Baked Apple

Happy 100th post!!!

It's snowing here today, so it got me thinking.  Is there anything better, on a cold day, than hot comfort food?

Here's one of my favorite, simple desserts.  Baked apples.

I modified this recipe:  Bloomin Baked Apples Recipe

It uses store bought caramels, which of course are a no-no in  my house.  So a simple caramel recipe gets poured in the middle instead.  And the rest of the caramel goes in the fridge for ice cream.  :D


Step 1: gather your ingredients.


 I use small apples most of the time, but every now & then, I can find these monsters!





Those are really good.


Cut the apples as described in the recipe, pour some caramel in the middle, and bake.  Yum!!!

For the non-regulars, here is my favorite caramel recipe:  Caramel Sauce

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the apple after it was baked.  It was too good, that I ate it before realizing I needed the picture!  Ugh...next time, I promise.

Happy eating!
Kathy

Simple crackers!

We love crackers.  They are great for snacking, great for a side to soups, wet salads like chicken salad, anything where you need an extra crunch,  Originally, crackers were one of my "exceptions" as I thought I would never be able to make them myself,  But they ARE so simple to make!

Right now I am sitting here being absolutely lazy, watching the Food Network.  On comes Trisha Yearwood, and what is one of her recipes?  Crackers!  I haven't tried these myself yet, but as the high temps will be around 30 degrees F today...they may end up in my oven sooner than later.  Like in a couple hours.  :D

Trisha's Homemade Herbed Crackers

Home made crackers I have made: simple cheese crackers!

Cheese Crackers

5 ingredients, you cam make them squares like Cheese Its, or if you have small cookie cutters, like a goldfish.  I've made these a few times, and the hardest part of grating the cheese.

Side note:  I haven't tried this recipe, but in the post there are instructions as to how to make little cutters.
Home made goldfish cracker cutters & recipe

So I wish I had a picture to share with you, of those lovely little crackers.  I make them without even thinking, so the camera never comes out.  Maybe I'll just have to make some later today, so I can share a picture with you.  So good!!!

This seems like a perfect day to turn on the oven and make crackers, lots of crackers.  Off to take out a stick of butter to soften...

EDIT: yum!!!  

Happy Eating!
Kathy

Simply...Macaroni and Cheese

I make home made macaroni and cheese quite often, either as a main dish or a side.  Probably every other week.  At least. To me, it's a very simple process that doesn't require a lot of pots or pans, dishes, or even work.  I found this recipe and have adapted it to meet my needs.  By meeting my needs, I mean changing it up based on which cheese(s) I have in the house at the moment.

One Pot Mac n Cheese

I'm such a bad blogger that I rarely remember to take pictures when I cook.  I'm such a bad blogger I rarely remember to blog.  Or I take pictures then never blog about them.  But I'm trying to do better.  I promise.

So why is this recipe so easy?  Doesn't mac n cheese require a cheese sauce, made separately then added once the pasta is cooked?  NOT THIS ONE.  The pasta cooks in milk, which turns into the sauce once you add a slurry and cheese.  Can you get any easier??

The original poster has a beautiful picture on the recipe page, so I won't try to copy that.  But I DID manage to snap a few while making it last week.

Step 1: Melt butter in dutch oven, add in spices. Add milk, bring to boil.
Step 2: Add pasta, then a few minutes later add in broccoli.

Here is the pasta and the broccoli (added a few minutes into cooking) boiling away in the milk.

Step 3: While step 2 is happening, grate cheese and make slurry.  I use the mason jar the recipe author suggests, but a small bowl works too.  Preheat oven.

Here is the slurry, before mixing and after.

Step 4: When pasta is cooked, stir in grated cheese, then slurry.  Sprinkle with extra cheese, then pop in oven till brown and bubbly.  My final picture does NOT do it justice.

I usually had a huge block of cheddar cheese in the house, but have been known to pretty much use ANY cheese I have in the house.  I also vary the pepper added in Step 1, based again on what I am in the mood for.  I have never owned the chipotle chili pepper called for in the recipe, so I will use a different red pepper.  Make sure you know your pepper though, as you may not need the same amount, depending on the hotness of it.  You can also vary the veggie added, again based on what you have in the house!

Love this simple recipe.  And all I have to wash is the dutch oven, the cheese grater, and the jar from the slurry.  Which usually goes in the dishwasher...

Happy Eating!
Kathy

Simply...Cobbler!

OMG I am so bad.  I got up before everyone this morning, made my coffee and tuned into Food Network.

Little secret about me: one of my weekend rituals is to watch cooking shows every Saturday and/or Sunday morning for my dinnertime inspirations for the upcoming week.  First, I tune to my local news station to catch the seven day forecast.  That's important this time of year, as summer afternoons can be filled with quick rain showers and thunderstorms.  My husband doesn't mind standing next to the grill in the rain, but I do. So once I get an idea of the weather for the week, I'm ready to sit like a lump on the couch and plan my meals.

So why am I so bad?  Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond wasn't on for 5 minutes and I was up making one of her recipes.  It happened so fast I didn't take pictures!  My husband came down as I was putting the cobbler in the oven, I told him how simple this recipe was, and it hit me.  This was the perfect recipe for the blog!!

I've got a finished shot for you, but since Ree does such a good job with her photographs and documenting her recipes, I figured I didn't really need to recreate that here.  A link to her loveliness will do just fine, with a finished shot of my cobbler.

Cobblers can be scary, especially if you use a more difficult base.  Ree points out in the episode that she makes the cobbler that it can be a lot of work should you choose to lay a pie crust over fruit, or if you use biscuit dough (we don't buy the less work, boxed mix of course!) so her recipe is super simple.  The hardest part?  Waiting an hour for it to bake,

So here it is:

1 cup flour
1 cup sugar (I use turbinado for the extra flavor)
1 cup milk (she used whole, I used 3/4 skim 1/4 half and half)
1/2 stick melted butter

Mix, pour in greased baking dish.  Scatter over top your fruit (she used blackberries but I had blueberries in the house so I went with that, as it was an emergency and I had to get this in the oven immediately.)

She sprinkles 1/4 additional sugar on top (I found that to be too much, so I used less) and into a 350 degree oven it goes for about an hour.  Done!

Not only is is a simple dessert recipe for a busy evening (pop it in the oven while you are eating) but it's a quick dish to make when you have unexpected company coming; 5 minutes of prep and it bakes while you are getting ready.

Love it!  My township is having Fourth of July fireworks tonight, so a blueberry dessert is just the thing to get the holiday week going.  If I had strawberries to add too....yummm.  May need to hit the farm market later today and make another one.  I am so bad.

Here is the link to view the recipe from it's original source, the lovely Ree Drummond:
Ree Drummond's Blackberry Cobbler Recipe

My lovely cobbler, fresh from the oven:

Happy eating!
Kathy

Sharing the simple

I love Pinterest.   It leads me to so many places I may never have found without it.

Right now I am sitting on my deck, watching the leaves blow in the wind, got my tunes playing, and the laptop on my lap planning my meals for the week.  I came across this yummy, simple, clean dinner and wanted to share it with you.

~Disclaimer~ I have not tried this recipe yet; and even if you don't use the exact ingredients the poster did, it shows you how simple a meal can be.  A tiny bit of prep, a clock nearby, and you can sit outside near your grill, enjoy a cold beverage of choice, and maybe even watch or play with your kids in the backyard while dinner cooks.

Dinner on the Grill tonight!

Taylor, the original poster, made a simple. dinner all on the grill. Meat, potatoes, salad (yes, I said salad.)

If you try her recipe, leave a comment and let me know.  My main purpose for sharing is to show you the simplicity of it.  Her pictures show a fabulous meal, my teen boys would happily eat it (minus the grilled romaine - we'll have to test that out and see, but we love kale chips, so maybe) and I could sit with my glass of wine while it all cooks on the grill.  I could even prep it before leaving for work in the morning, then plop everything on when I get home.

Dinner, so simple!

Happy Eating!
Kathy

Dinner tonight, super simple roast beef

Dinner tonight was simple.  So simple there is no way anyone could possibly mess it up.

Beef Roast

I have never had a more delicious, tender, moist roast.

The recipe calls for a 3 pound roast, mine was 2.5 pounds.  The only modification I made was shortening the amount of time it sits in the oven.

This recipe is so simple.  Wait, did I say that already?  Well, it is.  How simple you ask?

Step 1: preheat the oven to 500 degrees.
Step 2: rub the roast with salt, pepper, and I add smoked paprika
Step 3: when oven is preheated, put roast in (uncovered) and reduce heat to 475 degrees
Step 4: bake for 7 minutes per pound
Step 5: turn oven off, set timer for a couple hours, and walk away. DO NOT OPEN OVEN DURING THAT TIME.
Step 6: timer rings, take out meat and slice. Dinner is ready!!

See, you can't get any easier.  Best part about it, is that you made it with simple ingredients.  ALl my spices are organic, and my roast is as well, but yours doesn't have to be.  The point is that you did not buy one that was pre-seasoned at the grocery store; you have no idea what they are putting on those meats.

I like to make this when I have to pick my kids up from school close to dinner time.  The oven is on well before dinnertime, and off for a couple hours before, so I can comfortably leave the house and not worry about a hot oven.

Side dish was some frozen organic mixed veggies.

This is a next day picture, of what is leftover from last night.  I didn't reheat it, just staged it on a plate.  Taken with my phone, not the greatest picture, but you can tell how yummy it is.  Now, I'm off to have a couple of those slices for lunch!

Happy Eating!
Kathy

Header change!!

My regular readers may have already noticed, but I changed the heading for the blog.  Last week I had a few extra minutes (I KNOW, it can happen!) while sitting waiting for my tires to be rotated to clean up my laptop.  I stopped in to have it done on my way to work, so with my laptop on my lap, I figured it was a good time to clean up my hard drive.

One of the things I noticed was all the recipes I had downloaded, saved, bookmarked, filed into folders, yadayadayada that I never looked at again.  Found some really great ones that I will definitely try; but then found some real doozies with ingredients that were never to be found in my pantry.

One example: liquid aminos.  Liquid aminos??  How that is unprocessed I just don't know.  But ingredients like these got me thinking.  Again.  Yes, I do think a lot.  For those of you who read my blog often, many of my posts are because I was "thinking."

The last time I sat here thinking, it was about a conversation with a co-worker and defining clean eating and it led me to take a quick check on my eating habits.

Which is a good thing.  It meant I wasn't thinking about cookies.

So this latest "thinking" has made me realize that clean eating doesn't have to be nuts, with all sorts of strange ingredients.  It doesn't.  It just needs to be simple, using real food ingredients to make some delicious meals.

I've participated in October Unprocessed the last few years, and each year I see all these people making their own cheese, almond milk, even grinding their own flour.  At the end of each month, the number of people who post about slipping, falling off their wagons, and can't keep that up is not surprising.  People go from one extreme (eating mostly processed) to the other (living off the grid) in one month will never stick with it.  It's too overwhelming.  I'm not here to encourage those choices.

I'm here to show the average person, most likely you are a mom, who wants to raise their kids in a healthy way without all the additives that are not good for us.

So if you are new here, welcome.  If you are a regular reader, you are going to see this blog switch to more of a recipe place.  I want to show how easy it is to just use whole ingredients to make fabulous food for your family.

Happy Eating!!

P.S. If you want that cookie recipe, leave a comment and I'll post it for you.