I AM A PUMPKIN PIE ADDICT

I admit it, I have a serious addiction when it comes to pumpkin pie. I love it's yumminess. I crave the pounds of sugar that help make it up. I could eat it for breakfast. I could eat it anytime for that matter. (and I did eat it for breakfast once- shhhhh, don't tell).

Now, I am picky about my pumpkin pie. I do not, and I repeat, do not like cloves in my pumpkin pie. Spicy pie is exactly why 90 percent of the pumpkin pie haters of the world detest pumpkin pie in the first place. All a good pumpkin pie needs is sugar, pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, some eggs, milk, and a pie crust. (and the pie crust isn't necessary either- I've had pumpkin pie with out the crust just the other day- yum yum).

This is my pumpkin pie recipe that I tore off of a can of pumpkin a long, long time ago. I've altered it a little over the years.

Ingredients:
1. 2 deep dish frozen pie crusts (or if you are adventurous, make your own- I'm not- so I always buy mine from the freezer section of my local supermarket rather than attempting the difficult task of making a homemade pie crust)
2. 6 eggs (I have used 4 before- didn't change the taste or texture in my opinion- so if you are short on eggs, 4 would probably work for you too)
3. 2 teaspoons cinnamon
4. 1 teaspoon sea salt
5. 1 can of pumpkin ( in supermarkets, it's the larger can - somewhere around 29 ounces) If you make your own- first of all, Hooray you can your own! Second of all, you would use just under 2 pounds)
6. 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
7. 2 cups sugar (can substitute brown sugar if needed)
8. 1-1/2 cans of evaporated milk

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Pour your eggs, salt, sugar, cinnamon, and ginger all together in a large bowl. Beat these ingredients together. Add the pumpkin and part of the evaporated milk. Mix thoroughly then add remaining evaporated milk. Blend thoroughly one last time. Pour into pie shells. Cook for about 10 minutes or so at 450 degrees and then turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees. Cook for 30-45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the pie. I say 30-45 minutes because cooking time varies with different ovens. (If your pie crust tops get too dark after 15 minutes or so, cover the crust edges only with thin sheets of aluminum foil to prevent them from burning).

Take the pies out of the oven, allow to cool and then refrigerate over night. Don't ask me why, but I personally think that pumpkin pies taste much better, (and has a better texture) the day after you cook them. If you can't wait, eat up and enjoy yours as soon as it's cool enough.

Mmmmm, I think I'll go make some pumpkin pie now..........

What Could It Be?

Are you stumped yet?

Here is a bunch of them. Is it Play Dough gone bad?

Does this help any?

Spinach Tortillas (a sneaky way to get vegetables into your kids)

3 cups flour (not self rising) + a couple tablespoons set aside
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 small package of frozen spinach
4-6 Tablespoons of shortening
1 to 1- 1/2 cups warm water

Start by boiling your frozen spinach until thoroughly warmed. Drain and set aside. Mix the 3 cups of flour with the baking powder and salt. Cut in the shortening until thoroughly mixed. Add the spinach and mix along with some of the water. Depending on how moist the spinach is, you may have to use more or less water to get everything moist. You need to get the dough to the consistency of biscuit dough. Once it is workable, transfer the dough to a clean surface and knead, knead, knead. You want to get the spinach thoroughly mixed in. Use the extra flour as needed when dough is too moist to work with. Shape into balls (size according to your liking). Let the balls of dough rest for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, roll out the dough into circles and cook as you would any flour tortilla.

Voila, an instant serving of vegetables!

No Animals Were Harmed in The Making of This Blog Post

My "fake" Hamburger Patty

Some time ago, I bought a pack of dried lentil beans. I had no idea what to do with them except that I had planned on sneaking some of the cooked lentils into some re fried beans (for burritos). After all, if I mashed them enough, no one would notice.

The other day, I had this crazy idea that involved turning lentils into hamburgers. What did I do next? I searched the trusty Internet and found a pretty decent looking recipe. There is one quite picky eater at my house- when it comes to trying something new in the kitchen- so I proceeded with caution.

If you look hard enough on the Internet you will find literally hundreds of women and men that are writing posts on how to save money grocery wise - especially in these tight times. One of the things that I can easily agree with most of them is to reduce your grocery budget by serving "meatless" meals every once in awhile. I know what you might be thinking, I am not turning vegan, I am just exploring my economical options grocery wise.

Raise your hand if you hate beans.

I have never been very fond of beans in general but in my family's journey of trying to eat healthier, beans have slowly found themselves inching their way into the cupboard. Which brings me back to what I had originally wanted to share with you all: Lentil Burgers.

Being one of those cooks that do not write down recipes and does not make exact measurements of ingredients, you may be at a loss if you are a beginner cook but bare with me, I'll try my best to explain my crazy lentil recipe. As I said earlier, I found a recipe on the Internet by searching "lentil burger" but I did not follow that recipe exactly. I changed it. OK, I altered it a lot.

Ingredients:

Small pack of dried lentils
One small onion (chopped)
Salt
Pepper
Whole wheat bread crumbs (dried) (About 5 slices of bread crumbled and dried out in the oven)
Three eggs
Olive Oil
Ketchup (about a tablespoon or so)

That's it. Can you believe it? Those ingredients turned into the picture above. Amazing, huh?

I started by soaking my lentils overnight in the crock pot. You don't have to, you could simply rinse them well in a colander, put in a pan of water and boil for about 40 minutes or until tender.

If you have read enough of my blog posts, I tend to do things the long, hard way. You don't have to soak your lentils, but I did. Basically, I soaked my beans over night in water and lemon juice. Why you ask? Check out The Weston A. Price Foundation for further info or read the cookbook, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. (Basically, soaking grains and beans in an acidic solution releases the "nasties" that cause gas and bloating in some people and also unlock some of the goodies inside to make it easier for your body to absorb the nutrition inside of the food). No one likes gas and everyone loves better nutrition- right? The next morning, I rinsed them with clean water, added fresh water back to the crock pot, covered the beans and cooked them all day on low.

When your beans are done, drain all extra liquid from them and dump them into a blender (you can use a mixer too). Add the three eggs and ketchup and blend until smooth. What you will end up with is a nasty looking brown liquid but it will surprisingly, smell good. I went ahead and added some salt and pepper to taste and blended awhile longer.

Meanwhile, tear up about 5 pieces of loaf bread and lay the pieces on a baking pan and bake for a few minutes. My oven was set on 350 degrees. I kept peeking at the crumbs and took them out when they were nice and toasty. At that point, I was able to break the larger crumbs up into smaller crumbs. Set them aside.

Transfer your brown lentil juice mixture into a large bowl and add your chopped onion. I ended up only adding half of the chopped onion because there are a few in my household that don't like onions. (I did not want to over do it). Mix in about half of your bread crumbs and stir the mixture. Wait a few minutes to allow the bread crumbs to absorb some liquid, and see if the mixture is too soupy. If so, add more bread crumbs to the mixture and stir. Don't worry if you think the mixture will not form "patties". All you need is a slightly firm glob that will plop easily from a spoon. (Don't you just love my proper cooking terms?)

In a medium heated frying pan with about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, carefully drop the patty mixture from a large spoon. Using your spoon, flatten the "glob" into the shape of a patty. (I fit four patties in my pan). Cover the pan and let them fry for about 6-10 minutes. Lift up an edge and see if they are browning well. If after 6-10 minutes and they are browned nicely, carefully flip the patties and cook for an additional 6-10 minutes until browned.

That's it, veggie burgers! Can you believe it was that easy? Just wait until you taste them. I couldn't believe how good they tasted. The guinea pigs at my house thought that they had ground beef mixed in with them.

They even look like ground beef patties don't they?

Yum, Yum and saved some money too!

Cookies for Breakfast?

Who wouldn't like cookies for breakfast? (I just had a vision of Cookie Crisp cereal......)

I'm talking about real cookies. Homemade cookies. The kind that smell good in the oven. You know, the kind that makes you want to slap someone. Well, I have a tried and true recipe that you will love and it is healthy! Because these cookies are healthy, you can use these babies as a breakfast food! Did you catch that? Fast, breakfast food that is nutritious and delicious!

As with anything I cook, the recipe can change each time I cook it but for the sake of sharing this recipe, I bit my lip and wrote down the recipe for you. I apologize for the comments out to the side but, like I said, I change things all the time and I wanted you to know how you could personalize your cookies too.

Standard Breakfast Cookie recipe:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

• 2 cups rolled oats (this is slow cook oatmeal- only dry)
• 2 cups plain flour (I use King Arthur's Bread flour- they don't bleach their flour)
• 1 teaspoon salt (I use sea salt- has more minerals in it)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (If you have a thing for cinnamon, I guess you could add more if you like)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda (not powder- soda- the stuff you put in your fridge to fight odor)
• 1 cup of "goodies" ( this could be raisins, chocolate chips, nuts, etc- I use raisins most of the time)
• 1/2 cup of melted butter (I use real butter- I suppose margarine would work, but I'm not sure- don't get mad at me if it doesn't)
• 1 cup of honey (yes, I said one cup of honey- honey has a lower glycemic index than sugar and it gives baked goods such a wonderful flavor. Check your supermarket or neighborhood bee keeper- I buy my honey in a quart jar)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (use the real stuff- not the artificial stuff- Don't you want the real stuff anyway?)
• 2 eggs (You know me, I use cage free, vegan fed eggs. Once you have lived in the country, regular white eggs just don't cut it)
• 1/2 cup of buttermilk (this is a must as you are using baking soda and the acid in the buttermilk is needed to make the cookie dough rise when combined with the soda)

Did you notice that there is no sugar in this recipe? No, I did not make a boo boo. The honey is your sweetener (yum).

Mix all ingredients together except the flour, oats, and "goodies". Once they are mixed well, mix in the flour, oats, and "goodies". You will want your batter to be thick so that you can spread it easily into a greased cookie sheet. If the batter is too dry, just add a little more buttermilk. The main thing is that you don't want the batter to be runny. Scoop out the batter onto the cookie sheet and spread around into one big roundish looking glob about 1/2 " thick. I suppose that you could shape them into cookie shapes but I don't fuss with the shape. Pop the one big massive cookie into the oven. This is the part that I let you guess at. I don't time the cookies. All ovens are different. As an estimate, I would guess about 15 minutes minimum. Keep peeking at the dough and wait until they are light to medium brown and feel done to the touch. Make sure the center of the huge cookie is done and not "mushy". Pull the yummy cookies out of the oven and cut into bars- I use a spatula to cut them with. At this point, call the herd in and tell them they get to eat cookies for breakfast. You will be a hero!

Voila, you just made a nutritious cookie that you can use for a quick breakfast or a healthy snack. They save so much time when you have some of these made and put into the freezer for those hectic days!

Cookies without the guilt! What could be better?

Want to make these sugar free for a diabetic?

Substitute the honey with: one teaspoon of powdered Stevia (or two dropper fulls of liquid Stevia) then add 3/4 cup of sugar free applesauce to the batter before cooking. (The applesauce will replace the bulk and need for the extra liquid ) Hey, everybody can use extra fiber!

I ran up on a recipe very similar to mine. It is short, sweet, and too the point. Visit here if you don't have time for my silly comments! I haven't tried her recipe exactly but her cookies sure did turn out prettier than mine.