Bergamot in Earl Grey Tea

I learned something new this weekend.  Earl Grey tea has a citrus flavoring in it called bergamot.  I'd never heard of this before.  It can be extracted as an essential oil and tastes great in the tea...supposed  to build confidence and enhance your mood.  No wonder Jean-Luc Picard always drank it on the Enterprise!  Having some right now.   Delicious.

The bergamot is in the Twinings of London and Bigelow brands of tea.

Pioneer Woman

I so enjoy watching The Pioneer Woman. One of my sons gave me one of her cookbooks last year. Wish she could stop by and fix dinner for us --especially on Monday or Tuesday when I work all day!

Meal Menu Planning

I took about 30 minutes this Saturday afternoon to plan all the dinner menus for next week.  Wow! What a relief.  I don't know why I haven't done this in awhile.  Instead, I've been planning about a day ahead or sometimes (eek!) the same day.

I used a couple of cookbooks I picked up at the library this morning, allrecipes.com and my iCalendar (which syncs to my iPhone).  The menus use ingredients I know I already have in my pantry and freezer, so no more grocery shopping this week except for perishables.

Menu Meal Planning

I hope to keep doing this on a regular basis.  Sure makes life a lot easier and I avoid that 4:30-5:00 p.m. what's-for-dinner-tonight panic!

Keeping Your Produce Fresh with Microfiber Cloths

One of my friends (thanks, Patty) told me this great tip for keeping produce fresh--keep a microfiber cloth in the container or wrap the produce in it.  I purchase these large boxes of mixed greens from Sam's Club regularly.  I was finding that it would often spoil before it was sometimes only half finished.

You put a microfiber cloth on top of the greens and then flip the box over so that the vegetables are not touching the plastic box on all sides where it can't "breathe".  

Using Microfiber Cloths

Microfiber Cloths

Microfiber Cloths

I was amazed at how long the greens stayed fresh without any excess water to spoil them.   These strawberries lasted more than one week.    Try it and make your produce last longer.  :)

Sam's Club Mixed Greens

I was in Sam's Club last weekend and bought a package of 24 microfiber cloths for less than $10.00. They are so useful around the house as a previous post explains.

Graduation Party Food Ideas

Some of my friends are SO creative with their graduation parties, making cake pops (they ARE delicious) and little caps from chocolates (they were delicious, too).  We gave a party for about 50 a few weeks ago to celebrate our younger son's graduation from high school.    Here are the tables of food that I prepared.  The baking took some time but I mainly set aside one afternoon for the cookies (and froze them) and baked the cake the day before the party.

Non-sweet food:

• Pizza rolls (2 platters)
• Chick-fil-A Chicken Nuggets Tray
• Fresh sliced watermelon
• Sour cream & onion Chips
• Hummus + carrots, crackers and celery

Sweet food:

• Homemade frosted Strawberry cake
• Homemade chocolate chip cookies (I baked about 100)
• M & M's
• Gummy Bears (I was amazed that only 2 gummies were left in the dish. Definitely a hit!)

Beverages:

• Pink lemonade
• Root beer
• Iced tea
• Water

Even though we splurged on his graduation gift, we wanted the party to be decorative and fun.   Much of the food was homemade, some foods were bought earlier in the month when they were on sale as were the party paper products [Old Time Pottery and Party City].  I got a little nervous about the quantity of food since the invitation said 2:30-4:30 pm and guests were still there at 6:10 pm.  Like the multiplying of the  loaves and fishes, there was plenty with even some leftovers!  Guests spread through the kitchen / family room, dining room and living room and it never felt too crowded.   A fun time was had by all.

For my FB friends, you can see more photos of the party in my April-June photo album. 

You don't have to break your budget to celebrate... just do it! and have fun!  :)

Memorial Day / Afternoon Snacks

We all love hamburgers, fries, corn on the cob, baked beans and watermelon.  Many I'm sure ate all of those yummy foods on Memorial Day or sometime over the holiday weekend.  We usually eat our main meal on that day at lunchtime. So what do you do when dinnertime rolls around?  You could eat the same again (like at Thanksgiving) or just have a "snack" dinner like we did last night.  Except for the blueberry coffee cake, it was a healthy calorie count and the variety tasted great!  [The items in red are from Aldi.]

Roasted pepper and tomato soup   (100 calories)

Celery sticks with artichoke hummus  (23 calories)

Fresh cherries  (97 calories)

"Triscuits" with Colby cheese  (230 calories)

Homemade blueberry coffee cake  (117 calories)

561 calories sounds like a lot but I exercised that morning and burned 400+ calories since I knew I'd be eating a lot of foods I don't normally eat (hamburger, fries...).  Having half of the crackers and cheese and omitting the coffee  cake  would have been a more reasonable amount of calories for a snack meal but it was a "fun" food day. :) Even so, I didn't exceed the amount of foods/calories on my Lose It! app.  :)

Aldi Product Review: Artisan Lettuce

I love this relatively new Aldi product:  Artisan Lettuce.  It is just the right size for singles, a  small family or a couple.  I used to buy this at Sam's Club but often about 1/4 or more of it would go back before we could use it all.  I really dislike throwing food away. 

There are 3 kinds of lettuce inside and it makes a colorful, delicious and healthy salad.  

Price:  $1.99  (on sale this week for $1.29)  and most importantly, it is a  Product of the USA.

Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Muffins with Two Ingredients + Spices

I love our ladies groups at church.  I attend a Bible/book study 2x a month and our Titus 2 Moms group 1x a month.  Lots of fellowship and conversation and you learn some practical things as well.  At one of these gatherings recently two of the younger women (thanks, Breanna and Mandi) told me how to make pumpkin muffins with two ingredients--spice cake mix and a can of pumpkin.  Someone had brought them that night as a snack and they tasted great.

When I started to make the muffins this morning, I mistakenly used a yellow cake mix instead of the spice cake mix and didn't realize it until I had already dumped the cake mix into the bowl.

Oops!  I had also already opened the pumpkin.  I have baked many, many pumpkin pies (homemade pumpkin pies are the BEST),  so I improvised --something my kids are usually afraid of when I cook.  I added some cloves and fresh ground cinnamon to the bowl.  They added just the extra flavor that the cake mix needed.  If you use the CORRECT mix (spice cake) you don't need to add anything.  

Since there are no eggs or oil added, the batter is lumpy after stirring well. This is actually better for spooning it into the muffin tins since I usually get it all over the counter and the tins when pouring regular batter in them.  No mess to clean up!

I baked the muffins according to the directions on the cake mix--25 minutes at 350 degrees.  This recipe made 16 sizable muffins and they DO taste great.

Added bonus:  I bought the cake mix at Aldi's for 89 cents and the organic pumpkin was free at a pantry swap party... so 16 muffins for 89 cents!  :)

We're headed to Legoland tomorrow and I wanted a take-along snack for the car.  These will be perfect AND taste like fall as well.  :)

Pinterest Recipe: Broccoli Cheese Egg Muffins

I have been using Pinterest for awhile now to collect ideas of things to do, cook, give as presents, etc.  I love having a "virtual" notebook at my fingertips, literally.  Here is a recipe that I found on Pinterest that  I made for weekend breakfast for our family.  Everyone enjoyed them.

The original post and recipe is at THIS LINK.  I made a few changes to the original recipe as noted below:

Ingredients

• 1 pound Italian Sausage (sweet, mild, hot variety depending on your preference) [I used bacon]
• 1 cup broccoli florets [I used leftover steamed broccoli]
• 8 large eggs
• 1/4 cup milk (or half and half depending on how you're feeling that day)
• 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• salt & pepper to taste
• Freshly grated Parmesan Cheese as needed [I used mozzarella and cheddar cheeses]

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. In a large saute pan, over medium high heat, brown Italian Sausage for about 5 minutes, or until the sausage is no longer pink. Remove from heat and stir in broccoli.
3. Whisk together eggs, milk, oil and baking powder.  Season with salt and pepper.
4. Lightly spray a 12-cupcake pan with oil.Spoon out the sausage and broccoli mixture evenly into each cupcake.

5. Ladle the egg mixture over sausage and broccoli. 

6. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. [I sprinkled one muffin tin with mozzarella and one with cheddar.  My family preferred the cheddar.]
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes.  

These were delicious!  Definitely a keeper recipe around here.  :)

Pound Cake Using a Box Mix

Plain cookies (like shortbread), plain ice cream without toppings, plain pound cake... these are some of my favorite desserts.  I enjoy toppings and add-ins every now and then but plain to me is just better.

One of my tried and true cookbooks is Ann Byrn's The Dinner Doctor.  She also wrote The Cake Mix Doctor and even has a gluten-free cookbook out now.   She writes recipes that taste like they are "made from scratch" but for which she gives you little handy helper tips to make them.  Her books are quite popular although I did see one this week on Paperback Swap.

Her pound cake recipe is one of the best I have ever tried and I have made it several times. She even calls it "The Best Pound Cake".    Once you taste it, you'll want to go out and get the book especially since it is SO easy to make.    Here you go:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 stick butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 1 package yellow cake mix
• 1 container (8 oz) sour cream
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1 tbsp. vanilla 

DIRECTIONS
Prepare a large bundt pan (spray and flour).  I love my red bundt pan.   Be sure to use a large 10" pan because this recipe fills it pretty well.  In a large bowl, combine the butter and oil, beat; add the sugar, beat; add the eggs, beat.  Add the rest of the ingredients and beat more.  Pour the batter into the bundt pan.  Bake for 60-65 minutes at 350 degrees.

There is a similar recipe at AllRecipes.com.  I think the sour cream is the secret ingredient.

For presentation, use a bundt cake pan and slice generous portions, serving with homemade whipped cream and fruit. Mmmm...

Homemade Pizza Bread Dough

I've posted about using homemade (or frozen)  bread dough to make pizza previously but that was using the entire loaf for one pizza to make a really hearty one with a thick crust.  With everyone trying to keep their weight and carbs (especially from breads) under control, you can also divide the dough in half and make TWO pizzas  or two strombolis.

To make the pizzas with thinner crust, prepare the dough as usual in your bread machine.  Divide it in half and spread it out with your hands on two cookie sheets / baking pans.

Next, spread out the red sauce.  I spread it with my clean hands so I can feel how wet it is getting.   I use Prego but any brand or homemade is fine. Just don't put too much or it will saturate the dough and make it too soggy.  I had a little bit left in a jar that I had used when making meatball subs and used that.  It was plenty.

Then sprinkle your cheese.  I used mozzarella shredded cheese from Aldi's.  This little bag actually has quite a bit in it.  I know I've used it for chicken parmesan, for salads and in eggs over the last couple of weeks.  I believe it's about $3.29 for this large bag.  Sprinkle it generously over the pasta sauce.

These were appetizer pizzas so I just topped them with sliced onions.  I forgot that I had mushrooms in the refrigerator.  :(

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes and Voila!  The recipe made two of these yummy pizzas....Use kitchen shears to cut the pizzas into small finger food size squares.   I took one platter of pizza squares to our Titus 2 Moms gathering and  we had one for snacks while watching the Gator game.

Fun Food for the Weekend

In case you're wondering if I ALWAYS cook fairly healthily, the answer is NO, but that I try to as much as I can.  Sometimes the family really wants something that I can hardly put in my mouth but as a "treat" for them, particularly my husband, I'll fix something like the franks and beans meal below.  Now, I don't mind a good hot dog [I'm partial to Nathan's brand] but I try to not make them very often unless we are grilling outside.

A simple fun meal...

Sauté the sliced hot dogs first [adding sliced onions in the mix makes it even better], then add the canned baked beans [we use Bush's exclusively] and let them simmer for about 30 minutes or so.

Then open a can of corn kernels and a square of cream cheese.  Sounds strange, but it really is delicious.  Warm these up slowly so the cream cheese does not scorch.   A dear friend who was a missionary in Honduras taught me to do this and my family loves it.

Pop a loaf of garlic bread in the oven to bake [or make your own fresh] and make a salad with lettuce and whatever FRESH ingredients you have on hand [I have to have something fresh.].  I used lettuce, cucumbers, sliced almonds, tomatoes, spinach, feta cheese and raisins for this one.  

Voila!  Easy, tasty ... great for a quick meal while you're watching the football game with friends and the family.  Man food!  Kid food! They'll love it.

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Leftovers: Roast and Mashed Potatoes Morphs Into Vegetable Beef Stew

I really dislike to waste food, especially if I've been the one that prepared it in the first place or paid good money at today's prices.  With our reduced family size (from four to three most nights) I still have a difficult time periodically preparing too much food.  Often I just freeze the leftovers or someone takes them to class or work for lunch, or I eat some of it for lunch as well.

I'm trying to get better at "morphing" one night's meal into another day's lunch or supper.  This week I made flank steak with onions in the crockpot similar to THIS recipe  plus garlic mashed potatoes and carrots on the side.  Sometimes I make a pot pie out from leftover beef (another blog post some other time).  I decided to make beef stew this time.  [I had been to the dermatologist that morning and had two freeze sprays on my face + one biopsy, so I needed some comfort food.]

Remember to layer the flavors first by sautéing onions and garlic and then adding the other ingredients.

Add whatever you have on hand.  The items that I added were:  diced tomatoes, corn, green beans (all canned but fresh is even better), leftover garlic mashed potatoes, leftover glazed carrots, frozen chicken broth [I had cooked a chicken a few weeks ago and froze the broth], the leftover flank steak ...

...and my secret ingredient Knorr Vegetable Recipe Mix.  This makes any soup taste GREAT.  The fact that most of the ingredients had been cooked previously REALLY layered the flavors.  If you are sick, use chicken instead of beef and LOTS of vegetables.  I call this my "Get Well Soup" and make it every time anyone is sick (as well as when we just want a good soup).  :)

I let it all simmer for 1 1/2 - 2 hours ...

and served it with cheese toast made from homemade bread and fresh red grapes.  Just slice a few pieces of cheddar cheese and put on top of the sliced bread. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.  Remember to moisten the baking sheet with Pam or something similar.

I put about 4 chunks of meat into the freezer and there was still a little bit of the roast shreds and gravy left in my casserole dish.    It went right into a Tupperware lidded bowl to freeze for next time.  :)

Our dinner for the evening.

My husband and son each had THREE bowls of this stew and said it was really, really good.  My husband even said  I could make money selling it.  :) :) :)  This pot  of stew would normally make enough for about 12+ large bowls of soup if my family had not been so hungry!  After we ate, there was enough for all of us to have a bowl for lunch the next day.

Enjoy!

Taking Meals to Others in Time of Need / Take Them a Meal.com

I'm sure most of you have heard about this site but just in case...    Take Them a Meal  was introduced to our church a year or two ago as a way to handle the organization of meals to the sick, new moms, families with recent deaths, etc.  What a fabulous time saver!  I have called or emailed so many over the years, then re-called and re-emailed...  Learning about this site helps SO much.  Particularly when various events are close together.

The site is takethemameal.com

All you do is  go the site, CLICK the tab to create a schedule, fill in the needed information and voila!  That's all there  is to it.  You can give as many details as you need-- the address, phone number of the recipient and any special instructions i.e. allergies, how many are in the family, etc.

Reminder emails are automatically sent to you (if you are the administrator) AND the person signed up to bring a meal, and dates are deleted as they pass.  People can indicate what they are bringing and then check the site so that there are no duplications.  I can't tell you how much time this has saved me in even just the last couple of years.

The "Southern" tradition of taking food to someone in need is a generous and personal way to show someone that you care.  I hope you, your church, your co-workers and friends can make use of this excellent time-saving site and bless new parents, a mourning family or a family where there is sickness in the household.

TIP #1:  I am testing this site for  snack sign-ups for a ladies group that I participate in as well.  There is a link on the set up page for MORE THAN ONE MEAL PER DAY and I named them SWEET, SAVORY and SWEET OR SAVORY.   We'll see how that goes...

TIP #2:  The administrator need not feel guilty if the schedule does not fill up each day.  A younger woman who had set up a meal schedule contacted me once and was very upset that some of the days where meals were requested were blank.  Not sure who said this originally, but this is a case where  it is what it is.   If the schedule  is set up for people within an office or a church, a blanket email can be sent to make others aware of this, but the preparation of meals is from the goodness of someone's heart and cannot be forced.  Don't take it upon yourself to make all the meals begrudgingly.

RECIPE USING LEFTOVERS: Bananas AND Cereal

Here is another recipe from my Use It All Leftovers cookbook...Banana Muffins.  Similar to the previous one I posted only this recipe uses leftover bananas AND leftover cereal.

I don't know about your house, but at mine when the  bananas start looking like this, no one will touch them except me.  It's like they have a disease or something.  I think I could let them set on the counter and literally turn to decomposed liquid and still, no one would say anything or touch them.  :)   When too soft to slice or eat from the peel, I use them to make bananas bread, banana muffins or just freeze them for smoothies at a later time.  

Here is the cookbook again.  It's an old one and I love it.  Still available on Amazon even though it's vintage.

Here is the recipe [I always write the date in the cookbook the first time I try a new recipe].  Just click on the recipe to enlarge it.

I substituted Great Grains cereal for the All-Bran this time and have also used Grapenuts.   I imagine you could use any cereal you have on hand.    Same thing with the cereal at my house... if there is 1/3 cup of cereal left in the box, no one will touch it.  I guess they don't want to be the last one to use the last little bit of something because then it has to be written on the shopping list!  :)   

Although I did sift the dry ingredients into the cereal, I added everything else all at once, then stirred by hand for about a minute.  Three whole bananas = about 1 1/2 cups mashed.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes and you have a fresh, hot bread in about 30 minutes.

This recipe makes 12 large muffins and they really are good.  Great for Saturday morning breakfast or to accompany your dinner tonight.