Good Zucchini Casserole

This is a yummy way to use up extra zucchini during the summer. When I made this the other night I didn't have a surplus of zucchini, but I sadly was using up the last of our garden zucchini. So I am sorry for the lousy timing of this recipe, but it is just as good with store bought zucchini.

Good Zucchini Casserole

6 C Zucchini, diced into 1/2" pieces
1 C Carrots, same size dice

1 Onion diced

Combine and boil until carrots are tender, about 10 mins. Drain water and set aside.

1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup (I use the Healthy Request kind)
1 C Sour Cream (light)
2 - 3 Chicken breasts, cooked & diced

Add to boiled vegis. You can end up using a ton of bowls or you can just add it all to the same pot you used to cook the vegis in.

2 C Stuffing Mix (don't add the water)
1/2 C Butter Melted, or spray top with spray butter

Place 1/2 the stuffing mix on the bottom of a baking dish that has been sprayed with non stick stuff. Add the vegetable mixture on top and top with the remaining stuffing mix. Spray top with butter flavoring if not using melted butter.

Cook in a preheated 350 oven for 30 mins or until heated through.   ENJOY!

This recipe works great with fat free substitutes but if you're feeling indulgent go ahead and use the full fat versions. I can't say if it would taste better because I have never made it that way.

I got this recipe when I was first married from a kind lady I worked with named Jana. Apparently she was worried my new husband might starve if she didn't share her knowledge :) which I am glad she did!

Easy Fruit Cobbler

Tis the season for excess fruit. Hooray I've been waiting for this season all year, lol. Currently I've got buckets of pears and apples to go through.

I found this by searching for "easy apple cobbler" and it's fabulous! Top it with some vanilla sauce and you've just gone to heaven. The kiddos love it too!

The first night I did what the recipe said and used apples, but last night I used pears and since I ran out of white sugar I used brown sugar. Sierra said it was even better than the apple one. So, I am thinking that it would work with whatever fruit I had on hand.

EASY APPLE COBBLER

Apple Mixture:
5 c. Apples, sliced

1/2 c. Sugar

2 tbs Flour

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Salt

1/4 c Water

1 tsp Vanilla

1 tbs Butter, softened

Combine above ingredients; mix gently. Spoon into a lightly greased 9-inch square baking pan.

Batter:

1/2 c Flour

1/2 c Sugar

1/2 tsp Baking powder

1/4 tsp Salt

2 tbs Butter, softened

1 Egg

Combine batter ingredients; mix well. Spoon over apple mixture in 9 equal portions (batter will spread during baking). Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 35 to 40 minutes.

Yield: 6 servings.

Here is the original recipe that I took this from.

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

This was originally a Sandra Lee recipe that I have tweeked to make my own. It is way easy and everyone always loves it when I make it. You can easily make a larger batch if you need to feed a crowd, or just want more left overs.

3 chicken breasts or a store bought roasted chicken

1 pack onion soup mix

2 cups diced carrots

2 leeks diced

1 box chicken stock

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1 T fines herbs (mix of parsley, chives, chervil & tarragon)

salt and pepper

1 package Grandmas Egg Noodles

Put chicken breasts in crock pot and sprinkle onion soup mix over top and add a couple cups of water and cook on low for 8 hours. Once chicken is cooked take it out and shred it into large chunks. If you used a store bought roasted chicken you can skip this first part and just shred the chicken. Save the liquid that is left in the crock pot. In a large pot add box of chicken stock and liquid left over from cooking the chicken, carrots & leeks, make sure you wash the leeks good they hold a lot of dirt in them, boil until the carrots are soft. You can also use less leeks and add some onion and celery if you want. Once carrots are soft add cream of mushroom soup and fines herb and shredded chicken. Boil the noodles in a separate pot otherwise they will soak up all the liquid in the soup, and then add the to the soup and taste of salt and pepper. You can use any kind of noodles but the Grandmas Egg Noodles taste home made, they are in the frozen food section and are in a red and yellow package, they can be a little tricky to find sometimes but they are totally worth it if you can find them, I stock up when I see them. If the soup seems to thick after you add the noodles you can add water or more chicken stock until it is the consistency you like.

Pumpkin Turkey Chili

Dawnie, this is for you. Hopefully it will re energize your will to blog!! You were having lots of fun doing it, and I am sure there are some things that you'd like to share. So, PLEASE!! BLOG!!!

That being said.

Here is an odd sort of recipe that I found in a Smith's mailer. I wanted to try it because I like recipes that hide healthy ingredients.

As always I also changed the recipe a ton based on what I like and what I had. I am only going to post what I did and not the original recipe.

1 Onion chopped
2 Bell peppers chopped (I only had red)
1 tbs Minced garlic
1 lb Ground turkey
2 C. Diced tomatoes (fresh or canned)
2 C. Pumpkin puree
1 can Kidney beans
1 can Pinto beans
1 1/2 tbs Chili powder
1 tbs Cumin
1/2 tbs Paprika
1/2 tsp each Black pepper & Salt
Toppings:
Shredded cheese
Sour Cream
Hot sauce

Brown ground turkey and set aside. In same pan add peppers & onion. Cook until tender, if using fresh tomatoes add them at this time too. Add garlic and spices. Return turkey to pan and add canned beans and pumpkin puree. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer until its as thick as you like it. I like really thick chili so I let it simmer for a while. The original recipe called for 4 hrs in a crock pot, so that's also an option .

Top with your favorite toppings and try to get your family to guess the secret ingredient. No one will guess there is pumpkin in it. It makes gives the chili a beautifully creamy texture.

BBQ Green Beans

There is something incredibly satisfying about the harvesting of these beans. I am in love with the festival of color. I don't think that one color tastes better than another, I simply plant all three because I love to pick them. When they cook unfortunately the purple ones turn green so I loose that visual gratification, but it's still fun to see two colors on the plate rather than only one.

At this point in the summer we have eaten beans in every way imaginable. We just alternate between beans and squash every night. I'm doing my best to use what the garden gives us, and at the same time trying to not get bored of the same food. So we eat the same food different ways :)

 This was almost like a double whammy in that first of all I didn't have to heat up my house to cook them because they cooked on the BBQ, and second of all it was a new way to eat the same food that we've already eaten plenty of this summer.

Before I began washing the beans I poured a couple of tbs EVOO in a bowl with a couple crushed garlic cloves and some salt and pepper. I mixed this and let it sit while I washed the beans. I did this hoping that the garlic would give some flavor to the oil.

I placed the beans on a double layer of foil, tucked some sliced onions into them and poured the oil mixture over the top. Wrapped the foil up tight and placed it right on the BBQ. I also made a kid friendly packet that only had some butter on it so that my kids would also eat their vegis.

I think it cooked for probably 20-30 mins on a mixture of high and medium heat. I cooked these one time before and let it burn a little (on accident) and I actually think I liked it better that way. Kinda caramelized the onions and gave it a little deeper flavor.

 The kid's packet.

So yummy, so easy, so healthy :)

Back To School Breakfast

My two oldest went back to school today so it was a big morning at our house.  One in 11th grade and another in 3rd. So I wanted to make something special. It needed to me yummy of course, but I also wanted it to have a little nutrition in it too so this is what I made.

It's a recipe for Blueberry-Swirl Coffee Cake but my kids like their food in muffin form better so I made it in muffin cups instead of a pan. I realize that it is a cake and therefore not terribly healthy, but at least I got a fruit in there, hehe.

Over the summer my now third grader was shopping with daddy and saw this magazine and insisted that they buy it for me because in her words, "mom always likes cooking healthy things" How cute is that? I love her!

Needles to say, I am glad they bought it because it's full of nice recipes and pretty pics.

This is where the recipe came from. I made this one other time and called it breakfast :) This summer while Rikard's family was staying with us I made it, and they all loved it too.

I didn't have lemon zest so I substituted almond extract and it was delish!

To make it into muffins instead of the cake I just layered it in the tins same as you would in the pan and sorta swirled it around with my finger. Worked fine.

 Maybe the best part about making this into muffins was that I had extra blueberries in the end. Of course I could not waste these sugared little beauties. They fit beautifully in a small baking pan and luckily I had a little batter left. Oh baby!

 I could eat the whole pan! Good thing it's small! It's almost like pie, maybe like a buckle? Whatever it is, it is definitely delicious! I may plan this little accident again by increasing the blueberries and decreasing the batter. It would be heaven with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce over it. But then I couldn't call it breakfast.

Here's the recipe:

Blueberry-Swirl Coffee Cake

2 1/2 c fresh or frozen blueberries

1/3 c packed light brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 c (1 stick) butter

1 c granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg white

1 tbs grated lemon zest

2 1/2 c self-rising flour

1 1/4 c reduced fat milk

Preheat oven to to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 13x9 inch baking pan. Toss 2 cups blueberries with brown sugar and cinnamon until blueberries are covered.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add egg and egg white beat another 2 minutes. Add lemon zest. Reduce to low speed and add flour alternately with milk, one-third at a time. Scrape sides down and do not over mix.

Spread half the batter into pan and sprinkle with blueberries. Spoon remaining batter on the top and swirl with knife several times. Sprinkle remaining blueberries on the top .

Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs clinging, about 40-45 minutes. Cool pan on wire rack 15 mins before serving.

I baked the muffins for 15-20 minutes. They needed to be in muffin cups because the ones that were not fell apart when I was trying to remove them from the pan. They also didn't work well as mini muffins. Maybe they would have if I would have used mini muffin papers but I didn't have any so they came out in a heap. Still tasted good but looked like a disaster :)

Enjoy!



Mandy

Garden Dinner

I love the meals that come right from the garden. From farm to table in a few minutes. This year my tomatos are a little slow coming, but for what it lacks in tomatos it makes up in cucumbers. So I'm getting a little creative in how to use up all the cucumbers that we have.

This is a super yummy fresh salad that we had last week paired with come grilled chicken. Yum!

Cucumber Salad:

Garden Cucumbers

Tomatos

Feta Cheese

Red onion

EVOO

Rice Wine Vinegar

Salt & Pepper

Combine all ingredients in proportions that you like. Toss and enjoy!