Introducing Creativity To The Alternative Diet: Many of us have segued from traditional dietary lifestyle to alternative dietary lifestyles, i.e. Gluten free, Vegan, Grain free, Real food, etc. What are we discovering?? These recipes are NOT mediocre!

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Turkey Take-Over (Severns)

Of course we had a lot of turkey left over and this year I had hoped for this because I have been waiting to make Nikki's soup! So this afternoon while kiddos were sleeping Andy & I cleaned out the fridge to evaluate how much we were dealing with. I started to put the soup together in a stock pot instead of the crock-pot, while Andy diced up the turkey. I pretty much did everything according to the recipe except I didn't add the chiles. I am glad I didn't because it was just the right spicy-ness. In the recipe the list of ingredients doesn't say anything about beans but in the written instructions it mentions beans. I am assuming the recipe calls for black beans or something similar. However I did not have beans so I didn't add them, next time I will. This soup was so good! All of us liked it a lot. I will definitely make this soup again. I think next time when it isn't Thanksgiving, I'll make it with chicken. Yumm Yumm! Four thumbs up!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

So chefs what's on the menu for this Thanksgiving and who is doing the cooking??

We head to my parents house for Thanksgiving where we first have all the yummy appetizers. Nothing fancy we like the good old basics, spinich dip, layered bean dip, veggies and chips with dip. (hmm lots of dip) cheese and crackers. You get the idea. Then when a sufficient amount of time has gone by and there is a little room again in our stomachs we do dinner.

Turkey
Stuffing inside the Turkey
Stuffing outside of the Turkey
Cornbread stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Cornbread casserole
Green bean casserole
Green beans with almonds
some other veggie
Broccoli salad
Pea salad
Cranberry salad type thing
Relish tray
Rolls
and of course Babas famous sauerkraut

I think that is our usual full meal deal...yum can't wait!!!

oh yeah and officially I don't cook anything for this meal, but sometimes get wrangled to help with something, my Mom and my husband Jonathan do most of the work with the exception of a few things which are brought by other families coming. I'm officially the clean up crew. :)

Monday, November 17, 2008

Turkey -er Chicken Corn Soup

I love love LOVED the soup! Or let me say, we love love loved the soup. Lets see what did I do differently? I could not find turkey thighs so I used chicken thighs-no problem that was still good although I am anxious to make this again with the turkey. I used frozen corn, black beans, and I added some avocado on top with the sour cream and cheese. It was so good, I froze the leftovers and I can't wait to get it them out again but I am making myself wait!

The peanut butter bread looked so beautiful when it came out of the oven, nice and golden. It was also very moist. If I make it again I would probably not use Adam's peanut butter I might use something like skippy. Thank You Nikki!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Yourvarlakia Avgolemono and Herb Drop Biscuits

Hey ladies, here is a soup and a bread. I have made them both several times.
I do not recommend them together, but they are both so yummy (and the biscuits are so easy) that I really wanted to share each of them. Good luck! Let me know what you think.
N.B. These are not MY recipes. I didn't invent them, can't take the credit. One is from a cookbook by Tess Mallos and the other from Martha Stewart.

Meatball Soup (Yourvarlakia Avgolemono), from Cyprus
1 lb finely ground lamb
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup medium-grain rice
2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tsp finely chopped fresh mint, optional
salt
freshly ground black pepper
all-purpose flour for coating
5 cups lamb or chicken stock
1 Tbsp butter
2 eggs
juice of 1 lemon
chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley for garnish
crusty bread for serving
In a bowl, mix lamb with onion, egg, rice, parsley, mint (if using), and salt and pepper to taste. Shape into meatballs the size of a small walnut and coat lightly with flour.
Bring stock to a boil in a soup pot, season with salt and pepper if necessary and drop in meatballs. Add butter. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.
In a bowl, beat eggs until light and foamy. Gradually beat in lemon juice. Slowly add about 2 cups simmering stock, beating constantly.
Pour egg mixture into soup and stir constantly over low heat for 2 minutes to cook egg, then remove from heat and stir for 1 minute longer so the heat of the pot will not cause the egg to curdle.
Ladle soup into deep soup bowls and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with bread.

Herb Drop Biscuits

Makes 8; Prep time 5 minutes; Total time 25 minutes

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter

-->1. Preheat oven to 425°. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, fresh chives, baking powder, and salt. Using a fork or your fingers, work in butter (cut into small pieces) until small pea-size clumps form. Mix in milk until the mixture comes together as a sticky dough. -->2. Using a 1/3-cup measure, drop 8 mounds of dough onto a nonstick baking sheet; pat down slightly.
-->3. Bake until biscuits are golden brown, rotating baking sheet halfway through, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Peanut Butter Bread (Severns)

Well, I'll start with my first confession... I have not made the soup. With Thanksgiving coming up I know we will have lots and lots of leftover turkey so I am saving this recipe for then. And we all know that by the weekend after Thanksgiving everyone will be hoping for some lighter meals - this is when I'll make the yummy soup!
Andy & I made the peanut butter bread last night; I was finishing up dinner prep he came in and we sort of tag-teamed getting the batter into the oven so it would be ready when we were done with dinner. My final confession is that I didn't care too much for the bread... now that said I'll add that while I am a peanut butter fan, I don't care for peanut butter cookies or anything like that. The kids really liked the bread and Andy did also, he wished it had more peanut butter. I thought the bread might be better this morning after sitting over night but I didn't notice much difference. I confirmed my suspicion that the bread was a lot better with a couple chocolate chips thrown in with each bit and chased with coffee! I think next time we make it I'll add more peanut butter for my man!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Sunday Night Dinner

Last night I made the Turkey Corn Soup and Carrie's Parent Tot Bread. It was so nice to have dinner ready by 11am! I really like the whole crock pot idea - especially as a weeknight option. I used turkey breasts instead of thighs and browned them and the onions before putting them in the pot. I also added black beans and diced tomatoes. The soup turned out to be colorful and delicious. The tomatillo salsa definitely added a kick. It was a little on the spicy side for me, but with the sour cream to tone it down, it was perfect. And I loved the Parent Tot Bread! Pulling those golden brown rolls out of the oven was so exciting, and they tasted great. They definitely made my bread-making skills look a lot better than they are. I look forward to trying the Peanut Butter Bread soon. Thanks for the great recipes Nikki and Carrie!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Daley Soup and Cotton Bread (Severns)

Well, I just realized that I made this soup and the bread when I was suppose to but I never told you about it! I made the soup and we really liked it. I froze a small bit of the leftovers for us to have for dinner some night I didn't feel like cooking. We actually had those last night and it was even better leftover!
As you can see Abigail and I made the bread together. This was her first bread making adventure. I was a bit surprised when she wasn't too excited about kneading the dough. I shouldn't have been, I realized immediately "Oh ya, this girl has never liked to get her hands dirty"! But we had fun anyway. The bread was delicious! I won't tell you fast it ALL disappeared. :) Four thumbs up on both recipes.

Friday, November 7, 2008

First Foods Experience

The girls really wanted to try out chopsticks since their Daddy always uses them whenever we do stirfry. So here are some pics of their first attempts. :)



Monday, November 3, 2008

Turkey-Corn Soup & Peanut Butter Bread

Ok so here is my pick! I'm sure you are like what took so long to post but over the weekend Carson and Nathan spilt coffee on the keyboard at it died! So when I went to post last night I could not do it. So now we have a new keyboard and I'm ready to go! I picked the peanut butter bread to go with another soup I was going to do but then I bought a new slower cooker magazine and found this soup so that is why its such a crazy combo! So i figure PB bread will be dessert!

Turkey-Corn Soup

2 turkey thighs (1 lb each),
skin removed

1 medium onion, chopped

1 can corn, drained

1 1/2 cups medium-hot tomatillo salsa

1 can (4.5 oz) chopped green chiles

2 tsp minced garlic

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup chopped cilantro

Serve with sour cream and Monterey Jack cheese


1. Put turkey thighs and onion in a 3 1/2-qt or larger slow cooker. Add beans and corn. Mix salsa, chiles, garlic cumin and salt in a medium bowl; poor all over

2. Cover and cook on Low for 8-10 hours or until meat is tender. Remove turkey to a cutting board and cut into bite-size pieces.

3. Return meat to cooker; stir in cilantro and serve!


Peanut Butter Bread

2 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

2/3 peanut butter

1 1/4 cups milk

Preheat oven to 350 grease loaf pan.

Combine dry ingredients. Add milk to peanut butter; combine well. Add peanut butter to flour; mix well. Pour into pan and bake 45-50 minutes.

I'm really looking forward to making these since they are new for me too! Got to love new cookbooks! Hope you all enjoy! I also thought that the soup will be perfect for all those leftovers we will all soon have.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Daley Mix Review . . . It's A Keeper!

Eva and I made the soup . . . I liked it a lot. No suggestions for change. The bread was great, and fun and easy to make! I made half of it into a braid and we made giant rolls out of the other half, as you can see in the photo. Thank you, Carrie!