Blueberry Yogurt Pancakes

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The past 2 weeks have been busy.  It's been swimming lesson time and each girl takes a lesson at a different time with the boys all togeter for the third hour.  Today we had 2 little friends spend the night whose lesson started an hour earlier than ours.  So we had 7 children to get ready to swim, pack a lunch and practice violin before 8:30.  What to fix for breakfast?  Blueberry yogurt pancakes of course.  Delicous, fast and full of carbs.  I made up the recipe on the spot using  pancake proportions and ingredient substitutions similar to the cookie recipe I posted earlier.  They were yummy!

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Pancakes:

1 8oz container mixed berry yogurt

2 C milk

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons oil

(mix well)

3 Cups flour

1 t baking soda

(Mix well, form a hole in the center of the flour and pour the wet ingredients in.  Blend and cook like pancakes.)

Blueberry Syrup

3 Cups water

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

1 1/2 Cups sugar

2 Cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Bring to a boil in a medium saucepan while stirring, until thickened.  Remove from heat and stir in 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (I got mine at Costco).  Stir until blueberries are thawed and sauce is purple.  Enjoy!  This sauce is also great on Vanilla Icecream.

If you want a healthier sauce, replace the water with white grapejuice and use stevia instead of sugar to sweetened it.

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Homemade Toaster Waffles

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I checked the price of Eggo waffles the other day at Walmart, just for curiosity.  I was shocked!  It was about $4 for 10 waffles and they don't even taste very good.  I usually make waffles on a Saturday morning when I'm ready to deep clean my kitchen.  I triple the batch and just keep cooking while I'm cleaning.  As soon as they come out of the iron, I lay them single layer on a cookie sheet to keep them from getting flattened.  Then I set the entire sheet in the deep freeze.  In about an hour they are ready to move to freezer baggies.  They are fairly safe from flattening at this point, though a lot of pressure would do the trick.  On busy mornings, it's easy to pop a few in the toaster for a hot family breakfast. 

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If you don't have a waffle recipe you love, try mine.

2 Cups whole wheat flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup oil

2 cups milk

2 eggs

1.  Combine dry inredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls

2.  Mix together and pour 2/3 cup batter in a belgium waffle iron.  Bake for 5 minutes or until the light comes on.  (If only mine had a dinger too!)

Gourmet Tastes on a Tuna Fish Budget

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My friend Shayna, brought sandwiches like these to me after my second baby was born.  They were so fabulous that I got the recipe.  Hers were filled with chicken salad and made with Swiss cheese.  These are slightly less gourmet, but still very tasty.  Here’s the recipe:

Dough:

1 Stick butter

1 Cup water

1 Cup flour

4 eggs

1 Cup shredded cheddar cheese

In a medium saucepan, bring water and butter to a boil.  Stir in flour until it forms a dough.  (It’s similar to making playdough at this point :).  Remove from heat and and allow cool slightly.  Add eggs, one at a time beating well with a wisk or electric mixer after each one.  Stir in cheese.  Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet.  Depending on the size you get about 20 puffs.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 for 20 more minutes.  It’s very important not to open the oven door even a crack until the entire cooking time is over.

While the puffs are baking make a tuna salad:

2 Cans tuna, drained

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1/2 Cup mayo

1/2 Cup plain yogurt

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 C cheese

Combine all together and chill.

When the puffs are cool.  Open the tops with a fork and fill with tuna salad.  Yum!

Pink Rolls

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Sometimes it's hard for me to throw stuff away.  We had beets for dinner and the leftover cooking liquid was beautiful.  I just couldn't throw it away.  So I used it for the liquid in a roll recipe.  The rolls were beautiful and just as tasty as they were pretty.

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With frosting the next morning, they made a lovely breakfast.

Pink roll blue plate

Chock full of Veggies Bread

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I'm still thinking of ways to use up zucchini.  I made up this bread recipe today and it was delicious!

Veggie bread 008 

1/4 C warm water

2 T butter, melted

1/4 C honey

1 egg

1/2 cup shredded carrots

1/2 cup shredded zucchini

1 t dried chives

1 t dried parsley

1 t salt

3 C whole wheat flour

1 T yeast

Place all ingredients in the bread machine on dough cycle. It will make a very soft dough. Then stir down dough and pour into a greased bread pan.  Let rise about 30 minutes and bake at 325 for 4o minutes.

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Chocolate (zucchini) Pancakes

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A lady at our church has been out of work for quite awhile.  She frequents the food pantries in town at the last minute, when they are getting ready to throw everything away, and takes it all home.  Most of the food is at or past its sell date and is donated by grocery stores.  There is some life left in it, if you don't mind cutting out some spots or freezing it and cooking it quickly. 

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Last Friday, she brought an entire car full of zucchini to church, and I was thrilled!  She offered 2 big bags to me and I took it.  Unfortunately I'm the only one in the family who gets super excited about the tasty green vegetable and I need to use it up fast!  My solution is to hide it in everything.  Yesterday for lunch we had crockpot zucchini casserole. And today for breakfast we had Chocolate Zucchini pancakes.  Though if the kids ask, they are chocolate pancakes.  They were delicious.  Here's my recipe:

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1 C shredded zucchini

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup honey

2 eggs

1 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cloves

2 cup flour (whole wheat pastry or all purpose)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup buttermilk (I used 1/4 C yogurt and 1/4 cup milk)

Mix up and cook like pancakes.  We had them with regular maple syrup, but I think they would have been great with real honey sweetened whipped cream.

Basic Drop Cookie Recipe

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I rarely cook with recipes, but I always have a proportion or formula in my mind.  Doing this allows me to make pancakes, gravy, yeast bread, cookies or quick bread wherever I might be visiting, no matter how many people there are to cook for.  It's so fun to put the lady of the house to bed for a nap and tinker in the kitchen with my recipes in my brain!  By having certain porportions in mind, you can switch ingredients around in any recipe to suit your health or taste preferences and still have a delicious end result.  This also helps if you are cooking with what you have on hand and need to substitute ingredients.  I'll be posting formulas for other foods too, but today I'm going to tell you all about the best drop cookies! Here's the basic recipe:

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Basic Drop Cookies

1 C solid fat (butter, shortening, lard, coconut oil, or peanut butter–or any combination of them)

2 C granulated sweetner (sucanut, turbinado sugar, white sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, equivalent of stevia, or splenda–or any combination of them)  Note:  Stevia is best used with real sugar.  Substituting all of the sugar for stevia will mess up the chemistry of your recipe and give it a bitter aftertaste.  One teaspoon of granulated pure (undiluted) stevia extract is equal to about 1 cup of sugar.

1 t salt

1 t baking soda (if using acid ingredients such as brown sugar or citrus, 4 t baking powder if not)

1 t flavoring (vanilla extract, almond extract, peppermint extract, orange extract or 2 T orange zest, dried lavendar etc.)

2 eggs (or 1 egg and 1/4 C orange juice or other fruit juice, sour cream or yogurt, or substitue 1 T soy flour and 1/4 C water for one egg.)

3 C flour (white, whole wheat, brown rice, corn,  etc.A half a cup of this could be cocoa powder)

2 Cups chunky grain based mix-ins: (if adding chunky grain mix ins–leave out 1 C of flour) Rolled oats, crisp rice cereal, cereal dregs, wheat germ, bran, etc. or any combination of them 

2 Cups non absorbant mix-ins:  chips;(white chips, butterscotch chips, peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, lemon chips etc); nuts (peanuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, pistaccios, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans); crushed candy such as peppemint or butterscotch, raisins, craisins, currents, or other dried fruit. If your mix-in is super sweet like candy or chips you can leave out up to 1/2 cup of the sugar.

Directions:  Cream fat and sugars.  Mix in eggs and flavoring.  Stir in salt and levening, flour and mix-ins.  Place by spoonful onto greased cookies sheets and bake at 350 for 11 minutes.

The applications of this recipe are limitless.  Here are some options

  • Use 1/2 cup of peanut butter and 1/2 cup butter, rolled oats and milk chocolate chips!

  • White chips and craisins with almond extract

  • Orange zest, orange juice and dark chocolate chips

  • Butterscotch chips and rolled oats

  • 1/2 c cocoa powder and peanut butter chips

  • Crushed peppermints and chocolate chips

  • Almonds and crushed Heath bar

  • White chips and macadamia nuts

  • coconut oil, lime zest, dried papaya and pineapple bits, and macadamia nuts

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Other delicious weeds

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(Are you getting my free weekly newsletter full of motivation and fruagl tips? If not, go sign up at www.groceryshrink.com  Did I mention it was free?–Spam free too!)

If nothing else, I hope through this post to make you think twice before spraying poision on your yard to kill all those lovely free foods out there.  Some wild edibles are downright gross and some are delicious.  Here's just a sampling of some free foods I have tried and found tasty and have growing in my yard right now!  Before gathering wild edibles, be sure you have identified them correctly and that they have not been treated with yard chemicals.  You can also check with your local extension center or conservation department for more information on wild edibles specific to your area.  If you are in or near Missouri a great book available from the Missouri Conservation Department is Wild Edibles of Missouri by Jan Phillips.

(Note:  Any sudden change in diet can cause a temporary digestive upset.  To avoid this start with a small serving  of wild edibles and then gradually increase the amount in your diet.)

Plantain (not to be confused with the banana like fruit or the Plantain Lily AKA Hosta):  There are 11 different varieties common to Missouri and when small and tender make a delicious and nutritious mild lettuce.  They can also be gently steamed as a potherb.

English-plantain Plantain

Violets–I've always enjoyed violet flowers but just learned yesterday that the leaves are also edible.  They make a lovely mild lettuce (had a violet salad yesterday–yum!) and when the flowers are added to the salad it is breathtaking. Pansys and Violas (JohnnyJump-ups and look like miniature pansys) are relatives of the violet and also edible in the same ways, but have a stronger flavor.

Violet Viola

Clover–comes in red or white.  The flowers are delicious and beautiful in salads and also make a nourishing tea.  The leaves, even though they are small, are also a nice lettuce.

Red clover 

Dandelions:  The greens are nutrious for salads or potherbs, but to be honest they are so bitter I can't choke them down.  I would have to be literally starving to make it work.  On the other hand, the yellow flowers are fabulous fried up like okra.  It is a rare treat for us since I don't fry much anymore, but here's my recipe.  The flowers need to be picked fresh and used right away.  They wilt quickly.  The best way is to make up the batter, then go and get the flowers. (A perfect job for kids.)  The flowers can also be crumbled up into pancake batter as a nutritional additive.

Dandelion

Batter:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt**
1 tsp vegetable oil
2 eggs

Rinse the blossoms and pat dry.  Dip in batter and deep fry at 400 degrees until golden, turning once. Drain on paper towels and lightly salt.

Freezing Lamb’s Quarter for Winter Use

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Lamb’s Quarter is not only free and tasty, but it is one of the most nutritious vegetables you can eat.  Here’s a breakdown of the nutrition from http://www.herbalremediesinfo.com/lambsquarter.html

One cup of raw lamb’s quarter leaves contains:

~ 80 mg of Vitamin C

~ 11,600 IU of Vitamin A

~ 72 mg of Phosphorus

~ 309 mg of Calcium

as well as good amounts of

~ Thiamin

~ Riboflavin

~ Niacin and

~ Iron

In the following video learn how easy and fast it is to prepare lamb’s quarter for freezing to add nutrition to your winter diet.  It’s best preprared early in the season when the stems and leaves are tender.

Lovely Weeds

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A great part about weeds is all the lambs quarter!  I don't know how it gets there, but I love it! It is lovely steamed lightly or in any recipe in place of spinach.  It is also a lovely addition raw to a lettuce salad.  Such a nice free vegetable!  Here's a picture of one (sorry it's a little blurry–I'm still learning).  If you have some in your yard that is chemical free, pick it young and tender–Yum!  My mother-in-love makes a fabulous Lamb's quarter quiche.  The recipe follows. 

Lamb's quarter

Ooh, speaking of Lamb's Quarter Quiche, I made one last year and took a picture of it. 

Lamb's quarter quiche 

Here's the recipe:

1-9 inch crust
4 C lamb's quarter (a common yard weed here in Missouri)
1/4 C chopped onions
2 T butter
1 T flour
1/2 t salt
3 eggs
1 3/4 C milk
2 C Swiss Cheese (I made mine with just 1 C cheddar and added a little chopped turkey bacon. I also just used Pam instead of butter for sauteing.  These changes saved about 500 calories in the whole pie.)

Saute Lamb's quarter and onion in butter.  Stir in flour and salt.  Add eggs and milk, mix together.  Sprinkle cheese in crust.  Add Lamb's quarter mixture on top.  Bake at 325 for 40-50 minutes or until eggs are set.  Mine took over an hour, but my oven is not quite right.