worked great. Set aside on paper towels.

3. In /on your skillet over medium heat, pour a scoop of batter and flatten out like a pancake. Fry for about 5 minutes or until the edges are dry, flip and cook on other side, adding bacon to the already cooked side. Once that side is cooked, flip over one more time to set the bacon, then remove from skillet.

4. Drizzle with Tonkatsu sauce and serve. I made 9 'cakes' out of this recipe, I make them smaller than you would get at a restaurant.

Tonkatsu sauce

1/4 cup worchestershire sauce

1/4 cup ketchup

2 tbsp. soy sauce

Mix together and serve.

There are a lot of recipes for Tonkatsu sauce out there, this one is our favorite.

Dessert Nachos by Family Fun Magazine

I will make these one day soon. I've been craving them since I saw them on Family Fun's website.

Here's their picture...

and the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 6-inch flour tortillas
• Cooking spray
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, cleaned and hulled

• 1 tablespoon orange juice
• 8 ounces vanilla yogurt
• 1 cup chopped strawberries
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut or white chocolate shavings

Instructions

1. To make the tortilla chips, heat the oven to 350º. Cut the tortillas into triangles, lay them on a baking sheet, and spritz them with cooking spray.

2. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar over the tops of the tortillas and bake for 12 minutes or until crisp.

3. For homemade strawberry sauce, combine the strawberries, orange juice, and the remaining 1/2 tablespoon sugar in a blender. Puree the ingredients until smooth.

4. Once the chips have cooled, set them on a plate. To complete the buffet, set out separate bowls containing the strawberry sauce, yogurt, chopped strawberries, and coconut or chocolate shavings. Serves 4 to 6.

Recipe Card

Next time you want to make a recipe card you should go HERE and check out Skip to my Lou's free recipe card template!

Here's a recipe for a Blueberry French Toast Casserole. You can click on it to see it bigger. I have made it the night before and just baked it in the morning with just fine results.