Saturday, October 31, 2009

Uses for Canning Jar Rings

I got this idea from Ms. Catalina.

Grease the inside of a wide mouth canning ring (PAM or butter works). Heat pan to medium heat. Place ring onto pan and crack an egg into it. Flip when egg looks firm.

Place on toasted english muffins.


Yummy :) I love dippy eggs!

Freezing Zucchini

I LOVE ZUCCHINI!! Thank goodness it freezes well ^_^
Here is the zucchini that I shredded up from last time I went to the downtown farmers market.

Rinse the zucchini to get off any dirt. Then shred them into a giant bowl.... or bowl+plate...


Then get out the plastic wrap cut off about a square. Scoop the zucchini out into 1 cup portions. Make sure you pack it in the measuring cup because it will lose moisture over time.


Then fold the plastic wrap over making little zucchini pillows. Make sure you get out as much air as you can. As you can see I got 14 cups of shredded zucchini :)

Then throw them in a giant freezer bag (or 2) and use when needed. Again, make sure you get out as much air as you can.

Easy Peasy :)

Also, if you have any bits that you had to peel or cut off, throw them in a bag and put it in the freezer. Whenever I have leftover veggie bits (zucchini, carrots, celery...), I freeze them until I have enough to make veggie broth. It's soooo very yummy :)

Cheers!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Upcoming Crafts...

My sister will be back from college for Thanksgiving next month so I thought getting her and my other sister together to do a craft would be fun. Here's what I have planned...



Stay tuned for the results :)

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Make-A-Mix Chocolate Chip Cookies (revisited)

I like making things in large batches so that I can freeze/store them away for later (who doesn't?). Well I think that the freezer cookie dough is wonderful but with the recent salmonella scares, it definitely not worth it. In an older post I mentioned this book I got from my BF's mom called Make-A-Mix: 306 recipes to save time and money. I LOVE this book!!

I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies to take to my BFF for her birthday so I made this recipe and made extras. Originally, the book says to roll the extra dough into logs to slice. Well since I have to be different I tried making my own freezer cookie dough ball packages.

Place extra dough balls made with a medium cookie scoop on wax paper and place in the freezer to harden. Then, transfer to sandwich baggies. I got 12 dough balls in 1 standard size Ziplock sandwich baggie ^_^ The total recipe made about 6.5 dozen cookies. I froze 4.5 dozen shown below. My BF likes to eat the dough raw anyway so he likes the easy access :)


Refer to this post for the recipe ^_^ Now if I want to bake cookies I can just pull out a baggie, separate the dough balls and toss them onto a cookie sheet. I like being lazy :)


Saturday, October 17, 2009

Cranberry Walnut Zucchini Bread

OMG I found the greatest zucchini bread recipe. Even my kitty Shinobi was interested :) I modified it a little from Deb's recipe at Smitten Kitchen (I love her site!!). Here it is:

Cranberry Walnut Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple sauce
1 cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup wheat flour
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Grease two 8×4 inch loaf pans, 24 muffin cups or one 8x4 inch loaf pan and 4 mini loaf pans. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Mix in oil and sugar, then zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt, as well as nuts and cranberries. Stir this into the egg mixture. Divide the batter into prepared pans. Bake loaves for 60 minutes, plus or minus ten, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Muffins and mini loaves will bake faster, about 20 to 25 minutes.

This makes your home smell heavenly ^_^ This is definitely a keeper.

Here are some other changes that I want to try:

* use 2 egg whites and 2 mashed bananas
* use an 8 oz. can of crushed pineapple and some cut up maraschino cherries

Thanks Deb!!

Cheers ^_^

Apple Chips

Apple chips are super easy to make and make your home smell yummy.

Peel (optional), core and slice apples into thin wedges. Soak in lemon water for about 10 minutes. Then sprinkle with cinnamon/nutmeg/brown sugar (or not) and bake at the lowest setting for about 6 to 8 hours (rotate periodically) with the oven cracked open. Don't bake over 200 degrees otherwise the slices won't dehydrate properly. I ended up putting mine in the toaster oven for another hour to make sure they got nice and dry. If you have a dehydrator.... lucky you. Using a dehydrator is easier than oven drying :) Here's the final product....

Put them in an airtight container and they keep for about a year. You can also rehydrate them to use in baking if needed.... They are also yummy snacks to throw in lunch boxes.

Cheers ^_^

Mini Chicken Pot Pie!!

My BF liked the chicken pot pie I made a while ago (that I made a double batch of and stuck one in the freezer) so much that he asked me to make one for his dad. Well after I made the full sized pot pie for his dad, I had leftover dough bits and pot pit filling. I remembered that my BFs mom gave a free mini pie maker like the one below.....
... so I naturally had to make a mini chicken pot pie. IT WAS THE CUTEST THING EVER!!

Here is the tiny pot pit on top of the full sized one ^_^ It's so adorable. I ended up throwing it in the freezer and taking it to work for part of lunch the next day. It reheated wonderfully and the crust was still flaky and AWESOME!!! I will totally be making more of these to throw in the freezer.

This has been your daily dose of cute food ^_^


Friday, October 16, 2009

UGH..........

Sorry I've been MIA... School and work and life took over.

I'll soon be posting pics of:
  • a mini chicken pot pie I made with my (free!) mini-pie maker
  • apple chips
  • homemade Halloween cookies - sugar cookies, chocolate sugar cookies, pumpkin cookies
  • mini zucchini loaves
I'll be making another trip or two to the farmer's markets in the area to stock up on some stuff so I'll have yummy produce pics as well :) My dear brother is even coming with me to the market under I-83 with me!! I'll take pics while I'm there because it's so awesome.

Also my BFF Erin's birthday was on Tuesday so I'm going to try to drive up to PA to visit her and bring her some baked goodies ^_^

Check out Kristen's dry soup mixes! They sound delicious :) I'll be putting some of them together.

Oh and I have homework to do LOL!

Soooo much to do!!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Found a NEW Farmer's Market

My BF's study partner showed me this wonderful market under I-83 in downtown Baltimore. Granted, I was a little skeptical about it since downtown is a little sketchy and funny smelling sometimes... but this place was fabulous. So many people were out supporting local businesses and farms! Not only was there fresh produce but also vendors cooking food in front of you. Everything smelled sooooo wonderful! Here is what I got:

peaches - $6
tomatoes - $5
sweet potatoes - $3
zucchini (6 yellow & 5 green) - $4
a french baguette (we already ate it with chicken soup) - $3

If anyone in the area wants to go, here's where it is (the middle section there under 83):

It's a little confusing to get there so if you're interested, message me and I'll try to explain where it is.