Caribbean Chili

My slow cooker has been working over time this week.   I have literally used it for every meal this week.  It makes getting dinner on the table so quick and easy.  Plus it helps when you pick up a slow cooker cookbook at a garage sale for $1!! This is a great hearty vegetarian meal.  This recipe included a jamaican jerk seasoning, and it was quite spicy the first night.  When we ate the leftovers, it tamed down quite a bit.   So feel free to adjust the cayenne in this to your taste preferences! or even buy a premade Jamaican Jerk seasoning!

Caribbean Chili

Serves 6

Adapted from "Money Saving Slow Cooking" by Sandra Lee

16 oz. jar of black bean & corn salsa

1 (15.25 oz) can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 (15 oz) can of black beans, rinsed and drained

2 cups of butternut squash, diced

1 cup of green or red pepper, diced

1 cup of onion, diced

1/2 cup of water (or you can use broth)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/8 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon chile powder

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground thyme

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Cilantro (for garnish)

Brown Rice (to serve with)

Put all ingredients, except for the cilantro and brown rice, into a crock pot.  Mix it up, and cook on high for 4 to 6 hours.  (or you can put it on low for 8 to 10 hours).  Serve it over the brown rice, and garnish with cilantro.  It's not necessary, but it adds a great fresh flavor!

Sooo Sorry!!!

Wow, time flies when your having...well wasn't fun per say...work got insane and engulfed me! But I was busy cooking as always.  I'm trying really hard to make homemade snacks rather than buying packaged crap, because no matter how hard I try, there is always something inside those packaged items that isn't good for you.  Although these recipes aren't my original recipes, they proved to be very yummy!

I've been testing the waters to see if I am gluten intolerant.  I'm getting the feeling I'm probably not, but these recipes are gluten free.  You always can substitute the regular gluten product! I made some Cheddar Cheese Crackers that blow cheez-its out of the water.  So yummy, I made mine into bigger stars because I didn't have cute little cookie cutters.  These would be so sweet on a cheese platter for a party.  I highly recommend piercing a few dots (I used a fork) into the centers, because there was a batch I forgot to do it to, and they bubbled up.

My second snack was a Peanut Butter & Chocolate Granola Bar.  It was supposed to be crunchy, but I think I removed them from the oven a bit too soon.  They are not necessarily "chewy" but not hard, sort of an in between.  But taste awesome! So thats all that counts, right?

Here are the recipes, enjoy!
Cheddar Cheese Crackers
Peanut Butter & Chocolate Granola Bars

Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta

I have to admit, I never had garlic scapes before, let alone know what it was!  This was a pretty cool experiment for me.  The "co-op" I get my veggies from included a recipe in their email for this Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta, so I went from there.  The original recipe called for 10 garlic scapes, and many reviewers said it was too much.  So, I cut it back to 5 garlic scapes, and YOWZERS, it was still really garlicky.

After eating it, I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth, even after brushing my teeth, doing mouthwash, and eating 3 salt water taffy's and 2 cookies, it still wouldn't go away! I know..you're thinking, "I thought you were a clean eater?" Yes, I do eat pretty clean, but I like my sweets, and I can't resist salt water taffy from my favorite place in Delaware, I had to buy a box! But anyways, I'm getting off tangent.

Since it is just me and my husband, we always have leftovers.  When I reheated it, I added some plain Greek yogurt.  Also, I think with cooking it a bit more, it mellowed out the garlic flavor.  Sooooo...here is my recipe, and hopefully it won't require you to eat massive amounts of cookies to get the garlic taste out of your mouth.  Also, I wouldn't recommend making this for a first date or impressing the in-laws! It may not end well.

Garlic Scape Pesto

(Serves 4-6)

Adapted from Epicurious

5 garlic scapes
1/3 cup unsalted pistachios (if you use salted, just don't add more salt!)
1/3 cup shredded parmesan
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup plain greek yogurt

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and go until it is smooth.  To mellow out the garlic flavor I recommend heating it up in a small saucepan on low.  Add to cooked pasta, use the pasta water if you want to thin out the sauce more, but mine came out fine. I topped the pasta with more parmesan, and had a simple lettuce and tomato salad on the side.  Enjoy! Super Easy to make!!

Mom's Potato Salad - Cleaned Up!

I have such fond memories of this potato salad.  My mom made it for any picnic or cookout we had, father's day, memorial day, graduations, labor day, and 4th of July! My mom had this Pillsbury Cookbook, and as they claimed on the cover, it's "the all-purpose companion for today's cook."  Which for my mom, it was! A lot of her generic recipes came from this cookbook, including this potato salad.  I was lucky enough to inherit this cookbook after she passed.

My mom passed away a little over 3 years ago.  When she was alive, my sisters and I always thought she was a very "by the book" cook.  She always had to follow the recipes to a T, and if she asked us for a recipe that maybe we sort of threw together.  She needed to know exactly how many tablespoons of garlic we used, so we had to give her an exact number! But, after she passed away, and we started to make her recipes ourselves, we realized that she had the tendency to make a recipe into her own.  Although, she never recorded it, she made the same recipe over and over again and remembered "her version" of it.  So, when we look at it, we have to figure out what was it that she did to change it, because we remembered it differently.

This happened to me when I approached this potato salad recipe.  I had to confer with my sisters to figure out exactly what she did, because the potato salad recipe looked nothing like her version.  Like for instance, I thought she put pickle relish in it, but my sister doesn't think she did.  I love pickles, so I put it in my version.    Also, my mom, from what we remember, put sugar in her potato salad, but no where on the recipe does it show it.  But, with my new clean eating lifestyle, I made some adjustments to make it a bit "healthier" to eat.  I don't recommend to make potato salad an everyday meal, but you can feel a bit better about eating it. So here it is! I hope all my readers enjoy their 4th of July and make great memories, like I have with my family on the 4th!

my mom and me

Mom's Potato Salad

(serves 6-8)

adapted from The Pillsbury Cookbook & my mom

4-6 small to medium potatoes, cooked, peeled, and cubed

4 eggs, hard-boiled, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1/4 cup chopped pickles or relish (I used dill)

1/4 cup green olives with pimentos, chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup organic mayo

1/4 cup plain greek yogurt

1 tablespoon mustard (I used organic spicy brown)

1 tablespoon honey

1) In a big pot, put in the potatoes and cover with cold water.  Bring to a boil and cook until fork tender.  Drain and put them in the fridge for a few hours or overnight to get cold.  

2) Also while cooking the potatoes, do the same method with eggs.  Put them in a pot, fill with cold water and bring to a boil.  But once they reach a boil, take them off the heat, put a cover on it, and let them sit for 15 minutes.  Once the time is up, drain and rinse with cold water.  Put them in the fridge with the potatoes to get cold as well.  Having the eggs and potatoes cold makes it easier to cut them up.  

3) Then take all of the chopped ingredients, with all the other ingredients, mix it all up until combined.  Keep in the fridge before serving.  Also, allowing a few hours in the fridge let's all the flavors melt together.  

One taste of this potato salad and I was back to my childhood. I sure do miss my mom, but this potato salad makes me feel like she is still here.  Happy 4th of July Everyone!

BBQ Kale Chips

Kale chips seem to be a new rage in "healthy" eating.  I've seen recipes for garlic, spicy, salt & vinegar, but I have never seen a barbeque version.  BBQ chips are probably my favorite kind of chip, so I had to make it with a kale chip! These were a great accompaniment to our burgers we had for dinner.  Here is the recipe!

BBQ Kale Chips

1 bunch of kale leaves
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
BBQ Seasoning, as follows:
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon organic evaporated cane sugar
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/8 teaspoon ground mustard
Dash of cayenne (add more or less or none if you want!)

1) Preheat oven to 275 degrees fahrenheit.  Chop up the kale into bite sized pieces.  Removed any really large stems from the pieces.

2) Dump the kale pieces into a bowl, and drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil on the kale leaves.  Mix them around until the kale is evenly coated. It shouldn't be drenched in oil, but have a nice light coating.
3) Sprinkle half of the seasoning into the bowl and mix around until it is evenly distributed.

4) Spread the kale onto two baking sheets, leaving some space between the pieces.  Sprinkle the remaining seasoning on top so you are sure each chip has yummy BBQ goodness on it!

5)Cook the kale chips for 25-30 minutes until they are crispy and slightly browned.  Let cool and enjoy!


*If you are in a hurry you could also cook it in a 375 fahrenheit oven for about 15 minutes.

What About The Fruit?!

I'm sure most of you are wondering, what am I doing with all of this awesome seasonal fruit?! Strawberries, Raspberries, and Cherries?  Well, my husband and I like to eat fruit as a snack, whether that is during the day in between meals, or as a sweet treat at night with some dark chocolate.  Also, we add fruit to our granola or yogurt for breakfast.

One Sunday morning, we had pancakes with strawberries as a topper.  Then also made some "mimosas" and used crushed strawberries as our "juice"! I'm sure at some point, I am going to want to make a pie or cobbler, but I will be sure to share my recipe when I do!

Clean Eating Chocolate Waffles

Here is the long awaited recipe! I'm sure I'll be doing some more tweaking to this, but here is the recipe I made yesterday.  I got the basis of the recipe from The Gracious Pantry..  I decided I wanted to tweak it a bit, and thought about adding Peanut Butter because who doesn't love PB cups! Well, the peanut butter didn't make a flavorful impact I was hoping for, but, man, the protein in peanut butter makes them sooo filling! My husband couldn't even finish the 2 waffles on his plate, which normally is no problem for him!

If you are new to clean eating, I highly recommend adding more honey, maybe 2-3 tablespoons more.  Once you adapt to clean eating, you enjoy things that are lightly sweetened, especially sweetened with natural ingredients such as honey or maple syrup.  It does take a bit for you body to get used to it, so if you are a newbie, then add some more honey!  Also, if you aren't into dark chocolate, I would use regular cocoa, rather than the dark chocolate cocoa I used.

Then for toppings, sure you could do the basic pure maple syrup on top, but here are some other fun suggestions.  My husband and I heated up organic strawberry jam with a bit of water and used that as our "syrup".  Then for breakfast this morning (these are excellent as leftovers, just freeze them and toast them up when you want to eat them!) I mixed plain greek yogurt and peanut butter, you could even add a bit of honey or maple syrup, and I made sort of a PB cup waffle sandwich.  Yum! Super filling as well!!!  My next version may include coffee!

Clean Eating Chocolate Waffles

(makes 6-7 waffles)

Adapted from The Gracious Pantry

1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur's White Whole Wheat)

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used dark chocolate)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup ground flaxseed meal

1-3/4 cup milk (you can use any kind you have, dairy or non dairy)

1 ripe banana

1/2 cup natural peanut butter (the ingredients should be only peanuts and possibly salt)

2 whole eggs

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons honey (add more if you are new to clean eating!)

1) Mix all of the dry ingredients-flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and flaxseed meal, using a whisk, whisk them together.  Using a whisk simulates using a sifter (its a lazy way of doing it, I learned it from Martha Stewart!).  It will break up all of the clumps and make the dry ingredients fluff up.  

2) Mix all of the wet ingredients together-milk, banana, peanut butter, eggs, butter, vanilla, and honey.  I used a potato masher, so it would mash up the bananas and mix the ingredients together.  They won't mix perfectly but get it so the bananas and peanut butter is all mixed in or in small pieces.

3) Slowly whisk in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.  Mix until everything is just mixed and there are no clumps.  Be careful to not over mix, because then you will bring out the stretchy glutens, and won't make a nice fluffy waffle! 

4) I like to have the batter sit for a few minutes so the baking soda can start doing its work.  This is when I then preheat the waffle iron.  I set it to the highest setting because I like crispy waffles.  

5) Once the waffle iron is heated, I use a bit of butter on both sides of the iron to be sure that the waffle doesn't stick.  Then pour a ladleful of batter in the center of the iron, and close it up.  Follow however your waffle iron tells you they are done! Viola! Yummy, good for you, chocolate waffles are here!