Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

We ate many, many, many, of these cookies, while Nick needed to be dairy-free and gluten-free, temporarily. I don’t know remember who first shared this recipe with me, but, thank you!

• 1 C. Peanut Butter (I prefer a natural style peanut butter, rather than one with fillers).
• 1 C. Sugar
• 1 egg

Mix well.

Cookies on the left in the photo, were formed with a medium-sized Pampered Chef scoop, and the cookies on the right were formed with a small Pampered Chef scoop.

Scoop onto a stainless steel baking sheet. Press the traditional peanut butter cookie crisscross design into the cookies with a fork (this serves to flatten them, somewhat, so that they bake better).

Bake at 350, until you remember that you have cookies in the oven, but forgot to set a timer. Rush to the oven in a panic. Or, say, 5 - 10 minutes. Probably closer to 10. If they look done (browned), they are done.

P.S. I give these to my dog, too.

Buttered Popcorn

I just can’t buy already popped, popcorn, to eat at home, or, perhaps I should say won’t. I don’t have a hot air popper. I don’t have a microwave. So, to make popcorn (one of my family’s favorite snacks) one of us has to actually pop it in a pan on the stove.

Old school, that’s me.  

To pop it, I really just (well, sort of) follow the instructions on the jug of Orville Redenbacher (if you shop at Costco, you know that the container really is a jug). 

• ½ C. Popcorn Kernels
• 3 TBSPS Canola Oil, although, when I have it, Coconut Oil is my all-time favorite oil for popping corn. It just gives the popcorn THE BEST scent and taste.
• 2 - 5 TBSPS Butter.  Two, if you are on a weight loss diet. Five, if you need to gain weight. Personally, I think slightly more than 4 TBSPS is just about PERFECT! Although, we often just use 3 TBSPS,
• Salt, optional.  

Heat a 5 qt pan on med-high. Heat oil, just barely, and add the kernels. COVER the pan immediately. Ideally, the lid can sit ajar as the popcorn pops. I carefully shake the pan, while holding the lid onto it, several times while the popcorn pops.

While the popcorn is popping, melt the butter.

AS SOON AS THE POPPING SLOWS TO A STOP*, turn off the heat and transfer popcorn to a large stainless steel mixing bowl. If are going to share a few pieces of popcorn with your dog (oh, who am I kidding, our dog has her own popcorn bowl) set them aside now. Pour the melted butter over the popcorn in the mixing bowl. Mix. Salt your individual bowl, if, like me, you prefer your popcorn salted.

Serves four, or more.

*It’s better have unpopped kernels, than burnt popcorn!

Ate on 1/25/2011

Scrambled Eggs In Brown Butter With Cream Cheese And Chives

I first had scrambled eggs with cream cheese and herbs on vacation in Montana. I’ve been making this for myself since that trip.

• Butter.
• 2 Eggs, scrambled with a splash of water.
• Cream Cheese, about .75 of an ounce, diced (you know, those odds and ends of cream cheese you find in the refrigerator after the bagels are all gone, but before the cheese itself starts to change color).
• ½ tsp Chives (I only had dried, but I’m certain fresh would be lovely).
• Sea Salt, to taste. 

Melt butter in your egg pan, just enough so that the eggs don’t stick, on low heat. If you don’t slip the eggs into the pan too soon, you, too, will have brown butter. Just as I did. Note that brown butter isn’t burnt butter. Brown butter is trendy (and although food trends can be annoying, they’re not all bad, especially if I can make a mistake and disguise it as my attempt to follow a trend). Burnt butter just has to be thrown away after it has cooled to the point where it won’t melt the trash can liner.

Stir your eggs in the pan, not continuously, just enough so they cook somewhat evenly, but don’t stick. When they begin to set, add the cream cheese, stir it in, and as it begins to melt, add the chives.

Plate it, salt it if you so desire (I do), and eat it. Oh, right, this makes one serving. Of course you can double it, or...

Ate on 1/19/2011

Pasta Salad, with Feta Cheese and Kalamata Olives

Pasta:

• 16 oz Bow-Tie Pasta (it also goes by a name, Farfalle, that I can’t pronounce), boiled in lightly salted water.

Salad:

• 1 Red Bell Pepper, diced
• 1 Green Bell Pepper, diced
• 12 sun dried tomatoes, soaked in ½ cup of boiling water (I took it from the pasta pot, myself)
• 1 (Indoor) Grilled Chicken Breast, diced
• 5 ¼ oz Feta Cheese, crumbled or diced
• ⅔ C pitted Kalamata Olives, drained (before being measured) and quartered.

Dressing:

• 4 Cloves Garlic
• ⅓ C. Lemon Juice
• ⅔ C. Olive Oil
• 1 tsp dried Turkish Oregano
• ¼ tsp Red Pepper Flakes
• ⅛ tsp Sea Salt
• 1 tsp dried parsley

Make the dressing in a food processor, or alternatively, mince the garlic and shake the ingredients in a jar with a carefully closed lid to mix them thoroughly.

Combine the pasta, salad ingredients, and the dressing, and serve as dinner (or rather, that’s what I did).  

Ate on 1/13/2011

Triple Berry Breakfast Crisp

Triple Berry Breakfast Crisp, also known, to my family, as Koree’s Breakfast Crisp.

I first began making fruit crisps for breakfast, after reading a recipe from Koree, a mom I “met” on a homeschooling forum. Yes, I am a homeschooling mom (one graduate, now a college student, and one high school student) and I adore desserts, or sweets, for breakfast. Now you know.

Back to Koree, she introduced me to the idea of a simple fruit crisp for breakfast and it’s her basic guideline from which I make breakfast crisps to this day.

  

• 2 C. (frozen) Triple Berry Blend (Costco sells one, of blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries, but I know it's available at other stores, too), refrigerated overnight.
• 1 C. Rolled Oats
• 3 TBSPS Brown Sugar
• 2 TBSPS Pecans, each half broken into four pieces
• 3 TBSPS Butter, chopped

I have a rectangular baking dish (9x6 ½) that works perfectly for this crisp. Butter or spray (with cooking spray, of course) the baking dish. Pour in the fruit, cover it first with the oats, secondly the brown sugar, thirdly the pecans,  and last but not least, the butter. 

Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for 30 minutes (or you can do what I often do and not preheat the oven, but add the preheating time to the baking time, for me that is 10 minutes, so 40 minutes, starting in a cold oven). Serve warm!

Koree served her breakfast fruit crisp with vanilla yogurt, although I do not (because I can't eat "fresh" yogurt).

On Cake Balls...

Cake Balls.

So, you want me to take cake, and frosting, and mush it all up together in a little ball. Then, you want me to coat it, and decorate it. OK, fine. It’s cute. I think it’s a waste of food, but it’s a cute decoration. But, wait, what? You want me to eat it? Oh, no, no, no! Yuck! Do you think I missed the part where perfectly good cake (well, if it didn’t come from a mix) is mushed together with perfectly good frosting (well, if it didn’t come from a can) and rolled around? Ick? Why? Ick! No thank you!

Ugly Leftover Dinner

Usually I have more ideas than I do time, but not always...It was a clear out the fridge sort of dinner.

I heated a stainless steel skillet for 2 minutes.

I added 1 TBSP Canola Oil

I stirred in leftover cooked Brown Rice.

I added a leftover Ground Beef/Mushroom/Onion/Garlic Mixture

(leftover, that is, from Stacked Enchiladas, because I forgot to add the mix on the third layer. Yeah, that happens sometimes).

I also added:

leftover Green Chile, 

1 can, 14.5 oz, petite diced tomatoes, 

¼ C Sour Cream

I made sure it was hot.

Then I added sharp cheddar cheese.

I stirred in the cheese, and served it with leftover corn tortilla chips and canned kidney beans.

Ate:  12/21/2010

Almost, But Not Quite, My Mother’s Eggplant Casserole

• 1 eggplant, peeled, chopped, and boiled in salted water until soft.
• 2 - 4 handfuls Trader Joe’s Social Snackers cracker crumbs (my mother uses Ritz, her hands are larger than mine, she only needs two handfuls, mine are smaller and I need four, and yes, I did forget to measure them except by the handful).
• 2 cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese (my mother uses 3 inches of Velveeta).
• 2 Eggs, beaten
• 1 cup Milk
• 4 TBSPS Butter, melted.

Mix all ingredients together. Bake in buttered casserole dish at 350F for 45 minutes (my mother says 30 - 45 minutes). 

I served this with a lettuce salad, for dinner. I believe my mother considers it a side dish (my dad is not what you would call a real big believer in meatless meals).

Guilty Pleasure?

Nada. Nothing. Not a single thing. I don't believe in feeling guilt over food (except when I waste it, and even then I've been cutting myself a lot of slack over that lately). I eat what I want, when I want (if I can afford it, and if I can find it or make it).