Foody Friday - Indoor "Super Easy S'mores"

We finally received a good bit of snow this week!! I wouldn't call it anything serious, only a few inches, nothing like what my family in Indiana is dealing with....8 inches and counting!! But for SW Kansas a few inches and some wind was enough to cancel school for two days. It was too cold and windy to play outside...we tried! By day number two I was already worried that the boys were getting bored...EEEEK!!! Time to shake things up a bit.

 

On Pinterest I found a photo of Cast Iron S'mores but without instructions.

Time for a bit of experimenting.

 

 

Luckily I live two blocks from a grocery store! After a quick Arctic hike I had all my ingredients; s'mores stuff and butter.

 

 

First I preheated my oven to 300 degrees. You could probably go to 350 but my oven runs on the hot side. I greased my cast iron skillet, bottom and sides, really well with butter.

 

 

Pour in a package of chocolate chips.

 

Spread marshmallows evenly over the top. Then place in the heated oven. Watch carefully until marshmallows and chocolate are melted. It only took about 8 minutes in my oven. Then I put the skillet under a low broiler for 3 minutes to turn the marshmallows nice and golden.

 

The boys used the graham crackers to dip all that wonderful gooey goodness straight from the pan.

 

Yip was in 7th Heaven eating this, so much in fact he made himself sick by eating so much! Indoor s'mores...a quick little treat to break up the cabin fever!

Foody Friday - Loaded Mush

A couple weeks ago DR took a quick trip home to Indiana to deliver an irrigation motor to his brother for one of our fields that ironically was dry as a bone last year before we could get irrigation on it but flooded this year as the crew was trying to put in the irrigation rig!

Anyway, while DR was in Indiana he took a day to meet some friends and family at the Indiana State Fair. Of course he kept me up to date on all the great fair food I was missing! Rib eye Sandwiches!! Indiana State Fair Rib eye Sandwiches and Swiss Cheese Grilled Cheese on Rye were about the only thing I ate when I was in Indianapolis in August growing up! YUM! 

Once, while bragging, DR texts me the following message; 

"We need to try laoded plenta. Your dad likes it."  

I responded, "Plenta? Perhaps a misspelling?"

"Yes. Its like mush with bacon and other stuff in it." Of course my dad likes it, he grew up eating mush!

"Polenta. I've made that, you've just never eaten it. (He's notorious for not eating new things that I make. But of course he'll eat it anywhere else!!) Bacon. Onions. Cheese. Sounds good!" 

After he got home we experimented a couple times and came up with a recipe that we both really liked! 

First dice up your veggies, I chose mushrooms and peppers but really anything will work. 

Fry up a pound of ground sausage or a pound of bacon. When you are finished transfer your meat to a plate but DON'T drain the grease from your pan!!! 

 

Next you need to saute your vegetables in that wonderful grease, maybe add a bit of butter or olive oil if your meat was a bit lean. 

While your sausage/veggies are cooking you can put your broth in a saucepan. I didn't have any broth on hand so I dissolved some bouillon cubes in water...worked alright! 

When your broth is ready and getting nice and warm melt your butter in the broth.

FYI - I use REAL butter for everything. Not margarine, nothing fake, nothing with weird chemicals on the labels. REAL BUTTER y'all isn't gonna kill ya! If you can't pronounce what's in it then you don't need to be a eatin' it! 

Oh, yeah..add a bit of salt and pepper here...whatever looks good. 

It's kind of hard to take a photo of this next part by myself but when your butter/broth is boiling a bit turn down the heat to medium low and SLOWLY start adding in the cornmeal and Parmesan cheese whisking it smooth until you've got it all incorporated and stir until it's thick. 

Nice and smooth...ish. A few clumps but don't worry, they'll all even out in the end. 

Then we add in all the sauteed veggies and sausage and mix it thoroughly into the cornmeal. 

Finally pour it into a couple of bread pans and allow to cool. When they are cool you can remove them from the pans and wrap in aluminum foil. I put one loaf straight into the freezer and the other loaf in the fridge. For breakfast I slice up a couple of pieces and fry them in butter on medium high along side an egg in the morning. Mmm, mmm, good! 

Loaded Mush

1 pound ground sausage or bacon

2 green peppers, diced

mushrooms, diced 

2 1/2 quarts of chicken broth

1/2 cup real butter (not margarine)

salt and pepper to taste

3 cups cornmeal

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Brown sausage or bacon. Set aside but reserve grease in pan. Saute veggies in meat grease. Heat broth to boiling. Melt butter in broth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Slowly whisk cornmeal and cheese into broth/butter mixture. Cook on low until thick. Stir in meat and veggies. Pour into greased bread pans and allow to cool. Slice and fry and eat and enjoy! 

How I Got My Kids to Eat ALL Their Dinner Without Complaining!

I think I've inadvertently stumbled across the greatest "get my kids to eat" trick of all time. Tonight, my boys ate all their (gross) dinner without complaining. I know, unheard of! 

So, tonight we were sitting down for dinner of leftover chili that we'd eaten a couple of nights previously. None of my kids like chili but it was a cool day (68 degrees!) and I needed something quick and simple. Chili it was. Yip and Yap moaned and groaned Wednesday night so I wasn't expecting much cooperation tonight either. So I tried the Age Rule on them. 

Let me explain, the Age Rule was something a friend of mine was telling me recently. In her house the rule is the kids have to take the number of bites as their age. In her case ages 4, 3, and 1. I've actually been using this rule for a while on Yahoo to get her to eat only 4 bites of her dinner. She usually eats without too much complaint and it has solved quite a few battles with her at the dinner table. To get the boys to eat I usually just resort to, "Eat it or Else!". 

Back to the horrible chili dinner tonight....Yip and Yap moaning and groaning over the chili they thought was horrible and disgusting.  The "Eat it or Else!" approach wasn't working at all. 

"Fine!" I sighed as I threw up my hands in desperation. "How old are you?" I asked. 

"9!! Well, almost 9." Yip answered eagerly. 

"Alright then, you only have to eat 9 bites, BIG bites, of the chili!" I compromised. 

You would have thought I had given them a prize! Yap started shoveling faster than I'd ever seen him eat something that wasn't a dessert and his 9 bites almost finished the bowl. Whoa. And Yip, well Yip went above and beyond and finished his bowl, quite fast I might add, in only 8 bites. 

The chili wasn't any different than Wednesday night. The portion size wasn't any different either but I felt like I had different kids at my table. That number, just 9, quantifying exactly how much they had to eat made all the difference. I don't think they realized at all that nothing had changed or that they had easily eaten a bowl of chili that two nights earlier had been a daunting task. It was just that #9 and it was amazing. 

Foody Friday - Mama's Bloody Mary Chili

I don't remember eating a lot of chili as a kid, maybe I did, who knows? I think I had more to worry about growing up than what I was eating....like beating my 6 brothers and sisters out for seconds! 

I DO know that once my brothers/sisters started getting husbands/wives it seemed like my mom always had a huge pot of chili whenever we brought home our significant others to visit. I guess it was the easiest way for my mom to feed a crowd. My brother in law even joked once that he was just sure that my mom had a huge cauldron of chili simmering away in her basement that was already ready at a moments notice because he always ate chili at her house! 

I've never been a huge chili eater but I've been trying to find a quick easy recipe for months that my kids and husband would actually eat. Finally DR just told me to ask my mom for her recipe because he always liked her chili. So Mom texted me her "recipe" if you can call it a recipe...I don't think my mother measures anything! (luv ya Ma!) 

Brown two pounds of hamburger and add as many chopped onions and peppers as you want. I also added some minced garlic. 

Meanwhile in the crockpot put in 1-53 oz. can of Brooks hot chili beans. (I didn't have a 53oz. can so I used two cans of black and two of kidney beans and added some chili powder, like a teaspoon maybe.)

Aaaahh, the secret ingredient!! 

Mix together the beans with the ground beef and add as much Bloody Mary Mix for the desired thickness.

I also added a can of diced tomatoes.  

Set on low in crockpot for 6-8 hours. 

Perfection!! I will never use another chili recipe because this one's a hit. Everyone eats it! DR likes it because it's full of meat, my kid's like it because it's not too spicy, I like it because they like it! 

The secret to perfect chili: Bloody Mary Mix...who knew???

Snow day food....super fast and kid friendly.

I love cooking. We've enjoyed seasoned popcorn, homemade hot chocolate and blueberry pancakes for dinner during our snow days. I really like to get my kids in the kitchen too but I don't always find recipes that are quick, easy and fun for them. I did find a couple that we used this weekend that were a big hit. 

Yip and Yahoo devoured these breakfast cookies; only two ingredients and healthy! 

Banana Oatmeal Cookies. 

2 ripe bananas

1 cup oatmeal

Mash together. Spray a cookie sheet. Drop by rounded spoonfuls and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. 

Then we made a HUGE batch of snow ice cream. Yip ate so much of this he started shivering! I refused to let him have any more until he went and put a sweatshirt on. I figured we had an entire foot of snow so we should make up a large bowl full, store it in the freezer and enjoy it once the snow is all gone.

Snow Ice Cream

About 8 cups of snow

Roughly 1 cup of milk

Somewhere around 1/2 cup of sugar

Splash or so of vanilla. 

Mix together and serve. 

What's your favorite snack to indulge in on a cold snowy day? 

Foody Friday -Sesame Pumpkin Bread

I was craving some pumpkin bread this week and though Google found thousands of recipes none of them sounded quite right. I didn't want anything too cake like or too sweet. Finally I dusted off some cookbooks in the upper cabinets of my kitchen. 

Is it just me or does everyone else find that with the internet using actual cookbooks has gone by the wayside. Maybe it's just me but since my computer is in my kitchen I tend to search Google rather than Betty Crocker. 

I pulled this cookbook out;

Homemade - How To Make Hundreds Of Everyday Products You Would Otherwise Buy

and found a recipe for Sesame Pumpkin Bread. It was totally different than I expected a pumpkin bread recipe to be. It wasn't sweet or cake like. It wasn't a yeast bread but not a quick bread either. And there were no spices!

Sesame Pumpkin Bread 

4 c. all purpose flour

1/4 c. sugar

4 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

1 c. plus 2 T milk

1 egg

1 c. pumpkin puree

1/3 c. butter, melted

1 T sesame seed (I omitted this) 

Preheat the oven to 425. Lightly grease and flour a baking sheet. IN a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. 

In a medium bowl, combine 1 c. milk and the egg; beat until well blended. Stir in teh pumpkin puree and butter. Make a well in the centr of the dry ingredients; pour the pumpkin mixture and, using a fork, stir until all the ingredients are well blended. 

Lightly flour a work surface. Turn out the dough onto the work surface and knead lightly until the dough is smooth, 4-5 minutes. Shape the dough into a round loaf and transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Using a sharp knife, cut a cross over the top of the loaf. Brush lightly with the remaining 2 T. milk. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds. 

Bake the loaf 25 minutes; reduce the heat to 375 and bake until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped, about 15 minutes longer. Remove the loaf to a wire rack to cool. 

Makes 1 loaf. 

Yum! I just love that golden yellow color! The loaf turned out huge with a hard crust on the outside but soft on the inside. I liked the flavor, just subtle pumpkin. Though I was craving just a touch of cinnamon. 

So I whipped up some honey butter with a dash of pumpkin pie spice and slathered that on. Ah...heaven!! 

This weekend, if I have any of this bread left I plan on making french toast from it. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! 

Do you have a favorite pumpkin recipe?? I'd love to try something new with pumpkin. 

Foody Friday - Eggplant Soup with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Now that fall is here I seem to be using my slow cooker a lot and one of my go to cookbooks is 1,001 Best Slow-Cooker Recipes: The Only Slow-Cooker Cookbook You'll Ever Need.

I was browsing through it the other day looking for some inspiration when I found Eggplant Soup with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce. Ha ha!! A way to use up all those eggplants that ended up in my deep freeze! 

Back in the spring my sweet greenhouse lady talked me into a couple of eggplants. At .99 a piece, sure why not? She neglected to tell me that eggplants will produce a lot on just one plant. By August I had had my fill of roasted eggplant with parmesan cheese. 

Eggplant Soup couldn't be that bad...could it? 

Eggplant Soup with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce 

4-5 cups chicken broth

2 medium eggplants, peeled, cubed

3/4 chopped onion

1/4 cup chopped green pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients, except Red Pepper sauce, in slow cooker; cover and cook on high 4-5 hours. Process soup in blender until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve warm with a spoonful of Red Pepper Sauce swirled in each bowl. 

Here's what my soup looked like after being put through the food processor. Frankly, I was losing my appetite. 

Grey. Soup. 

??

Ew.

Surely this couldn't taste good! I was mentally preparing to walk to the composter with this swill. 

But, I went ahead and finished up the recipe. 

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

2 large red bell peppers, halved

1 teaspoon sugar

Place peppers, skin sides up, on broiler pain. Broil 4-6 inches from heat until skins are blistered and blackened. Place peppers in plastic bag for 5 minutes; remove and peel off skins. Process peppers and sugar in blender until smooth. 

Note: 1 jar (12 ounces) roasted red peppers, drained, can be substituted for the peppers in the recipe. 

At least the red pepper sauce was a little better to look at.

Though combining them sure didn't make it look much more appetizing. 

Maybe this soup is best saved for Halloween? You think? 

But I sucked it up....and took a bite. 

OH. MY. GOODNESS. 

I have never underestimated anything this much in my entire life! 

This soup was fantastic!!! REALLY!!! 

The red pepper sauce really gave it a kick and was incredibly warming on the coldest windy days. Heck, now I'm wishing I there had been a few more eggplants producing in my garden this summer! 

Okay people, you don't like eggplants bring em' to my house!!! 

YUM!!! 

Foody Friday - DIY Starbucks Mocha Frappuccinos

Lately DR has been addicted to drinking Starbucks Frappuccinos. Harvest is usually a time when he hits the caffeine hot and heavy considering all the hours he's working. He's not a big coffee drinker and soda has been giving him heartburn this year. So he's switched to Frapp's and he goes through em' like crazy! 

 I LOVE em' too! They are sooo good! He brought home all these empty bottles from work the other day. I hated throwing them in the recycling and buying more from the grocery store. A four pack costs $5.50 after all. "Maybe I could find a recipe that's close." I wondered. 

And I DID!! 

I searched Pinterest and found this recipe. This blog has great photos to go along with making the Frappuccino too. Check it out. 

I thought there might be a bit of a difference in taste but there wasn't! It tasted just like the stuff I bought at the grocery! 

Here's the recipe; 

Mocha Frappuccino

1 1/2 cups strong brewed coffee*

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa 

1 teaspoon ascorbic acid** 

6 cups whole milk OR 6 cups low-fat milk + 1 Tablespoon pectin***

* Regular coffee can be used. If you’d like the exact taste of the bottled version, Starbuck’s Espresso Roast gives that taste. Brew 2 cups of cold water with 1/4 cup espresso coffee grounds.

** Ascorbic acid is added originally as a preservative, but it does add that hint of flavor. It does not need to be used.

*** Pectin is used in low-fat milk to thicken it. If you use whole milk or raw milk, or if you just don’t want to, pectin does not need to be used.

I didn't use the fancy Starbucks coffee or the Ascorbic acid or the Pectin and it tasted just fine to me! 

But I'll have to see if DR notices the difference! I'm going to encourage a little white lie and let him THINK I bought it at the store. We'll see what he says! 

Foody Friday - Crockpot French Toast ..and Coffee.

School is here which means some rushed mornings at our house. Most days I have no problem at least fixing them hot oatmeal or fried eggs but on days when I go to substitute teach a hot breakfast is a luxury. My boys often get their own cereal, orange juice and apples in the mornings but cold cereal gets old pretty quick. It would be great if I the boys could make their own warm breakfast...without burning down my kitchen.

I've tried overnight crockpot oatmeal recipes before but honestly I wasn't impressed.

I did happen to find a crockpot french toast recipe that, with a little tweaking, works perfectly for our family on busy mornings.

First I start off by making some beer bread. My beer bread recipe is mixed up and in the oven in less than 5 minutes and takes just about an hour to bake. I can easily bake some in the evening while I'm fixing dinner.

Beer Bread

Mix together 3 cups of flour (I use mix of whole wheat and bread flour), 3 Tablespoons of sugar and 1 can of beer. Mix thoroughly and pour into a greased bread pan. Put in a COLD oven, turn oven onto 350 degrees. Bake for one hour. Makes one loaf. This bread is very dense.

Crockpot French Toast

I found the original recipe here.

I whisk up about 3 eggs, a cup of milk or so, some cinnamon and some vanilla. I slice up a  my beer bread and soak it in the egg mixture for a minute or so. Spray your crockpot with cooking spray and layer the egg soaked bread into the crockpot. After all the slices are in the crockpot I pour in any remaining egg mixture. Right before I go to bed I turn the crockpot onto low.

The next morning it's done to perfection and best of all the boys can help themselves to a nice hot breakfast.

I don't know about you but my morning is just not complete without a cup of coffee. Seriously, I just can't function until I get a shot of caffeine. Last week the unthinkable happened! I was washing my glass coffeepot and I dropped it in the sink and it smashed!! It was too late in the day to head to town, I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to town for the next couple days to find a replacement. I was desperate...a morning without coffee. Unthinkable!!!

Did you know you can brew a pot of coffee in your crockpot? Yes you can...I did for two days in a row. I measured out the coffee grounds and water in the crockpot at bedtime, turned it on low and had a POT of coffee in the morning. Granted I had to watch for coffee grounds but I got my caffeine fix!

 Ah...the wonders of a crockpot. What can't you make in a crockpot?

Foody Friday - Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Soup

In the spring when I went to the greenhouse to buy tomato plants I was talked into buying a couple eggplants. Why not, they were only $1 each. I'm now blessed with eggplants!! What to do with them all?

Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Soup 

The latest soup I'm in love with. 

3T olive oil, divided

2 large eggplants, diced

12 Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise

8 cloves garlic

2 c. chopped onions

8 c. broth

1 t. salt

2 t. sugar

2 T vinegar

1 fresh chopped basil or 1T dried basil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss eggplant and garlic in 2T olive oil. Spread out on greased cookie sheet and cook on highest shelf of oven. Place halved tomatoes skin side down on separate greased cookie sheet on lowest shelf of oven. After 15 minutes, check vegetables to ensure they aren't burning. Tomato skins should be a bit brown or beginning to blacken where they are touching the sheet. The eggplant and garlic should be turning brown and blackening slightly. Cook another 10-15 minutes, until vegetables have achieved the desired color. Heat olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed pot. Add onions and cook for 3 minutes. Add stock and roasted vegetables and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and puree. Stir in salt, sugar, vinegar and basil. Garnish with 1T shredded mozzarella cheese and basil. 

Oh my!!! After this bowl of soup my eggplant can't grow fast enough!!! 

Foody Friday - Spicy Potato Dip

I love potatoes. Seriously I think I should be 100% Irish rather than 100% German because I could eat them everyday. Nothing fancy either. I'm a fan of just cutting up potato wedges, throwing on some salt and baking until brown. 

But I found a fabulous dip for my potatoes that turned out so much better than I expected from the book 100 Things for Kids to Make and Do.

Spicy Dip

2-3 T olive oil

6 T mayonnaise

2 T plain yogurt

1 t. curry paste

(I didn't have curry paste, actually I don't even know what it is. 

I used 1 t. of ketchup and a good shake of curry instead.) 

1 T roughly chopped cilantro

Mix together and dip in some french fries, potato wedges or anything that suits your fancy! 

The ketchup worked great and I can adjust the curry to suit everyone's taste buds. I just love finding new ways to eat potatoes :) 

Foody Friday - Hobo Stew (or Poor Man's Stew)

My garden is coming along well. 

And I'm putting my kids to heavy toil harvesting and eating the vegetables. 

Eating some of those veggies is the hardest part. 

Summer squash...blech! 

Our purple beans have done really well. 

I love purple beans because I can actually see them when I go picking them. 

I think my mom called my favorite fresh green bean dish Hobo Stew. (Correction: My mom just let me know that my Grandma always called it Poor Man's Stew.) I just always remembered it as "the dish we always ate right after we picked the beans" 

Put diced potatoes, fresh snapped beans, salt, pepper and cooked ground sausage in a pot. Cover with water and boil until potatoes are soft. 

I love the way my purple beans turn green :) 

Serve hot!! 

There is nothing better than eating veggies straight from the garden. 

What is your favorite way to eat fresh produce? 

Foody Friday - Monster Smoothies

Last Friday I returned from two weeks in Indiana to find my garden was huge and full of weeds. My Swiss Chard leaves had grown larger than my hand! It's no surprise Kansas is hot and dry. I've found that Swiss Chard handles the heat much better than spinach which bolts to seed quickly. Last summer it lasted well all summer long despite 100+ degree temps. Swiss Chard is very similar in taste to spinach if it is picked when it's small. But these leaves are bigger than my hand and the taste is starting to turn bitter. Even if everyone in my ate salads morning, noon and night it would take us a while to get through this amount of Swiss Chard. 

I just hate the idea of throwing away food from the garden.

I stumbled across this recipe for a Spinach Smoothie and figured Swiss Chard would work just as well. I mixed up a batch; it wasn't bad but it wasn't great either and it definitely wasn't anything my kids were impressed with. 

So I tweaked it and hit gold! 

Or green in this case. 

Monster Smoothies

Place the following in a blender. 

1 cup milk

1/2 cup yogurt

2 sliced bananas (frozen sliced if you prefer)

2 HEAPING tablespoons of peanut butter

3 T honey (or so, I didn't measure this)

Pack in the remaining blender space with spinach/swiss chard. 

Blend until liquified. 

May the Wild Rumpus BEGIN! 

"Let me try!!" 

"Mmmmm....yummy!" 

Yap: "Hey let me have some!"

Yahoo: "NO!!" *gulp gulp*

Yap: "Ah maaaan!"

Yahoo: "Oh, okay...Here you go!"

Yap: "Yum yum!" 

Yap: "Do I look like a monster yet?"

We took half of this batch and made popsicles from them. They were even better than the smoothie. 

I know, I know...it really looks gross. Honestly though it doesn't taste any different than a peanut butter banana smoothie. Anyway, calling it a Monster Smoothie makes it a whole lot more fun to eat! 

Most importantly though...I'm making a huge dent in my garden's Swiss Chard!!