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.

Camping Food

We went camping over the weekend and made a super yummy dinner. No burnt hot dogs for us!
I made some shish-kabobs ahead of time and had them marinating in the cooler. I also chopped up the potatoes and onion ahead of time and had them in a bag with all the seasonings ready to go. It was too dark by the time we ate so I couldn't take a picture, but trust me it was good. Here are the original recipes and I will tell you my modifications at then end. I know these ingredients might shock yall that I would buy so much pre-packaged stuff, but hey I was camping. I even ate cheese from a can the next day.


Dutch Oven Potatoes
1 pkg. bacon, cut into fourths (low sodium)
10-12 large potatoes (scrubbed, rinsed, and sliced into circles)
Seasoning Salt ("Spike" or "Johnny's" seasoning salt work great!)
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
1 can cream of chicken
3-4 c. shredded cheddar cheese

When the dutch oven is good and hot add the bacon and heat until fully cooked. Drain about half of the bacon grease then add the potatoes. stir in about 3 Tbsp. of the seasoning salt (or to taste) and all of the garlic powder. Cover and cook about 30 minutes stirring occasionally (or until potatoes are no longer crunchy, but do NOT overcook). Add cream of chicken. When the cream of chicken is evenly distibuted and hot, add cheese. When cheese is melted, remove from heat and serve.

*These taste best when served with ranch dressing on the side*


Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler
2 (29oz) cans peaches, in heavy syrup (or 1 can peaches, 1 can peach pie filling)
2 boxes yellow cake mix (DRY, not prepared)
1 cube butter
brown sugar and cinnamon (to taste)

Pour peaches into hot dutch oven (if using the canned peaches, drain some of the liquid out so your cobbler isn't too runny). Add cake mix over the top. Slice thin slices of butter over the top of the cake mix, then top with brown sugar and cinnamon. Cover and cook for 45 minutes or until the cake mix starts turning golden brown and is cooked through. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

My notes:
With the potatoes I halved the recipe and quarted the cheese. I think honestly it would be just fine without the can of soup. I used Tony Chachere's for the seasoning but I think a ranch packet would be good too. I also added a quarter of the onion with the potatoes. I chopped the potatoes but you could get away with those little red potatoes if you can find them small enough.

With the cobbler I also halved the recipe. Next time I will do two cans of peaches with one box of cake mix. I still used one stick of butter.

Tapioca Pudding

I got this recipe from Simply Recipes and it's very good. It's far from healthy and takes along time stirring but well worth it!


Tapioca Pudding
Look at the instructions on the package of tapioca that you buy. Some small pearl tapioca requires overnight soaking in water. If your package has that requirement, reduce the milk in the recipe to 2 1/2 cups from 3 cups.

Ingredients
1/2 cup small pearl tapioca (you can usually find it in the baking section of the grocery store, do not use instant tapioca)
3 cups whole milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

1 Combine tapioca, milk, and salt in 1 1/2 quart pan on medium high heat. Stir until boiling. Simmer 5 minutes, uncovered at the lowest possible heat, adding sugar gradually.

2 Beat eggs in a separate bowl. Mix in some of the hot tapioca very slowly to equalize the temperature of the two mixtures to avoid curdling. (Alton Brown taught me this is called tempuring, yall probably already knew that though)

3 Return eggs to pan with tapioca. Slowly bring mixture barely to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and stir several minutes at a low simmer, stirring constantly until you get a nice thick pudding consistency. Cool 15 minutes. Add vanilla. Serve either warm or chilled.

Note: If you want to make a more light and fluffy, but still rich, tapioca pudding, separate the eggs. Use the egg yolks to stir in first to the pan with the tapioca. Once the pudding has become nice and thick, beat the egg whites in a separate bowl to soft peaks. Remove the pan of tapioca pudding from the stove, fold in the beaten egg whites into the pudding.

Serves 4-6.

Slow Cooker Tuesday - Curried Chicken

This recipe was heaven, and I am not even a huge fan of curry. I've been super busy with lessons, practices, etc. and so I've been relying a little more heavily on the crockpot for support lately. It's been a good relationship, but it was getting a little boring. I decided to spice things up a little with a curry recipe. Well worth it, I tell you!

This recipe comes from the Rival Crock Pot Recipes: Flavors from Around the World collection. There are a few more I'll try out and share, soon I'm sure.

Slow Simmered Curried Chicken

1 1/2 cups chopped onion (I just sliced mine into strips)

1 medium green bell pepper, chopped (I didn't use this, kids aren't fans)

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast or thigh, cut into bite size pieces

1 cup medium salsa

2 tsp. grated fresh ginger (I totally didn't have fresh ginger, powder worked fine)

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (we all know I LOVE cilantro)

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. curry powder

3/4 tsp. salt

Hot cooked rice (I used brown)

1. Place onions and bell pepper in bottom of the crock pot. Top with chicken. Combine salsa, ginger, garlic powder and pepper flakes in a small bowl; spoon over the chicken. Cover; cook on LOW 5-6 hours or on HIGH 2-3 hours or until chicken is done.

2. Combine the cilantro, sugar, curry powder and salt in a small bowl. Stir mixture into crock pot. Cover; cook on HIGH 15 minutes or until hot. Serve over rice.

**NOTE** I didn't wait to put the additional ingredients in, I knew I wouldn't have time before we needed to eat. It worked fine, really well in fact.