Protein Waffles

Waffles are a great breakfast food, but if you don't add a little protein into the mix, they can leave you feeling hungry again much too early in the day.  These waffles have 175 calories per serving, plus 19g of carbs, 8gg of protein, and 7g of fat.  If you add in some yogurt or spread with some peanut (or other nut) butter, you can increase the protein further.  Plus, they're delicious!

Protein Waffles
(14 servings)

1 very ripe medium banana
1 c. 2% milkfat cottage cheese
1 c. unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 c. milk
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/4 c. coconut oil

3/4 c. oat flour
1/2 c. hemp hearts
1 1/4 c. flour
4 t. baking powder

In a blender, combine all wet ingredients (listed before break).  Add in half of dry ingredients, pulse a few times to incorporate, then add rest of dry ingredients and blend.  Allow batter to rest about 5 minutes.  Heat and grease waffle iron.  Makes 7 round Belgian waffles (14 servings).

**If you don't have hemp seeds/hearts, increase oat flour to 1 1/4 c. total.  Or substitute whole wheat flour for the oat flour.  Omitting the hemp seeds will change the protein and fiber content.  You must have 2 1/2 cups of dry flour for the batter.

Italian pantry soup

I love Olive Garden's zuppa toscana.  It is the only way I think I would have tried kale, initially.  You have to remember I was a picky eater, up until about 7 years ago.  The only cooked vegetables I would eat were corn and potatoes.  Really.  I have come a long way since then, but I still am looking to increase my veggie intake, and really, shouldn't we all increase our vegetable intake?  This soup was born of my love for the zuppa at OG, but I was hampered by what I actually had in house.  And instead of making a special trip to the store to buy ingredients, I decided to bastardize my own version of the soup.  It was a very delicious experiment!

Italian pantry soup
1 can white cannelini beans, well-rinsed
4 Italian (chicken) sausages
1 tsp. oil
1 large russet potato, washed and sliced thin
6 c. water
1/2 c. chopped onion
2 tsp. chopped garlic
1 large bunch kale, rinsed, drained, and chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp. better than bouillon soup base

In a high-sided skillet, warm oil and brown sausages on all sides.  Remove to a plate and cut length-wise and return to pan to brown insides.  Remove to a paper plate and cut into bite-sized pieces and allow to drain.  In a crockpot or large stock pot, put beans, sausage pieces, sliced potato, onion, garlic, water, and soup base.  Cook on low in crock for ~6 hrs. or on stove-top in stock pot until potato is fork tender.  When soup is ready, add kale and cover for 5-10 minutes to wilt kale.  Serve hot.

If you like it hot, you could add some crushed red pepper.  If you like it creamy, like OG's, you could add either some heavy cream, a dollop of cream cheese or sour cream, or pureed potatoes to the broth in order to give it that creamy consistency.

Sweet and Tangy Meatballs

As promised, I'm writing about another of my freezer cooking recipes.  I do want to state out-right that I didn't find a flaw with the recipe, just that for our family, the recipe just doesn't seem to fit us well.  I will definitely use this recipe for entertaining (read: Super Bowl-type party), but I will not be adding it into my regular rotation.  Though the kids absolutely loved it, I just don't find it versatile enough to be a meal staple for us.

Sweet and Tangy meatballs
1 bottle barbeque sauce
1 bottle/jar of (grape) jelly
40 meatballs
1 c. chopped onions

Combine all ingredients and divide between two bags.  Lay flat to freeze.  Cook in crockpot on low for 2-4 hours.  Serve with rice or noodles.

Lazy Day Stew

This is one of the previously mentioned freezer meals as well.  If you want to see any of the meal recipes in their original format, please follow the links in my original freezer meals introductory post. This recipe was very hearty and flavorful; I served it with pasta to soak up some of the juices and my husband said it was even better the next day as leftovers for his lunch.  The original recipe calls for potatoes, but I omitted them from my freezer bags in order to have more versatility.  I figured I could always throw potatoes into the crockpot if I wanted it to be an actual stew.  This recipe makes two freezer meals - divide evenly between two gallon-sized zip-top freezer bags, and lay flat to freeze.

Lazy Day Stew
4 lbs cubed stewing beef
10 oz pkg dried lima beans
2 15-oz cans tomato sauce (one in each bag)
2 Tbs. brown sugar (one in each bag)
4 c. baby carrots, sliced
2 c. onions chopped
2 c. celery chopped
2 t. minced garlic
2 large or 4 md. bay leaves
2 tsp. seasoning salt
2 c. water/broth (1 c. per meal, to be added at time of cooking)

Split between two bags.  Add 1 c. water/broth at time of cooking; cook on low 4-6 hours.  Serve as a soup, over noodles or rice, or with a big hunk of crusty bread for sopping up juices.

For a delicious, non-tomato based stew, check out my oven stew recipe!

Pesto Pork

The original recipe calls for 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs.  But I had a rolled pork roast (bought as part of a package of pork loin roasts) from Costco, so I decided to give this recipe a try with pork. I also used Costco pesto sauce, bought in the refrigerated section.  I would not recommend using a shelf-stable pesto with this recipe, mostly because those tend to be made from dried basil and consist mostly of oil.  Homemade pesto would be ideal, though I have to tell you that the Kirkland's Signature pesto is a very close second, in my book, to homemade.  If freezer cooking, double the recipe and divide between two gallon-sized freezer zip-top plastic bags.

Crockpot Pesto Pork
1 4-lb pork roast/pork loin
1/2 c. prepared pesto sauce
1/4 t. black pepper
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 c. chicken broth (add when putting into crockpot)

Place all ingredients in crockpot (if freezer cooking, no need to thaw ahead of time); cook on high for 5-6 hours.  Pork will shred easily with tongs.

I served ours with steamed broccoli and brown rice, both seasoned with my homemade seasoning salt.  We will definitely be able to get a second meal out of this.  Maybe pesto pork tacos....

Adventures in freezer cooking

Oh, ladies and gentlemen, I am tired.  So tired.  I just spent five hours chopping, dicing, portioning, tagging, and bagging vegetables and meals.  I piled way too much on my plate, so to speak.  Yes, I punned. ;)

Firstly, let me just say, chopping 10 lbs of onions in one go-'round was maybe not my best idea.  Do I have chopped onions in reserve now in my freezer to use at a later date?  You betcha.  And that will be nice.  But folks, my eyes are not thanking me right now.  They are still a little burn-y from all the onion fumes.  I was running the knife under cold water after each onion, and running each slice of onion under cold water before chopping it, and it still burned like lemon juice in a paper cut.

Secondly, I also chopped and bagged 4 bunches of celery and a quart-sized freezer bag of bell peppers.  I don't know about all of you, but peppers and celery do not stay fresh in my fridge very long.  So at least this way, I am not throwing away money by tossing spoiled produce.

Thirdly, if you decide to embark upon a freezer cooking session, I have a serious piece of two-pronged advice to give you.  Go big, and build a stash, or be modest and spend some time doing other things with your day.  Five hours is a long time to spend in the kitchen grouping ingredients for your recipes.  But now I have 14 meals (plus tonight's dinner is also in the crockpot) and a couple bags of chopped veggies to go, too.  At this point, I figure I can spend an hour a couple times later on this week and add three more recipes (that's six more meals) to my freezer arsenal.  At this rate, if I do one freezer-cooking session a week, I can always have some freezer meals on hand, and that is something that will be super nice for those days when life interferes.

Below, you can find the pages where I drew my recipes (or in some cases, my inspiration).  I will blog about each recipe as I thaw it, cook it, and we consume it, so you can look forward to those upcoming posts.  Some of the pages have multiple recipes on them, and I didn't make all of them, but if they interest you, you do your thing!

http://kristisrecipebox.blogspot.com/2011/09/crockpot-pork-chops.html
http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net/2012/02/freezer-cooking.html
http://www.laaloosh.com/2012/07/09/crock-pot-beer-chicken-recipe/
http://ldsliving.com/story/68979-easy-slow-cooker-recipes

Have you ever done any freezer cooking?  Are you interested in it?  What did you cook?  Did you like it or would you change the recipe the next time?  Do you have any advice for others who might want to freezer-cook?  What is your favorite freezer meal?

P.S. I will be blogging about tonight's dinner tomorrow (probably), so if you have chicken, beer, and garlic, and are looking for a meal idea, check back tomorrow (probably)!

Breakfast cookies

I created this recipe in order to have something healthy and easy on hand for those hectic mornings.

1 c. (old fashioned) oats, pulsed into fine powder in blender or processor
3/4 c. oats
1/4 c. wheat germ (optional)
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 c. pumpkin purée
1 medium banana, sliced
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. honey
2 eggs
Pinch salt
1/4-1/2 c. water
1/3 c. butterscotch chips (optional)

In blender, pulse 1 c. oats into fine powder. Transfer to mixing bowl; add remaining oats, wheat germ, and pumpkin pie spice. In blender add banana slices, vanilla, eggs, pumpkin purée, and salt. Pulse until banana is incorporated. Add a little bit of water and blend until smooth- you want the liquid to be about the consistency of a runny pudding. Add wet to dry and stir to combine. Drop dollops of batter about 3 Tbsp in size, and press with back of spoon to spread out in a cookie shape (these cookies don't rise and spread like traditional cookies). Bake about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Let cool 10 minutes before eating or cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

For an even healthier option, replace the two eggs with 2 Tbsp. of unsweetened applesauce.