Sausage Rice Bake

1 lb sausage (not links)
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced (optional)
1-2 cups mushrooms, chopped (optional)
4 cups water (3 1/2 if you're using white rice)
2-3 bouillon cubes, any kind OR 1 envelope chicken noodle soup mix
2 cups brown (or white) rice
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp parsley
salt and pepper

Brown the sausage with the vegetables. Boil the water with the bouillon cubes. If you use the soup mix add it to the rice, not to the water. Put the rice in a 9x13 with the poultry seasoning, parsley, salt and pepper. Add the meat and broth, cover with foil and bake for about an hour at 450 F.  

Comfort food and easy peasy too. Brown rice makes it especially satisfying. I hear this is from the More With Less cookbook, but these are my adaptations. Eat it with green beans and some applesauce for the full Mennonite effect. :)

Pumpkin Spice Latte

2 cups milk
2 Tbsp canned pumpkin
1-2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 Tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup hot brewed coffee or 2-4 shots of espresso

In 2-quart saucepan, heat milk, pumpkin and sugar over medium heat until hot (do not boil). Remove from heat and stir in pumpkin pie spice and vanilla.  Froth it with your little Ikea frother-thing. :)  Divide coffee or espresso into 2 mugs and then divide milk mixture into the mugs. You can garnish it with whipped cream and more spice if you want, but it doesn't really need it.

This is originally from here. It's good...if you're a fan of the good ol' PSL! (And I kind of am.) AND...one serving of this is only 180-90 calories (with 2% milk) compared to 300 for a tall, which costs $3.75...think about it. Now go make it.

Butternut Squash Bisque

3-4 Tbsp butter
1 cup onion, diced
1 cup carrots, chopped
2 medium butternut squashes (about 8 cups)
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste
dash of nutmeg
3/4 cup half and half

Bake the squash and removed the seeds, pulp, and skin. Saute onion in butter until soft. Add carrots, broth, squash, and seasonings. Simmer until the carrots are soft then blend smooth with an immersion blender (or in batches in a blender). Add half and half and serve.

Of course you can prepare the squash raw and cook until soft with the carrots, but that's way too much work for me. This is slightly adapted from an allrecipes.com recipe and makes a nice, big pot of soup. I would have to use the word "rich" to describe the taste...so good with some french bread! Serves 8.

Chopped Thai Chicken Salad

You can find the original recipe here, the following is with my slight changes.

Salad

• 3 boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 1 small head green or white cabbage (1 bag shredded)
• 1 large carrot (1½ cups shredded)
• 1 green papaya (1½ cups shredded - I didn't have this but it would be sooo good)
• ½ cup fresh cilantro
• ½ cup green onions
• ½ cup chopped peanuts

Dressing

• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 bird’s eye chili peppers (sub ½ teaspoon minced hot pepper)
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon oil
• ½ teaspoon fish sauce
• ¼ cup creamy peanut butter
• ¼ cup water
• Ground black pepper, to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the chicken thighs, cover, and cook for 15-20 minutes. When the chicken is done, remove from heat, drain water, let cool, and shred with two forks.
2. Chop the cabbage into very thin pieces, like it would be for coleslaw. Peel and grate the carrots. Cut off the skin, remove the seeds, and grate the papaya. Roughly chop the cilantro and green onions. Toss the chicken and vegetables in a large bowl and keep chilled.
3. Mince the garlic and chili peppers. Place garlic and peppers in a small mixing bowl with the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, lime juice, oil, and fish sauce. Whisk until smooth. Add the peanut butter and water and whisk again until smooth and creamy.
4. Toss the salad with the dressing. Add the crushed peanuts. Serve chilled. Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for up to one day. For best results, keep the leftover salad and dressing separate until ready to serve.

Honey Mustard Chicken

This is from the More with Less cookbook...but I'll put my changes in parentheses. It's a favourite, especially with vanilla mashed potatoes.

3 lbs chicken pieces (we like legs and thighs), arranged in a shallow baking dish, skin side up

Mix together the following and pour over the chicken:

1/3 cup margarine or butter, melted (I use about half of that. I suspect it could be omitted completely, but I haven't tried that.)
1/3 cup honey
2 Tbsp yellow mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp curry powder (or more, to taste)

Bake 60-75 minutes, basting every 15 minutes, until chicken is tender. (I bake it covered for about half of the time and then uncover it.)

Vanilla Mashed Potatoes: Make mashed potatoes as you normally do, but when mashing them, add the scraped out seeds of one or two vanilla pods OR 1 tsp vanilla powder. Don't try vanilla extract! It must be seeds or powder. Don't skimp on the butter and salt. :)

Curried Lentils and Spinach

This is comfort food, especially when served with fresh naan from this recipe. Even my girls who don't care for the lentils willingly eat it so they can use the naan as scoops. :) I've scaled the recipe up so it uses a whole package of lentils and also that I'll always have leftovers the next day.

1 lb package dried lentils, rinsed (the original recipe called for black-eyed peas, but I'm not familiar with those and I was craving curried lentils)
3-4 Tbsp coconut oil (or whatever you use)
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
2 carrots, diced (my addition, therefore optional)
1 Tbsp ground coriander
2 (or more) tsp finely minced garlic (about 2 large cloves)
2 tsp minced fresh ginger
1 1/2 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
1 1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp cayenne (or more, as you like it)
1 1/2 tsp cumin
2 -4 tomatoes, diced (I go for 4 small ones, so base the number on their size)
4 cups hot water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 - 2 tsp sugar
1 can coconut milk
2 tbsp chopped cilantro (i never have this, never use it)
1 Tbsp lemon juice (i've never actually remembered to use it...)
2-3 cups chopped fresh spinach (don't pack it down.)

In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium-low heat and saute the onion (and carrots, if using) for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, combine all ingredients from coriander to cumin and mix in a small bowl. When onion is soft and browning, add spice mixture and cook and stir for 1-2 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and stir over low heat until tomatoes disintegrates.

Add the rinsed lentils and the hot water. Mix well. Add the sugar and salt and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low, cover and simmer until the lentils are cooked and soft. Add water if needed, as the lentils absorb it. When the lentils are cooked, you want almost all of the water to be gone.

Stir in the coconut milk and simmer uncovered for another 8-10 minutes. Add salt to taste.

Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice, cilantro and chopped spinach. As soon as the spinach wilts, remove from heat. Serve with naan and/or rice. This amount would make two meals for my family of 6.

Red Curry Fishcakes and Coconut Rice

I'm really bad at remembering to take photos of my food. Since I'm not a real food blogger, it's usually not until I'm done devouring my food that I think, "Hey, that was really good. I should post that on the blog. Too bad there's none left to take a picture of".
This is from a Thai book I picked up second-hand. It's called "Step-by-step Thai".

Fishcakes:
2 lb raw fish (I use any inexpensive frozen fish)
1 egg
2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro (always add  more!)
1-3 Tbsp red curry paste, or more, depending on how spicy you want it
1 bunch green onions
oil for frying

Place fish, egg, cilantro and curry paste in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth and well blended. Turn the mixture into a bowl, add the green onions and mix well.

Take about 2 Tbsp of the fish mixture at a time, and shape into small balls with your hands. Flatten slightly. Fry in oil (original recipe says to deep-fry, which I'm sure would be tasty, but you don't need to). Keep warm in oven while making the rest.

*PLAN THIS AHEAD AS RICE NEEDS TO SOAK
Coconut Rice:
2 Tbsp
2 1/4 C jasmine rice, soaked for 1 hour, rinsed and drained
3 C coconut milk (I usually use 1 can of good quality milk and add water to fill to 3 C)
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp chopped cilantro
2 Tbsp chopped fresh mint
2 fresh green chiles, deseeded and chopped finely

Heat the oil in a pan, add the rice, and stir until it becomes translucent.
Add the coconut milk and salt. Bring to a boil and cook until all the liquid is absorbed.
Lower the heat as much as possible, cover the pan tightly, and cook for 10 minutes.
Stir in the cilantro, mint and chiles. Fork through the rice gently and serve.

This is the best rice ever!

Date Cake

This date cake does not contain a drop of sugar. It is super moist and so delicious. I like to serve it with (a lot) of whipped cream (can sweeten with a bit of honey or maple syrup to make it truly sugar-free), and sliced bananas. This recipe doubles well for a 9x13" pan.
It is from The Great Nova Scotia  Cookbook, by Pauline Carter

Place in a saucepan:
juice of 1 large orange
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 C raisins (I usually use extra dates in place of the raisins but I don't think it matters)
1/2 lb dates
2 C water

Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until dates are very soft. Make sure to stir it often. Set aside to cool. Puree with hand blender (or mash well with a potato masher or something).

Pour into a large bowl and add the following:
1/2 C oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 C whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix well and then pour into a greased 9x9" pan. Bake in preheated oven at 350F.
The original recipe says to bake it about 1 hour, but I find it's always done before that.
Bake it until a toothpick comes out clean!

World Famous Paradise Bakery Sugar Cookies

With Christmas coming, we could all use another sugar cookie recipe. This one is dear to my little heart since it's about as close to the Paradise Bakery ones as you can get without actually going there. I recommend using regular or decorative sugar and not other sprinkles since (I think) they need a bit more sweetness. They are almost like a shortbread, but different. I'm sure that's helpful. Here it is:

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
2 cups shortening
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg, beaten
4 1/3 cups cake flour (really, do use cake flour or cake flour substitute)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Sugar, for decorating

Directions
Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugars and shortening using an electric mixer. Mix on slow speed 30 seconds, then scrape down the bowl with a spatula. Increase speed to medium and mix for 3 minutes. Slowly add vanilla and beaten egg while mixing. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl, mixing on slow speed just until blended. Do not overmix. Scoop with an ice-cream scoop and roll in sugar. Place directly on cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with palm of hand. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Cookies are done when pale golden. Ideally, edges do not brown.

Pumpkin Brownies

I got this recipe from Pinterest, but after I read the comments and people were saying that they were cake-y and muffin-y, I changed the oil and eggs amounts to hopefully make them denser and more like a brownie. In my defense, I also changed the flour to 1/2 whole wheat, and cut down the sugar! :) But don't hold back on the chocolate chips, and definitely bake them long enough so that they aren't completely doughy, but without over baking them...I'm confident that you can find that balance.

4 eggs

1 ¼ cup pumpkin puree

1/3 cup oil

1 cup ww pastry flour

1 cup white flour

2 tsp cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp allspice

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp salt

1 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 cup chocolate chips

Mix eggs, pumpkin and oil. Add dry ingredients and stir well. Add chocolate chips. Bake on greased 12x18 cookie sheet with sides, for about 15 minutes. (it looked puffed up, but definitely still soft in the middle and not overbaked!) Cut into 48 bars.