Basic Granola

Have you ever looked for a granola recipe online and found a list of ingredients so long and obscure you turn and run to the store and buy a box a granola? They call for things like flax meal, sesame seeds, coconut flakes and unsweetened wheat germ. Its enough to make your head spin.

This recipe was given to me at a baby shower it is the most basic of basic, any other ingredient is just extra for flavor or health benefit. This is the recipe to start with to create your ideal granola by adding the kinds of things you like in store bought granola. In these pictures I made apple cinnamon flavor by using an Alpine Apple Cider Mix packet half mixed in with the honey and oil mix and half sprinkled over the granola as it baked.

Basic Granola

Heat together:
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Once everything is mixed well and dissolved add 4 cups rolled oats and stir until well coated. Spread out onto a cookie sheet and bake at 250 for an hour stirring every 15 minutes or so.

Turn the oven off but let the granola and the oven cool down together stirring one more time. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

I haven't tried this yet but I am sure if you pressed the granola down tightly into a 9X13 pan and baked it at 300 for 30 min cut into bars while still hot then letting it cool down before breaking apart you would have homemade granola bars.
I will try this soon and report back it would be a great snack for work (or school lunches.) If you try it let post a comment to tell me how it turns out.

A dinner FAIL to confess and Chicken Pot Pie

rFirst the story of my dinner FAIL:


Last week I was having a guy over for dinner (A guy I wanted to impress with my great cooking skills.) I wanted to make something unique and wonderful but I wouldn't have a lot of time to cook. I decided to make a really great side dish and veggies and buy one of those rotisserie chickens from the store. That was sure to impress and not be too expensive. ( no I didn't try to pass the chicken off as mine he knew I bought it)


So the day before I went to Winco and bought some Quinoa from the bulk bins for the side dish( Quinoa is a grain you can cook like rice, it has a nutty flavor and great texture. I have made it at work a few times and really liked it) While I was there I also bought some Millet for another recipe later in the week. I was careful to label both the bags with the bin number and what was in the bag because they look similar. ( You can see where my FAIL is going huh?)

Quinoa cooked and raw

Millet raw

I didn't check the labels and I cooked the millet by mistake!!! Millet isn't supposed to be cooked the same as Quinoa it needs more water and seasonings. It was dry and bland and just plain not good. This is what happens when you try to impress someone, you make a mistake you would never make if you were alone. Great guy though he ate it as did the rest of my guests and didn't complain even though I said they didn't have to.

I feel better confessing that. Now on to the main event:

I bought two chickens  for that dinner and had a lot leftover so I decided to make chicken pot pie last night . I didn't make a traditional pie that would have been too much to eat before it went bad. I made one "pie" just big enough for three ( me and my room mates) and four one serving "pies" to freeze for later.

I didn't use a traditional crust either, I used puff pastry and only on the top.( I have never been a big fan of pie crust but I love puff pastry) I used a oval cake pan and four of those disposable mini loaf pans but you can use what ever baking dish you want.


Chicken Pot Pie

2 cups cooked chicken cut into bite sized pieces
2 potatoes peeled and diced
1 1/3 cup diced carrots
frozen corn
frozen peas
1 10oz can Cream of Chicken soup
10 oz (one can) Milk
Salt and Pepper
one sheet puff pastry thawed and kept cool wrapped in a paper towel.(or Pie crust)


Place the carrots and potatoes in a medium sauce pan with an inch or two of water and bring to a boil then turn the unit off and let the residual heat partially cook the vegetables. Spread chicken over the bottom of whatever bake ware you are using, next layer the potatoes and carrots that have been drained and last layer the frozen vegetables. Mix together the cream of chicken soup and milk and pour over pie filling, Season liberally with salt and pepper. Trim the puff pastry to fit over the top of your bake ware and place over filling. Cut a few slits in the dough and if you wish brush with an egg wash to help browning.  Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30-60 min depending on the size of your pie.

Single serving "pies" the two on the left had their crusts pieced together with scraps not very pretty but they taste good. They were wrapped tightly in foil, labeled, and frozen for later.

The big "pie"  Yum!!

Eggs

If you live in Utah you may have noticed the great deals on eggs that have been popping up recently. Last week a dozen large grade AA eggs at Smiths were $0.69. this week a dozen medium eggs are $0.58 at Macys. With such a great price I need to come up with more things to do with eggs and I will be posting more on what I find works. For now I am posting about a classic, the omelet.
You can put almost anything in one and it is so fast to put together.  They are great for days when you don't know whats for dinner and really don't have time to make anything fancy.  They are one dish meals and you don't have left overs, you even use up left overs with an omelet.
Last night I was driving home from work thinking I didn't have anything planned for dinner, I was considering which fast food place I should stop at. I had to be at FHE by 7:00 and I knew I didn't have the time to thaw meat or make much of anything because I haven't been making a menu plan and I haven't been shopping for meals. I fought the urge to stop at subway and just went home. I was hungry and I didn't want to wait for dinner. I looked in the fridge and found milk, eggs, green onions, cheese and bacon bits.Perfect!!

Basic omelet

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons milk

salt and pepper to taste 

 Preheat a small saute pan over medium high heat with a little fat( butter, or oil). Combine milk and eggs in a small bowl and beat well with a fork add salt and pepper to taste and beat again. Pour mixture into preheated pan and tilt pan to evenly coat. As the eggs cook use a rubber spatula to pull up the side of the omelet and tilt the pan to let the runny eggs under the cooked eggs. Once the omelet is solid enough to flip, flip it with a spatula or if you are felling adventurous try to flip it with the pan. Once the eggs have cooked on both side fold the omelet in half and slide onto a plate to serve.

Add any kind of filling you like or have on hand.

I made my omelet with bacon bits green onions and cheese. Before I put the eggs in the pan I sauteed the bacon and sliced green onions a little. the bacon gave off just a little fat so I didn't need to use butter and it crisped up a bit too. I moved the fillings to a paper towel and poured the eggs into the pan and sprinkled the fillings over the cooking eggs keeping some to add later. After the first flip I sprinkled on the cheese and the reserved bacon and green onions.

It took me less than 10 minutes to have dinner ready and I made it to FHE on time

You can put almost anything in an omelet from spinach to fresh tomatoes and bacon to left over chicken. Play around, see what you like. Omelets are a great, easy, fast, and cheap one dish meal for anytime of day and any number of people, even one.

Day One

Day one of my $5 a day challenge.

I was going to have instant oatmeal and orange juice for breakfast, but last night I found a recipe for blueberry scones that looked good and I had all the ingredients. So I drank a weight-loss shake to tide me over while I baked. They were really good, I ended up eating 5 of them for lunch and as a snack.. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup butter, chilled
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 3/4 cup half-and-half cream
• 1 egg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Cut butter into mixture of flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add blueberries and toss to mix.
3. In separate bowl beat together cream and egg, and slowly pour into dry ingredients, stirring with rubber scraper until dough forms. Knead just until it comes together, 3 or 4 times. Don't over handle.
4. Divide dough in half. On lightly floured board, shape each half into a 6-inch round. Cut into 6 wedges.
5. Bake on ungreased sheet about 20 minutes at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Serve warm!!  

After I had lunch I picked up some pictures from Walmart and pulled my scrapbooking stuff out to work on until my roommate came home and we were ready to go grocery shopping.

I studied the grocery store ads and made a careful plan of everything I want eat this week including: Breakfast, Lunch,  snacks, and Dinner. I have also made a list of everything I need to buy for those meals, what day I should buy them, and from which store. Today my roommate and I went to Harmon's like every Saturday. I bought 2 pears, 3 grapefruit, 4 celery stalks, and 2 cans of Cambles tomato soup for a grand total of $4.04. The most expensive thing I bought was the celery and I probably only needed 2 stalks for the chicken soup I am making this week. Oh well, lesson learned and I will just have come up with a recipe that needs it next week. One of my goals with this challenge is to not have food going bad before I can eat it. I read that the most expensive food you buy is the food you throw away.

  For dinner I made BBQ cups, which are made by putting a biscuit into a muffin tin with ground beef cooked with BBQ sauce and topped with cheese then baked per the directions on the tube of biscuits.  I got the idea from my best friend Zipper. I have always really liked it and like everything else I ate today I already had everything I needed to make it. I paired them with some canned green beans and had a wonderful dinner.

After I had dinner I drove to my parents house for a family party where I had some Ice cream and punch.

At the end of the day I have driven 25 miles and spent $4.04 

Pepperoni Pizza Soup.

Last night I went to a soup party hosted a girl in my ward. It was a lot of fun, so many people came and several of us brought a soup. There was a creamy tomato basil, roasted tomato, pumpkin curry, potato bacon chowder, black bean, minestrone soup and pizza soup. There might have been more but I didn't see them because they were brought in after I was full. For my contribution I made Pizza Soup.

     Years ago I had been watching a show on the food network called Ham On The Street and this episode was all about pizza, one of the things he made was Pepperoni Pizza Soup. I looked up the recipe online the next day and showed it to my best friend and cooking companion Zipper.  (I met Zipper five and a half years ago wanting to be a babysitter for her then 18 month old boy and 2 week old baby boy. It didn't take long for us to become best friends. She now has four boys running around her feet in the kitchen and keeping the washing machine running at all times. We have tried many new recipes together some very good and some really bad but we always have fun.) We decided we would to try this and went to buy the ingredients.

There are two items in this recipe that you might have trouble finding. The first is the Tomato Basil Soup, pictured  to the right. I have been buying it from Target mostly, not all grocery stores carry it. The next item you might have a hard time finding is pepperoni links. You just have to see if the store you usually shop at has them I know that Walmart does not but I have been able to buy them at Reams and Harmon's. They will be next to the sliced pepperoni. I like Hormel best.


Pizza Soup

Ingredients

• 1 box prepared tomato-basil-garlic soup
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup short pasta (I use salad macaroni) 
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano, plus more for broiling
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
  
• 1/3 cup diced pepperoni
• 1 cup grated mozzarella
• 1 cup grated Cheddar

Directions

Preheat the broiler.

Put the tomato soup, water, and garlic into a large pot and bring it to a boil over high heat. When it is boiling, add the macaroni, green onions, oregano, basil, and pepperoni and stir well. When the macaroni is cooked, about 6 to 8 minutes, pour the soup into oven safe bowls. Top each with 1/4 cup mozzarella and 1/4 cup Cheddar. Sprinkle on some oregano and put under the broiler until the cheese is bubbling and lightly browned, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Alternately, you can serve the soup in a small round, crusty loaf of bread. Cut the top off the bread and scoop out the insides. Fill with soup, top with the cheeses, and broil per the directions above.