Banana Blueberry Muffins

I know I've mentioned before how my youngest daughter likes to eat "healthy". She's on a "no dessert" kick right now so I thought I'd make her some blueberry muffins that do not contain sugar. The recipe was for bread, but put them in those mini cupcake pans and made them into muffins instead. I personally do not like the taste of whole grains and whole wheat and honey sweetened things....but these weren't half bad. (oh...and I do apologize for my poor quality pictures..but I never took a photography class, which is most likely obvious. Either that or I failed! LOL)

1/4 cup canola oil

2 tablespoons honey

2 eggs

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour 

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup old fashioned oats, uncooked

1 cup blueberries

3/4 cup pecans, chopped

nonstick cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350'

Combine oil, honey and eggs in a food processor. Beat in bananas; set aside

In a small bowl mix flour, baking soda and salt. Add oats. Carefully stir in blueberries and nuts. Add to banana mixture., stirring just until moistened.

Line muffin pan with paper cups or spray with nonstick cooking spray and fill 2/3 full with batter. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Crispy Lemon Chicken with Fried Rice

I've been trying to get this recipe right ever since "Simply Chicken" was sold, renamed and revamped, several years ago. Each time I think I'm close, I end up making a slight change the next time and it's even better. This time was no different. It's hit the spot perfectly, along with some fried rice and simple steamed vegetables. This recipe made 6 chicken thighs and there's only 2 left (only  3 of us ate tonight) and all the rice is gone. The veggies weren't a great culinary achievement but I wish the family ate more veggies.

Here's what I did for the chicken:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, or 6 boneless skinless chicken thighs

2/3 cup sour cream

2/3 cup fresh lemon juice

essence from 2 lemons (save the lemons to squeeze over the chicken when served)

Flour (I don't have an exact measurement, but its not all that important)

Panko crumbs (a lot)

Oil

Combine sour cream, lemon juice and lemon essence. Add enough flour to make mixture the consistency of thin pancake batter. Dip the chicken into the batter, then cover with panko crumbs. Heat enough oil in a hot pan to cover the bottom with about 1/8" of oil. Add more as needed. Fry chicken until golden brown and thoroughly cooked (the amount of time will depend on what cuts of chicken you use.)

The fried rice recipe came from my old Betty Crocker Cookbook, with a couple of minor changes:

1 small onion, chopped (about 1/4 cup)

2 tablespoons chopped green pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups cooked rice (a little on the dry side is best)

1 garlic clove, chopped

4 oz sliced mushrooms

2 tablespoons soy sauce

3 eggs, beaten

Cook and stir onion and green pepper in oil in 10" skillet until onion is tender, about 3 minutes. Stir in rice, mushrooms, garlic and soy sauce. Cover over low heat, stirring frequently, 5 - 7 minutes. Stir in eggs (I push everything to the sides to made an opening in the center to cook the eggs more solidly. You may need to add a bit more oil if the pan is on the dry side). Cook and stir until eggs are done, 4 - 5 minutes longer.

Turkey Hash with a Mexican Flair

Don't you just love it when you try a new recipe and it turns out even better than you expected? Anyway, one of my daughters is very health conscious. Not sure where she got it, cuz it sure wasn't from me!! Anyway, I try to accommodate her choices sometimes. I say sometimes because if it were up to her, we would be eating all organic, all free range and no sugar no where. We can't afford organic and free range. And as far as the sugar goes, I'd probably go into detox shock if I omitted that from my diet...LOL. I have to wonder why organic is so much more expensive. You'd think it would be less expensive since the farmer isn't buying all those pesticides.

Soo...In my quest to fit healthy food into our life style without going overboard on the budget and still keeping everyone else happy with the meals, I try to use ground turkey instead of ground beef more often. I have found that ground turkey has less flavor than beef and requires more seasonings. It also doesn't get that nice dark brown that adds flavor to ground beef...I have to learn to be a bit heavy handed when it comes to adding spices to my meals that cross over to the turkey side.

Btw...this is originally a Guy Fieri recipe that I made some minor adjustments to. If you want to see how the original recipe is suppose to be...check it out: Turkey Hash

Ok, when I came across the Turkey Hash recipe I was really excited. Something about fried potatoes really gets my taste buds going. When I started cooking everything I realized the turkey was going to very bland and I started dumping stuff in the pan. What I ended up with was soooo good! I don't really have exact measurements for a couple of the spices, sorry. It's not like baking so it really is just a matter of personal taste buds, ya know?

3 ounces olive oil

1 red onion, diced

1/2 each red, green and yellow bell pepper, julienne

6 oz sliced mushrooms

1 jalapeno, diced, seeds removed (unless you like it hotter)

1 lb ground turkey

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 tsp or so poultry seasoning

1 tsp or so cumin

1 lb red potatoes thinly sliced

1 tbs butter, cubed

1/2 cup roma tomatoes, diced

handful of chopped cilantro

handful of crumbled queso fresco

sliced avocado

lime slices

In large saute pan, add 1 oz olive oil, onions, peppers, jalapeno and mushrooms and saute until translucent. Remove veggies and set aside.

Add turkey to the pan and brown (you may need to add a little more oil as the turkey is pretty "dry"). Season with salt, pepper, poultry seasoning and cumin. If you find there's a lot of liquid in the pan, scoop some of it out with a spoon.

Add veggies to turkey and heat through. mmmm....the aroma is heavenly!

While turkey is browning....in a separate pan, add 2 oz of oil, potatoes, dot with butter and season with salt and pepper. Fry until crispy, covering pan with a lid for the first 10 minutes to get the potatoes to cook. Try not to turn the potatoes too much, you don't want them to break up and get mushy.

On a serving plate, layer the turkey mixture on top of the crispy potatoes. Top with tomatoes, avocado, queso fresco and cilantro. Squeeze some fresh lime juice over everything.

Friday's Fast Feast

This could be on Rachael Ray's 30 Minutes meals no problem! Fast, easy and tasty. No ones home tonight, why spend hours in the kitchen just for me? Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of times when I've done just that, but tonight I'm more in the mood for a good movie or chatting with some good friends. 

I got the recipe from my BakeSpace buddy, Michele. She has a great blog dedicated to her Italian grandmother. If you get a chance, check out her blog.....it's really cool. This recipe is posted in her Pasta section. The only thing I didn't have were the black olives....darn. Her blog is here: http://myitaliangrandmother.blogspot.com/

Tacos

There's nothing like a homemade taco. It just hits the spots. I don't think I've ever met someone who didn't like tacos. Please!!!! Don't buy those pre-cooked taco shells...those things are (in my opinion) pretty nasty tasting. I don't make my tortillas from scratch (might be a fun thing to do some day) but I do deep fry them. For me the thin corn tortillas work best. 

I had a few tortillas leftover so I cut them into triangles, fried them up as well (a bit longer than I do the taco shells) and man, they put those mexican chain restaurant style chips to shame. Well worth the effort, let me tell you!!

Other than the shells, the most important part of the taco is the meat. I use a recipe that I got from my 20 yr old Betty Crocker cookbook. It's easy and tastes great. You use 1 lb of ground beef, chopped onion...brown it all up. Toss in 2 TBS of chili powder, a chopped garlic clove, 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of cumin....mix that all up and sprinkle it over the meat. Then pour in 3/4 cup of water. Lower the heat and let it simmer until the liquid has reduced and thickened....and thats it. Chop up your favorite taco stuff, shred some cheddar cheese (and crumble up some queso fresco if you can get it) and enjoy! yum yum yum!!!

Pizza, Pizza, Pizza!!!

A good day is a day spent in the kitchen and it was a good day! I love a challenge so I took one today. I've made homemade pizza before but I've always used the pre-made, pre-cooked pizza dough from the grocery store...and was never really impressed. I found a couple of recipes for pizza dough and thought I'd try them out. 

Most of my experience with yeast has been with bread machines. I do have a great recipe for no knead bread that uses yeast, but that's another blog for another time. When making pizza you add the yeast to water and once it foams, you add the flour. I discovered, through trial and error that there's a bit more to it than that. I made two kinds of dough. One was a regular, all purpose pizza dough from a recipe I found on a blog and the other was for a whole wheat pizza dough that I found in a Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine. I started off by making the all purpose pizza dough because it took longer to rise. It's a good thing I did because out of the two of them, it was the one with the correct instructions, as follows:

1 package of active dry yeast (comes out to 2 1/2 tsp)

3 cups of all purose flour

1/2 TBS honey 

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup warm water (about 110 - 115 degrees)

Mix the honey and the water together. Add the yeast. Let sit for about 10 minutes, until it foams. Add salt and oil and give it a quick stir. Add 1 cup of flour and mix well. If you want to add some spices, now is the time. Add the rest of the flour. Mix together with a wooden spoon or by hand. If it's too wet, add a bit of flour (1 TBS at a time) until its dry enough. If it's too dry, add a bit of water (1 TBS at a time) until its right. Turn out onto a well floured surface and knead for a few minutes (1 -5). Form the dough into a ball and put into a large oiled bowl. Cover with a clean cloth and let it rise in a warm area until it has doubled in size (about 35 - 45 minutes). Punch down and let it rise again until it has doubled in size (about 1 - 1.5 hrs). Punch it down. Turn it onto a well floured surface and prepare your dough for pizza. I divided it up into 4 balls and made individual sized pizzas.

Now, for Martha's Whole Wheat Pizza Dough recipe.... The only issue I had with it was the instructions. The instructions only said to mix the warm water and yeast together and let it sit until foam appeared. My first batch was foamless so I tossed it and tried again thinking I had the water temperature wrong. Still no foam. Again I tossed it and tried again. No foam. By this time I figured I needed to do  some research and see what the problem was. This is where the internet really comes in handy!!! Apparently the yeast needs sugar or honey to feed upon in order to create that foam. There is sugar in the ingredients for Martha's recipe, so why didn't they instruct their readers to add the sugar to the water??? Once I added the sugar...the yeast mixture foamed beautifully! Here's how the recipe goes (correctly!!)

1.5 cups warm water (110 - 115 degrees)

2 packets active dry yeast (3 tsps)

1/4 cup olive oil (I actually used 1/3 cup)

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tsp salt

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

Place water in a large bowl, mix in sugar and yeast. Let stand until foamy (about 5 - 15 minutes)

Whisk in oil and salt. Stir in flour with a wooden spoon until dough forms (I first stirred in about 1.5 cups of the flour then added the remaining flour). Transfer the dough to a large oiled bowl; brush the top of the dough with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place until dough as doubled in size, about 1 hour. Turn dough onto a well floured surface. With floured hands, knead until smooth, about 15 seconds. Divide into balls.

Besides the awesome flavor of a homemade pizza dough, you get to put whatever you want on your pizza. You can even make individual sized pizzas and let everyone in your household make their own, just the way they like it. I chopped and shredded everything I could think of to give my family what they wanted. There was shredded chicken, pepperoni, sliced tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, olives, onions, several kinds of cheese, sliced garlic, chopped basil, tomato sauce, alfredo sauce, pesto sauce, bbq sauce, fresh spinach. I forgot to get ham and pineapple. Guess I can't think of everything. 

Sooo......the first pizza shown at the top was made by my daughters friend. She didn't want any of the more unusual stuff on it...I guess you'd call her a purest. It had tomato sauce, cheese and pepperonis. The second picture is one of my daughters makings, using the whole wheat dough. Leave it to a teenage girl to make her pizza in the shape of a heart!!! LOL. I don't like tomato sauce on my pizza. I know...how weird is that?! If you've ever eaten at a California Pizza Kitchen, you may have had something like this first one. It had alfred sauce, shredded chicken, red onions, cheese and bbq sauce on it. YUM!!! My second pizza had the alfred sauce, cheese, mushrooms, sliced garlic and spinach. Loved it!!

I loved pizza when I was a kid (what kid doesn't!) but when I stopped liking the tomato sauce on it, I lost my taste for it. With the alfredo sauce, I have re-found my love for pizza! Oh, and I prefer my crust thin. 

Cherry Crunch

Probably one of my most requested desserts ever. Nothing fancy but it tastes great! My husbands grandmother gave me the recipe years ago. I have no idea where she got it but I'm glad she passed it down. Over the years I have tried other flavors with it such as blueberries and raspberries. Raspberries are usually what I use now when making it.

My oldest daughter played basketball for about 8 years. The girls on the team were like my own children. I feel like I have kids of every race out there. I love it! They all call me mom :). "Raspberry" Crunch became the preferred dessert of the high school basketball team. So much so that it was hijacked one year by the varsity girls during a potluck team dinner. I had it on the table with all the other desserts that were brought but the girls took the whole thing to their table, along with a dozen spoons and were eating it straight out of the pan!! Talk about a compliment!! Most of these girls have graduated and are off to college but when I talk to them, they always request some. One of the girls came home for the weekend and has been bugging me for over a month for Raspberry Crunch but I couldn't find any raspberry pie filling in the store so this time I used blueberries. She came over for lunch today and it's half gone already.

If you want to make your kids smile, make this simple dessert for them.

Cherry Crunch

1 package of while deluxe cake mix (I've used yellow before and it was just fine)

1 can of cherry pie filling (or raspberry or blueberry or what ever your favorite pie filling happens to be)

1 tsp lemon juice (of course fresh is best)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I usually use pecans)

1/2 cup melted butter

Spread the pie filling in the bottom of a 9' square pan. Sprinkle the filling with the lemon juice. Combine the cake mix, nuts and melted butter. Sprinkle evenly over the pie filling. Bake in a preheated 350' oven for about 40-50 minutes, until golden brown. ENJOY!!!