Recipes

It’s that time of the month again!   Time for me to tell you about October’s delicious meals made by yours truly. 

As you might guess, zucchini featured in a lot of our dishes.  I made a fair number of meals that we often have like meatloaf, pork chops, and chicken casseroles etc.   We celebrated Thanksgiving with family (complete with leftovers!) and have, overall, had fairly nutritious month!  🙂   

Zucchini Recipes

I was busy cleaning the kitchen one day so needed to use up some zucchini in order to get clean counters.  I made this zucchini bread with some yellow zucchini.   Instead of adding walnuts to it, I added chocolate chips to it. 

I used a different type of granola in these carrot muffins, and since I was short on carrots I added some zucchini to them.  The lad really enjoyed these.   A bit of a funny story to them.  My tenant gave me the granola and said “I can’t eat these since they have hazelnut in them.  I’m allergic”.   I said “great, maybe I’ll make some muffins”.   I did, and then brought one to the lad, and then offered one to B.   She said sure, I got her one and then went back to the kitchen to work. 

She came out, holding out a muffin with a tiny bite out of it, and said “Annette, are you trying to kill me?”   Gave me a moment, and then I blurted out “AH, oops, sorry DON’T EAT THAT!”   We laughed.  The lad was coming into the kitchen at the moment to snag up another one and asked what was up.  He hooted!  It was SO GOOD to hear this moody 15-year-old really laugh.  B. had told me she wasn’t deathly allergic, it just makes her tongue frozen, so I didn’t technically try to kill her… but still!   It was SO funny.   (which reminds me I need to mark the bag of 12 I have in the freezer). 

Even more breads and muffins

Since that day I have also made Classic Zucchini Bread from The Wholesome Dish.  I added chocolate chips to the recipe.  I tried Zucchini bread recipe from Simply Recipes.  The unexpected use of raisins surprised them, and decision was “good bread, but we prefer chocolate chips”. 

Banana Zucchini Muffins... lovely lovely muffin.  You taste more of the banana than the zucchini.  But it’s a lovely moist muffin.  Needs to be used in three days or kept in the fridge.  Added chocolate chips of course.  The fellows were reticent at first to try them, but once they did.. boom gone!

Zucchini Cookies

I made two versions of Oatmeal Zucchini muffins.  They were very similar to make but with quite different taste profiles.   The one that our tenant, myself and son liked best was from Sally’s.   Zucchini Breakfast Cookies were so close, but we decided would be better served with hot chocolate. 

I also made Zucchini Cookies that turned out completely different than what the picture looked like.  I’m not sure why that happened.  They were VERY good, and were too easy to overeat them! 

Other Zucchini Recipes

Did you know that Zucchini Garlic Bites heat up really nicely in a toaster over?  At least this recipe does.  I also like them chilled, but warm is better. For this recipe I did make some changes I used dried parsley, basil and oregano.  My breadcrumbs were seasoned.  

Canning Dishes

This Year I have learned to make homemade ketchup, Spaghetti sauce from scratch, and green tomato relish.   

One day I had a young man and his family over learning about rabbits, I mentioned to his mom about making some green tomato relish.  She mentioned she just got a canner so I sent her home with enough green tomatoes to make a big batch for canning. 

Hubby brought home a cauliflower head one day … it’s on for a great price hun!  He was hoping I’d make some pickled cauliflower.   I didn’t add the chili pepper though as I’m not into heat.    While I was making those I thought hmm… on my search to make spaghetti sauce I saw a recipe for pickled cherry tomatoes why don’t I try them too? 

Main meals and Casseroles

WOW… this lasagna recipe… wow… HUGE, very tasty, but wow.. makes for a very full dish, ergo a longer cooking time.   I will make it again, but probably reduce the size of the filling a bit.   Changes I made: all beef, homemade spaghetti sauce (so all the make your sauce ingredients I eliminated), all cottage cheese, no provolone, and I used cook in the pan lasagna noodles. 

I made some boerenkool as well.  Surprised my fellows.  I make it so seldom, but being originally of Dutch stock, I have to make sure my lad knows what it is.  We made ours with smokies, completely from memory of watching my mom make it, but if you don’t know how to make it, this recipe is fairly close.   I didn’t put a bay leaf in mine. 

I made a really tasty potato bake that disappeared it seemed like literally overnight.  No pics, but boy it was good.  What was in it?  Mixed veggies, cubed potatoes, cream of mushroom soup, cubed turkey, various spices, and cheese.  Just gone, like so fast!

Biscuit shepherd’s pie met a similar fate.  Made like a typical shepherd’s pie but with a biscuit cover instead of mashed taters.  I put some grated cheese into my biscuit mix. 

And my chicken stew, “hun, this is really good!”  Could I ever replicate it again?  Probably not.  It has chicken, carrots, potatoes, beans, leftover mashed taters, gravy, seasoning and whatever else I could find. It was a bit more liquid than intended so it was half stew, half soup.  Either way… YUM!

Other meals I’ve shared:

July.  January. February. March and April. August. 

So how about you?   What have you added to October’s Delicious meals this year?   A friend of mine made these cookies that looked just wonderful. 

Did you know that rhubarb season has started?  It’s a wonderful thing indeed!  Time for sauces, cakes, loaves, muffins and so much more.  This week’s challenge is summer recipes and I can’t think of anything more summery than rhubarb as it’s good all summer long!  So let me share some summer rhubarb recipes with you. 

Facts about Rhubarb

Rhubarb is a plant that everyone seems to know, but not always know what to do with.  Is it a fruit or vegetable?  Though it is technically a vegetable, it is legally a fruit.  This was a ruling made in New York.  Rhubarb is a fruit since we use it to make desserts and pies. 

We only eat the stems, not the root or the leaves.  In fact the triangular leaves contain high levels of a poisonous chemical called oxalic acid.  You do need to pull it out by the root as that stimulates the plant to grow more leaves.  Cutting off the stems only encourages rot and that will hurt your rhubarb plant in the long run.   

They LOVE fertilizer.  I cover mine with rabbit manure throughout the winter which gives them a great start in the spring.  In July I’ll pull most of the stalks and then replace the manure pack which strengthens the rhubarb for continued production. 

I remember as a child eating raw rhubarb, it was quite tart but I loved it!  As I got a bit older I would sprinkle a bit of sugar on it.  I still like to nibble on raw rhubarb but never a whole lot.  Too much tartness no longer agrees with me!  🙂 

Summer Rhubarb Recipes

This week I made a very moist loaf using rhubarb. This recipe is very similar to the one I used, I didn’t add nuts because we don’t care for them in our loaves.  But a nice tasting loaf, definitely worth making again. 

Rhubarb Cake is a favourite around here.  Cinnamon sugar, rhubarb, moistness and a good cake taste. 

Rhubarb Sauce is so very easy to make.  Cut up rhubarb, add a touch of water, and let it cook until soft.  Add sweetener if desired. 

I was talking to a lady that I sold some rhubarb too and she mentioned that she adds apples to it when she cooks it.  Doesn’t that sound good?  Apple and rhubarb goes together so well.  

Other recipes with Rhubarb
Recipes with Rhubarb
Rhubarb Apple Crisp.
Rhubarb Pudding Cake.
Rhubarb Bread.
Rhubarb Cake 2.
Rhubarb Muffins.
Rhubarb Crisp.

I invite you to join in on the linky.  What summer recipes would you offer up?

It’s that time of month again.. .YES time to be zeroing in on meals, today it’s many of my March meals. 

Come see what all we made won’t you?  🙂

Dutch Meatball Soup

With a hubby not feeling well and a lad with a sore throat I looked to make a favourite.  I haven’t personally made dutch meatball soup before, but it’s a favourite for my fellows so I figured I’d give it try.   The recipe I used I doubled and I gave some to our tenant as well.   Carrots, meatball, celery, a fairly simple soup to make actually.  The fellows added some salt and pepper and called it good. 

SouthWestern black bean taco salad

I used this recipe.  Though I did make a change … I didn’t add avocado (didn’t have any) and I used lemon juice instead of lime juice since well lime juice just seemed an unnecessary expense.  🙂  My surprise was great at how much I enjoyed this… hubby did too, and the lad was like “mom, this is better than I expected!”. 

Doesn’t it look just SO good?

Rice Salad with Turnip Pork Hash

I made some rice one night to have with some leftover chili I think it was… and I cooked up the whole package even though I didn’t really need it.  Just really had no place to keep an open bag of rice well.  I looked around to figure out what to do with it and came across this salad.   I thought I had kept the rice open on my tablet but alas I did not.

Rice has a simple oil/vinegrette type dressing, cucumber, bell peppers and cilantro in it.  I remember I modified the recipe since I didn’t have wild rice.  Anyways, 2/3’s a cup makes a decent serving and I discovered it went EXTREMELY well with my turnip cranberry pork dish.  Even my non-rice loving hubby said it was good.  My even more non-rice loving son wouldn’t even try it!  Though he did enjoy the pork hash.  🙂  

Oh. how to make the hash?  Grab up a turnip and dice it up put in water for a bit.  Meanwhile with a bit of oil in the pan cook up some onion, add about a pound of diced up pork tenderloin and let it brown.  Let that cook for about five minutes.  Add your turnip, toss in a handful of craisins, and a splash or two of water, put the lid on and let steam five or so minutes (depends on how big your diced turnip/rutabaga pieces are).  Add some VH sweet and sour sauce, let it cook five minutes to meld the flavours and it’s done. Be mindful you turn it down so it doesn’t burn (been there, done that, waste of perfectly good food).  Makes four servings.  This meal is fairly similar to one I made last month. 

Crab Salad

I really can’t remember what all I threw into this.  I had some imitation crab, found a recipe for a dressing that would go with it, then tossed whatever I had on hand in with it.  My tenant made some suggestions with seasonings as crab is fairly bland and her dad was a decent cook.  Onion, bell pepper, tomato, kiwi I think, and I dunno what all else.  I know I ate about half and then said “this needs some salad greens” so added those and it was decently good.   Could I make it again?  Possibly…but wouldn’t be exact.  Its not a meal I offered to my fellows as they wouldn’t have touched it with a 10-foot pole. 

What else?

Well my son made a banana chocolate chip loaf which disappeared too quickly for pictures.  I made a good variety of cookies, some buns, and a couple of different pot pies.  A stew (without the bread bowl) and a Chili made it into the mix. 

Oh.. a turkey hashbrown casserole.  Eggs, hashbrowns, diced turkey, bell pepper, seasonings of choice, and a touch of milk.  Cook in the oven for 40 minutes or so.  You get a meal that I love, the lad likes with ketchup and dad passes on.   I borrowed ideas from a couple of different recipes and was happy with how it turned out.  

What have you cooked this month?

So okay, this is the last in the alphabet blogging for this go round. I am not sure if I’ll do another, if I do it will probably be themed on Canada or science or something like that. 

Others in this Series

• Add in your life. 
• Edmund Burke, philosopher. 
• Clarity in Writing.
• Deep Runs the Well. 
• Ease of Consistent Schedules. 
• Fantastic Ways to learn History. 
• Going Through Browswer Tabs. 
• Hiding the Unknown.
• Invested in Health.
• William James, philosopher.
• Key books for Middle School. 
• Looking for Picture Books. 
• Making Facebook Easier. 
• New Direction.
• Online Homeschool Conference.
• Studies in Philippians. 
• Quine. 
• Reading Aloud with Teens. 
• Science Equipment fails.
• Turkey Vegetable Soup.
• Understanding Deuteronomy. 
• Evening Basket Time.
• When Field Trips are out of Reach.
• Extra Resources for Time Off.
• Why? Why So many Tabs Open?
• Zeroing in on March Meals. 

Last month I shared the highlights of our meals for the month of January.  February is pushing to a close so sharing this month’s best meals. 

Turkey Vegetable Soup

You may remember me sharing this recipe a couple of weeks ago.   Turkey vegetable soup was enjoyed by all.. both at the Cadet luncheon but also by our own family.  

Set a pound of ground beef on to fry with one onion that’s been diced.  Season as desired. While that is browning up nicely, dice about five or six potatoes.  Toss them in with the ground beef adding a bit of water for cooking purposes.   While the potatoes are cooking open up a can of corn and toss that into the fry pan.  Let them cook for another five minutes.  Open up a can of cream soup, mix into the hash thoroughly.  Cook for another 3-5 minutes and it’s all done.     

This meal is a favourite of everyone in the family and is SO easy to make.  🙂  I love the potatoes just slightly underdone but the guys like them soft so I always add some potatoes a bit later so play around with it a bit. 🙂

Baking Treats

My Son requested zucchini chocolate chip loaf.  I made a triple batch of Two Peas and their Pod’s recipe. We’ve tried a number of zucchini breads over the years and this one is my son’s favourite.  I altered it a bit this time by using some leftover white chocolate chips along with regular ones. 

It was my turn to cook for bible study this month so I made some cookies.  Some cinnamon Lemon cookies and Oatmeal chocolate chip.   I just used recipes I found on-line.  They worked out quite nicely. 

Macaroni Casserole

My son shocked me with this one.  I can’t recall what all was in it, but I know that I had planned for hubby to have a good chunk of it for work meals but a 14 year old loved it!

What was in it?   I think it was a tuna, cheese oven baked casserole.   I used the twisty pasta which I discovered the lad really likes.  Tuna, with a bread crumb/parm cheese topping.  Peas, tuna, cream soup, cheese.  It was a huge hit with the lad. Hubby got one meal out of it I think. 

Over the course of the month I made turkey shepherd’s pie, lasagna, meatloaf, meatballs in sauce, pot roast with veggies, a variety of pizza, potato soup (which I loved) and odd meals.  

My last best of meals to highlight for February is my attempt at bagels.  The fellows definitely want me to make these again.  New York Style Bagels.  They so fell in love with them but I rather dread making them.  I suppose I’ll get better over time with making them….