3 Day Potty Training

We're trying our luck with 3-day potty training.  Posting will continue in a few days.

Spaghetti

I tried a new spaghetti sauce recipe recently from My Kitchen Cafe, and we really liked it. I’ve never made sauce with bell peppers in it, but I really liked the sweet peppery taste they added to it; I also liked the trace of balsamic vinegar. My husband, who is not a big fan of spaghetti, really liked it and requested the left over food for his lunch. While I still love my mom’s recipe, it was nice to try a different sauce. Thanks for the great recipe, Melanie.

Spaghetti Sauce

recipe from My Kitchen Cafe

printable version of this recipe

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil

½ yellow onion, chopped and divided
½ red or green bell pepper, chopped
1 pound ground beef
2 cloves minced garlic
1 6 ounce can tomato paste
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 ½ teaspoons dried oregano
1 ½ teaspoons dried basil
¾ teaspoons dried thyme
1 14-oz. can Italian-style diced tomatoes (I used 1 quart+1 pint home canned tomatoes)
1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes
¾ cups beef stock or beef broth
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add 1/2 of the onions and sauté until slightly browned; add garlic and stir. Add beef and cook until browned; drain.

Puree the remaining onions and bell pepper in a blender; add mixture to the meat and stir. Add tomato paste and spices, stirring until combined. Add tomatoes, beef broth and sugar; stir. Add the bay leaf; bring sauce to a boil and then reduce to low and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Stir in the balsamic vinegar before serving.

Oil Free Poppy Seed Salad Dressing

I thought it might be helpful to post this dressing recipe by itself, because it's currently embedded in the Mandarin Orange and Spinach Salad post.

Oil Free Poppy Seed Dressing
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon pectin
2 tablespoons vinegar
½ cup water
½ teaspoon poppy seeds
Put all ingredients in a pint jar that has a screw top lid (a Mason jar, for example). Mix with a wire whisk until sugar and pectin are dissolved. It takes some time to get all the pectin dissolved. Cover with screw top lid and refrigerate 2 hours before serving. Shake dressing before pouring it on top of the salad.

Coffee Cake Muffins

I couldn’t resist trying another muffin recipe. While these have plenty more calories than the yogurt blueberry muffins they are definitely worth making—and probably sharing—although I didn’t do the latter. They are so good! Just reading the recipe makes my mouth water.

They’re made with sour cream batter, a cinnamon sugar center and streusel topping. I decided to use vanilla yogurt instead of sour cream, because I thought somehow it would make these little babies a tiny bit less fattening. It probably did, but they still have butter and pecans and plenty of sugar in them, ingredients that make food taste good. The recipe is from the food editor of All You magazine.  Enjoy!

Coffee Cake Muffins
Streusel:
8 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces and chilled
½ cup chopped pecans

Muffins:
2 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces and softened.

For the streusel: Pulse 5 tablespoons sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, butter in a food processor until just combined. Remove ¾ cup of the mixture and set it aside for the cinnamon sugar center. Add pecans and remaining sugar to the food processor; pulse until nuts are coarsely ground. Transfer to a bowl and set aside for streusel topping. Do not wash food processor.

For the muffins: Preheat oven to 375. Prepare a muffin tin with paper liners or coat with cooking spray. Whisk eggs, sour cream and vanilla in a bowl. Pulse flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and butter in food processor until mixture resembles small peas. Transfer to a large bowl. Using a rubber scraper, gradually fold egg mixture into flour mixture until just moistened. Place 1 tablespoon batter in each muffin cup and top with 1 tablespoon cinnamon filling. Using the back of a spoon, press filling lightly into batter; spoon remaining batter over filling and sprinkle streusel evenly on top.

Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until muffins are light golden brown. Cool for about 30 minutes in muffin pan; carefully remove muffins from pan and place on wire racks.

Cilantro Lime Rice

I served this with the stuffed peppers last night; it was the perfect side dish to go along with them.

Cilantro Lime Rice

printable version of Cilantro Lime Rice

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1 cup rice
1 ½ cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Zest from one lime
½ cup chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon salt

Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat; add onions and sauté until golden. Add garlic and rice; stir constantly for 1 minute. Continue cooking and stirring occasionally until rice browns a little. Pour chicken broth over rice and cover; cook for 20-25 minutes. When rice is tender, add lime juice, zest, cilantro and salt. Mix gently; serve hot.

Stuffed Pasilla Peppers

I’ve been trying new recipes a lot lately, and over all I’ve been really happy with all of them.  I found this one from Pam at For the Love of Cooking.  She's always cooking up really good things and I’ve never been disappointed with any of the recipes I’ve tried from her blog.

Well, the stuffed peppers are the best stuffed peppers I have ever tasted, and are definitely post-worthy. I absolutely loved the flavor from the Pasilla peppers. They were super spicy and so delicious.

It took about an hour* to get the peppers and the side dishes prepared and on the table, so it seemed like a pretty normal amount of time to spent cooking dinner. My husband especially loved them and took the last one in his lunch. He's usually my gauge on how good a meal is. If he requests leftovers for lunch I know I’ll make the meal again.

*Not including chicken preparation. I boiled the chicken for about three hours before getting the meal together. It took one hour from the time the chicken was cooked and shredded until dinner was on the table.

Stuffed Pasilla Peppers
recipe and photos from Homemade Deliciousness
original recipe from For the Love of Cooking
printable version of Stuffed Pasilla Peppers

3 Pasilla peppers
1 large chicken breast
½ cup black beans, drained and rinsed
½ cup grated cheddar cheese, divided
2 tablespoons diced bell pepper
2 tablespoons diced onion
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon diced jalapeno
1 clove minced garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash of oregano

Turn the broiler on, place an oven rack to the top position. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray. Wash and dry peppers; place them on the baking sheet and broil until they are blackened on all sides. Remove from oven, immediately place peppers in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. After 10-15 minutes, remove one pepper from bowl, and gently peel the skin off. Cut the pepper in half lengthwise, remove seeds. Continue with the remaining peppers. Coat a baking dish with cooking spray and lay all the peeled and seeded peppers in the dish; set aside.

Put chicken breast in boiling water; cover and cook on low for 2-3 hours. When chicken is fork-tender remove it from water, cool a few minutes and then dice or shred. Put chicken in a medium mixing bowl. Drain and rinse the beans; add ½ cup beans to chicken, refrigerate. Add half of the cheese, bell pepper, onion, cilantro, jalapeño, garlic, salt, pepper and oregano; gently mix together.

Fill the peppers with chicken mixture; sprinkle with remaining cheese and cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Serve with guacamole.

Blueberry Muffins

 

I found a recipe from “The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook” for blueberry muffins that I really couldn’t resist trying. The muffins have vanilla yogurt in them instead of melted butter or lots of oil, making them a little more calorie friendly.

They also have whole wheat flour and freshly squeezed orange juice, which I replaced with fresh lemon juice. My grandmother lives in Arizona and has lemon, orange and grapefruit trees. She recently sent my parents home with loads of citrus to share with us. Sadly, the oranges are gone, but I still had a few lemons so I used one and added a little more sugar.

The muffins turned out soft and delicious. This will be a recipe I will use again and again.

Blueberry Muffins

recipe from "The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook"

printable version of Blueberry Muffins

2 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup of vanilla low fat yogurt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (divided)

1 tbsp sugar

Preheat the oven to 400.  Coat a muffin tin with cooking spray.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl; set aside. In a separate bowl, combine orange juice, oil, vanilla, yogurt and egg; add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moist. Gently fold in 1 cup of blueberries

Spoon batter into muffin tin. Divide the remaining ½ cup of blueberries between the muffins; sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar evenly over the muffins.  Bake 17-19 minutes Remove muffins from the pan immediately and place on a wire rack to cool.

Calzones

I love calzones and recently found a recipe for pizza dough that I really, really like using to make them. I haven’t used the dough to make pizza yet, so I'm not sure how it much I would love it for pizza, but it's excellent for calzones. So excellent, in fact, that I'm posting the recipe. I found it here.

I've made calzones in the past with Rhode’s bread dough, but it’s not nearly as good. If you’ve got the time to throw the dough ingredients in a bread machine, I recommend making pizza dough rather than using frozen bread dough. It really made a big difference in how tasty the calzone ended up. It was also really easy to toss everything in the bread machine, put it on dough cycle, and wait for 90 minutes for the dough to form. When the dough is done, roll it out, fill it with your favorite pizza toppings and bake. It really couldn’t be easier.

Calzones
recipe and photos from Homemade Deliciousness
original recipe from Kevin K. on allrecipes.com
printable version of Calzones

1 ¼ cups water
2 teaspoons dry active yeast
1 ½ tablespoons sugar
3 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon powdered milk
¾ cup marinara
1 cups grated Mozzarella cheese
Fillings (pineapple, Canadian bacon, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, Italian sausage, etc)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Put water, yeast, sugar, flour, salt, and powdered milk in a bread machine; select dough cycle.
When dough is finished, roll it on a lightly floured surface. Preheat oven to 375. Shape dough into two 8x12 inch rectangles. Transfer to a greased cookie sheet; spoon marinara down center of dough and top it with fillings of your choice. Make diagonal cuts 1 ½ inches apart and braid over filling. (I folded the top down and sealed the edges instead.) Seal edges with water; brush top with melted butter. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and Parmesan.  Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until golden. Cool 5 minutes, slice and serve. Makes 2 large calzones.