Preparing for winter- tomatoes, onions, peppers, and okra!

I love to make soups in the winter, especially on nights when we are going to be late getting home cause of a football game or whatever is going on. So during the summer months when produce is cheap and plentiful I love to make this handy recipe my grandma taught me years ago.

Now this is more of a guide than a exact recipe with specific amounts...

You will need tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and okra!

When I do this I always use my 12 quart stockpot.

Peel and quarter your tomatoes. You want your pot about 3/4 full. Start heating your pot of tomatoes on the stove as you chop everything else. (You need them to cook down some to make room for everything else)

Next I slice okra. I have this time about 6c of okra, but usually it's just whatever I can buy from farmers market. 

Coarse chop your onions, I usually use 4-5 large yellow onions.

Chop 6-8 bell peppers.

 Place all this in your pot and simmer on low for a hour or so, make sure to stir it once in a while.

Once everything is very well cooked and your okra is tender, then allow the pan to cool completely.

Next I scoop the mixture into quart bags and freeze till I am ready to make soup this winter.

This is great in veggie soups, I also have mixed this in meatloaf. My grandma will mix this in with cooked macaroni for a side dish. This is also great by its self as a veggie side.

Pecan Pumpkin Pie bites

These yummy little treats, are low carb and completely all natural ingredients, I enjoy having these in my bag with me at work as a nice snack.
When I made this recipe I tripled the recipe because as you can see it only yields 6 servings.

Pecan Pumpkin Pie Bites

yields 6 two-bite servings

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup chopped medjool dates, about 6 pitted
• 1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp raw pecans pieces
• 1/2 cup raw pecans, roughly chopped
• 1 Tbsp pumpkin puree
• 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Directions:

1. Place chopped dates into the bowl of a food processor, and process until the dates form a ball of sticky paste. Remove from the processor bowl.
2. Place 1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp pecan pieces into the food processor bowl, and process until finely ground. There may be a few larger pieces, which is okay.
3. Add date paste back into the processor bowl, along with the pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice. Process mixture until it forms a large ball. Remove from food processor.
4. Form 6 small balls out of the mixture by rolling them between your palms. Set aside.
5. Place the 1/2 cup roughly chopped pecans onto a cutting board or plate and roll the balls around in the nuts until fully coated.
6. Once again, roll the balls between your palms so that the nuts adhere and create a “crust”.
7. Store in the refrigerator.

Gluten free, low carb waffles

Gluten free, Low carb waffles

I know what you are thinking, gluten free and low carb, doesn't sound very yummy. I am here to tell you that this recipe is my favorite above any kind of waffle. Knowing that they are healthy for me is just a bonus. 

This recipe will require Almond flour, you can buy it from most any grocery store anymore, but if you have priced this it is fairly expensive. But with a little prep work I can tell you how to make your own almond flour for this recipe a lot cheaper.

I personally go to Sam's club and buy almonds in bulk, but you can buy almonds from just about anywhere. you want dry roasted, non-salted almonds.

In small batches you can place your almonds in a food processor and it will finely chop up your almonds to a course flour consistency. You can also use a coffee grinder to do this process.

I usually will grind up the whole bag of almonds at once and freeze what I dont use for next time.

When I make waffles, I MAKE waffles. They freeze wonderful so I usually make 4-8 batches at a time, depending on how much time I have. I love having things made up in the freezer so I can have a quick healthy meal even if I am short on time.

Per batch:

1 block of cream cheese, do not use the low fat for this

1 cup almond flour ( add an additional 1/2c if you choose to not add the flax)

1/2 cup ground flax; optional (this adds those important omega's, and adds a nice flavor)

1TBSP of vanilla

5 large eggs

Optional: you can add 1 TBS of sugar or sweetener 

place the cream cheese in a large microwaveable bowl. Microwave for 1 minute, stir.  Then microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring in between until the cream cheese stirs up smooth and creamy.

Then add all the remaining ingredients, combine throughly with a mixer.

following the directions of your waffle maker, cook your waffles.

Note: you can use this recipe for pancakes as well, just add a little extra almond flour so the batter is slightly thicker.

These waffles freeze very well. I will place 2 waffles in those cheap sandwich bag with the fold down top. I will then place them into a gallon ziplock bag to protect them from freezer burn. I can fit 8-10 small bags in the gallon bag.

Then you can just pull out what you need and heat them in the microwave or a toaster.

"Spanish rice" my mom's recipe.

My mom didnt cook a lot as my brother and I was growing up, but one of her go to meals when she did was a dish she called "Spanish Rice". It is a very simple, fairly cheap dish that still taste wonderful as leftovers.

This recipe is one that you can adjust for your needs, so it doesnt have a exact recipe per say. Just some guide rules, so here they go:

Per 1lb of hambuger use 1 cup of minute rice, 1 onion, 3 stalks of celery.

you will also need a can of tomato juice, salt, pepper, and your favorite type of seasoning like a season all. My personal go to seasoning comes from Save-A-lot, its called soul seasoning. you will see me refer to it a lot in my cooking. I highly recommend if you live in an area that has Save-a-Lot stores that you buy some!!

For this meal, I am using 3 lbs of lean hamburger, 3 diced onions, and 9 celery stalks all diced.

(I have a very large Pampered Chef skillet that I use for this)

while I start cooking the hamburger mixture I will start my water boiling in a seperate pan for the minute rice. follow directions on the box.

once both the hambuger and the rice is cooked, I mix the rice into the hamburger mixture. I then add the tomato juice (for this big pan I used the whole large can of tomato juice, if you make less you will not need the whole can) I also add my salt, pepper, and soul seasoning to taste.

simmer for a little bit, to heat throughly, and let the rice absorb some of the tomato juice.

Then enjoy. This is one of the dishes that bread and butter goes very well with. Since we are gluten free sometimes we will use Udi's gluten free sandwich bread with this meal.

Note: if you are not making this big of a batch and have leftover tomato juice, here is a tip to save the juice for a later date. Freeze the juice in a ice cube tray. I do this often, I will freeze the tomato juice then place the cubes into a ziplock bag. This tip works well for all kinds of sauces and juices. Just makesure to label your ziplock bags well...

Homemade applesauce

So the other day while I was shopping at a semi-local grocery store I found 10lb bags of red delicious apples for $5.19. I bought 2 bags, we ate on them for about a week, then they started to get soft and grainy.

I peeled and cored all the apples and placed them in my huge 12 quart stockpot.

I put about a cup of water in the pan, 1cup of sugar, and about 2TBSP of Cinnamon (We like cinnamon in our applesauce, but you can leave that out if you prefer) I then placed the stove on a low heat and let it simmer for several hours.

The photo above is after about a hour. Make sure to stir every so often!

Now after about 2 1/2 hours it looks like this photo above.

I used my hand mixer to puree the apples even more, you can use a hand masher as well, or if you like your applesauce a little chunky you can skip this step.

After the applesauce cools it can be put it into storage containers, or if you want to can your applesauce you would want to do that while it is still hot.

I choose to use those small little containers that comes in a pack when you buy a multi box of sizes. This will make the perfect serving for a nice treat in school lunches.

Money saving, healthy tip#1

I love Walmarts ad match policy!!!! I got carrots very cheap last week so I bought up a bunch, more than we could just eat.

I broke out the food processor, then grated the carrots after peeling them. Then I bagged them in those cheap sandwich bags, I get them from Walmart, I placed 1 cup per bag.

I will freeze these to use at a later date.

Some examples: mix a bag in with your meatloaf, soups, hamburger patties, cole slaw, potato salad, the list can go on and on.

Peaches

We are fortunate to live very close to an orchard. In August they had a abundance of some of the best peaches I have ever had. So once again I went into my squirrel storing mode. I bought 140lbs for myself, 60lbs for my gma, 60lbs for my great aunt, and 20lbs for another aunt. Then I got to work. Most of them I just peeled, sliced and froze in quart bags. My family enjoyed several of them fresh, and we also made about 20lbs worth of freezer jam. Some of the freezer jam was made sugar free for my diabetic grandpa. I also made several peach crisps that couple weeks we had all those peaches.

Gluten free peach crisp

8 cups of sliced peaches (I sometimes add more if I am feeding a large group)

1 1/2c all purpose gluten free baking mixture. (I use Bob's Red Mill)

1 1/2 c gluten free oats

2 TBSP Cinnamon, 

2 TBSP ground ginger

1 cup sugar

1 1/2stick of softened butter

Warm oven at 350.

Cut in the softened butter the oats and flour. Then add 1TBSP cinnamon,1TBSP ginger, and 1/2 sugar. The mixture should be crumbly. If you desire more or less of any of these ingredients feel free to change them up!!

In another bowl mix your sliced peaches with the remaining cinnamon, ginger, and sugar. Then place your peaches in a 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle evenly your mixture of flour, oats and butter over the top of the peaches.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour

We enjoy the cinnamon and ginger in our crisp, you can reduce these amounts if you would like a little less in your cobbler.

This recipe can be made sugar free by simply replacing the sugar with Splenda. I do this frequently for my grandpa.

You can reduce this recipe in half for a 8x8 pan