Cranberry Orange Muffins

It's seldom a good idea for me to try and follow a recipe and talk on the phone at the same time.

Fortunately I had all the ingredients for the muffins already in the blender when Sherri called.

Unfortunately, I forgot to set the timer on the oven.

Fortunately the muffins smelled so fantastic that I noticed them in time to take them out.

(This is yet ANOTHER great recipe from Against All Grains)

Next time I make these (there will definitely be a next time!), I should use the smaller blender container.  The tall one made it a bit challenging to scrape out all the batter.

There's nothing better than the smell of hot muffins on a rainy morning.

Some Hits and a Miss

I haven't posted for a while, so I thought I would just throw all the food pictures I've taken in the past couple of weeks into one entry.

Here goes (in no particular order):

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins and homemade apple juice.  The muffin recipe is from the cookbook: Against All Grain.  I adore these muffins.  They keep well in the refrigerator and are an easy grab and go breakfast. The juice is pretty great too.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream and Brownies...this was my birthday "cake".  The ice cream is wonderful - and almost dairy free! The brownies are okay...I found them a bit dry - but I might have slightly over baked them.  Both recipes can be found in Against All Grain.

Homemade applesauce.  I sort of (but not really) followed the recipe in Against All Grain - but I didn't peel the apples...or core them. I have a food mill, so I just steamed/boiled the apples with the seasonings and then ran it through my food mill.  Excellent - especially warm.

Paleo Apple Crisp.  This was a miss.  It looked and smelled great, but it was just dry, dry, dry.  This was NOT from Against All Grains, I found the recipe on Paleo Newbie (here). I suspect it would be just fine with the addition of ice cream - but I didn't have any on hand.

Banana Coconut Bread

I'm a bit of a banana bread snob.  I seldom will even try other peoples banana bread - not sure why, but I think it's a texture thing.  I do make banana coconut bread fairly often (mostly because Rebekah likes and requests it...and sometimes provides the bananas), so when I got home from the hospital yesterday with 3 overripe bananas, I decided to give gluten-free banana bread a whirl.

Again, it's a recipe of Danielle Walkers (from her cookbook - Against All Grain)...and again, I had to cook it for at least 15 minutes longer than she suggested...but the finished product was, again, dependably good.

I made it pretty much per the recipe, then at the end I threw in a couple of large handfuls of shredded coconut.

The flavor was spot on.

Spot.

On.

This was one occasion that using coconut milk actually paid off. One word of warning - if you're going to make this, make sure you have your eggs at room temperature (otherwise the coconut oil will just solidify).

The texture is a bit spongy - which was fine when it was warm - not as appealing cold.  I am going to try toasting a slice of leftover in the toaster oven.

Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes

After the semi-successful attempt at making (paleo)waffles last week, I thought I would give pancakes a try. The waffles tasted great, but the texture was a bit hard to work with in the waffle iron - so....pancakes!

I found a recipe for Pumpkin Pancakes on Against All Grain and decided to give it a try. I like using Danielle Walker's recipes - partly because my "pantry" is geared towards her style of cooking, and I don't have to go out and buy lots of bizarre different ingredients.

These were pretty easy to make, but I almost tossed the batter out because it smelled funky.  I'm glad I didn't, they ended up tasting just fine and dandy, especially the ones that I added blueberries to.

One thing I've noticed about the recipes from Danielle that require baking (like waffles, pancakes, banana bread...), it that they seem to take a lot longer for me to cook than she suggests.  I just take that into account while cooking. Her recipe says to flip them over after about 30 seconds.  I may have been using a lower heat than she did, but mine took a couple of minutes per side.

I didn't find that these pancakes tasted very much like pumpkin - I suspect the almond butter of hijacking the flavor - but they were great with the addition of blueberries.  (You can't see the blueberries on these pancakes because they are on the bottom)

The texture is not quite like regular pancakes, it's a bit more sponge-like...but I will definitely be adding these to my list of edible paleo recipes.  They get bonus points for Danny and Steve liking them, and more bonus points because Danny actually liked the ones with blueberries!

Waffles!!!

I admit that these aren't the prettiest waffles I have ever made...not even close.

But.

Waffles.

I picked up a cookbook at Costco last week...and I am determined to try a bunch of the recipes.  It's call Against All Grain by Danielle Walker. I happened to have all the ingredients for her blueberry waffle recipe, so that's where I started. I haven't had anything bread-like in over a month, so I knew that these didn't have to be stupendous to be edible, but they were great.  Not quite waffle texture, and definitely different tasting (well, adding a cup of cashews is bound to make it taste nutty...), but really good.  The recipe was pretty easy - just dump everything in the blender and give it a whirl, but I did take the author's advice and processed the cashews a bit first.  I don't think my Ninja is quite as high speed as her blender.

The most difficult part of cooking these was, well, cooking these.  The recipe said to set your waffle iron on its lowest setting.  The lowest setting on mine would make a nice hand warmer, but doesn't actually cook anything.  I ended up putting mine between the highest and the medium setting...that seemed to work.  Also, she said to cook them for about 45 seconds to a minute or until the waffle iron stops steaming - it took well over a minute for my waffle iron.

Texture-wise these aren't as sturdy as waffles made with good old Krusteaz...thus the mangled specimen below:

This was the only one that I put blueberries in - I think fresh blueberries would work better than the frozen ones...but this waffle did taste amazing.

Yeah, not quite what mine looked like.

Steve and Danny both liked them - and as long as it's only the three of us, I can afford to make these occasionally.  The recipe says it makes 4-6 servings, but that's only if you count each waffle square as a serving.

The Bomb Chili

I'm not a big chili fan.  I like it once in a while - but it doesn't always like me (heartburn, anyone?). This chili was super tasty, and best of all, NO HEARTBURN!

The recipe is super flexible too.  I found it here.  My ingredients were quite a bit different - but that doesn't really matter.  I was able to clean out my fridge - all the little odds and ends of leftover veggies were included here. Steve loved this chili - and suprisingly, so did I. Win.

let's face it, chili doesn't photograph well.

Ingredients:

Two pounds of ground meat.  I used ground beef and ground chicken (Italian sausage)
2 cans tomato paste
1 can diced tomato (not the big can - the one that's around 15 ounces)
4 cups broth (I used chicken...because that's what I had on hand)
About 2 pounds of diced/chopped veggies.  You're aiming for about half meat, half veg.  I used carrots, celery, green pepper, onion, crushed garlic, and a sweet potato.
1 Tbsp of cocoa powder
1/4 cup Chili powder
salt/pepper/cayenne to taste (I only added a bit of salt to the ground beef as I was cooking it - no pepper or cayenne)

Instructions:
- brown ground meat, set aside.
-add all veggies to the broth and boil until they are tender.
-add ALL ingredients to the crockpot and cook on high for 6 hours or so.

Enjoy!

Butternut Squash Soup

I'm nearing the end of the Whole30 challenge, and I have to say, it's been interesting.  I have tried new foods, gone to bed hungry more than once and have not missed sugar at all, much to my surprise.

I whipped up a batch of Butternut Squash Soup on Thursday night - so I'd have something to take to the hospital with me on Friday.

I found the recipe here. I liked it quite well, even though it was a bit sweeter than I anticipated. Steve loved it, but then, he does have a world-class sweet tooth.

Step 1: roast veggies

Step 2: simmer with stock

Step...er....last: eat!

I tweaked the recipe a bit to make it Whole30-ish.

Savory Butternut Squash Soup

1 butternut squash; peeled, de-seeded, and cubed
2 carrots, cut in thick slices
1 med onion, cubed
2 gala apples, peeled, cored, and cubed
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp of dried sage
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 cup almond milk
32 oz chicken stock

1/2 pound all natural sausage (optional - but I think it helped make this more of a main dish)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Toss squash, carrots, onion, apples, and garlic in large bowl with olive oil and the dried herbs. Spread them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or tin foil. Roast in oven for about 40 minutes, or until squash is tender and lightly browned. Remove from oven and place the vegetable mixture into a large soup pot over medium heat.

Add your chicken stock.  Simmer for 15 minutes and then remove the pot from the heat. I took the bay leaves out at this point. Working in 2-3 batches, puree the soup in a blender until smooth. You can add more chicken stock if the soup is too thick. Add cooked sausage (or ham or bacon or whatever) at this point. Stir in almond milk until thoroughly mixed and serve! This recipe made a lot of soup - so I ended up freezing about half of it. I hope it reheats well!

Stir Fry and Pears...but not together

A couple of good meals today! Yay!!!

Let's call this "Italian/Asian Fusion Stir Fry".  I had 3 Italian Chicken sausages that needed using up...and a bag of stir fry veggies...and a bag of coleslaw mix.  Sliced up the sausages and sauteed them, then dumped about half a bag of the stir fry veggies (mostly broccoli and snow peas), then an entire bag of coleslaw mix.  I added a tiny bit of salt and a few shakes (quite a few) of  sweet ginger garlic seasoning (something I picked up at Costco a while back - I don't have the original container, so I have no idea what's in it (I'm guessing ginger and garlic are two of the ingredients)), and about a 1/4 cup of water - put the lid on the pan and let it cook for about 7 minutes (stirring occasionally).  It was AWESOME. I think it would be better with pork, so I think I'll give it another spin soon (I still have 1/2 a bag of stir fry veggies!).

Pear slices. With a dash of cinnamon. This was breakfast...along with a couple of slices of bacon. Because, bacon.

Italian Soup and Fried Sweet Potatoes

Let me be frank.

No, I'll just be Debbie.

This was not the meal I wanted to be having just before starting a fast.

Well, the soup was okay.  Just okay.  Definitely under seasoned, but on the whole, it was edible.
The recipe can be found here. I added some spinach and mushrooms like the gal suggested...but I'm thinking it needed a bit of garlic salt on the chicken breasts, and maybe some olives added in. 

Fried Sweet Potatoes.
I give up. Sweet potatoes just taste like sweet potatoes to me.  They're fine, if that's what you want, but I will never expect them to be a substitute for regular white potatoes again.
Ever.

On the surface this looks like a nice healthy dinner.

Tomato Soup

Well, it didn't turn out like my favorite tomato soup (plain old Campbell's), but it is an interesting jumping off point...

(ignore the salad - it's just trying to upstage the soup)
recipe found here

...and we all know what "interesting" means.  Yeah, I didn't lovelovelove it.  We're not even going steady.  However, much like the weird looking guy in the back of the class who wears a pocket protector and knows all the answers, it grew on me.

I think the basic idea is fine, it just needs more oomph.  I think I'll try simmering some fresh basil leaves in with the tomatoes next time.  Maybe add a dash of Italian seasoning.  A little more salt & pepper...try some fresh avocado slices on top...

That weird looking guy is going to get a makeover.

Naked Burger

   

A

 

Maybe I should call this a hot burger salad....

Here's the rundown
:

A Hot Burger Salad?

In a medium frying pan, I fryed up two pieces of bacon. Because, bacon. I then added about a third of a sweet onion, diced, half of a green pepper, ditto, and several baby portobello mushrooms, also diced. Oh, and a dollop of minced garlic. I fried it all up until the onions were translucent, then dumped them in a bowl so that I could use the pan to saute some spinach.  A largish handful.

The rest is as you see it.

Sauteed spinach, hamburger patty, sliced tomatoes, and then "the works".

Not bad. Not bad at all. Steve ate the same burger, sans spinach, plus bun. Danny had two burgers...hamburgers, cheese and buns.

Chicken Soup for the Whole30 Soul

Well, the picture's not much...but the soup is fantastic.

I used:

one (32 ounce) carton of chicken broth.  Pour it in a biggish pot, turn the heat to medium-ish.

a couple of large handfuls of sliced carrots.  Throw them in the pot too.

about a quarter of a sweet onion, diced.  Ditto.

baby portobello mushrooms...sliced.  Another couple of handfuls into the pot.

a couple of handfuls of celery (not quite as much as the carrots).  Toss them in too.

the meaty remains of a rotisserie chicken (Simple Truth brand, from Fred Meyer).  Throw the whole carcase in (mine had at least half of the meat still there).

Simmer for a while.  I think it was about 20 or 30 minutes. Turn down heat to low. 

Take chicken carcase out, debone, cut up the bigger bits, throw the meat back in the pot.

Add one large handful of chopped spinach.  Cook for a few more minutes.  

Done!

Whole(ish)30 - Two Weeks In.

This past week has been super crazy - helping Nathan and Rebekah move, painting, moving furniture and cleaning here, and then a four day trip to Idaho for Joe's funeral.  I haven't had a lot of time for posting.

I am happy to report that even though Steve and I went on a 4 day road trip, I was still able to stick with healthy eating.  Here's a few pictures from this past week:

Mexican salad.
So yummy.
I put cooked some chicken tenders in a frying pan, covered with Jack's Salsa, then put them on a bed of mixed greens, and added a dollop of guacamole.
So good.

Road trip food.
Sliced cucumbers, celery sticks in almond butter, olives, jicama sticks, guacamole, macadamia nuts and raw almonds, fresh peach slices and mixed heirloom tomatoes.
I admit, we ate too many macadamia nuts, but overall, it was a pretty good selection.  There are a couple of cans of tuna pictured, but we didn't end up using them.

I got half a box of peaches this week.  

Breakfast hash: Jimmy Dean Natural Sausage, sweet potatoes, jicama, onions, green peppers and baby portobello mushrooms.
It was excellent.

Ribs.
Ribs.
Ribs.
Oh, and some sauteed peas and mushrooms.
I made a new whole30 compliant rub - it was awesome.  I thought I would miss the brown sugar, but nope, not really.
(it was based on this recipe - but without the Old Bay Seasoning and with more onion and thyme)

Roadside Salmon Salad.
Picked up some mixed greens and some cold salmon fillets at Safeway in Pendleton, then added some of the road trip food I already had.
Delicious! (And very very pretty)

W30 - Day 5

Five days without sugar! (or gluten or dairy)...

I won't lie, today I had a little temptation.  I made a batch of brownies this morning, then frosted them with MINT FROSTING.  Lucky for me, Alex was around to lick the brownie bowl, and Steve was around to take care of the frosting overspill. Whew!

I was out of the house for quite a while today, so this time I thought ahead and threw a small handful of almonds and cashews in a baggie, along with a clementine.  That helped. Especially when I hit the Taco Bell drive thru for Alex.  I think I may have to figure out some Mexican food soon.

Very soon.

As pretty as this looks, breakfast was kind of a disaster.
I thought I would try some sweet potato hash browns.
Um. No. Not this time.
I added some shredded onion and garlic in a vain attempt to make these savory. My plan backfired - they tasted moderately gross.  I'll try again another time.
Maybe next year.

As promised, mashed sweet potatoes with toasted (okay, slightly scorched) pecans and toasted (barely - I didn't want to scorch again) coconut.  The unsweetened coconut was only so-so, but I loved the scorched pecans with it.  I may have to make that a thing.
Scorching things, I mean.

W30 - Day 4

Maybe my schedule will settle down a little next week - at least enough so that I can have meals at regular times. Oh, well...at least I managed to get 3 meals today.

Here goes:

Basically the same omelette/frittata as yesterday - but more kale.
It was good, but I don't think I can do eggs again for a little while.

I didn't have lunch until after 4pm - so I didn't want to fill up too much that close to dinner.
I reheated the last bit of spaghetti sauce from Sunday and fried up some mashed sweet potatoes.

I know, I know, pretty bland looking...but still yummy.
Salmon with lemon pepper and cilantro-lime-green-bean-shrimp.

W30 - Day 3

Another challenging day - I had to drive to Everett for an 8am dentist appointment...then again for Danny's noon appointment...then to the airport to pick up Alex (whose plane was an hour late!!!).  The boys and I were starving by the time we headed home, so Danny called Steve and had him order Papa Johns.

Yes, you heard me.

Papa Johns.

I hope inhaling is allowed on Whole30, because there was a lot of that going on during the 15 minute ride home from Papa Johns.

Breakfast was sort of an omelet...or frittata...or something.  I sauteed some leftover chicken sausage with baby kale, baby portobello mushrooms and diced onions, then poured two eggs (seasoned with salt) over the whole shebang...

...resulting in this.  It was pretty dang awesome, I just wished I'd thrown in more kale.
Next time.

This is what I DIDN'T eat for dinner.  I promise, I only inhaled.

This was my dinner that I threw together in less than 10 minutes.  The golden loveliness at the top of the plate is mashed sweet potatoes.  They were super easy, since I had cooked 3 large sweet potatoes this morning.  I just cut one in half, peeled it and poured a splash of coconut milk and about a teaspoon of butter, then I hit it with my immersion blender and presto chango! Mashed sweet potatoes.  I was surprised at how sweet they were - it was nice to have the sausage along with it.  I could see making these sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving - adding some roasted chopped pecans and some toasted coconut.  I may have to give that a trial run.

Maybe tomorrow.

Whole(ish) 30 Day 2

So...day 2.

I can tell that I need to work on having some snacks on hand - not that I've been nibbling, just, well, there were times today that I was quite hungry, and I know that it's because I haven't been eating enough.

Without further ado, here's what I ate today:

Breakfast: sausage, leftover spaghetti squash, sauteed mushrooms and green beans. Isn't it pretty?

Lunch: basically the same as breakfast, just scrambled together.  I was going to do a frittata, but I ran out of time.

Dinner: salad (spring greens, tomato, avocado and clementine slices) and grilled chicken sausage.

(purchased at Costco)

Whole(ish) 30 Day 1

Started the Whole30 challenge yesterday - no sugar, grains or dairy for a month.  Can I do it?

I do love a challenge.

Since it was Sunday, I only ended up having 2 meals and a couple of snacks.

Breakfast: sausage, green bean, onion and mushroom scramble. (I had just cooked up 3 of those ingredients to throw in the crockpot for spaghetti sauce...so they were out and convenient).

A hit and a miss. The cucumber cilantro lime salad was nasty - the cukes would have tasted better just left alone, or with a splash of apple cider vinegar. The spaghetti squash spaghetti was pretty dang good - the sauce was amazing.

Here's a link to the basic Whole30 program.  I'm not going to be quite as obsessive as they are...frankly, I don't want to spend a fortune on several different kinds of oil...that kind of thing.  I'll make do with EVOO and coconut oil and butter (until I run out, then I'll explore other options). It's going to be a 'work in progress' sort of thing.