Red Beans and Whipped Cream

So, I’ve given up dairy and chocolate because it seems to make Lorelei upset. I’m trying to cut back on soy and wheat, too.

So this recipe is a definite winner. And it is endlessly adaptable.

The bars are sort of muffin-like in texture.

Baked Oatmeal- Original recipe
6 C oats
4 eggs
1/2 C oil
3/4 C sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 C milk

Mix all ingredients together. Bake in 9 X 13 inch pan for 30 mins at
350 F.

Baked Oatmeal- My adapatations

I cut the recipe in half.
I used applesauce instead of oil
I used wheat germ/wheat bran/ground flax in place of 1/3 of the oats
I used maple syrup in place of sugar
I added chopped nuts
I used almond milk

I mixed some margerine and brown sugar together for a quick topping for the bars.

Baked in an 8×8 pan at 350 for 45 minutes.

SO good.

You could use egg substitute. You could add raisins/craisins/chocolate chips. I think I might make peanut butter ones next time. Caramel chips would make it a good sweeter snack. The possibilities are endless!

And oats are good for milk supply.

These supposedly keep for one week in fridge and freeze well

EDIT #1: Peanut butter and carob baked oatmeal
I made these again but this time used peanut butter in place of oil. Brown sugar in place of the white sugar. And I added carob chips. I also did the same thing with replacing part of the oats with flax/wheat germ/wheat bran, and almond milk in place of milk.

Edie #2: Peanut butter and jelly baked oatmeal
I made the Peanut butter ones from above, but without carob chips. When they were about halfway through cooking I dolloped low-sugar grape jelly all over the top, and then topped with a crushed graham cracker/butter/brown sugar mixture.

EDIT #3: S’mores baked oatmeal
I’ve decided that small-moderate amounts of chocolate don’t seem to be too much of an issue, so I tried out some s’mores baked oatmeal. They’re a total winner.
I, once again, used wheat germ and wheat bran in place of 1/3 of the oats. Almond milk instead of regular milk. Applesauce instead of oil. To sweeten I used a mix of brown sugar, molasses, and honey. Then I added semi-sweet (dairy free) chocolate chips, and some mini marshmallows. Oh yum.

I couldn’t quite decide if this should go here or on the pregnancy blog, but I decided that this blog is the more neglected of the two, and that while I was feeding my freezer because I’m about to have a baby, there might be more reasons to want to feed your freezer. That was a very long sentence.

This isn’t a recipe post, it’s just a random post of what I’ve been doing this week in the kitchen.

Thursday I did a huge $200 grocery trip to gather the supplies I needed. It seems like a lot, but I made a ton of food, so I actually think it was money well spent. As long as we actually eat the food and it doesn’t just turn into icy bags of freezer burned random food that never gets eaten.

In order to avoid the random chunks of ice-food in the bottom of the freezer I enlisted the help of several tools. First off, good freezer bags. Ziploc brand. None of the store brand “storage” bags- I’m talking about heavy duty Ziploc brand freezer bags.

Next, sharpies. Luckily I have acquired a ton of sharpies from my baby shower. Use the sharpies to label what the food is, how much it is (for sauces and broths, especially), and when it was made.

The third thing isn’t altogether necessary, but I have enjoyed it. Ziploc makes a cheap vacuum sealer. The sealer pump cost $3.99 and came with three quart-sized bags. Unfortunately the bags for it aren’t very cheap, so I used it sparingly, and for the items that I thought were most likely to suffer from serious freezer burn. They are resealable, so with things like muffins you can quick-freeze a bunch, then vacuum seal them, and then when you want one, just pull one out and re-vacuum the bag.

So here is what was cooked this week:

Thursday I made two large chicken pot pies and froze them uncooked.

I pulled out my trusty Cuisinart and chopped a bunch of onions and a bunch of red/green bell peppers. I set aside the correct amount for a couple of recipes I was going to work on, and then froze the rest in 1/2 cup servings.

I heated up some Morning Star Farms fake burger and added some onion, peppers, taco seasoning, taco sauce, and salsa. I separated this into two bags.

I made four small meatloaves- I think they’re going to be one serving each. I didn’t cook them, I just froze them uncooked in little disposable pans.

I made a bunch of my simple pasta sauce, and froze it in two-cup (if I recall correctly) servings.

Then there was chicken broth. Oh-so-much chicken broth. I had all the various odds and ends for it saved in the freezer already, so I just dumped it all into the crock pot with some water and cooked it on low for about 36 hours. I strained it, and it’s now a beautiful dark brown broth frozen in two cup servings. Bonus: if you save the pieces for it ahead of time, it’s free. I made 11 cups, total. For free.

Yesterday Charlotte and I made a huge batch of Dinosaur BBQ sauce.

We put a pork butt in the crock pot (didn’t even bother cleaning it well, since chicken broth certainly wasn’t going to hurt anything). I ended up overcooking it, so the BBQ is probably going to be better suited to sandwiches than just eating it off a plate.

We made a big batch of pizza won tons.

We made blueberry muffins that were whole wheat with a handful of flax, wheat germ, and wheat bran. And a crumble topping. Mmmmmm.

We were going to make more muffins, but Home Depot was out of the freezer we wanted, so we won’t have enough freezer space until they deliver it next weekend.

Charlotte also brought me a huge batch of lactation bars. They’re basically a cookie bar with lots and lots of oats (which is good for milk supply), peanut butter (protein), and some chocolate chips (yum factor).

Today Zach shredded the pork and I dumped a bunch of the BBQ sauce in it, and froze it in individual bags. Then I froze the leftover BBQ sauce separately.

In addition to all of that I also bought a couple packages of chicken breasts and a package of ham steaks.

Hopefully this will feed us for a while after the baby gets here! We also have promises of food from a few family members and friends.

Okay, I’m sure nobody is going to run out to make this tonight, but I just realized I’d never mentioned this recipe, and today seemed like the appropriate day.

It’s not even a recipe so much.

When you make mashed potatoes (however you like to make mashed potatoes), also cook up some broccoli (you want it sort of overcooked and mushy) and mash it up with your potatoes. You want to try to avoid any large lumps of broccoli, so mash thoroughly. The potatoes will be green, but they’ll be way more healthful, and they’ll taste REALLY good if you add some cheese!

I know I have a lot of bean recipes on here. But I made some chili last night and it was great, so I want to share! This recipe is actually paired with the veggie burger recipe. The reason is that I only wanted to make half of a veggie burger recipe, because the whole recipe makes way too much. I also didn’t need an overflowing crockpot full of chili. This worked out perfectly. It does occur to me, however, that you might not actually want to make chili and veggie burgers at the same time, because maybe you don’t like beans as much as I do.

So I think you could up the amounts of some of the other ingredients, and use whole cans of beans instead of half cans- but it’s going to make a lot of chili! You could also probably leave out the pinto beans or something, and then do a whole can of the kidney and black beans. Don’t leave out the kidney beans or the baked beans- those are important!

Obviously, if you use soaked dried beans, you can control the amounts more easily. You might find you need some extra liquid for that, though.

1/2 can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 small can vegetarian baked beans, juice and all
1 can diced tomatoes with mild green chilis, juice and all
1 small can of diced mild green chilis, juice and all
1/2 – 1 yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
spices: cumin and chili powder to taste

Combine all ingredients in the crock pot. Start with a tablespoon each of cumin and chili powder, and then add more as you feel is necessary.

Let cook on low for a few hours.

Top with finely grated sharp provolone cheese. You could also add some sour cream. If you have some cilantro handy a bit of that is good, either on top or mixed in.

I think you should all be aware that today is World Nutella Day.

I never buy Nutella. It’s expensive, is bad for us, and tastes amazing. That is a sure-fire recipe for gaining a kazillion pounds while losing all of our money. But c’mon, it’s World Nutella Day!!!

So last night on my way home from work I stopped by the store and picked up some Nutella.

I was finally going to make the cookies.

These cookies have been calling my name for months.

There are many recipes for them out there on the internet, under several variations of the same name. My main inspiration came from this blog. This blog also has a very similar recipe.

The recipe looks intimidating, but it was actually a very easy cookie recipe. And since the dough has to chill for an hour, there was more than enough time to mix together the filling. I also made the topping easier than those recipes, because I didn’t feel like chopping up peanuts, so I just left that out.

There’s only one thing that I might change when I do this again (and I *will* do this again). The original recipe calls for the filling to have equal parts peanut butter and nutella. I think I’d cut way back on the PB or maybe cut it out completely. I want the filling to have more Nutella flavor!

Since I changed the recipe just a tiny bit, I’ll repost it here.

Nutella Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies

Cookie Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup flour (I used unbleached white whole wheat to make this a health food)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup ( 1 stick ) room temperature butter
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/2 cup of packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup of smooth peanut butter

Nutella Filling Ingredients:
1/4 cup of smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup of Nutella
scant 1/2 tsp. of salt
1 Tbsp. of cocoa powder
3 Tbsp. of granulated sugar
3 Tbsp. of confectioners sugar

Rolling Ingredients:
1/4 cup of granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. of ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt

In a small bowl whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together.

In a large bowl cream the butter, then add the sugars and beat at medium speed for 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and beat. Add the vanilla and peanut butter. Make sure the scrape the sides of the bowl to get everything mixed in really well.

Add the flour mixture slowly. You don’t want to over mix this, so stop beating as soon as the flour is incorporated. Scrape down the sides again to get any flour that the mixer missed.

Cover and refrigerate the dough for about an hour.

In the meantime you can make your filling and rolling mix.

For the filling, combine all of the ingredients and mix. It should be thick enough to roll into a ball. You can add more powdered sugar if you need to. Super easy!

For the rolling mix, combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and mix! Easy peasy!

Preheat the oven to 375F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or silpat.

To make the cookies you scoop out about 2 tablespoons of the cookie dough, roll into a ball, then flatten into a disc.

Then roll a smaller ball of the Nutella. Nothing seems to address how much, but I’m guessing about a teaspoon? You basically want as much Nutella as the cookie will hold. Place that nutella ball in the middle of the cookie dough disc.

Then fold the cookie dough around the Nutella, shaping it back into a ball (so you’ll have a ball of cookie dough with a ball of nutella in the middle).

Roll the dough through the rolling mixture, then place on the cookie sheet. Press down with the bottom of a glass until it is cookie shaped.

Bake for 8-10 minutes- edges should be light gold. They’ll still look a little underdone in the middle, but that’s a good thing.

Note that these cookies spread out and became much bigger than I had anticipated- so make sure you leave a couple inches between each cookie.

These are SO good.

So, as of Monday I will be able to say, “this baby will be full term NEXT month.”

Crazy.

It means it’s time to start thinking of things to feed to my freezer, so that when baby comes we will have easy, nutritious, meals to reheat.

So I’m going to add to this blog post as I think of things that are great for the freezer. Or things that I *think* are great for the freezer. We’re going to get a deep freezer soon, which should help with my aversion to freezer burned food.

If you have a favorite food to freeze, leave the suggestion in the comments!

Eastern NC BBQ, with or without sauce already added.

Chicken BBQ

Easy Tomato Sauce

Chicken Broth

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Veggie Burgers

Chicken and Cream Cheese Eggrolls

Homemade Pizza Rolls

Ricotta Pea Wontons

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins, and other muffins that would make a great quick breakfast.

Vegetable soup (the only recipe on my page is for fresh veggie soup, and I’d be using mostly canned stuff, due to the time of the year. I’ll try to post a canned veggie soup recipe sometime soon)

Meatloaf

Lasagna

A lot of these things would be frozen in individual serving sizes, or two-person serving sizes. Chicken broth would generally be frozen in one-cup blocks. Sauces can be frozen in ice cube trays and then put in a baggie after they’re frozen.

I think I’ve had three of these already, and one of those was large. And I think I’m about to go back for another. They’re good.

They’re not disgustingly sweet, but they’re VERY chocolaty, and perfectly fudgy.

They only use one bowl. And you don’t need a mixer, just a wooden spoon or a spatula.

Here’s the link to the recipe

I changed just a couple of minor things. I used about 1/4 a cup of dark brown sugar instead of 1/4 of white sugar. I used half dark chocolate cocoa powder and half regular.

She mentions that you can use the microwave in the first part, instead of the pot of simmering water, and that’s what I did. It worked fine.

She’s right that they do take longer than advertised to bake. I was getting worried that they’d never get done, but they did.

I must go eat another.

I just tried out the tomato sauce with a can of crushed tomatoes instead of whole ones, and it works just fine. Just remember that crushed tomatoes don’t usually have salt added, so you’ll need to add some.

And just so it doesn’t get TOO easy, I also threw in a few whole cloves of garlic along with the onion.

I usually make tomato sauce that takes a long time. It involves grating carrots and zucchini and finely chopping an onion and chopping herbs, etc. Then I cook it for a couple of hours. It’s pretty good, but not always what I’m looking for.

So when this easy tomato sauce recipe showed up in my google reader I decided to try it out. I was a bit skeptical because it just seemed too easy. My aunt can make it because it only has three ingredients.

Here’s the link to the blog where I first read about it.

Easy Tomato Sauce

1 28 ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes
5 tablespoons of butter
1 onion, peeled and cut in half.

Put all of the ingredients in a pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. As you stir press into the tomatoes to help break them up. Pull out the onion halves and discard. I used my immersion blender to get it nice and smooth at this point, though you could leave it chunky, or you could use a strainer spoon or something to get the chunks of tomato out. I added a bit of salt, but it didn’t need much.

The result? It was fantastic. The tomatoes I bought had basil in them, which I didn’t realize until I got home, but I think it would have been just as good without them.

Now I want to beat my head into the wall for every carrot I ever grated.

Definitely try this out. It’s even cheaper than some canned sauces, considering I think the can of tomatoes was under $2, one medium onion costs maybe 75 cents, and just over half a stick of butter costs maybe 50 cents. So… that’s not very much money or effort for some really good sauce.

If I phrase it with an exclamation it seems exciting!

So our holiday party at work is Friday. Of course I want to bring something exciting and great, but I’m sort of lacking on the energy thing.

Also, I have a midwife appt at 1:30 that day, and am leaving town after that, so I will have to leave our party at 1:00. This means that whatever I bring has to be in a disposable container, and needs to have practically no clean-up, since I’ll be leaving that task to someone else. Also, we have only microwaves and fridges for food prep at work, and with so many people they’ll be full, I’m sure… so something that can be stored at room temperature is best.

My original thought had been to bring chicken BBQ, but it doesn’t fit those last requirements, so now I’m back to square one.

I want to bring something great! Memorable! Something that won’t be completely overlooked among the kazillions of other dishes. First and second year students, plus faculty and staff will all be there. That’s somewhere well over 150 people. Even if half of them bring a dish, that’s a LOT of food!

So do I make a big dish of something? Do I make individual somethings but just not worry about actually making 150 of them, because there will be far too much food to worry about feeding everyone? Or what?

Cookies? Cupcakes? Pudding-filled cupcakes? A main course dish? I just have no idea!!!

Help!