"Deuteronomy"

Friday night leftovers to clean out the 'fridge before getting groceries. Usually an interesting combination.

Omlets and Buttermilk Banana Nut Muffin Bread

After visiting the Farmer's Market, we had a lot more onions on hand that are usually in the 'fridge. So our omlets had onion, mushrooms, peppers, gyro meat, and crumbled blue or feta cheeses. When I've done omlets in the past, I've added some water to the eggs while whipping them. This time I didn't, and they turned out much better.

I used my basic sweet muffins recipe to make the bread.

Preheat oven to 400

Grease pan you're going to use

Mix in small bowl:

1 1/2 c. flour (I usually try to use at least 1/2 whole wheat flour)

1/2 c. sugar

2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

Mix separately:

1 slightly beaten egg

1/2 c. milk (I added a bit of vinegar to make this "buttermilk")

1/4 c. vegetable oil

Combine two mixtures until flour mixture is moistened (overmixing causes peaked muffins).

Add mashed bananas, nuts, chocolate chips, blueberries, etc.

Spread in pan and bake 15-20 minutes for muffins, longer for bread.

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Baked potatoes are a favorite of ours - or at least mine ...

Last night, for some variety, I did baked sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes. Not bad, but not worth writing home over (obviously, it's worth blogging over though).

I served them with steamed broccoli, ham chunks, sour cream, butter and cheese.

For dessert we had milkshakes.

Chicken Caesar Salad and Rhubarb Crisp

Growing up, I thought chicken was only done when it was dry and stringy. Now I know better.

I used olive oil to fry some chicken for our salad tonight, seasoning it with only salt and pepper. Since I had a bunch on hand, I served the salad with tomato as well as some sauteed sweet onion and mushrooms.

With the rhubarb growing in the garden, I figured it was time to use up some of the stuff from last year that was still in the freezer. I've taken to making just a small amount of "crisps" for dessert.

This recipe adapted from my Betty Crocker cookbook ...

Preheat oven to 375

Grease pan you're going to use (this varies with the size of crisp you want to make)

Cut up fruit (or in my case, veggies) and arrange in bottom of pan

Separately, mix:

2/3 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. oats (I use old fashioned despite the recipe calling for quick cooking)

1/3 c. stick margarine or butter (soft or melted)

3/4 t. ground cinnamon

3/4 t. ground nutmeg

Spread mixture over fruit (or veggies) and bake for 30 minutes (or until the "crisp" starts to brown)

Pita Bread

I finally tried making pita bread! It's pretty easy. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com. Here's the link:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Whole-Wheat-Pita-Bread-2/Detail.aspx

For the first batch, I tore the dough off in handfulls and rolled them out pretty thin. I did not let them rise before baking them. The recipe says to bake them for 8 minutes, but this produced frisbees that ended up out in the yard. So, I tried baking them for only 3-4 minutes on my stone and that went better.

For the second batch, I didn't roll them as thin, and let them rise a bit before baking. This produced the "pocket".

A recipe that I will now use more often.

Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes

We had a frozen meatloaf which only required thawing and re-heating.

I served it with cabbage mashed potatoes.
For these, I sauteed fineley chopped cabbage (add onion and mushrooms if you'd like) until soft, then added the boiled potatoes and mashed them all together.

This was a meal Leesha had requested and she wanted it served with corn. I don't usually serve corn and consider it a vegetable, but with the cabbage, we had our serving of veggies. Leesha didn't even notice the cabbage.

Stir Fry

I love the bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables and bottled sauce - a much easier way to enjoy stir-fry.