Cranberry Slush Revisited

Are you all busy getting some pre-Turkey Day preparations done?  Don't forget this super delicious and easy to make Cranberry Slush drink!  Freeze it up today so that it will be ready for tomorrow's feast!

Cranberry Slush  

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Pie Bars

I love the crackly top on these bars.  Another yummy pumpkin dessert.  Best served with some whipped cream and a dash of cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice on top. Mmmm...

(By the way...the cake mix I used in this photo had black and orange sprinkles in it in case you were wondering what those spots were or why yours doesn't have spots when you make it =)

Pumpkin Pie Bars

Crust:

1 yellow cake mix (reserve 1 cup dry cake mix and set aside)

1 egg

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted

Combine dry cake mix, egg, and melted butter.  Press into a 9x13 baking dish.

Filling:

1-1/2 cups canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. ginger

12 oz. can evaporated milk

2 eggs

Beat together until smooth.  Pour over crust layer.

Topping:

1 cup reserved cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

3 Tbsp. butter, room temp

chopped nuts, optional

Mix dry ingredients.  Work in butter with fork until crumbly.  Sprinkle over filling layer.  Bake in 350 degree oven for 1 hour.  (Check around 45 minutes as oven temperatures vary.)  Cool.  Serve with whipped cream and sprinkled cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice.

Mini Caramel Apples

I made these for a preschool Halloween party.  They were super easy, super fast, and super tasty.  I got the recipe from FamilyFun.  I did use caramel dip instead of the melted peanut butter/butterscotch chips but you might want to read the reviews to see that a lot of people have a hard time getting their caramel to stick to the cut part of the apples.  I didn't have any problems but I think the sprinkles kind of helped "hold" it on.  Plus...I think the longest the caramel had to stick to the apples was about 20 minutes.  They didn't last long! :)  I think next time I'm going to try dipping them in melted peanut butter or almond butter for an even healthier after school snack.  One apple makes about 8 pops.  You can find the sticks with candy making or cake making supplies at stores like Walmart, Michaels, Joanne's, or Hobby Lobby.  Cut each one in half at an angle to make them easier to put in the apples.

Mini Caramel Apples

4-inch lollipop sticks
Melon Baller
Granny Smith apples (one apple makes about 8 mini apples)
Butterscotch or peanut butter chips
Chopped nuts, nonpareils, sprinkles, shredded coconut, etc.
Small paper candy cups

1.  First, cut the lollipop sticks in half at an angle (the pointy end will go into the apple pieces easier). With the melon baller, scoop little balls out of the apple. Each ball should have a section of apple peel. Push half of a lollipop stick into the peel of each ball. Pat the apple pieces dry.
2.  Melt the chips according to the package directions. Dip and swirl the mini apples in the melted chips, then roll the apples in nuts, sprinkles, nonpareils, or coconut, if desired. Place the mini apples in paper candy cups to set. (I placed mine on waxed paper to set.)

Pumpkin Lentil Soup

Yet another spin-off of my favorite pumpkin soup.  But I pretty much think that anything with pumpkin in it is the best!  I used orange lentils and they just disappeared in this soup!  Perfect match!  This soup is packed with veggies, protein, and...fiber!  You could make this in a Crockpot and enjoy the smells all day.

Pumpkin Lentil Soup

2 carrots, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1 small onion, diced

4-6 mushrooms, diced

1 head of broccoli, chopped (or you can use frozen)

1/2 cup lentils, sorted and rinsed

8 oz. whole wheat noodles (uncooked)

1 can pumpkin

32 oz. vegetable stock

4 cups water

1/4-1/2 tsp. allspice (start out with the smaller amount and see how "spicy" you like it.  I like it "spicy"!)

salt & pepper to taste

Saute carrots, celery, onion, and mushrooms for about 5 minutes in a large soup pot.  Add lentils, vegetable stock and water and bring to a boil.  Turn down to med-lo and simmer for 25 minutes.  Turn burner up to about med-hi.  Add noodles and cook for an additional 10 minutes.  Add broccoli during last 5 minutes or so.  You don't want to cook the broccoli too long or it will lose its pretty green color (but if you do it will still taste good.) Stir in one can of pumpkin.  Add allspice, salt, and pepper.  Enjoy!

My New Food Blog

I've been working on transferring all of my "healthy" recipes to a different blog.  This one will still be open and I'll still post (and everyone else who posts recipes here).  I just thought it would be nice to have all of my vegetarian recipes in one place to make it easier for me to do my daily cooking.  We eat a plant-based diet the majority of the time and my new blog will be for those recipes.  We do occasionally fix a treat or main dish that doesn't necessarily fit into the vegetarian category so those will be posted here.  I hope that's not too confusing.  My new blog is called Simply Real Food.  I'll link it here and on the side bar.  Stop by and visit any time.  It's still a work in progress but we're getting there!  Enjoy!  And as always...

Bon Appetite!

Zucchini "Crab" Cakes

With the use of Old Bay Seasoning, a classic herb mixture most often used for crab cakes, these little patties can justifiably be called Vegan Crab Cakes.  From the book The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.  Love that book!

Zucchini Cakes

2 ½ cups peeled and grated zucchini (about 5 small)

2 Tbsp. nondairy, nonhydrogenated butter (such as Earth Balance), melted

1 cup bread or cracker crumbs, seasoned or plain (crushed Saltines work great)

¼ cup minced yellow or red onion

1 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning

 ¼ tsp. salt (or to taste)

Freshly ground pepper, to taste

¼ cup all-purpose flour

Canola oil, for frying

Spread grated zucchini on a kitchen towel, and roll up jelly-roll style.  Twist towel tightly to wring out as much liquid as possible.  (You may even need to do this twice with two different towels.)  If you fail to do this, your zucchini cakes will be too wet.

In a large bowl, combine zucchini and nondairy butter.  Stir in bread crumbs, minced onion, Old Bay Seasoning, salt, and pepper.  Mix thoroughly to combine.

Coat your hands in oil, and shape mixture into patties.  Coat each patty in flour.  In a skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat until hot.  Fry patties until golden brown on both sides.  (Reheat in toaster oven or skillet.)

Yield:  8 servings

Strawberry Crown Tart

This is the recipe I used for Tory's birthday.  It was so good.  I love the hint of lemon in the filling and the red current jelly glaze and the crust tastes like shortbread.  For the birthday tart I put fresh blueberries and strawberries on top.  I recently was asked to make 150 servings of my favorite dessert for a women's conference for my church.  I decided to make this recipe.  I just doubled the crust and filling recipes and baked them in a sheet cake pan instead of a tart pan.  When they were done baking I cut them out to 1-1/2 inch diameter circles.  After they had cooled I dusted them with powdered sugar and placed half of a strawberry (cut side down) on each one and then glazed them.  Unfortunately I didn't get a single picture of the finished tarts.  That's too bad because when am I ever going to make 150 tarts again?  Just to give you an idea of how many there were, they were stacked side-by-side on a board that was 2 feet wide and 5 feet long!  It barely fit into the back seat of my car.  Wow!  Now that's a lot of tarts!  This tart is so easy to make and looks special.  Great to make when strawberries are in season!

Strawberry Crown Tart

FOR THE CRUST

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for handling dough

1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

FOR THE FILLING

2 larg eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted and cooled
1/3 cup melted currant jelly
2 pint baskets fresh strawberries, stemmed

powdered sugar for garnish

Make the crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor, blend flour, butter, 1/3 cup sugar, and salt until moist crumbs form (this may take up to 1 minute). Transfer dough to a 9-inch round tart pan with a removable bottom.

With floured fingers, press dough evenly into pan and up sides. Dip a dry-measuring cup in flour, and use it to press dough firmly into bottom and against sides of pan. Freeze crust until firm, 10 to 15 minutes.  (I skipped this step.)

Using a fork, prick crust all over. Bake until golden, 10-15 minutes, pressing down gently once or twice with a spoon during baking if crust puffs up.

Make the filling:  In mixer bowl beat eggs, sugar, lemon juice, peel and vanilla until thick and pale, about 10 minutes. Gently fold in one-third of the flour, then one-third of the butter. Continue folding in, alternating flour and butter until all has been incorporated. Do not over mix.

Brush bottom of tart shell with some of the jelly. Slice about 1/2 basket of the strawberries and arrange over jelly. Pour batter over strawberries (it will not quite cover).

Bake in 375°F oven 20 minutes until golden and filling is set. Cool on rack.

Dust with powdered sugar.  Arrange remaining whole strawberries, stem ends down, on top of tart. Brush with remaining melted jelly.

Makes 8 servings.

Caramel Apple Salad

This is a fun salad to serve in the Fall.  It reminds me of caramel apples.  It's very sweet...more like a dessert!

Caramel Apple Salad

1 (8 oz.) Cool Whip, thawed
1 (3 oz.) package Instant Butterscotch Pudding
1 cup crushed pineapple (do not drain)
3 cups (about 3 large) diced apples, I like a tart apple like Granny Smith but any variety will work
1 cup peanuts, dry roasted (I like to chop mine)
1 cup miniature marshmallows

Mix Cool Whip, pudding mix, and undrained pineapple.  Fold in apples, peanuts, and marshmallows.  Chill for an hour before serving.

Quick and Easy Pumpkin Spice Cookies

You can't make a cookie that's easier than these.  Two ingredients plus any add-ins and that's it!  You can add semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, raisins, dried cranberries, chopped nuts, or whatever you like with your pumpkin.  You can also top them with a powder sugar glaze or cream cheese frosting if you want to dress them up.  They hardly spread at all on the cookie sheet so the size you make them is the size they will be when they are done cooking.  Now the hard part is finding a can of pumpkin these days...Good luck!

Quick and Easy Pumpkin Spice Cookies

1 (18.5 oz.) box Spice Cake mix
1 (15 oz.) can solid-pack pumpkin
1 cup chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, raisins, dried cranberries, or nuts (or any combination of those equaling 1 cup total)
1 cup cream cheese frosting or powdered sugar glaze, if desired

Mix cake mix and pumpkin.  Stir in any add-ins, up to 1 cup total.  Drop by large spoonful on lightly greased cookie sheet.  Remember they don't flatten or spread much while baking so how they look now will be what they look like when they are finished baking.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies.  Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes.  Remove from pan and allow to cool completely.  Frost if desired.  These will be soft and moist cookies.

Lentil Lasagna

Don't let the name scare you off.  This is one delicious lasagna.  That being said, don't go into this recipe thinking it will be exactly like your traditional lasagna.  You have to think of it as its own thing.  And it's a good thing.  I was feeling like lasagna but didn't want all of the cheese and dairy that go with it.  I've had some great vegetarian lasagnas that use tofu in the cheese sauce or TVP as the meat but I didn't want to use any soy this time either.  I have substituted lentils for "meat" so many times and in so many other recipes.  I can't believe this is the first time I thought to use it in lasagna.  It was great!  I made THIS cheese sauce to layer with the sauce mixture.  I think next time I will one-and-a-half the recipe or double it.  Just needed a bit more.  It was stretched pretty thin.  For the zucchini layer I used a vegetable peeler to get the slices very thin and long.  I just peeled the zucchini and then used the peeler to slice all around until I got to the inside seed part.  I put a generous layer of zucchini over the first two noodle layers and they blended right in to the noodle layer.  Great way to get more veggies in.  This recipe does take a few pots and pans to make but if you know you're going to make it you can cook the lentils and the cheese sauce in advance and cut down on the time.


*This can also be made in a crock pot.  Layer as directed in recipe.  Do not cook noodles ahead of time.  Layer dry noodles.  You will have to break them up to cover your crock pot-especially if it's round like mine! Add 1 Tbsp. of water to each corner after assembling the lasagna to help the noodles cook.  Cook in crock pot on High for 3 hours.  Note that not all crock pots are the same-adjust time and temperature according to your crock pot.

Lentil Lasagna

9 lasagna noodles, cook as directed
1/2 cup dry lentils
2 cups water
1-2 bottles of your favorite pasta sauce, reserve 1 cup for top
1/2 bag spinach, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 c. chopped mushrooms
2 zucchini-thinly sliced with a vegetable peeler
chopped olives, if desired
Mozzarella "cheese" sauce

Boil noodles in a large pot and cook as directed.

Sort and rinse lentils, being sure to remove any stones.  In a separate pot, bring lentils and 2 cups of water to boil.  Cover with lid slightly ajar and simmer for 20 min. or until tender.  Drain off any remaining liquid.  Set aside.

While noodles and lentils are cooking make cheese sauce. (See recipe below.)  When finished, set aside.

In a large skillet heat about a tablespoon of olive oil and sauté garlic and onion.  Add mushrooms.  Add chopped spinach until wilted.  Stir in sauce and cooked lentils.

To assemble lasagna:  Cover bottom of 9x13 baking dish with about 1 cup lentil/sauce mixture.  Top with 3 cooked lasagna noodles.  Layer with half of zucchini slices.  Place zucchini in the same direction as noodles.  Top the zucchini with half of remaining lentil/sauce mixture.  Next, spread half of the cheese sauce over the lentil/sauce layer.  Sprinkle with sliced olives if desired.  Repeat with layer of noodles, remaining zucchini, remaining lentil/sauce mixture, cheese sauce, and olives.  Place last 3 noodles and cover with reserved 1 cup of plain sauce.  Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.  Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Mozzarella "Cheese" Sauce
1 cup water
2 small cloves of roasted garlic
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1-2 Tbsp. tahini (the larger amount makes it "cheesier")
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3 Tbsp. rolled oats
1 Tbsp. cornstarch or arrowroot powder
1/8 tsp. dry mustard
1 1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until completely smooth.  Pour into a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until smooth and thick.

BYU Brownies

If you've ever been to BYU you've probably had one of their famous brownies.  If not, well these are simply brownies topped with a creamy mint layer and then topped again with chocolate frosting.  I found this recipe on BYU's site so it must be legit...right?  I think the only thing that could really change the taste is the chocolate frosting you decide to use.  I just used the chocolate frosting recipe from my sheet cake recipe but you can use any other recipe (or store bought) that you like.  Click HERE for original recipe and HERE for the frosting recipe I used.

BYU Mint Brownies

1 c. margarine
1/2 c. cocoa
2 Tbsp. honey
4 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. chopped walnuts
12 oz. chocolate icing (Use your own icing recipe or purchase some chocolate frosting. You can also search the Internet for chocolate icing recipes.)

MINT ICING5 Tbsp. margarine
dash of salt
3 Tbsp. milk
1 Tbsp. light corn syrup
2 1/3 c. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. mint extract
1-2 drops green food coloring

1. Melt margarine and mix in cocoa. Allow to cool. Add honey, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Add nuts. Pour batter into a greased 9-by-13 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Cool.

2. Prepare mint icing: Soften margarine. Add salt, corn syrup, and powdered sugar. Beat until smooth and fluffy. Add mint extract and food coloring. Mix. Add milk gradually until the consistency is a little thinner than cake frosting.

3. Spread mint icing over brownies. Place brownies in the freezer for a short time to stiffen the icing. Remove from the freezer and carefully add a layer of chocolate icing.

Teriyaki K-Bobs

This is a great marinade for grilling.  Good on beef or chicken but I prefer with beef.  Great flavor but plan ahead.  It needs at least 6 hours of marinating and overnight is even better!  You must use fresh pineapple!  So good all grilled up.  Mmmm...

Teriyaki K-Bobs

1/2 c. ketchup
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 lbs. steak or chicken, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
1 fresh pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch cubes
Vegetables-zucchini, mushrooms, green peppers, onions-cut into 1-inch cubes

Mix ketchup, soy sauce, sugar, ginger, and garlic powder.  Place meat in a shallow dish and pour sauce over top.  Mix to coat each piece.  Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate in fridge for 6 hours or overnight.  To assemble k-bobs:  Thread meat, pineapple, and vegetable chunks.  Grill for about 15-20 minutes or until meat is done and vegetables are tender.