A Homemade Life in Fast Food Time
I love recipes. I have a cookbook addiction and I probably get 6-7 cooking magazines every month. I love food, and I love great recipes. Here you’ll find some great options to put a quick meal on the table, or a great recipe for Sunday dinner or entertaining. I live in a fairly rural area, and our grocery stores don’t promote gourmand tastes. Simple ingredients, great and easy techniques, lead to fabulous meals. Give them a try and please feel free to leave a comment!
I am generally a “from the jar” spaghetti sauce kind of girl, but my daughter has a cumin allergy – causes severe migraines – and most jarred sauces have cumin in them. I used to make my own sauce so I thought I’d write out the recipe for her to use in place of “migraine sauce” as she’s called it.
This is pretty flexible – just don’t substitute tomato sauce for crushed tomatoes – they are not the same thing.
I have been on a muffin kick lately. I came up with a technique that produces those tall bakery-style jumbo muffins and I’ve been baking, testing and adapting recipes like mad.
This blueberry muffin recipe uses yogurt instead of butter, which my cholesterol appreciates (except in the streusel topping, but that’s minimal.) The family really likes them – even the boy, who says he doesnt like chunks of berries in things. I guess he changed his mind.
To get tall muffins here are a few tips:
I use frozen wild blueberries, but you could easily use fresh – or frozen regular blueberries – either will work just fine. I’ve found that if I use frozen, I leave them frozen and mix them in. Once I have everything in the muffin cups, I let them sit on top of the oven while it preheats – it relaxes the batter, which gets stiff from the cold berries. Right before I slide them in the oven I top with the Streusel – and BE GENEROUS with this stuff – it really makes a difference in the muffin.
This is a keeper of a Blackberry Muffins Recipe for sure! We are at the time of year around here where fruit is stupidly expensive. $1.99 a lb for apples is higher than I’ve ever seen it. Hopefully spring brings with it some new crops that bring our prices down. Berries must be in season because they’ve been fairly reasonably priced, with blackberries at $.99 a 1/2 pt at City Market – and I got some for $.99 a pint at Sprouts the other day as well.
Berries keep for a good long time in the fridge if you rinse them well, and get them OUT of that stupid plastic container and diaper thing they come in – that diaper thing causes rot faster than anything. I put mine in a sealed container with a few paper towels in the bottom, that way they’re ready to go when you want to make this blackberry muffins recipe! I’ve had blackberries and blueberries keep for 2-3 weeks in the fridge like this. Raspberries are a bit more delicate, though – they don’t keep as long – but they should be stored the same way.
So needless to say, I had a lot of blackberries on hand and while we eat them happily – I wanted to make something for the boys to take with lunch es and have for breakfasts this week. I’m on a low-fat diet so I adapted this recipe just a bit from one I found at SimplyRecipes.com. Hope you like it!
I love salads that don’t actually involve lettuce. While lettuce is fine, it’s like a talisman to the fact that I’m actually dieting, which irritates me, so I pretend I don’t like it. I’m always looking for something quick to throw together to make a non-lettuce salad to go with dinner. I stumbled across this recipe from The Dinner Daily and adjusted it a bit for our tastes.
Whether you use cucumber, pour it on a zucchini noodle salad, pour it on a regular salad, or spoon a bit over blanched or roasted asparagus, this is really fresh and light. You may be tempted to skip the salt and pepper, but that’s probably the most important part – it brings out the liquid in the veg, and salt counter-balances the sweet from the lemon and sugar. you could substitute stevia in here if you wanted, easy peasy.
I found this recipe on Pinterest and adapted it a bit from the one Damn Delicious posted. Hubby had his with a fried egg on top, and really enjoyed it. Runny egg yolks are not my thing without toast, so I skipped the egg and enjoyed mine with a sprinkling of fresh grated parmesan cheese. The egg definitely adds protein though – so to boost it if you don’t want eggs, try a legume like chickpeas or cannellini beans.
The Boy had his without egg and cleaned his plate, so even good for picky eaters. My kids both love roasted asparagus, though – so that makes things easier!
Serve with a green salad and garlic bread – perfect quick-cooking, no plan meal.
We try to do vegetarian meals once a week, some weeks we’re pretty good, some weeks we are not – at all 🙂
I was a bit apprehensive about this one – the flavors from the feta are pretty strong but Hubby really liked it, so that’s a win in my book. The picky boy is at boyscouts, so I’m going to go out on a limb and think he’s not going to be keen on it, but he’s a big boy and will get over it.
This was a really quick meal to put together and I added some toasted Naan from the freezer – which is always tasty.
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