Grapefruit Alaska

Grapefruit Alaska 

The other night we had a stay at home date that involved a nice dinner after the boys were in bed and us making this dessert together. It was so fun to make together and tasted so uniquely yummy. It is definitely one to make again. The presentation is so fun!

Ingredients:

• 4 large grapefruit
• 2 teaspoons rum extract
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, whipped
• 3 egg whites
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp cream of tarter
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 8 maraschino cherries

1.  Halve grapefruits and section (so, so important!!); drizzle 1/4 teaspoon rum extract over each grapefruit half. Top with 1 rounded tablespoon of whipped cream, place on a foil lined baking sheet.
2. In a large bowl beat the egg whites, cornstarch and cream of tarter on medium speed until soft peaks form. 
3. Gradually beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until stiff, glossy peaks form and sugar is dissolved. Mound 1/2 cup on each grapefruit half; spread meringue to edges to seal. 
4. Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes or until meringue is brown. Top each with a cherry and serve immediately. 

The original recipe makes enough for 8 - I only used one grapefruit (enough for 2) and then followed the recipe for the meringue and made cookies out of the extra.
The recipe called for cherries to top the meringue, but we settled for toasted walnuts as that is all I had on hand.

Sharing on Tasty Tuesday

Breads

 

I  have long aspired to stop buying bread from the grocery store and make all of my own from scratch. 

While my sister was staying with us for 6 months she very kindly took on the job of making bread for us and came up with two fabulous recipes that she made many times and since she has left I have made several times. It was during her time here that I stopped buying commercially made bread products - apart from tortillas. I buy a lot of flour tortillas and it suddenly hit me today that I should try making my own, and so I did. WOW! What an incredible difference. Before sharing the recipe and how I served them here are the other two bread recipes I frequently make:

The Ciabatta Bread is so very easy to make and is delicious - most especially with soup! 

It literally takes minutes to prepare the dough and then you can let it sit all day or all night and then just pour onto your baking dish. Seriously easy and so good!

The  Hamburger Rolls are incredible - I don't think I can go back to store bought rolls, these are so delicious and they really are very simple to make, you just need to account for the rising time and plan accordingly. Esther made them look so fun with different toppings sprinkled on hers, I just used Italian seasoning.

I made them this week and served them toasted with BBQ chicken breasts from Schwan's - their chicken is my new favorite! So tender and yummy.

 

I used the left over BBQ chicken and mixed in some black beans and added some cheddar cheese and rolled it up in the homemade tortillas - so tasty and simple. Paul requested that it become a regular dinner! What a sweet compliment. 

Homemade Flour Tortilla Recipe

• 4 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 2 TBS butter (called for lard, but we don't use it), softened
• 1.5 cups water

1.  Mix the dry ingredients. Add the butter and mix with your hands - it will be sort of lumpy but not really. I almost panicked as it didn't seem like a proper consistency, but it worked out fine in the end! Add the water and mix (I continued doing so with my hands) until the dough is a smooth and elastic consistency.
2. Divide the dough into 24 pieces and roll into balls. I patted each ball with flour as I shaped them - it helped make the ball easier to shape and also made rolling it out easier too. This recipe really does make 24 balls, however several times I did combine two balls to make one larger tortilla.
3. Preheat a large skillet to medium-high heat. I used a tiny bit of butter in the bottom, but I don't think it's required.
   Using a floured rolling pin roll out the tortillas - getting them super flat takes a bit of work, as does getting a nice circular shape. Mine were either perfectly thin or perfectly shaped - I didn't nail both in the same tortilla. (And you know what? No one cared!) 
4. Place the rolled dough in skillet until golden and bubbly and then flip - about 30 seconds per side.
5. Continue rolling and cooking the tortillas as you eat the ones you have prepared.

...while writing this out I had a sudden weird feeling that maybe I have made these in the past, but having searched this blog and my recipe blog I can't find any mention of it. But regardless, this recipe will now become a constant. 

Green Smoothie for Veggie Hater

Meet Adam. 

A vegetable hater. 

We made him a green smoothie yesterday and, in his words;

"I don't love it. But I don't hate it either. I would drink this if someone made it for me again."

That, dear readers, is a huge mark of success. 

We used our new favorite special ingredient for his smoothie - Schwan's Golden Fruit Blend. This fruit blend is incredibly delicious. It includes pineapple, mango, peaches and strawberries. It is our favorite frozen fruit blend that we have ever used. It is too expensive for us to use with great frequency (given that we are drinking 3 a day we do try to use ingredients we find on sale) but we have both agreed that we enjoy this blend so much it will become a staple in our freezer for extra special green smoothies.

Here is the recipe we made Adam

8oz Kale

1 carrot

4 Tablespoons coconut oil

1.5 cups Golden Fruit Blend

about 1 cup water

about 2 frozen bananas

about 1 cup of ice

Curried Black Beans over Couscous

 Curried Black Beans over Couscous

Our favorite dish this week has been curried black beans served over couscous - Paul enjoyed it so much he asked me to repeat the dish regularly! Thankfully I wrote down everything as I made it so it'll be easy to replicate. 

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of couscous (I buy mine at Big Lots, but it should be in the international food section)
• 1 bag of black beans
• 1/3 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• salt
• pepper
• curry powder

1. Soak and cook black beans according to package. Note: this will take about 8 hours total. If you have never soaked your own beans I highly encourage it. They're healthier and cheaper and it's actually very easy.
2. Once the black beans are done, rinse them and place in a large bowl. Cook the couscous according to package directions. 
3. Chop the onion and garlic into small pieces. Add to black beans. Add salt, pepper and curry seasoning to taste. I didn't write down how much I added, but I kept tasting the beans until I liked the flavor.
   
   Serve couscous on each plate and load curried beans on top.
   Have special toppings in individual bowls for people to add their favorites.
   The toppings we had on hand and used were:
   
   
   
   • coconut
   • raw peanuts
   • raisins
   • yogurt
   
   This was a huge hit with all 4 of us. But be warned - couscous is MESSY!! I learned my lesson long ago and made this dinner into a fun picnic so we could eat it outside.
   
   USING THE LEFTOVERS
   
   The next day I had a lot of the curried bean mixture left over. I put it in our blender with a bit of coconut oil and blended it all up. I then spooned it into flour tortillas, added some home made hummus and cheese and wrapped the tortilla up tight. I put it under the broiler for a few minutes and we had an easy and delicious lunch with the left overs.
   Judah didn't care for it, but Paul, Wesley and myself really enjoyed it.
   
   Would you take a moment to help me win $200?!?!
   
   Sharing on Tasty Tuesday
    

Lychee Fruit & Green Smoothies - 5 recipes

 A lychee fruit on top of a smoothie

Lychee fruit has become a favorite special treat to add to our Green Smoothies. 

I probably shouldn't even admit it since we buy it canned as they aren't in season yet and the canned fruit probably has none of the nutrients that Lychee fruit is known for, but Lychee fruit is SO yummy!

Lychee fruit has a bit of an odd texture when eating it whole but blended up in a smoothie you would never know. It has a light, sweet taste to it and all four of us really enjoy it. I pick up a can every time I am at the Asian grocery store, and they have told me that they should be getting fresh Lychee fruit in sometime in June.

I have 5 recipes below that we made up using the Lychee fruit. 

We have also introduced coconut oil and cod liver oil to our smoothies for the added health benefit they each offer - I'll get more into the details later - but you will find one or both of those ingredients in all our smoothies from now on. They can easily be left out.

We freeze our bananas, peeled, in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Once they are frozen we transfer them over to a ziplock bag.

I think that is all I wanted to mention about the ingredients... let me know if there's questions! 

Here are our 5 Lychee fruit green smoothie recipes:

• 2 frozen bananas
• 3 lychee fruit and 1 tsp syrup from can
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 8 oz kale
• 1 cucumber
• 1 cup water
• 1 mango

 

• 8 oz Kale
• 2 celery 
• 1 avocado
• 1 cup water
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 1/3 pineapple
• 4 lychee
• 1+ cup of ice

•  8 oz Kale
• 2 bananas
• 1 grapefruit, juiced
• 1 mango
• 3 lychee fruit
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 1 tsp cod liver oil
• 1/2 cup water
• 1+ cup ice

• 8 oz Kale
• 3 lychee and 1 tsp syrup from can
• 2 celery stalks
• 10 oz frozen blueberries
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 1 tsp cod liver oil
• 1 banana
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1+ cup ice

• 10 oz mixed greens
• 1/2 can coconut milk
• 1/3 pineapple
• 1 mango
• 2 frozen bananas
• 10 oz frozen strawberries
• 5 lychee fruit
• 1 cucumber
• 3 TBSP coconut oil
• 1 cup water
• 1+ cup ice

Sharing on Tasty Tuesday and Tempt my Tummy

Green Smoothie - Recipe #1

Green Smoothies turned Purple.

This is a great Green Smoothie recipe to start with as the blueberries color it a pretty purple color, which is a bit more normal of a color for a smoothie, and the taste is rather sweet given the yogurt, blueberries and banana. This is what we call a Dessert Green Smoothie and we don't typically eat this, but I thought it would be a good one to start with!

What you need:

about 8oz of fresh spinach

 1 6oz cup blueberry yogurt

1 10oz bag frozen blueberries

1 banana

1 cup of water

1/2 cup milk

1+ cup of ice

Fill the blender with greens first - we always have just to make sure we fit them all in, but several of you commented or emailed me to let me know that it's best to put the frozen stuff in last for the sake of the motor, so we'll be more intentional about that from now on! Thanks for that tip.

Add all other ingredients and blend until everything is a smooth liquid.

We taste test as we blend - if it is too thick, add more liquid. If it's too watery or not sweet enough add a banana. You could also add a bit of honey if it's not sweet enough for your tastes.

More Green Smoothie recipes coming soon!

Chai Tea Cookies

recipe has been moved to jessicalynette.com

Ciabatta Bread

My sister has made quite the contribution to our waistlines meals and we have enjoyed almost all of her kitchen creations - the braised cucumber I could have lived without trying! But the rest have been great successes. By far my favorite of her recipes is this One Minute Bread. It is so easy and delicious! She has made it three times for us in the past week. Recipe taken from her blog.

Ingredients

• 2 cups warm water
• 1/4 tsp dry yeast
• 4 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt

1. Mix the yeast and warm water in a medium sized bowl. I used a 12 cup bowl and it might have overflowed if I left it for the correct amount of time.
2. Add the flour and salt and mix with a spoon until well mixed.
3. Cover with plastic wrap or a dish towel and place somewhere safe for 8-12 hours. I left mine for 5 hours and it turned out nicely. 
4. Preheat the oven to 375. The original website says 400 but the bottom of my bread slightly overcooked and I don't think the inside was as cooked as it could have been.
5. Gently pour the dough onto a floured or greased cookie sheet and sprinkle the top with dried oregano, basil, and rosemary or any other herbs you think would taste good.
6. Bake for about 25 minutes. If you lower the heat you may have to bake longer, I did mine for 25 minutes on a floured cookie sheet and some of it stuck.

 She also made a delicious Olive Oil Dip for the bread too - it went so well with the bread I would recommend making it to go along with the bread!

 

Interested in GREEN SMOOTHIES? Check out my latest post on how we used them on our 4 day road trip for healthy, inexpensive meals and snacks.

Easy Ziplock Omelets

 

A friend e-mailed me this recipe for Ziplock Omelet and I was excited to try it out with the boys as it seemed like a great hands on recipe for the boys to help out with. Not only was it really fun to prepare with the boys but it was also a pretty decent omelet and really easy to make!

To make these you will need:

A Quart size Ziplock Freezer bag for each person

Omelet fillings (bacon, ham, peppers, onions, cheese, etc.)

Salt and pepper

2 eggs per bag

Permanent marker to label the bags

Start our with labeling the bag.

I had the boys add their cheese, peppers, onions and bacon to the bag next - if the eggs were put in the bag first the boys would likely have spilled them on the floor and/or put their hands in them. So I highly recommend putting the filling part in the bag before the eggs if you have young children doing this.

I cracked the eggs and put them in a glass and then let the boys pour that into the bag. I sealed the bag, making sure to get out as much air as possible then I handed the bags to the boys and told them to squish. I wish I had gotten that part on video - listening to their giggles erupt over squishing eggs was so cute!

 Once everything was well squished together I stuck the two bags in a pot of boiling water. The instructions in the email said that you can put up to 8 bags in a pot of water.

Leave in the boiling water for 13 minutes and then open the bag and let the omelet roll out.

Paul makes the most incredible omelets ever so these will not be replacing omelets in our home, however these will find their own place in our menu rotation. I think these would be really fun to prepare if there were a lot of guests over for breakfast - the bags, minus the eggs, could be prepared the evening before to each persons liking and the next morning you could add two eggs and stick them in the water for 13 minutes - add some fruit and some bread or muffins and it's a quick and easy breakfast for a crowd! 

Or, as we did this time, the boys and I will likely make these for ourselves when Paul is out of town and not able to make us his gourmet omelets. 

Participating in Tasty Tuesday

Love Hate and Bean Soup

**winner announced at the bottom of the post**

I have a love hate relationship with the gym. I really don't mind going. In fact I quite enjoy being there and completing a workout. In my day to day world not much gets completed - the laundry is never quite caught up, the dishes multiply on their own, the beds get made in the morning and by afternoon have been turned into tents or hideaways. So to go to the gym with a 20-60 minute plan and complete it is satisfying. 

The ellipticals and treadmills at our gym are equipped each with their own tv. I enjoy putting on headphones and losing myself in a show while running. More often than not the only thing worth watching is the Food Network - which is where my hate relationship with the gym comes in. I often leave the gym with a craving for Banana Foster, Cheesy dips or a Cheesecake (without any cracks). It is somewhat counter productive to the efforts I am putting in at the gym to leave with a hankering for junk food.

There are, on the rare occasion, healthy dishes created that inspire me to go home and try my hand at it myself.

The other day Easy Entertaining With Michael Chiarello was on and he made a soup that looked incredible.

 

He cooked a white bean - I never did catch which white bean it was so I picked up a bag of Great Northern Beans and it totally worked for us. 

Cook the beans, then strain them, then stick them back in a pot. 

Add carrots, celery, onion, garlic and a couple pieces of cooked bacon.

I also added a bit of (cooked) boneless skinless chicken I had in the fridge.

Add seasonings to taste.

Cover with chicken broth.

Let simmer for awhile - I left it for a several hours.

This next part I had to do in small batches as we only had a small food processor available for blending, but basically you blend up the soup, adding Extra Virgin Olive Oil to it as you blend. He said you could add up to 1 cup but he only added 2 TBSP. Since I have no idea what portion sizes he was working with I didn't have much to go on so I took a stab at it and added about 4 TBSP.

While I was blending I was also heating up more olive oil in a pan. Once heated I added basil leaves - these sputter and spit a lot so stand back! Once they stopped sputtering I added red pepper flakes to it and spooned the entire mixture on top of the soup.

I don't think I had enough liquid in mine as it was a tad bit too thick but the flavor was incredible! 

Paul, Esther and I really enjoyed it. Wesley (1.5 years) devoured it. Judah (3) thought it was ok and ate just his share.

I think the basil leaves ended up looking so pretty.

And, despite all the oil in it, this is so much healthier than all the tempting buttery dishes Paula Deen fries up! 

The winner of the Kids Paint Markers is Jennifer from One Frugal Lady. Congratulations Jennifer - I will get these in the mail to you soon.

Linking up with Tasty Tuesday

Carrot Souffle

I never did get a picture of the finished product, but here it is in the blender!

One of the ladies at church made this a couple years ago and I got the recipe from her as it is simply amazing. It is very rich and I only make it for special occasions - in this case it was made for Christmas dinner when my whole family was here visiting. I made the recipe as it is written below and even after 8 adults and 2 kids ate it there were some leftovers.

Here it is as written out by my friend:

3 lbs sliced, cooked carrots (i just use 3 reg size cans)

1 1/2 c. butter

6 lg eggs

1/2 c. AP flour

1 T. b. powder

3 c. sugar (i only use 2 c and sometimes I do 1 c sugar, 1 c. Splenda)

1/4 t. cinnamon

Process carrots in food processor or blender and add remaining ingredients--stopping to smooth down the sides. Spoon into a lightly greased 9x13 dish. Bake at 350 for 1 hr or til set.

***I can't fit all of it in my blender so I put everything except the sugar, then pour the mixture and the sugar in a large bowl and stir it til it is blended. It can get a little messy :(  This is an easy one to divide by 3 if you want a smaller dish.

Check out more from Tasty Tuesday

Chicken Pot Pie

post has been moved to jessicalynette.com

Cream Cheese Biscuits

These are so yummy and so easy to make!

I made these for our Christmas Eve dinner and they were a smashing hit.

The recipe calls for three ingredients, though I always add cheese, which then makes it four ingredients.

You need:

one 8 oz. package cream cheese (softened)

1/2 cup butter (softened)

1 cup flour

Mix everything together and then spoon the dough into a mini muffin pan. 
Bake for 15 - 17 minutes at 400 F.


I always add shredded cheese to the dough mixture too - I just kinda pour it in without measuring.

One day I might get adventurous and add bacon bits and other seasonings.

But for now it is perfection. And why mess with that?

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Meatballs

Most Amazing Meatballs Ever.

Ever. Ever.

Paul told me he's never eaten better.

My sister thought they melted in the mouth.

I am having a hard time not thawing out the remaining 2lbs of meatballs and eating them all.

The boys loved them too, but that's not saying much. They like anything that goes in their mouth and has flavor.

I don't have an actual recipe for these as I saw them on a TV show and was inspired to try my hand at them - but they are so, so easy. Just keep adding the ingredients til it smells good.

I used:

1 lb ground beef

1 lb ground sausage

Mix it all together. Kitchen gloves are nice for this part.

In a separate bowl I mixed:

bread crumbs - 5 slices of homemade bread dried in the oven and crumbed in the food processor

Half and half cream - maybe 1/4 cup? Not certain. Enough to mix to a dough like consistency.

Salt

Pepper

Italian Seasoning

Nutmeg

When I had the dry/cream ingredients mixed to a dough like consistency I added it to the mixed meat bowl and mixed it really well by hand. Again, kitchen gloves are the best for this!

I then rolled the meatballs, placed them in melted butter in a frying pan for a few minutes per side and then finished cooking them in the oven.

Oh, and I lined the baking sheet with onions first so they would cook on top of them and pick up a light flavor.

Next time I make these I am going to attempt exact measurements and will share. But really, I don't think you can mess these up. If they're too runny add more bread crumbs Too dry add more cream. If you think they lack flavor cook up one or two first and taste test and then adjust the seasonings.  

We snacked on a few yesterday afternoon and the rest I stuck in a freezer bag for future meatball subs - one of our favorite easy meals!

Check out more Tasty Tuesday!

Ham and Cheese Rolls

These aren't around long enough to get a good picture of them, so just imagine they look yummy. Because they taste amazing!

Ham & Cheese Rolls

I used the dough recipe from the cinnamon rolls HERE. (Including the pudding mix!)

In fact, I followed all the steps from that cinnamon roll recipe, but instead of adding butter, cinnamon and brown sugar after it was rolled out I used butter, diced ham and shredded cheese.

I then rolled it back up, cut it and then cooked a few. The rest I put in the freezer (uncooked) as I wanted to test how well they would do cooking from frozen. They work amazingly! (which tells me that the original cinnamon roll recipe would work just as well.)

To cook from frozen preheat oven to 350 F, put desired amount of ham and cheese rolls on a tray, place in oven and set timer for 30 minutes! So easy!

Chocolate Covered Chocolate Centered Sugar Cookies

These are amazing. A lot of work, but absolutely amazing!!

I have a freezer full of discounted Halloween chocolate that I bought with plans to convert into Christmas baking, and while these are the only things I've created with the Halloween chocolate these will remain the ONLY things I make with the Halloween chocolate - they are that good.

To start off I whipped up a double batch of sugar cookies. I found a really yummy recipe on allrecipes.com, but you can use store bought sugar cookies if you don't feel like making your own.

I used 100 Grand and Butterfinger mini chocolate bars and cut them into halves.

I then wrapped some of the sugar cookie dough around each piece of chocolate and baked.

For the baking time I just followed the instructions on the regular sugar cookie recipe.

Once the sugar cookies had cooked I let them cool and then cut them into quarters.

I then melted some Hershey's Dark Chocolate bars I had also picked up after Halloween and dipped each quartered sugar cookie into the melted chocolate.

Good diet food? I think not.

I let the chocolate sit on wax paper to set and eventually moved them to the fridge, covered in plastic wrap, to set overnight as they weren't getting hard on the counter.

The fridge did the trick and by morning they were the most perfect chocolate covered centered sugar cookie you ever did have!

Linking up with Tasty Tuesday