Sunday, September 29, 2013

Dehydrated Fruit Chips

Dehydrated Fruit Chips. 

The options are really limitless in my opinion. 
But some of my personal favorites:

Cantaloupe: 
The important thing is to use a ripe melon. The dehdration process just makes the flavor stronger, so if your melon is still a little tart and unripe, your chips will turn out tart! (yes I did learn that lesson the hard way.)
So you start by slicing the melon into 1/4" thick slices. Remove the rind and place on your trays.
and go. 
I did mine at 130 degrees for about 10 hours. 
They look like this once done. Delicious and crispy


Watermelon Chips:

Same process. Again super important to use a really ripe melon.
If your watermelon has black seeds, you should remove those. The White seeds you can keep, they are ok to eat.
I used a little melon for my chips, so the final chips are little and round instead of slices.
Optional: sprinkle with some sea salt. That is if you like salt on watermelon. I do so I did :)


Then Plum Chips.
I personally love these. You can take them out a little earlier and have some plum jerky if you like. Otherwise you sohuld probably eat these chips a little faster as they don't tend to stay crispy as long as the melon chips do.
I like to soak my slices in orange juice overnight to give it a plum-orangey flavor, but you don't have to. Plums on their own are pretty tasty anyways.
You don't have to remove the skin, as you can eat it. But you can if you want. The skin gets a little hard, but I personally don't have any problem with it.


 

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Stuffed Peppers



Stuffed Peppers




This recipe could not be easier. And the best thing is, if you want to sub an ingrendient, it's so easy. No cooked rice on hand? Use some orzo pasta. Don't have mixed beans? Use a can of black beans, or add more vegetables. Add an onion, add shredded cheese... the options are so limitless.

Here is my basic recipe for vegetarian stuffed peppers. I like to use lentils alot. I feel like they have a meaty flavor and I can typically pass them off as a meat option to my family when I mix them in recipes.




I typically make mine in a crock pot due to the ease of throwing them in and coming home to something cooked and ready to go. An hour for cooking on a weeknight is too much for my son to wait for, so it's nice if it's ready to go.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Dried Strawberries

Seriously delicious and sooooo easy you won't believe me.

Dehydrated Strawberries!

So step 1: Wash then Cut up strawberries into slices. Mine were about 1/4"-3/8" thick.
Step 2: put on tray on dehyradator and go. Mine took 6-8 hours at 135 degrees F.
If you don't have a dehyradator, there is no reason why you couldn't do this in the oven at the same temp.


And voila, dried Strawberries. Yummy. They are actually sweeter dried. The healthiest twizzler taste you can get!

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Turkey Spinach Sandwich

Turkey Spinach Wrap/Sandwich
 Ingredients:
8 cooked Turkey Meatball (I used frozen store bought ones)
3 tsp butter
1 small diced onion
10 oz bag frozen chopped spinach (thawed and squeezed dry)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 cup shred cheese (I used Monterey Jack)
4 pitas/wraps whatever you want to use


I put the spinach in a paper towel or a kitchen towel to squeeze all of the water out

Melt butter in skillet. Add onion. Cook until onions are soft. Add spinach and garlic. Cook and additional 2 mins

Cut meatballs into small chunks. Add to skillet. Stir until meatballs are warm.
Stir in Cheese and cook until cheese is melted.

Put into your favorite bread or wrap and eat :)
 If you like mushroms, you could add 2 cups of fresh sliced mushrooms to this. (I personally don't eat them)

I would also serve this with some salsa. Mmmmmm

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Christmas Cinnamon Pickles

Okay so a start to the new year, a new recipe. This is a personal favorite sneaky recipe of mine from the holidays.
This recipe is enough for 1 jar because I like to do thing in small batches :)

Cinnamon Christmas Pickles

INGREDIENTS:
1-1/2 ounces large cucumbers

Peel cucumbers. Cut the cucumber into 1/4 inch circles and remove seeds (this is totally optional, feel free to cut up however you want) and place into a glass or ceramic crock. Dissolve the pickling lime in about 1 cup of room temperature water, pour over the cucumbers, then add additional water until the cucumbers are covered by 1/2 inch. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours.

         Peeled and deseeded                                                                         Not peeled/deseeded
(look you can pass these off as apples)                                                           (clearly a pickle)














Drain the cucumbers and rinse well with cold water. Place into a large stockpot, and cover with cold water. Allow to stand for 3 hours, then drain and rinse again.

Return the cucumbers to the pot, add the food coloring, alum, 1/2 tsp vinegar, and enough water to cover by 1/2 inch. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to a simmer, and cook 2 hours. Once the cucumbers have cooked for 2 hours, drain and allow to cool a bit before placing into the glass or ceramic jar.

Stir together sugar, 1 1/4 tsp cups vinegar, 1 1/4 tsp water, cinnamon red hot candies, and cinnamon sticks in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar and candies dissolve. Pour this mixture over the warm cucumbers, cover, and let stand overnight.

Pack pickles into pint jar, and process in a hot water bath for 15 to 20 minutes. Refrigerate jars if it does not seal.


(you can see that this batch I didn't remove the seeds/peel. They don't bother me and I was eating them, so knew they were pickles. If you are tricking other people to think it's cinnamon apples you should peel and deseed)