Fridge Finds: What's (Really) Cooking, Part 6

Welcome to the last day of the Fridge Finds blog party! Stop by Andrea's post to see what's in her fridge & what she's cooking with it. I'm pretty pumped to try her lentil recipe - we're always looking for new ways to fix lentils around here! And, just like Andrea, we've been on quite a soup quick lately & it's fun to see some fresh ideas.

Thanks for joining in with this party! If you'd like to see the previous posts, check out these links:
Week 1: Katherine
Week 2: me
Week 3: Rebecca
Week 4: Elissa
Week 5: Meredith
Week 6: Andrea

Fridge Finds: What's (Really) Cooking, Part 5

Hey friends! It's time for another post in the weekly fridge party! I have to say, I love Meredith's post today. She says it's the worst fridge finds week yet, but it might just be the best. I think we can all relate to the "oh no I have nothing but milk in the fridge and I have to feed my family" moments. Plus, I've always been super curious about eMeals, but haven't known anyone personally to use it. I'd love to hear more about that sometime, Meredith!

Go on, check it out!

Tech Tip Friday: iPad Apps I Love, Part 1

Today I want to tell you about Pepperplate, almost certainly my very favorite iPad app. (And before I launch into this - it's also available for the iPhone, I just don't have an iPhone! There's also a website that lets you do everything, so even if you don't have an iAnything it's worth checking out! And one more note - this is not in any way meant to be an advertisement, I am not being compensated in any way for this - I just want to share an amazing tool with you.)

When my husband & I were considering purchasing an iPad, one of the things I was most excited about was using it to organize recipes. Lugging my dying computer into the kitchen just so I could pull up a recipe was a little bit of a hassle (yes, first world problem, I know), and printing recipes that I might possibly want to make one day caused way too much clutter in the kitchen. Enter Pepperplate!

Pepperplate has 4 main features:

• Recipes
• Menus
• Planner
• Shopping

I mostly stick to the recipe part of the app. My three favorite features of this app are:

• Automatic importing of recipes from 3 dozen supported sites (and the list keeps growing!). Yes, I said automatic. You do not have to sit down & manually type in all of your recipes, although that is indeed an option. 
• The "cook now" button. When you click cook now from a recipe, the recipe becomes full screen and the screen does not go to sleep! I don't have to wake up my iPad with messy cooking hands just to see the next step of a recipe - the recipe stays on the screen until I click "Finish cooking". It's wonderful.
• Extremely easy sharing of recipes. I can send recipes to my family & friends incredibly easily, and if they also have a Pepperplate account, then they just click a button from the email to have it added to their account. 

Oh, and I didn't even mention that it's completely free! Really, it's an incredible tool - what are you waiting for? Go check it out!

Do you have a favorite iPad app? Let me know - I'll be posting more favorites as they come up, and I'd certainly love to try your favorite!

What's (Really) Cooking: Part 3

Hello there, loyal readers! It's Tuesday, which means another chance to see what's really cooking. This week, Rebecca at down the rabbit hole is exploring her pantry. If you've never visited over at Rebecca's site, you're in for a treat! I love reading Rebecca's writing. And I can't wait to make her granola soon.

Fridge Finds: What's (Really) Cooking, Part 2

Hooray! It's my week to share what's in the fridge. If you missed it, Katherine is hosting a fun blog party every Tuesday. You can find more info in my post from last week.

So, ever since Katherine introduced this idea, I've been thinking a lot about what's in my fridge. Most days, it's kind of like, "Ugh, why would anybody want to see all of this - it's a big mess!" And some days, when I have a what's-for-dinner crisis, the fridge is sadly lacking in inspiration. Since I've been paying extra attention to what's in the fridge, I've discovered a few interesting things:

1. I use my freezer and pantry to store the main substance of our meals way more than the fridge!

2. We keep a LOT of breakfast, lunch, and toddler-friendly foods in our fridge.

3. I absolutely love when I have leftovers in the fridge.

So, without further ado, here's a very real picture of our fridge:

I realized after taking the picture above that there's no way to really distinguish what's actually in the fridge. So, I did a little rearranging, and ta-da - you can actually tell what a few things are!

Top shelf: buttermilk, sausage balls & applesauce

Next-to-top shelf: eggs & more toddler meal leftovers

Drawer: lots of cheese & some leftover Canadian bacon

Next-to-bottom shelf: more eggs, leftover tortellini soup, pie crust

Bottom shelf: milk, yogurt, sour cream

Drawer: spinach & apples

Now, looking at that list it seems like pretty sad contents of a fridge. But, like I said, most of our food stays in the freezer or pantry!

So, here's what's REALLY cooking this week:

Tortellini Soup (recipe below): Yes, it's already cooked, but these leftovers will be at least one supper & one lunch for us. This was the first time I've made this recipe, and I'll definitely be making it again!

Sweet & sour lentils, possibly with some cooked chicken (from freezer) and/or a spinach salad. This is one of our absolute favorite recipes, and I tend to keep the ingredients on hand in our pantry.

Buttermilk pancakes & fried apples: I love pancakes!

Quiche: Javier thinks we're running low on eggs when we're down to a dozen or so. He could eggs 3 meals a days, 7 days a week. I, on the other hand, tend to get tired of eggs. But, I do like quiche & since we always have more than enough eggs and we currently have lots of random leftover cheese, plus some leftover Canadian bacon, quiche will be perfect!

Taco Soup: I'm planning to head out of town toward the end of the week. So, I need to leave something tasty & easy to reheat for dinners and/or lunches for Javier. It doesn't get much easier than this soup, and it's quite tasty! Again, everything we need for this is in the freezer or pantry...

So, that's it! It's not a terribly exciting list of meals, but pretty normal for around here. We don't usually eat much meat, and I'm very partial to meals that have lots of leftovers. We're in a pretty tough spot where Isaac (16 months) doesn't often like what we're eating as a family, but I'm trying to get better at cooking things we can all eat. We at least try to get him to taste what we're eating, but he's often pretty resistant to putting a new food into his mouth.

Keep checking back on Tuesdays for more fridge finds!

Tortellini Soup

10 oz. frozen chopped spinach

2 (14.5 oz.) cans chicken broth

2 (14.5 oz.) cans stewed tomatoes with basil, garlic, & oregano

1 small bag cheese tortellini

1 small onion, sliced or diced

1-2 Tbsp. minced fresh garlic

1 Tbsp. butter

Garnish: Parmesan or feta

In soup pan, melt butter. Saute onion & garlic. Add broth & tomatoes, simmer for up to 1 hour. Add frozen spinach & tortellini. Simmer on low, for 10-15 minutes until tortellini is cooked to desired tenderness. Season with salt & pepper. When serving, sprinkle with Parmesan or feta cheese.

Fridge Finds - It's a Party!

Wow, it's been a long time since I've made myself present in this little space. I have plenty of excuses, let me assure you, but I have way more exciting things to talk about today than excuses!

Today is the first day of a new PARTY! Yep, you heard me - a blog party about what's in the fridge. I'm sure you see lots of blogs that advertise what they're cooking and wonder... "Do they really eat like that? Like all the time?" Or maybe I'm the only who thinks that...

My friend Katherine at rhymes with smile has organized a little bloggy-fridge fun, where 6 of us will share what's REALLY in our fridge, and how that's going to feed our families for the week.

So today - go check out Katherine's fridge and see what she's cooking up this week! You don't want to miss this... the Mexican rice with cilantro dressing sounds amazing!

Be sure to check back next week for part two of Fridge Finds: What's (Really) Cooking.

Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns

Anyone who knows me & my husband knows that we love bread. We don't just love to eat it, though, we love to make it! While we don't claim to be experts, and we're always looking for shortcuts, we've made quite a few loaves.

A few months ago, we asked to borrow my mom's bread machine. (See, I said we liked shortcuts!) We've really loved using it, and one of our favorites from the bread machine is hamburger buns. How do you make hamburger buns in the bread machine, you ask? Good question! My aunt (who I've mentioned before & invented this amazing candy recipe) sent me a recipe. Using her suggestions & tweaking it a little myself, here it is:

Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns - in the bread machine
Adapted from Food.com

1 cup water
1/2 stick butter, softened or slightly melted
1 egg
3 cups white whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. yeast
1 Tbsp. vital wheat gluten

1. Put ingredients in bread machine, in order suggested by manufacturer. My bread machine says to put liquid ingredients in first, which is how the recipe is listed. Run the dough cycle.

 2. Once dough cycle is complete, put dough on lightly floured surface & roll into a log. (Make sure it is LIGHTLY floured - this dough is fairly dry already & you don't want to add much flour to it.) Cut into 12 pieces for normal sized hamburger buns. The original recipe said 8, but they are HUGE.

*Also, preheat oven to 200 degrees about now.

 3. Shape into rounds & place on greased baking sheet. The rounds don't have to be too perfect, see?

4. After your oven has preheated to 200 degrees, turn it off. Cover baking sheets with a towel & put in warm oven for about 10 minutes. The dough will rise a little bit, as you can see in the picture below.

5. Once you've taken the risen buns out of the warm oven, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Once preheated, bake buns for 10 minutes. And there you go - delicious hamburger buns!!

The original recipe says these also make good hot dog buns. My aunt has made smaller versions, too, for dinner rolls. The first time I prepared these we had a guest for dinner (I don't know why I always experiment when guests are around...) and he thought they would be excellent by themselves, too. I've also eaten them with chicken salad... all to say this is a very versatile bread! Hope you like these as much as we do!

Recipes I'm Loving Lately

We can't stop eating these... so I thought y'all might want to know about them, too.

Peanut Butter Smoothies: Amazing. Taste like a milkshake. Only healthier. We've been eating them for breakfast, or dessert. A great summer treat!

Granola: Finally got around to making this granola from my friend Katherine's blog. I left out dried fruit because that's how I like my granola. Delish. We're almost out... looks like I'll have to make another batch!

And because we are getting TONS of green beans from our garden, we have been making this tasty dish a lot:

Vegetable Trio
4 large carrots
1/2 lb. fresh green beans
1.5 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
1 t. salt
1/2 t. thyme
2 T. butter

Melt butter with spices in a large skillet. Add green beans & carrots over medium heat. Add mushrooms after a few minutes. Cook until beans are tender, about 20 minutes. (And don't let it burn the way I did in the picture!)

A Valentine's Day Treat

We don't get wrapped up in the popular idea of Valentine's Day around here, but I certainly always enjoy an excuse to celebrate or do something special. So, I surprised my husband with this A-MA-ZING candy that my aunt introduced to me last week.

Aunt Kay (who doesn't have a blog but it would be great if she did!) had this candy at a local shop, then determined that she would figure out how to make it. Apparently there are lots of versions of this recipe floating around, but here's what she came up with.

Amish Cashew Candy

2 sticks butter

1 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. light corn syrup

1 to 1.5 c. cashews

~1/2 bag milk chocolate chips

Melt butter in saucepan. Add sugar & corn syrup. Bring to a boil, stirring pretty much constantly. Use a candy thermometer to bring the mixture to between 275 and 290 degrees F. This takes around 10-15 minutes.

Once it's reached the right temperature, remove from heat and stir in cashews. Transfer to a buttered cookie sheet & spread as thin as you can with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top, then as the chocolate is melting, spread on top of candy.

Refrigerate until hardened, then break into pieces.

What the candy looked like before it was broken into pieces.

Javier called this dangerous. He couldn't stop talking about it. So... make this at your own risk!