An easy, low clean-up meal for tough days

I know? Appetizing, right? But really, I swear it's yummy!

I am a big believer in using reusable everything. But there are just days when a girl has got to use paper plates. I'm talking about days when the kiddo is sick, hubby is tired, and mama is too darn pregnant to cook or clean. But what is the point of using paper plates when you have to wash the pots and pans anyway? Eating out gets expensive (not to mention unhealthy!). So what's a girl to do?

Enter the foil dinner!

Basically, I just threw a seasoned hamburger patty, chopped up potatoes (wash them first!), carrots, onion, and cabbage in a piece of foil and threw it in the oven at 350-400 for however long it takes (an hour for me, but my oven is slow). I'm not normally a big cabbage fan, but it is super yummy in this. It takes on the flavor from the meat.

Serve on recycled paper plates with plastic silverware (I know, bad greenie!) and the only dish you have to wash is the knife you used to cut veggies!

Spaghetti Squash Dinner

This is a really easy and super DELICIOUS grain free meal. Plus it smells like pizza while it's cooking!

To cook the spaghetti squash, you just cut it in half, scoop out the seeds like a pumpkin, lay the cut side down in a pan and add a little water. Bake it at around 350-400 for an hour (depending on your oven). Or you can put it in a glass pan (cut side down with a little water in the bottom as above) and microwave it for around fifteen minutes. This comes out a little more clumpy, but it was good in a hurry.

In the meantime, put a little olive oil, half a chopped bell pepper, half a chopped onion, and a pound of ground beef in a pan to cook on the stove. Add liberal amounts of minced garlic and italian seasoning, plus a little salt and pepper (you can just do this to taste). Cook until ground beef is browned and add a can of mushrooms (or two!), a can of diced tomatoes, and a can of tomato sauce. Keep warm.

Scrape out the inside of the spaghetti squash (it will look like stringy noodles) with a fork. Add to your pan of sauce, stir, season as needed, and serve with parmesan! This is way better than regular spaghetti!

A Grain Free/ Low Sugar Birthday Party

We recently celebrated our little Doodlebug's 2nd birthday!

We have been making an effort to eat as little grains and sugar as we can, but I still wanted to have a special treat for her big day. I made cupcakes from this muffin recipe (minus the lemon juice) and added a frosting made with cream cheese, super dark chocolate, cocoa, and a little agave nectar.

And if anyone is curious, Doodlebug got play-dough, a Mr. Potato Head, and a musical instument set. :)

A Pantry Organizational Project

Before

After

I cleaned out our pantry when we decided to go grain free to make the things we use most often more accessible. Yes, there are still some grainy things in there that we needed to use up, but for the most part we can find what we need now!

Homemade tortilla chips

Golden piles of goodness!

Homemade tortilla chips are so much cheaper than store bought! And if you happen to have WIC, you can get your corn tortillas through them. Plus they are so stinkin' delicious! There seriously are no words for them!

Making your own tortilla chips is super simple. When I made these I went through a tortilla chip phase where I made some every day.  Just heat up some oil in a pan, cut corn tortillas into fourths, and fry until golden. Scoop them out to drain on a towel and sprinkle with liberal amounts of salt.

Is it a health food? Heck no! But it's yummy!

Blender Ice Cream

                                     Yes, this is a terrible picture, but I'm a terrible photographer, so there you go!

This is the perfect treat for a hot summer day! 1 bag of frozen strawberries, 1 pint of heavy whipping cream, and liberal amounts of sugar, all blended together. Delicious!

Mommom's Chicken and Dumplin's

I forgot to take a picture... yet again. Oh well. Just imagine these in all their yummy deliciousness.

This is adapted from my grandma's recipe.


Boil your chicken carcass that is leftover from another meal to make stock. Pick off all the meat you can and throw back in the stock.

Mix in a large bowl:
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt (I use Celtic Sea Salt)
Lots of pepper (I don't measure, but about thirty shakes from my shaker... yeah, it's a lot)
2 tsp. baking powder (use aluminum free kind!)
1/2 cup light flavored oil (I use light olive oil, but you could use veggie or canola oil if you prefer)
1 1/3 cups milk

Stir to make dough. Then either roll it out (it doesn't have to be pretty) and cut into small squares or if you are cooking one handed (as I often am) you can pinch off a little and smoosh it flat between your fingers. The point is that it needs to be pretty flat, not a big ball. Drop squares into boiling stock and boil for 25 minutes. You may want to add more salt and pepper to the soup depending on taste. Let cool and serve!

If somebody tries this let me know! I'm sure you'll love it!

Waste Not, Want Not in the Kitchen-- Bacon Grease

I know bacon grease is not the absolute healthiest thing in the world to eat, but when you cook bacon (and nitrate free bacon is EXPENSIVE), there's a lot of grease left to throw away. I have been trying new ways to use it up. Here are two:

~Use it in muffins. Prepare a basic muffin recipe (I like the one in this book), but substitute bacon grease for the oil. This makes a really savory muffin that hubby loves (I can't eat more than one. They are really strong tasting.).

~Season green beans. We have been using fresh or frozen green beans and I think that they are kind of bland. But if you boil or steam them and then saute some chopped onions in bacon grease and stir in the green beans, they are absolutely delicious!

How do YOU use up leftovers?

Waste Not, Want Not in the Kitchen-- chicken

I am constantly learning to waste less in the kitchen. Right now I don't do a big weekly meal plan because I never know how much of something I will have leftover, and I need the flexibility to use up the leftovers. Here is how meals went down last week with chicken.

Day one: Roasted chicken, bread, misc. veggies (made carcass into stock)
Day two: Chicken and Dumplin's (We always have tons of broth leftover from this but not so many dumplings, so the broth usually goes to waste... not this time)

Day three: Chicken pot pie. I just used the tiny little pieces of chicken I had leftover with a bag of mixed veggies and the Chicken and Dumplin' broth as gravy in a pie crust.

I also used my tiny little leftover bits of pie crust. Just tossed them in the toaster oven to be tasty chips/cookies.

Stay tuned for my yummy chicken and dumplin' recipe!

Bounty

From today's farmer's market:

A dozen eggs, a pile of peaches, and four patty-pan squash (I've never tried them before). All organic. Less than nine dollars! Our farmer's market only consists of two booths, but it is TOTALLY worth it to stop. Just because you live in a small town doesn't mean you can't buy whole foods.

A Use-it-up meal

I meant to take a picture FIRST, but quiche doesn't last long around here.

Quiche is a regular at our house. Typically we have it with squash and spinach, but it is great for using up whatever you have lying around. This one had random chopped up potatoes, squash, and red peppers that were left over from kabobs earlier in the week, plus a ton of green tomatoes. Doodlebug loves to pick tomatoes, but she's not big enough to understand that you are supposed to wait until they're red. :o) So we had green tomato quiche.

Quiche is really a super easy meal. Make a pie crust (I use an oil pastry because it's fast). Throw in random veggies. Top with cheese. Pour beaten eggs and milk over the top and bake. For a really detailed method you can see the article in The Complete Tightwad Gazette.

A Special Treat

Chicago-style hot dogs.

Nitrate free hotdogs.

Mustard, relish, tomato, onion, celery salt and a pickle.

I actually hate most of those ingredients, but all together they are wonderful!

Next time I'll make my own buns, though. Small town grocery stores don't carry a lot of HFCS free, whole wheat products.

Chocolate pie

A couple of days ago my husband had a bad day at work and asked if he could have a chocolate pie. Because I love him I said yes.

And then I whipped up this baby.


From scratch.

And I beat the meringue by hand. I don't have a mixer.

BY HAND.

Can I have my wife of the year award now, please?