Big Mac in a Bowl (New to Us Recipe)

I’m not a huge Big Mac fan, but my husband loves them.  We decided to try this recipe.

http://healthytofit.org/big-mac-in-a-bowl-healthy-and-fit/

It was a hit.  I even enjoyed them.  I did make a few changes.  I used ground turkey, which I cooked with onions and bell pepper added.  I seasoned it with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.  We also used a regular Thousand Island Dressing.

Nothing Beats Homemade

In an effort to keep using up items on hand I decided to look for recipes that will use up some of the canned pumpkin I have.  I found this recipe I had saved for a cakelike chocolate pumpkin doughnuts.  I altered mine to make them gluten free and for some reason I only ended up with 6 instead of the 8 the recipe said it would make.  However, they were a hit.  

The original recipe is here.

https://www.dashofsanity.com/chocolate-pumpkin-cake-donuts/

Gluten Free Chocolate Chunk Oat Bars Recipe (with "regular" flour directions included)

Chocolate Chunk Oat Bars Recipe

1 cup of Better Batter flour (or all purpose flour if not making gluten free)
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups uncooked old fashioned oats certified gluten free (or not gluten free as desired)
2 cups semisweet chocolate chunks (I like Enjoy Life brand), divided

Preheat oven 375 F.  Grease an 8" square pan and set aside.
In small bowl mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in oats.  Set aside.
In larger bowl, cream sugar and butter.  Add egg, water, and vanilla mixing until well blended.  Stir in flour and oats.  Stir in 1 1/2 cups of chocolates.
Spread dough evenly in the pan.  Sprinkle the last 1/2 cup of chips on top of the bars and press down slightly.  Bake about 30 minutes or until the center feels firm.  Cool on wire rack.

Cut into bars.

Blueberry Muffin Recipes

The Bisquick blueberry muffins are found here:

https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/blueberry-muffins/ca00251f-d317-4b55-bdce-d32fa7d8c142


I do not thaw my blueberries.  I add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 teaspoon of orange zest.




The Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins:
by Nicole Hunn https://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/

This recipe is from Gluten Free on a Shoestring and the following is my pithy directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream together:
1 stick of room temperature butter
2/3 cup of sugar

Add in:
1 large egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla
Beat until fluffy.

Add in:
1/2 cup low fat sour cream
2 medium super ripe bananas, mashed
Mix well.

In separate bowl combine:
1 1/2 cups of gluten free flour
3/4 tsp xanthan gum  (if using Better Batter flour, omit this.)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Mix the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until it becomes thick.  Fold your blueberries in.
Bake at 350F for about 25 minutes or until done.

Baked Spaghetti -- typed recipe

Baked Spaghetti (preheat 350F)

8 ounces of cooked spaghetti noodles, drained
1 egg
1/2 cup of milk
1 to 2 cups of shredded mozzarella
about 4 cups of pasta sauce with your choice of meat and veggies
parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top

Mix egg, milk, 2/3 of mozzarella, and pasta together.  Pour into greased dish.
Top with rest of mozzarella and the parmesan.  Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes.
Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Easy Pressure Cooker Mac and Cheese

This is my grandson's favorite mac and cheese.  It's my idea of fast, easy food.  A win-win!

Although I made this in the Instant Pot, I have tried it in two other electric pressure cookers with good results.

Chicken Enchiladas Recipe

I finally found an enchilada recipe that got the thumbs up from both my husband and my daughter.  This recipe made enough for two meals for the three of us.  

Itty Bitty Cheesecake

Did anyone else like Larkrise to Candleford?  

Dorcas Lane would always refer to something as “my one weakness.”

Well cheesecake is my one weakness.

I love, love, love cheesecake.

In fact, I’ve never tried one I didn’t like.

Normally I would say that is a good thing, but I have to be careful because if it is around I can eat the whole cake.

Yeah...literally if given a day or two.

So in an effort to both indulge and limit my indulgence I made an itty bitty cheesecake.

I started with this recipe 

“Instant Pot Cheesecake for Two”

And immediately changed it.

Another weakness of mine, I suppose.

To be fair, who uses 6 ounces of an 8 ounce package of cream cheese.

So this is my version:

8 ounces of Neufatchel cream cheese (I use Aldi brand at 65 cents a package.

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons of Greek yogurt

2 1/2 tablespoons of Turbinado sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

A pinch of salt

1 teaspoon of Better Batter Gluten Free Flour

I let everything come to room temperature, put it in a bowl, and stirred it with a rubber spatula until it was smooth.

Then I added in 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips.

I put this in a small cheesecake pan that I lightly sprayed with oil.

I skipped the crust simply because I don’t have any GF graham crackers on hand.

They’re quite expensive and just so-so — I also haven’t tried making my own.

Plus I figure the chocolate chips will make up for the calories so I’m not cheating myself.

On the trivet, 1 cup of water, high pressure 45 minutes.  

Natural pressure release for 15 minutes and then finish releasing.

(The cup is shown for size comparison.  It is a standard 6 ounce coffee cup.)

Refrigerate.

Serve with whatever you like with your cheesecake.

Notes — If I make this again I will decrease the cooking time to 30 minutes and try it.

It wasn’t bad, but I think it could have cooked a little less time.

I’ll let you know how it does the next time I try it at a shorter time.

5 of 12 — Pressure Cooked Ham and Pinto Bean Soup

I didn’t forget my 12 Days of Pintos plan.  I promise.  December just got crazy.  We relied on fast, convenient foods, but even as I type that I realize it is just an excuse.  Dried beans can be a fast and convenient food.  Sure they require a little advanced work — an no I am actually not talking about soaking, but more I refer to planning.  I can think of several ways they can actually be quite fast and convenient.

• Slow cooker — now here me out before you laugh at me.....yes I know slow cooker and fast don’t go together....but for me fast is about the amount of effort I have to put into something.  If I know tomorrow is going to be a busy day I can simply set out the slow cooker tonight and put my dry beans in, sprinkle any seasonings on I am going to use.  I cover the pot and in the morning I add my liquid and cook.  My time is minimal, they cook while I do other things, and when the day is near end I have a “fast” meal ready.  However, for my world this pretty much works only for the evening meal.

So what if you want beans or bean soup for lunch?  Well there are several options to use dried beans, which are more economical than buying tinned beans.

• If you are a home canner, you can pressure can your own.  Most of us canners have the sunk cost of both the canner and jars....some even reuse the lids....while I don’t reuse lids and I haven’t tried Tattler’s brand lids....I still find canning my own to be quite economical.  I also like that I can control the amount of salt added.  Home canned beans, like all home canned products, are recommended to be boiled for 10 minutes.  (I’m throwing that out there as a precaution.....not a heated debate statement before anyone shoots me.  This isn’t an issue for me because I either use my home canned beans as an ingredient in a cooked dish or as the base for soup and they are well heated by the time I finish.). Either way, home canned beans are just as convenient and fast as purchased beans if you have had the foresight to can them.  Yes, canning does take time, but running a canner of beans while you are detailing your kitchen or perhaps doing your weekly baking lets you effectively do two things at once.

Of course, my favorite options is — yes, if you are a frequent reader here, it is probably easy to guess — a pressure cooker.  I have both a stove top and an electric pressure cooker.  (While I do use the Instant Pot brand, they are all relatively interchangeable with a little tweaking.  I use two methods of cooking dried beans in the pressure cooker depending on what my calendar shows for the day.

• Scenario 1 — Calendar shows I will be out of the house and coming in about an hour before I want to serve supper.  I, being tired the night before go to bed without setting out all the slow cooker “stuff”....I confess it has been known to happen.  (There’s a reason I set up the coffee pot for the next morning when I am cleaning up supper dishes.).  In the morning, I simply put my beans in a large bowl or pot and cover several inches over with water.  Depending upon the weather (if it is winter I don’t bother) I may refrigerate them while they soak for the day.  When I come home, I simply drain my beans, pop them in the pressure cooker with whatever I want to add, set my timer for 30 to 40 minutes and go about preparing the rest of our meal.  
• Scenario 2 — I am going to be home all day.  Maybe we changed our mind about what we wanted to eat.  Maybe I realized I need to use some ingredients up.  Maybe — just maybe I love to use the pressure cooker, but I am slack and rarely soak my beans.  All three of those happen in my life....one more often than the others, but in an attempt to not incriminate myself I’ll let you guess which one that is.  

Now that I have prattled on, I’m sure you are asking yourself, “Is Shara going anywhere with this?” The answer is a resounding, “Yes!”

Today we have a forecast for snow.  Yes, it does occasionally snow in Eastern North Carolina.  Yes, we do like all Southern towns and shut down.  Yes, I am indeed freezing.  All the standard stereotypes of Southerners in snow does indeed have a basis in real life.

So three things have happened:

1.  I am going to be home all day.

2.  We have changed our minds about what we want to eat....thanks to the temperatures.

3.  I have some things to use up.

Basically today is Scenario 2 and the perfect time to share another pinto bean idea with you.  As promised, I’ve found an online recipe that everyone can easily access.  Pressure Cooker Smoky Ham Hock and Pinto Bean Soup from Pressure Cooking Today.  However, as usual I’ve made a few changes.  The version below shows what I did and shares my results.

I assembled my ingredients:

2 cups of pinto beans

5 cups of chicken stock (I used all my home canned and went with bouillon and water.)

2 heaping tablespoons of minced garlic because it is cold season

1/4 teaspoon onion powder in deference to my daughter

1 heaping teaspoon of cumin

1/8 teaspoon of rosemary

1/8 teaspoon of oregano

Leftover ham and bone from my last ham

I added some black pepper, but no salt.  

I’ll add salt after they cook because I don’t know how salty the ham will be.

Then I added my secret ingredient:

A bit of crushed red pepper.

Everything literally went into the pot.

I set it for 60 minutes because I know I like my beans soft.

So that I could give you a real life cooking time estimate:

I turned it on at 11:01

At 12:41 they had finished and Natural Pressure Released for 20 or so minutes.

The results:

I served mine with a dollop of salsa.  

These were delicious!

My daughter even enjoyed them — of course, she skipped the salsa.

As a note:

I keep a print out of recipes I find online and add them to a binder if they are a success.

I write notes on them to show what we did.

As far as this recipe I did make a few changes.

In the future, I think I would add about 10 to 15 more minutes cooking time.

The flavor was great,but I think the beans could have been a little softer for a bit more of a creamier texture.

Sometimes You Just Have To

One family tradition that I miss since developing food allergies is having doughnuts on the weekend.

If the crowd was here we would buy a dozen.

If just a few of us were here, we might only buy 2 or 3 doughnuts.

Either way, it was something we did as a family.

For some time now I have sat and watched them eat their doughnuts.  

Not a big deal, but I really wanted one, too.

Today I made these.  

Old fashioned glazed doughnuts

They’re a yeast free, cake type doughnut with just a hint of nutmeg.

Sooooo good!

The recipe is from Nicol Hunn.

It is in the book Gluten Free on a Shoestring Quick and Easy.

She also has it on her site.

I have all of her cookbooks, and can honestly say I’ve never had one of her recipes let me down.

In fact, even those who don’t like/have to eat gluten free seem to like them.

As usual, I did make a few changes to her recipe because for one I am that kind of cook, and for two I am into using what I have on hand.  I did not have plain yogurt, but I did have cottage cheese.  I simply took 3/4 of a cup out and proceeded to mostly mash the lumps out of it.  I also didn’t want mini doughnuts.  I used my regular non stick doughnut pans in a 350F oven.  I started with 12 minutes, but ended up cooking them for 15 total.  The final change I made was to make a simple thin glaze because I really love that Krispy Kreme glazed feel and taste.  

Even my pickiest household member with texture issues really liked these.

4 of 12 — Homemade Hamburger Helper

In my research for pinto bean recipes I ran across a recipe for homemade hamburger helper that had beans added.  I didn’t like the way that recipe sounded and decided to try another (simply adding beans.). This dish was a hit with my family.    My package of ground beef was large and I actually divided it into two.  (The second half was cooked up into taco meat with 3/4 cup of mashed pinto beans added.  A freebie if you will.  Simply add one or two teaspoons more of taco seasoning to your meat mixture.  I cooked this at the same time I cooked the hamburger helper and put it aside for the next day.)

The original recipe I used for hamburger helper is by Kimberly of  The Daring Gourmet.

Cheeseburger Macaroni

I made a few changes.  No avacado oil, no onion, I made beef broth using bouillon, I used tomato powder to make my tomato paste, I used Spanish style paprika, and I used cheese and pasta I had on hand.  I also stirred in almost 1 cup of pinto beans to further fluff the meal and add some more fiber.  (Gluten free pastas are notoriously lacking in fiber.)

This recipe yielded 6 generous servings.

2 of 12 — Chicken, Pinto, and Broccoli Skillet

I know I said we weren’t going to do 12 days of pintos straight.  I promise we haven’t, but when I was searching for meals that I felt like used basic pantry and freezer storage I came across this recipe for Chicken, Broccoli, and Pinto Bean Skillet.  Since I had some fresh broccoli in the refrigerator I decided to give this one a try.  The beauty of using beans to stretch meat appeals to me and the eater always feels like they have had “_______” (whatever meat) and doesn’t really pay much attention to the beans. This is my take on this recipe. I started by cooking 2 cups of pinto beans. I don’t buy canned pintos....not sure why...but they could easily be used in this recipe as called for.  I used the pressure cooker and cooked my beans from dry for 1 hour.  This yielded approximately 5 cups of beans.  I  used two for this meal.

2 cups of beans

1 chicken breast, (I cut strips and then bite sized.)

I omitted the onion and the peanuts.

I had about 3 to 3 1/2 cups of broccoli, that I broke into bite sized pieces.

One red bell pepper cut into chunks

2 carrots in thick “matchsticks” (This was to replace crunch of onions and to bulk this out more.)

I omitted the red pepper flakes because my grandson was eating with us.

I used olive oil instead of bacon grease.

I added onion powder and 1 tablespoon of corn starch to 1/4 cup of liquid aminoes.

(I don’t use soy sauce.)

Cook chicken in a little bit of olive oil.

I used a med/high heat.

When the chicken was done, I added in all the vegetables.

Since I didn’t want a heavy fat content, I let them cook for a few minutes and then added a bit of water.

I covered it and let it briefly steam to finish softening my veggies.

I’m sorry I didn’t record a time.

I just kept checking until they suited me.

I then stirred in the sauce mixture and the beans and let it cook for a couple of minutes.

(While all this was cooking, I cooked rice in the Instant Pot.)

This is my largest frying pan, so don’t be fooled.  

This made a good amount.

This was the finished product all plated up.

The finished yield:

3 adults ate supper

1 toddler ate supper

And I packed two generous lunches with leftovers.

This recipe is a keeper.

Notes:

1.  I think frozen stir fry veggies would work fine.

2.  You could serve this over noodles.

3.  I didn’t add any extra salt or pepper — the sauce was enough.

4.  You could easily use beef, pork, or tofu cubes in this dish.