Tequila Lime Marinade
 
1/4 c. tequila
1/4 c. lime juice
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp onion powder

The chicken marinated for about six hours. We took the meat off the chicken thighs and ate it wrapped up in a tortilla with a shredded Mexican cheese blend and lettuce (for those who wanted it). The chicken turned out really good, and I had Matt cook two extra thighs so I could have some chicken tomorrow at lunch.

Today, we’re trying something different: Oatmeal Breakfast Bars. They’re wonderfully dense and taste like an oatmeal cookie and can’t be easier to make. We all gobbled them up, and they’ve been added to the “must make them again” list. Next time I make them, I’ll be adding walnuts.

Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

4 c. dry oats (old-fashioned or quick cooking)
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
3/4 – 1 c. canola oil
4 eggs, well beaten
1/2 c. Craisins
1 c. raisins

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Put all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and until everything’s moistened.

3. Press into a greased 9×13 pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting into individual bars.

From: http://stolenmomentscooking.com/oatmeal-breakfast-bars/

Per Serving: 357 Calories; 16g Fat (40.3% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 48g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 53mg Cholesterol; 90mg Sodium.

Exchanges: 1 1/2 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 1/2 Fruit; 3 Fat; 1 Other Carbohydrates.

Now, I’m looking for recipes for pizza sauce that will freeze well.

What you see here are green bell peppers, some sweet Hungarian peppers, a couple jalapenos (hiding in there somewhere), along with a bunch of basil.

We planted nine tomato plants – six good for sauces and three for slicing tomatoes. The tomatoes in the bowl are sauce tomatoes. I’m going to blanch them quickly so I can remove the skins, then get rid of the seeds and much of the liquid, then throw them into the freezer. Once they’re all ripe (and the weather is cooler) I’m going to make a huge batch of tomato sauce and can it. Most of it will be for pasta, though part of it will be seasoned for pizza sauce and stored separately. I’m not sure if I’ll can the pizza sauce or put it in the freezer in the Bell freezer containers.

I started with Bruce Moffitt’s recipe, but made some minor changes. They’re listed below:

Crystallized Ginger

a 9 to 10 oz piece of fresh ginger (try to find a piece that’s pretty straight, and without a bunch of small knobs)
2 cups sugar
1 tbsp water

Peel the ginger using your favorite method (the easiest is with a spoon), and cut out any discolored spots, as well as the dried up ends. Cut the ginger up into 1/8″ dice, then combine in a bowl with the sugar. Stir it up really well.

Put the water into a heavy bottomed saucepan (something non-stick would probably work well, if you’ve got it, but the bottom has to be heavy). Add in the sugar and ginger and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar’s melted and it’s formed a syrup.

Reduce the heat to as low as it will go, Cook for about half an hour. If the mixture’s foaming, don’t worry – mine did that too. After that half hour, don’t stray too far from the stove. Keep an eye on it, still stirring occasionally, watching for signs of crystallization. You’ll see it start around the edges of the pot. Mine started to turn after about a total of 50 minutes of cooking time. When you can move the crystals into the middle of the pan and there’s hardly any syrup left at the bottom of the pot, you’re done! Remove it from the heat immediately, pour it onto a silpat or some other surface that you’ll be able to get cooled sugar off of easily and let cool.

When it’s cooled down, put it into an air tight container and store in a cool, dark (and dry) place.

I ended up with about half ginger pieces, ginger-flavored sugar crystal chunks. And oh, is it good! Matt says the sugar tastes just like ginger Altoids, but a tiny bit sweeter.

I found a low carb, sugar free lemon curd recipe, played around with it, and this is what I ended up with. It’s full of lemony deliciousness, though not as sweet as most people might be used to. If you prefer it sweeter, just add more sweetener.

And lemon curd’s not just for desserts anymore! Check out my Lemon Chicken recipe that uses it!

Sugar Free Lemon Curd

Makes 6 (1/4 cup) servings

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 whole eggs
1 each egg yolk
1 tablespoon lemon zest — or the zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon sweetener — equivalent to 1/2 cup sugar

Cut the butter into 8 to 10 pieces and put it in the freezer until frozen.

With a blender (either standard or immersion), combine the remaining ingredients. Transfer them to a small saucepan or a double boiler. Cook over medium low heat, stirring with a whisk, until the mixture is thickened. You can tell it’s ready when you can coat the back of a spoon with it and when you draw a line in the curd with your finger and the line stays clear – the curd doesn’t move to try and fill in the empty space.

Remove the thickened mixture from the heat and add in the frozen butter. Whisk until the butter has melted completely.

You can use the curd immediately, or put it in the fridge where it will thicken more. Put a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to prevent a skin from forming.

Makes about 1.5 cups

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 192 Calories; 19g Fat (85.8% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 3g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 183mg Cholesterol; 197mg Sodium.

Exchanges: 1/2 Lean Meat; 0 Fruit; 3 1/2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.

It’s all been prepped. The ground beef separated into 1 lb packages and put into the freezer (one’s in the fridge to make beef “sausage” tonight for supper). The pork loin was divided into 3 (each section about 2 lbs); two were sliced up into strips for use with Spicy Pork Stir Fry, and one was cubed up for use in Onion-Apple Pork Stew (or something similar).

Tomorrow I’m going to be baking and getting the veggies all prepared. The Spicy Pork Stir Fry takes a lot of peppers and onions, mainly because I love it with lots of peppers and onions.

I also packed of 12 cups of home made chicken broth into 2 cup portions. Tonight I’m going to be roasting two chickens (got them for $0.87/lb), then shredding the meat and setting the carcasses aside to make soup – which I’m going to freeze. We use a lot of chicken broth over the winter, in chowders, to cook rice in, and other yummy stuff. Those two carcasses should get me about 16 to 20 cups of broth. That should last me until whole chickens are on sale again.

What do you do to help save money and make meal prep easier for you and your family?

1. I need to get a much larger bowl to mix everything in. I had flour flying all over the place. A bowl that holds about 3 gallons might do the trick.
2. The dough is very sticky. While spraying the mixing bowl and dough hook when using the machine might be enough, oil must be used on your hands, otherwise you’ll end up with a half inch of dough caking them.
3. Kneading by hand is not something I should do for that amount of dough ever again. My hands and wrists are killing me.
4. Every time I make bread, I love doing it more and more.

I’m glad to see I’m getting people here, looking at my recipe for sourdough bread. I just want to point out that the recipe isn’t for 100% whole wheat bread. I use a combination of unbleached white whole wheat and unbleached all-purpose flour for my starter, mainly because I use it for more than just bread. The recipe itself also uses a combination of whole wheat and bread flour.

But don’t think I’m going to give away my bread machine. I love to use it to make pizza and pasta doughs.

I love this cake, so I’m going to have to see what I can do to bring that carb count down a bit.

Now, I’ve tagged this recipe as Diabetes Friendly because my blood sugar levels after eating it have been really good. I know some people find they have problems with sourdough, regardless of the kind of flour it’s made with. All I can say is this recipe for homemade sourdough bread (I even made the starter from scratch using just flour and water) has no negative impact on me, so your mileage may vary.

This recipe makes enough dough for two loaves of bread. I know you can freeze bread dough, but I’d rather bake the bread right away and then freeze one loaf. The bread I made is definitely not like any store-bought sourdough breads I’ve had. It’s not light and airy – quite the opposite in fact. It was a wonderfully firm bread, with a denseness that I love. In fact, each loaf weight a little over 2 lbs! I know I offered to mail my father-in-law a loaf, but given how heavy it is – and how delicious it is – I think I’ll just have to wait and bring over a couple of fresh loaves the next time we visit.

The bread recipe I used was About.com’s Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread. Just as a warning, it took me almost 24 hours from start to finish, though much of that time was the stuff just sitting there doing its thing. The first rise was in the fridge, and I didn’t think it had risen very much, if at all, during that time. The second rise took about five hours – 2 on the countertop, and 3 in the oven. The house was pretty cool that day, so after the first two hours, I turned the oven into a proofing box – I put the bread on the top rack of the oven, and a large pot of boiling water on the rack beneath it (and reboiled the water every hour to make sure there was enough heat and moisture in the oven). So, with the length of time needed for the rise, make sure you’re going to do this on a day when you’re going to be home.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

 
Inactive Prep Time: 11 – 18 hours
Active Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes

Makes 2 loaves

4-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3-3/4 cups warm water
1 cup sourdough starter

1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup vegetable oil
5 cups bread flour

1. On the night before you want to bake the bread, mix together the whole wheat flour, warm water, and a cup of your favorite sourdough starter in a large bowl. Cover bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let set overnight. If your house is going to be below 65F, then you might want to use a proofing box.

2. The morning you want to bake, stir down sponge. Mix in baking soda, salt, honey, and vegetable oil.

3. Mix in bread flour. The dough will be sticky.

4. Knead the dough for 5 minutes. I used my Kitchen-Aid Artisan mixer, but you can do it by hand. Oil your hand slightly with vegetable oil to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands and knead the dough inside the large bowl.

5. Let the dough sit for 10 minutes.

6. Grease two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Divide dough in half and place in loaf pans.

7. Cover and let loaves rise for 2 hours or until the dough has risen a little over the edge of the pan. Again, if your house/kitchen is cool, use a proofing box or the oven and boiling water method I described above.

8. Bake loaves at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees F and bake for another 30 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when tapped on.

9. Turn loaves out and let cool. The bread can be bagged and frozen for up to 3 months.