Fruit Dip

So, I am still trying to eat healthier.  This dip helps and hurts that.  It is basically sweetness to dip fruit into.

Fruit Dip
8 oz. Cream Cheese
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract

whip the cream cheese (or buy whipped cream cheese) then add the sugar and vanilla.  Dip fruit.

It is delicious.  It would be really yummy in stuffed french toast, too.

-Lunch Pale

Best Pizza Dough Recipe Ever!!!!!

So Mike has this awesome pizza dough recipe that is fantastic. We use it all the time! Here it is:

1. Combine...............1 cup warm water
                                 1 T. dry yeast
                                 1 T. sugar
                               1/2 t. salt
                                 2 T. olive oil
                               1/4 cup salad oil (vegetable oil)

2. Stir in for 2 min..................2 3/4 cups flour, sifted (if needed, add more flour until dough is slightly tacky)

3. Knead dough 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes.

4. Roll dough almost to pan size & transfer to a greased pan that has corn meal sprinkled on the pan. (Corn meal is optional.) Finish shaping dough to pan.

5. Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

6. Add your favorite sauce and toppings to the half baked crust.

7. Bake at 400 degrees for an additional 8-10 minutes or until crust in golden brown.

8. Enjoy!

If you want to make the dough ahead of time, you can freeze or refrigerate the dough overnight. All you need to do is place the kneaded dough in a greased plastic bag. Seal the bag and place it in the refrigerator. The next day, just pull out the dough, punch it down and let it rest for 10-15 minutes. Continue as normal. You can also roll out the dough on the pan and refrigerate it that way as well.

Love,

Lunchpale

Apple Pear Ring

Slice up apples and pears into thin slices.

put crescent rolls out in a ring on a sheet--I used a pizza stone cuz it is great and I like it.  Make sure they are close together, though.

Mix cinnamon and sugar into the pear/apple mix and place slices around the ring.

fold over the crescents to cover the apple/pear mix.  I also sprinkled a little sugar on top just to see if it made it nicer.  It didn't.  It didn't change anything, really.
Bake it for the time allotted on the crescent package.

We drizzled some caramel onto it. 
It came out a little dry, so I would suggest some brown sugar in with the fruit mix so it sorta melts into it and makes it yummy and rich and possibly wetter.  IDK.

Chicken Noodle Soup & Biscuits

we had some chicken ready to be eaten, so we boiled it and shredded it for better staying power.

Chicken Noodle Soup
4 cups water plus chicken, onion, carrot, & celery simmering for 30 min.
cook noodles in 1 1/2 c chicken broth until tender and add to first half.  Yum.
Then we just made some biscuits along with it and it was SO yummy.

Biscuits
2 c flour
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
                 MIX
cut in 2/3 c butter
add 3/4 c milk by pushing fork back and forth until ALMOST moist (don't over-mix!)
knead on floured surface 5 times and pat out to 3/4 in thick.
Cut into circles and put on non-greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 425 degrees for 10-12 min or until golden.


Yummy and EASY dinner.  Took about 30 min total.  :)

What the Awesome Soup?!

So, I mentioned the beautiful basket in the last post and how I am going to be trying new recipes with all the glory inside.  Here is tonight's creation:

Yam & Potato Soup

1 medium potato, cubed
1 medium yam, cubed

15 oz reduced-sodium chicken broth

1 clove garlic

dash pepper

1/4 c chopped onion

2 T carrot
3 T celery

2 c milk

2 T cornstarch
1/4 c cold water

Put the orange ingredients in a potpan on medium-low.  Simmer until yam and potato are soft.

Meanwhile, sautee the green ingredients in a small amount of olive oil.  Add to the orange ingredients.

Add the blue to the orangreen.

Heat until a slight boil, but not enough to curdle the milk.

Mix the purple ingredients within themselves.  Slowly add the purple to the blorangreen and let it thicken.  This should happen quickly.  

Serve the yumminess.  It makes about 8 cups--so it will serve 4-5 people (more if you have a salad with it).

Best part?  

(There are too many!)

1-this is a vegetarian dish!  I have been thinking a lot about eating meat sparingly, and I am hoping to find some great satisfying meals with all the baskety goodness.

2-there is only 180 calories in one serving.  

3-Since it is a veggie dish, you are getting veggies.

4-low in cholesterol

5-although it is high in sugar for the caloric intake, it is so filling that it is a carb-friendly dish.  27 net carbs per serving!

I also grilled some yellow squash to have with my dinner, and it was perfect.

You could make this ahead of time, too--if you jar it up with everything but the milk and cornstarch, you would just heat it up and add those later.

Yum Yum Yum!

Yummy Baskets

Okay, so for those of you who live in the area of the Seagull State, there is this glorious thing called "Bountiful Baskets".

What you do is this:

Make a 'donation' to the co-op on Mondays.  Then, the co-op will take all of the donations to buy a large amount of various fruits and veggies.

On that Saturday, go to the location you donated to and pick up your basket! (bring a laundry basket type thing or reusable grocery bags to carry it all cuz you don't get an actual basket, just what's inside the actual basket).

I did this wonderful thing this past week, and I LOVE it.  I got almost $30 worth of fruits and veggies for less than 20 bucks, and it will be $16.50 from now on for all this goodness.

Here is what was included:
1 head of green leaf lettuce
1 stalk celery
6 yams
5 pears
1 tub mushrooms
4 apples
2 lb black grapes
8 bananas
1 clove garlic
2 avocados
5 on-the-vine tomatoes
9 plums

Holy moly, I love it.  Another thing about this I love is that it is forcing me to get a better variety of veggies and fruits.  I typically buy Mike and I the same kind of food--and use it the same way.  What can I say, I am boring.  But! With this, we got 6 yams--something I have never used before.  Hence, my recipe for tonight!

We made sliders for dinner.  What goes better with sliders than fries???  Not much.

So, first off, for the sliders, we used 1/2 lb ground chicken with maybe 1 T Mrs. Dash seasoning.  I really like ground chicken or turkey better for these than beef.  It is better for you and tastes so much better, in my opinion.  We toasted some small buns and topped it off how we like it.  I had some left-over pico de gallo from Cafe Rio, so I put that on mine and Wowza.  So delicious!  I am going to do that from now on.

Now, for the fries:

I took one medium/small potato and one medium yam and cut them into pieces about the thickness of my pinkie (my pinkie is decently thick, which is how I wanted my fries, so cut them accordingly).

Then, I put them in a bowl with water almost to the top of the pieces.  I covered the top with saran wrap and popped it into the microwave for about 4 minutes.  This helps the fries to be softer on the inside than just cooking them straight out.  If you like them less soft on the outside, I would say to micro them for 2-3 minutes instead.

Have your oven preheated to 450.  Drain the water and lightly coat them in olive oil.  On a cookie sheet, lightly cover the bottom of the sheet with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Put the coated pieces on the sheet and into the oven for 10 minutes.
Flip the pieces so another side gets toasted.  Back into the oven for another 10 minutes.  At this point, it is up to you on how crispy you want them.  I cooked them for 30 minutes and it was a little too long--they blackened up quite a bit.

But, they still tasted really yummy.  The yams made a sweeter taste to the side dish and now I am in love.  I have 5 more yams to play with, and I am looking forward to making some other cool dishes.

I stole this pic from another website where I got the recipe from.  You could also put some italian seasoning and parmesan cheese if you wanted and I think they would be soooo yummy!!!

As for bountiful baskets, I seriously recommend doing it if you live near a location that does it.  Try it out!