Sweet potato chili in a crockpot

Don't let the title fool you... this is so good!

3 sweet potatoes sliced

1/2 onion, chopped up

1 cup green, red, yellow peppers chopped up (super small if your kids don't like them)

1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes

1 can kidney beans (drained and rinsed)

chili powder (add according to your taste buds)

1 cup water

1/2 cup orange juice

a dash of liquid smoke (optional)

Dump in the crockpot and stir a bit. Cook on low for 5-6 hours. Top with cheese or sour cream if you want, but it is delicious on its own. We served this tonight with sabotage bread that LESLIE made! Yippee!!!

Easy breakfast pie

I threw this together this morning. It was fast (5 minutes prep, 30 minutes in the oven), yummy, and everyone wanted more and licked their plates instead...

1 pie crust

Mix together:

1/2 bag of frozen mixed berries thawed in microwave

1 granny smith apple chopped up

4 granola bars crushed up (save 2 for topping)

1/2 large carton of vanilla yogurt

Fill unbaked pie crust with a mixture of every ingredient. Top with 2 more granola bars. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or so. Enjoy deliciousness.

Pumpkin milkshake

6 scoops butter pecan ice cream

1 can pumpkin

3 cups milk (your choice of how thick or thin it is... whole, skim, whatever)

1 cup chopped up pecans

Blend in blender. (You may need to divide this in half and work separate batches).

The twins did this for a potions class, and we "grossified" the recipe, and then used our wands to "delicious-ify". This is yummy!

Serve in Halloween cups and enjoy!

Smoky vegetable soup

I know. I love soups too much. These were really good.

Smoky Vegetable soup

My mom and I made this and were in absolute heaven over the smells, and then ... we ate it all up. This is really really really really really really really yummy soup!

We served this with my sabotage bread and apple blackberry cobbler for dessert. Um, yum.

To make this simpler that the william sonoma catalog says, just chop up the veggies, cook in olive oil, add broth, simmer, and blend. Yum!

Ingredients

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large yellow onion, diced

4 red bell peppers and 2 yellow bell peppers, cored, seeded and cut into 1 1/2-by-3/8-inch slices

8 plum tomatoes, quartered

4 zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/4 inch thick on the bias

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 russet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice

3 cups chicken stock

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

1 cup packed fresh basil leaves

(You can also add kielbasa polish sausage... it is really good)

Directions:

In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, warm 2 Tbs. of the olive oil. Add the onion and bell peppers and cook, stirring occasionally, until just tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. In the same pot over medium heat, warm 1 Tbs. of the olive oil. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to the bowl with the onion mixture.

In the same pot over medium-high heat, warm the remaining 1 Tbs. olive oil. Add the zucchini and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir the onion mixture into the pot. Transfer 2 cups of the vegetables to a bowl and set aside.

Add the potato and stock to the pot and simmer until the potato is tender, 25 to 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add a few drops of liquid smoke in to the soup in the covered pot for 5 minutes.

Working in batches, puree the soup in the blender on high for 20 seconds per batch. Return the soup to the pot and stir in the reserved vegetables. Serves 6 to 8.

(Williams-Sonoma Kitchen)

Yummy quick bread

Cinnamon Walnut Bread (you can skip the walnuts if you want to...)

makes one loaf

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup milk

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup walnuts

1 beaten egg

1/2 tsp salt

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Add the beaten egg and milk and stir. Fold in the walnuts. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for about forty minutes, or until golden (stick a knife in the center to make sure it comes out clean). Let cool and serve with honey butter!

Fortune Cookies!

Wohoo! I have been wanting to try and make these for a while, but I was intimidated...it seemed too hard, but I tried it yesterday and had success.

Ingredients:
3 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract (in one batch I skipped the almond and put in more vanilla, it worked fine)
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 T water

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Have fortunes ready to go on small strips of paper.

In a large glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites and sugar on high with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low, and stir in remaining ingredients one at a time, mixing well after each. Consistency should resemble pancake batter.

Spoon the batter into 3 inch circles on the parchment paper. (I used the back of a spoon to spread them kind of thin)

Bake for 5 to 7 minutes in the oven, until the edges begin to brown. Quickly remove them, place a message in the center and fold in half, then fold the ends of the half together into a horse shoe shape. 

My tips: To help hold their form while they harden I put mine in a mini muffin pan, it worked great. Also, I don't really know how long I baked mine, I just kept checking them and when the edges were brown I took them out, I think it was closer to 5 minutes rather than 7. I also found that 3-4 was the maximum to bake at a time considering that they start to harden pretty quickly and you won't have time to fold them if you make too many. So anyway those are my tips :)

Oh and yes, I wasted some of the batter figuring it out but I once I got it I had a lot of fun making these, so don't give up! I served them at our friends 40th birthday party and put funny little "old person" fortunes in them. and everyone love them.

Danish Oatmeal Cookies

Last night for our cooking club our assignment was to make something European. I decided to try and find something Danish to make (and something that I already had all the ingredients for). I was so wishing that I had an aebleskiver pan! Anyway, I came across this recipe and gave it a try. They turned out yummy and the ladies at cooking club enjoyed them and so did my family.

Danish Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup oatmeal (I didn't want the texture of oatmeal so I put mine in my little blender/chopper thing and it came out like oatmeal flour)

1 cup chopped pecans (I chopped half of the nuts very finely in my blender too)

powdered sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl mix the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in the flour mixture. Gently stir in the oatmeal and pecans and lightly mix until combined. 

Roll into small teaspoon sized balls and place on cookie sheet or baking stone. Bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly browned. Let cool completely before sprinkling with powdered sugar. 

Makes 90 little cookies at about 40 calories per cookie, but be careful they are bitesize and melt in your mouth...easy to eat 5 without even thinking about it :)