Category Archives: recipe

May 04 3 comments
gifts, in my kitchen, recipe, vegan, vegetarian

Easy, Delicious, Inexpensive Soup Mixes

Today I’ll be sharing three soup mixes that are easy, delicious, and inexpensive to make. If you missed my post about the benefits of making a mix, click here to catch up.

Before the recipes, here’s how you’ll make the mixes. You’ll put the mix ingredients into a ziplock bag. Then, choose one of these options to write the rest of the directions or ingredients:

  • Write on the Ziplock bag. However, that could be a serious nuisance if you decide to reuse the Ziplock bag, and say, decide to put brown gravy mix in there next time around. I have to admit, I have been doing this lately, but I have also come up with some other ideas for you to try.
  • Print off labels with the “wet” ingredients and baking instructions listed, and stick them to the bag and hope that they stay stuck in the freezer.
  • Print off a paper with multiple directions per sheet of paper, and cut the paper apart. Place one little directions sheet either inside the mix or tape it to the outside. {Did that make sense?}
  • Make a “master directions cheat sheet” for ALL your mixes on some cute paper, print it off, and tape it to the inside of the door of, say, your spices cupboard. The cupboard should be close to wherever you would assemble the mix. And SHHH! don’t tell anyone it’s there. They’ll think you have a magnificent memory, and it’ll be our little secret.

Now, here are the recipes.

Lentil Soup Mix

Place all those goodies above in the ziplock bag. On the label or ziplock bag, write (or type) the following directions:

Place in a crockpot (slow cooker) with 1 quart water, 2 carrots (peeled and sliced), and 2 diced potatoes. Simmer on high for 6-8 hours. Add 1 quart stewed tomatoes just before serving, and serve with cornbread (why not use the cornbread mix!)

Split Pea Soup Mix

On the label or Ziplock bag, write (or type) the following directions:

Place mix in crockpot (or slow cooker) and add the following: 2 quarts water, 1 carrot (chopped and peeled), 1 rib celery (chopped and peeled). Cook in crockpot on high for about 6-8 hours. Serve with cornbread (made from your own mix, of course).

Middle Eastern Red Lentil Soup

  • 1 cup red lentils
  • 1/2 cup dry minced onion
  • 1 tsp. cumin
  • 1 tsp. coriander
  • 2 tbsp. white rice
  • 1 tsp. salt

On the label or bag, write (or type):

Add to a crockpot (slow cooker). Add 8 cups of water. Cook on high for about 4-6 hours.

Happy soup making!

In addition to making my own family happy, I have made these as gifts for coworkers. Especially around Christmastime, people love receiving the gift of an easy, delicious comfort food meal that is homemade!

This post is linked up at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Kitchen Tip Tuesdays.

Apr 30 1 comments
frugal living, in my kitchen, recipe, vegan, vegetarian

Unsausage Burgers

Recently, I participated in a financial workshop which had a fun twist: frugal, healthy recipes.

I talked about how to make unsausage burgers. We all know how pricy it can be to eat out at fast food places all the time. With these burgers, however, you can make your own “fast food” at home.

If you are vegetarian, you know that it can be expensive to buy vegeburgers all the time. One link I found online listed Boca Garden Burgers for $5.19 for 10 oz! That’s for only 4 burgers.

This unsausage burger recipe is economical because it is made out of oatmeal, which you can get for great prices. Here’s the recipe for an economical burger that’s also healthy and it tastes good!

  • 4 1/2 cups warm water
  • 1/2 cups soy sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1 tbsp. onion powder
  • 4 tsp. honey or brown sugar
  • 2 tsp. ground sage
  • 4 tbsp. nutritional yeast flakes
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
  • 4 1/4 cup quick oats

Place water and seasonings in a pot and bring to a boil. When it is boiling, add the quick oats and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.

Spray a cookie sheet (or two) with nonstick cooking spray. Form into patties, using a canning jar ring (like these) and lid (or spatula) and an ice cream scoop. (The kind with the lever that you squeeze works best.) Here’s how you do it. Scoop the hot oatmeal mixture with an ice cream scoop. Place on the cookie sheet. Place canning ring around the mound of seasoned oatmeal, and press down using a canning lid or even spatula. You may need to wet the spatula with water or spray it with cooking spray to prevent the burger mixture from sticking to it. Continue until you have perhaps 9-12 burgers formed on your cookie sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes, then remove and turn the burgers over, and continue baking for 15 more minutes.

This recipe makes around 15-18 burgers.

I like making bunches of these burgers at once to put in the freezer. It is very easy to take one or two out and microwave them for a quick sandwich. You can also serve these by placing them in a casserole dish and covering them with gravy. It makes a quick and easy casserole.

This post is linked at Frugal Fridays.

Apr 27 1 comments
in my kitchen, recipe, vegan, vegetarian

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

One super-easy way to fix a love-it-or-hate-it veggie that we know as Brussels sprouts is to roast them.

Here’s how you do it.

  1. Cut your fresh brussels sprouts in half (especially if they are kind of large. The small ones, well, not so much.)
  2. Toss in a bowl with some olive oil. You don’t want them to be drenched/ dripping in olive oil, but you want them to be coated. Sprinkle with salt.
  3. Place them cut-side-down on an oiled cookie sheet.
  4. Bake at 400° for about 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on them.
  5. During the last 5 minutes of baking, add a minced garlic clove or two and stir the little sprouts around.

These are SO good, you just won’t believe it! I couldn’t believe how good they were when I tried them for the first time. I’d been a Brussels sprouts tolerator. But this converted me into a Brussels sprouts lover!

I’m linking this post up at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and the Ultimate Recipe Swap, where you can discover more yummy recipes!

Apr 14 1 comments
in my kitchen, recipe, vegan, vegetarian

Corn Bread/ Muffin Mix

Now that you’re convinced of the merits of making your own convenience food mixes at home, let’s talk recipes.

Cornbread mix

Corn bread is a family favorite. It’s the perfect accompaniment for soup or chili, and it’s also great in my Black Bean Tamale Pie.

You’ll want to stock up on Ziplock bags – preferably the quart size.

Into each quart-sized bag, you’ll place the following ingredients:

  • 1 cup cornmeal
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2-4 tablespoons sugar (I use unrefined cane sugar—in the States you’d find it called Florida Crystals)
  • 2 teaspoons non-aluminum baking powder such as Rumford or Featherweight
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon egg replacer powder (I use Ener-G brand egg replacer)

I find that if I am making multiple mixes at once, I use an “assembly line” process. I line several bags up at once. First, I place 1 cup of cornmeal in each bag. Then I follow up with 1 cup of flour per bag, and so on.

You’ll need to decide how you want to remind yourself of the remaining ingredients to add on the day that you bake the cornbread or muffins, along with the baking directions. Here are a few ideas:

  • Write on the Ziplock bag. However, that could be a serious nuisance if you decide to reuse the Ziplock bag, and say, decide to put pancake mix in there next time around. I have to admit, I have been doing this lately, but I have also come up with some other ideas for you to try.
  • Print off labels with the “wet” ingredients and baking instructions listed, and stick them to the bag and hope that they stay stuck in the freezer.
  • Print off a paper with multiple directions per sheet of paper, and cut the paper apart. Place one little directions sheet either inside the mix or tape it to the outside. {Did that make sense?}
  • Make a “master directions cheat sheet” for ALL your mixes on some cute paper, print it off, and tape it to the inside of the door of, say, your spices cupboard. The cupboard should be close to wherever you would assemble the mix. And SHHH! don’t tell anyone it’s there. They’ll think you have a magnificent memory, and it’ll be our little secret.

Now, for what you would actually write on the bag, the label, or the cheat sheet about the cornbread or muffins:

Cornbread/ Muffins Mix (Don’t forget to label somehow, even if you decide to go the “cheat sheet route”!)

Add:

  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons nondairy milk
  • 2 tablespoons oil

Mix thoroughly with dry ingredients, place in 8x8x2″ glass pyrex dish that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, and bake. Bake at 400° in a glass pan for 25-30 minutes for cornbread (425° if another pan) or 12-15 minutes at 425° for corn muffins.

I don’t know about you, but I usually write in short-hand to some extent when I’m in the kitchen. “Mix. Bake at 400° for 25-30 minutes.” But some people need the directions written out completely. Do what works for you!

Making cornbread mix ahead of time sure works for me!

Apr 08 3 comments
in my kitchen, recipe, vegan, vegetarian

Black Bean Tamale Pie

black bean tamale pie closeup

I found the original for this recipe in one of my neglected cookbooks last week and thought I should give it a try. (It was on my menu plan as Cowboy tamale pie.) But I made several changes to the recipe, so really, it’s not much like the original any more.

I have always enjoyed beans (whether it’s chili, or whatever…) and cornbread together. This dish makes a delicious combo of the two, using cornbread as the “crust” on the “pie”. My husband doesn’t like Mexican food, but he thought this was pretty good (although I suspect he probably wouldn’t want to see it on the menu every week). But he did say it it was repeatable… yay!

We don’t like very spicy food although we generally enjoy the flavors of spicy food. This recipe uses cumin, oregano and paprika to highlight the flavors without the heat. If you wish, you could add chili pepper.

Black bean tamale pie

Filling ingredients:

● 1 small onion, chopped

● 1 carrot, diced

● 1 garlic clove, minced

● 1 red bell pepper, chopped

● 1 tbsp McKay’s chicken seasoning (a vegetarian Chicken-style seasoning)

● 1 15-oz can diced tomatoes

● 1 tsp cumin

● 1/2-1 tsp paprika

● 2 tsp oregano

● 4 cups cooked black beans (I cooked my own in the slow cooker overnight after soaking for several hours. You could also use canned beans) plus a little bit of liquid, either add water or use a little of the liquid from cooking them.

● salt to taste

Cornbread:

● 1 cup cornmeal

● 1 cup flour

● 2 tbsp sugar

● 2 tsp baking powder

● 1/2 tsp salt

● 1 cup +2 tbsp nondairy milk

● 1 tbsp lemon juice

● 1 tbsp egg replacer

● 2 tbsp oil

Directions:

Sauté the onions in a little olive oil, and add carrots, garlic, and bell pepper for a few minutes. Add canned tomatoes and continue cooking. Add the remaining ingredients for black bean mixture and mix well. Simmer for about 10 minutes while you make the cornbread mixture. Do keep an eye on it and don’t let it burn.

Preheat oven to 400°. Spray a 2 qt glass pyrex dish with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt, mixing thoroughly. Stir in milk, lemon juice, egg replacer powder, and oil in another small bowl or large measuring cup. Add liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring for about 30 seconds.

Pour black bean combination into the pyrex dish, and spoon cornbread mixture over the top, covering the black bean mixture.

Bake at 400° for 25-30 minutes, until cornbread begins to brown a bit. Makes 1 2-quart pyrex casserole dish.

This post is linked up at Life As Mom’s Ultimate Recipe Swap.

Apr 08 0 comments
in my kitchen, recipe, vegan, vegetarian

Apricot Jam

Apricot Jam

Here is a quick, easy recipe that you can feel completely guilt-free about! It only uses natural sweetening, and it is pretty inexpensive because you can make quite a bit of jam with few ingredients.

1 to 1 1/2 cups dried apricots

1 can pineapple juice (about 2 1/2 cups)

Place apricots in a bowl that has a lid or that you can easily cover. Soak apricots in pineapple juice and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, the apricots should be plump and juicy, having absorbed some of the pineapple juice.

Blend the apricots until completely smooth. And that’s all! Enjoy on warm bread. Or whatever you like to eat jam with.

Tip: This jam freezes easily. If you have extra after blending and putting in your jam jar, just put in another container and freeze it.

Note on quantity: This jam is pretty flexible and you can make a lot of jam with it. If you wish to make it with one of those tall cans of pineapple juice, simply make sure that you have plenty of juice to cover your quantity of apricots. There should be enough juice still in the bowl the next morning after soaking the apricots to be able to blend them easily. If not, just add a little more juice while you are blending the apricots.

Apr 06 3 comments
frugal living, homemaking, in my kitchen, recipe, vegan, vegetarian

How to make vegetable broth

I love Trader Joe’s hearty vegetable broth. But with the nearest Trader Joe’s thousands of miles away, I figured it was high time to make my own vegetable broth. (Not to mention that I never, ever succeeded in using the entire aseptic container of broth at once and I had to freeze the remainder anyway!) Plus, making my own broth is just so… healthy and frugal!

I looked at a few vegetable broth recipes to get an idea of what to do, and then I ventured out and created my own because I didn’t quite have all the ingredients that you would have access to if you were making this in the U.S. Here’s what I added:

  • 10 cups water
  • 3 small onions, quartered
  • 2 large potatoes, chopped in large pieces {I peeled them but you can leave the skin on if you like.}
  • 4 green onions, chopped in big pieces
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 3 garlic cloves, crushed
  • a bunch of baby carrots
  • 3 celery sticks, chopped coarsely
  • 1 tbsp. soy sauce
  • salt to taste

before cooking broth

Uncooked veggies that I used to make this broth.

The recipes I was looking at suggested adding:

  • a bunch of parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
  • a couple of leeks, cleaned and chopped
  • parsnips
  • they suggested regular carrots, but I only had baby carrots on hand
  • 2 bay leaves instead of one
  • mushrooms
  • celery root (celeriac)

Basically, you sauté the onions in a little olive oil and add the veggies. Add water and seasonings and simmer on low for 1 – 1 1/2 hours.
cooked broth

The broth after 1 1/2 hours—veggies are all cooked down!

Then you strain the stock through a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth. You can either use it right away, or what I’m going to do is freeze mine in ice cube trays so I’ll have it easily accessible for use in future recipes.

broth making process

This picture may look slightly confusing. I didn’t have cheesecloth or a sieve so I used a produce bag that I got from ReusableBags.com. It had been a bigger bag but I accidentally shrunk it when I put it in the dryer once. So it was almost like a sieve or cheesecloth, until the potatoes began squishing through. :)

If you’d like ideas of other goodies you can add to your homemade vegetable broth, visit Lolo’s site. She has an awesome photo tutorial on broth-making!

This post is linked to Kitchen Tip Tuesday and Works for Me Wednesday.

Apr 01 3 comments
in my kitchen, recipe, vegetarian

Pineapple cake

Pineapple cake

One of my favorite cakes to make (it is super easy and oh-so-good!) is this pineapple cake.

It is also a versatile recipe. If you wish, you can make it into a pineapple-upside-down cake, or you can leave the pineapple-upside-down part out and just make the cake part. I like to put a cream frosting on top and decorate with fruit, like in the picture.

A few notes about the ingredients:

Most baking powder contains aluminum. I prefer not to use aluminum in my cooking, so I opt for baking powders like Featherweight (by Hain foods), Ener-G, or Rumford. You can purchase these at a health foods store or from Amazon.com.

Sucanat is natural sugar cane. It has a slightly different flavor and makes whatever you are making a little bit darker. I really like its flavor. It works really well in this cake. You can buy sucanat at a health foods store.

Ingredients:

● 1 2/3 cups white flour

● 1/2 tsp. salt

● 2  tsp. (heaping) Featherweight or Ener-G baking powder

● 1 cups pineapple or other juice

● 1/3 cups canola oil

● 1/2 tsp. vanilla

● 3/4 cups sucanat

Note: if you are making the pineapple upside down cake version, you will also need a little more oil, sucanat, pineapple juice, canned pineapple rings, and pitted cherries if desired. Please read directions for the pineapple upside down cake before the rest of the directions because you will need to mix that before the rest of the cake.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350º. Pam 8×8 or other cake pan.

1. Mix flour, salt and baking powder in bowl.

2. In a second bowl mix liquids and sugar.

3. Combine two bowls of ingredients and mix until moist, and lumps are gone but do not overmix.

4. Pour into greased cake pan.

5. If wish to frost, use a cream-type frosting and decorate with sliced fruit or berries.

If you wish to make it Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, mix and spread on bottom of pan:

1 T pineapple juice

2 T canola oil

1/3 c sucanat

Arrange pineapple slices on top and put cherry in center of each piece, if desired.

Then, pour above cake mix over this arrangement of pineapple. When finished with baking, turn upside down. If somethings don’t come out properly dig them out of pan with spoon and put them where they belong on the cake.

This post is linked to Things I Love Thursday and Ultimate Recipe Swap.

Dec 07 4 comments
recipe, vegetarian

Praline Pumpkin Pie

Praline pumpkin pie

This is one of our family’s favorite holiday recipes. We eat it for Thanksgiving or Christmas—it’s really great for both! Our family does not use dairy or eggs, so you will see that reflected in this recipe. I am sure that you can substitute dairy for the milk, for example.

One other highlight is that it does not include much sugar, at all. The only sugar is in the pecan topping. The rest of the sweetener comes from dates.

Ingredients:

● 1 1/2 cup rich nondairy milk
● 1 cup pitted dates, or date pieces
● 2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
● 3/4 tsp salt
● 3 tbsp flour
● 1 tsp vanilla
● 3 tbsp oil
● 1 3/4 cup cooked pumpkin
● 1/2 tsp cinnamon
● 1/2 tsp ginger
● 1/8 tsp nutmeg
● 2 tbsp Earth Balance margarine
● 1/3 cup brown sugar
● 3/4 cup chopped pecans
● 1 unbaked pie crust

Directions:

Put all ingredients except the last four ingredients into the blender and blend until the color is even. Put into an unbaked pie crust and bake at 350° for 45 minutes. During the last few minutes of baking time, melt margarine with brown sugar. Add pecans and spread over the top of the pie. Bake for another 15 minutes. Remove from oven. It generally needs to cool down and set up a bit.

Yum!
Praline pumpkin pie

This post is linked to the Healthy Eats and Sweets Carnival and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

Aug 20 4 comments
frugal living, green living, in my kitchen, recipe

Frugal Friday: nonstick cooking spray alternative

I recently bought a really cheap brand of nonstick cooking spray. It was $2-something at Smart and Final. That would have been a great find, except it didn’t work. It left gunky residue on my pans and it didn’t keep food from sticking. Ick!

I kept thinking there has to be a greener way… a more frugal way… to keep food from sticking. 

THEN. I bought a bottle of liquid lecithin at the local health-food store. I had to have one tablespoon for a recipe. (Don’t you hate it when you just have to have one tablespoon and have a whole bottle of whatever left? I’m just sayin’….)

But that jiggled my memory a bit. When I was a student at a boarding high school, we used some sort of lecithin-oil combination instead of nonstick cooking spray. We used to use wax paper to spread it around the deck pans for the food deck, etc. and I figured that wouldn’t be too green. 

What else could I use to spread around a liquid solution? I thought of using a spray-bottle, but then I would have to find a food-grade spray bottle. It would likely be plastic. And I’d rather not use plastic. I googled around, and found a stainless food-grade spray can, but the reviews were mixed. In the reviews, however, I read that “real chefs” use brushes to brush oil. Now, why didn’t I think of that?

I already had a pastry brush. I decided to use an old applesauce jar to store the lecithin solution. But what is the recipe for this nonstick liquid?

One part liquid lecithin + one part liquid oil = nonstick liquid

(I don’t know what else to call it… nonstick liquid sounds boring, to be sure, but that’s what it is.)

Oh, and I used canola oil in case you’re wondering.

Directions: You just dip your brush into this liquid and brush it onto your casserole dish, baking dish, etc. I don’t use very much. I just get it nice and greasy-looking, but not so there are puddles of liquid. Spread it evenly. 

I have been using this for a few days now and it works very well on everything that I have tried it on. I can’t vouch for it on all surfaces, but I’ve even tried it in my breadmaker and it works like a charm. (The bread used to stick to the bottom of the machine.) 

Nonstick cooking 101

For more Frugal Friday tips from everyone else, visit Fish Mama’s website.