Shepherd's Pie

I just made the Simply Recipes version of Shepherd's Pie and it's blowing both of us out of the water. WOW. This is going into regular rotation for its ease of preparation and absolute deliciousness.

I  modified by making it with those Morningstar Crumbles instead of meat. The veggies I added to the mix of meat and onions were chopped carrots, corn, and Le Sueur Early Peas (straight from the can, rinsed, to keep things easy). I also added just a tiny bit of garlic powder to the browning meat, and used kosher salt for my salt.

I put J on mashed potato duty. To make the mashed potatoes, he used the recommended amount of butter, a tiny dash of powdered onion, a tiny dash of garlic powder, and a tiny dash of milk.

Don't skimp on the butter, this stuff is amazing. I always love her recipes anyway, but WOW. Easy, and mind-blowingly delicious. And totally vegetarian if you want it to be. Bookmark her site!

exciting discovery

I've just discovered this site wherein you can customize a cookbook. Found it, by the way, in a search for enchiladas recipes that utilize bacon. Found that too.

Banana Bread

If ever there was a ringing endorsement of food, it would be the disappearance of my banana bread in the office. Not technically myyyy banana bread, since it's another AllRecipes gem. Still. Time to disappear: one hour flat.

Super easy (made it this morning so I could bring it in warm). Super super easy.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter: I use real, honest to goodness butter. Tastes better.
  
• 3/4 cup brown sugar: I had less sugar in the cabinet this morning, so that's what I went with
  
• 2 eggs, beaten: I dumped these on the butter/sugar mixture and "beat" them in there.
  
• 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas: I go for as rotten and overripe as I possibly can. I am in the habit of freezing overripe bananas for smoothies, so when I don't have enough "fresh" overripe bananas I nuke some of my frozen banana.
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and beat that together, then add mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten (over stirring makes it rubbery and that just sucks!). Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes (63 minutes for me), until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Please note: 

This recipe rocks for its simplicity, and its flexibility. You can add chopped nuts, chocolate chips, or whatever you think might taste good. You can also make it into muffins (more like cupcakes if you go the chocolate chip route ehehe), just adjust the bake time to about 25-30 minutes (for a dozen).

Pear "Crisp"

I had pears about to go bad, so I quickly grabbed this recipe from Allrecipes to bake them up. I'm having a hard time not eating the entire thing Right. Now.

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats: I used old fashioned (not quick cook)
  
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped crystallized ginger: I used 1TB
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon: I used slightly less
  
• 1/4 cup butter: I melted mine entirely
  
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped crystallized ginger: I used 2TB
  
• 8 cups peeled and sliced pears: I chopped what I had, and added an apple that needed baking, and didn't sweat the small stuff of figuring out if it was 8c exactly.
  
• 1 pint vanilla ice cream: I skipped this for calories (and I didn't want to go get ice cream; I know, shocking ;-)
  

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 2 quart casserole dish or 9 inch square baking dish
   
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the oats, brown sugar, 1/2 cup flour, 1 Tablespoon crystallized ginger, and cinnamon. Stir in the (melted) butter until the mixture is crumbly with pea sized lumps. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together the white sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and 2 Tablespoons of crystallized ginger. Add the sliced pears/apple, and toss to blend. Transfer to the prepared baking dish. Spread with the oat topping.
4. Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, then switch that to broil/high for 3 minutes, until pears are soft and topping is golden brown. Serve, lick bowl clean.
   

Working Lunch

What to do when you have an abundance of potatoes and you're busy trying to make deadlines on various and sundry over the weekend? Amazing baked potatoes, of course.

1. Take baking (or otherwise) potatoes, clean and scrub. Stab a few times with your fork so you don't get any 'sploded potatoes.
   
2. Douse with olive oil (nice and wet), generously coat with lemon pepper (Lawry's and Trader Joe's have a great one with salt, garlic, onion, lemon, and pepper).
3. Bake in oven at 400F for about an hour (until they're pretty squishy with the fork and the skin seems kinda crusty). Flip them over in the middle of baking if you're concerned about evenness, and add extra time if you have a monster potato.
   
4. Tear up in a bowl, douse with butter, sour cream, and any leftover pieces of bacon/smart bacon (fake'n) from breakfast. Douse with a very generous helping of salsa (I used Muir Glen cilantro salsa).
5. Groan with delight.

Easy, super yum, lets you attend to other stuff with very minimal involvement. Way, way better than microwave.

EBChiladas

Ok, Jason loved these so much he calls them EBChiladas now. I'll take it ;-) Super easy, and can be meaty or vegetarian. Sorry, no picture. It's just not the prettiest. But things that taste awesome often aren't. It's not really low-fat, but it's not designed to be. Use your brain to make modifications to cut fat/calories. And hey, go for a smaller serving size.

I used the Easy Chicken Enchiladas recipe from Allrecipes (my usual M.O.) with some modifications (my other usual M.O.):

Core Ingredients

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese or American Neufchâtel cheese: lower fat! but don't go fat free! doesn't melt right! And don't do the French version of Neufchâtel...very different product
  
• 1 cup salsa: think about what's going to taste best "flavour wise" since there are so many salsa choices these days; I used Pace "3 Peppers" salsa found on the clearance rack at Target; a chipotle salsa would be amazing with this.
  
• 2 cups chopped cooked chicken breast meat or tofu: I used Adobo, dried parsley, chili powder, and olive oil to cook it on the stove top.
  
• 1 (15.5 ounce) can pinto beans, drained: I used half red beans and half black beans
  
• 6 (6 inch) corn tortillas: corn tortillas have lower calories; I used more like 8-10. DO NOT buy the TraderJoe's corn tortillas. Big disaster. Get the "cheap Mexican" ones at the grocery store.
  
• 2 cups shredded "Mexican blend" cheese (Monterey jack, cheddar, asadero, & quesadilla cheeses)

Topping

• One small can black olives, sliced
• One small can sliced green chiles (or slice them yourself)
• One more cup of salsa; I used Muir Glen organic cilantro salsa for this part
  
• Shredded lettuce, sour cream
  

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the cream cheese and 1 cup salsa. Cook, stirring until melted and well blended. Stir in chicken/tofu and beans. Fill tortillas with the mixture, roll and place into the prepared baking dish. Spread cilantro salsa then cheese over top. Top with black olives and green chiles. Cover with aluminum foil.
3. Bake for 30 minutes, or until heated through. Garnish with your favorite toppings such as lettuce and tomatoes, or sour cream. 
4. Prepare to moan. No, seriously. 
   

Peasant Bread, or A Slacker's Attempt at French Bread

This is my second attempt to make "French" bread in the oven, and while not overwhelming it's pretty passable and especially easy. Bonus points for having very few (simple) ingredients, and for being vegan.

I love my bread machine for the fact that it will knead/rise dough for me while I do more important things like Facebook and feeding my cats catnip. If you don't have a bread machine, there are inevitably reviews giving you instruction for doing it all by hand.

I used the Peasant Bread recipe over at AllRecipes then modified:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 1/2 cups bread flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Directions

1. Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle. 
2. When dough cycle is close to completion, start the oven on 350 preheat. When dough cycle is complete, throw onto a floured surface to mold into a reasonable "peasant bread"-shaped ball. Slice the top a couple of times with a sharp knife. (Honestly I don't know why, but there has to be a reason you always see that.)
3. Bake at 350 on a *pizza stone* (or bread stone) that's been lightly dusted with cornmeal. Apparently, the baking stone makes a huge difference.
4. At the same time, you want a pan of hot water below the stone to generate steam in the baking process. I put one of my Le Creuset pieces in there and poured boiling water from my kettle into it. 
5. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, but eyeball it until the crust looks about right (golden brown).
   
   I've been reading that they key to French Bread is a steam injection oven, which I obviously don't have and am assuming you don't either. So, that pan of water makes a difference. I've made the peasant bread recipe before in the bread machine and this turned out totally differently, and I'd say better. Maybe I'm partial to round bread.
   
   Another option is to fill a fine mister/spray bottle with water and spray it every 15 minutes. I don't have an open spray bottle at the moment, but maybe I'll try that next time.