Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Creamy Roast turkey & veggies stew with herbed dumplings
The turkey and veggies are leftovers. I thawed and cooked a turkey from the freezer a few days ago, then froze a few portions of shredded, cooked turkey to make things like this or tacos out of. At the holidays whenever the grocery stores offer a deal where I can get one for $5 or so I grab one and put it in the freezer for cheap food later. The veggies I made as a side dish.
Roasted veggies
2 zucchini, sliced (unpeeled)
1 onion, cut into chunks
4 carrots, sliced (unpeeled)
Nonstick spray or oil
herbs of your choice - I used basil, oregano and parsley
Toss veggies with a little oil or spray with nonstick spray. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake at whatever temp anything else is cooking until tender. Time is very forgiving but figure about 40 minutes at 325 or 30 at 400. Serve hot as a side dish, or add to other dishes such as casseroles, to stretch meat for tacos, in place of meat in dishes like lasagne, as a simple topper for brown rice with some tomato sauce, like a stir-fry or add to soups.
Creamy Roast Turkey and Veggies Stew with Herbed Dumplings
2 cups cooked veggies (I used the roasted vegges above)
1 1/2 cup shredded or cubed cooked meat (I used roasted turkey)
water, boullion or broth to cover
1/4 cup flour
fat free milk, up to 1 cup
pepper and herbs to taste
2 tsp worcestershire sauce
1 clove garlic, pressed, diced or cut up
1 recipe herbed dumplings, below
Combine turkey and veggies in a medium soup pot. Add as much water, boullion or broth as you'd like. Season with garlic, worcestershire sauce, pepper and a few shakes of herbs like italian seasoning, parsley, or any fresh herbs you have leftover, to taste.
Combine flour and milk in small bowl, adding milk slowly and stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Can also combine in a small jar and shake to combine. Add to soup, stirring well. Heat over medium until bubbling in a slow boil. Soup will thicken and get a nice creamy texture. You can serve it at this stage if you want, or you can skip the flour & milk to make a thinner (and lower carb) soup. I like it creamy and with dumplings on dreary, cold rainy days, it's hearty like a chowder without the huge fat content.
Herbed Dumplings
2/3 cup flour
1 tbsp dried herbs
dash pepper
dash salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp canola oil
Combine dry ingredients in medium bowl. Combine milk and oil in a small cup, pour all at once into dry ingredients and stir just until combined. If it's a little dry and not holding together, add a dash more milk. Drop by heaping spoonfuls into simmering soup. Cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for 10-12 minutes. Makes about 4 dumplings. Yum!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Cookbooks
The one I return to the most often is my old favorite, the classic red and white Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book: Celebrating the Promise, 14th Limited Edition . It's the one I learned to cook from, clearly labeled and organized, and a great starting point to learn how to use basic equipment and ingredients. Not always the healthiest or most budget friendly, but the recipes inside that book give you the skills and confidence to face more and more complicated foods. If you're living on junk in a box and ready meals, then the recipes in there can improve your budget and your nutrition a huge amount! I still use some of the recipes in there, it's my comfort food.
Another favorite is the Farm Journal Cook Book
which I got 2nd hand. I love the chicken & dumplings in there, and it's helped me in meat prep.
When I'm feeling nostalgic and festive, I flip through Betty Crocker's Best Christmas Cookbook
which is just pretty. I often get inspired to make something after flipping through that! I especially love their vegetable lasagne. Not the most diet friendly food on earth, but it's better than the sausage loaded version and really tasty. I swap out the cheeses for lower fat versions and use less, whole wheat pasta and extra veggies. Yum! Their cookies are all wonderful too, anyone who I've sent Christmas cookies to at the holidays has probably had at least a couple from that book. Has some craft ideas in there too, some that make good gifts or craft fair ideas. Fun!
So there it is, my 3 favorites. I can usually dig through one or more of those and get inspired what to do with almost anything I drag home. I love to grab obscure produce on impulse or buy what's on sale that wasn't advertised, then I have to decide what to do with it later. That means a lot of trying to come up with meals with little planning, and a lot of improvising. So a good quality basic skills book, a nice classics farm book with a variety of meats and veggies, and a couple books with pretty pictures and appetizing ideas are a great resource. Having that library availble helps me be able to make cheap, healthy and delicious meals with whatever I can find on sale.
So what are everyone else's favorite books and must haves? I'm always looking for new suggestions what makes a good resource!
I dig through dozens of others. I really recommend for anyone to have at least a couple books around, especially at least one that's pretty.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Building a new worm bin
a waterproof support like a couple bricks, cinderblocks, small flowerpots
another tub or lid to use as a drip tray, optional
Since the new bin is a secondary, I just stacked it on top of the old one. I'll create a drip tray for it another day, it's pouring today and I barely had enough of a break in the rain to put the new bin together today. Here they are all stacked. The bottom grey bin is my drip tray, the green bin is my old worm bin, the top grey bin is the one I just put together.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Luscious little lemon cookies
Luscious Little Lemon Cookies
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup unbleached flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
dash salt
dash ginger powder (optional)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp poppy seeds (could probably leave these out)
2 eggs
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup canola oil
zest of 1 lemon, grated
Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl. In a separate small bowl, beat together remaining ingredients. Pour into dry ingredients and stir just until combined well.
Drop by tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Makes 16 cookies, only about 92 calories each!
Next time I may try swapping out even more of the flour for whole wheat, or replacing the whole eggs with eggwhite or simmered flaxseed meal. Awesome as they are!
Here's the bottom of the cookies, see how golden and lovely? Perfect crisp but tender. Yum!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Favorite gardening book and newbie gardening ideas
I really love a book I got for Christmas,
It's a basic guide on what you can do in containers, much of it also applies to small areas. I've learned a couple things I was doing wrong from that book, and got a few good ideas to try this year. Mostly planting more than one thing per pot so they can work together, like tall things that don't need soil surface with short things that don't need much vertical space. I have a few combos planned, like a big pot on the front porch, I have lavender sprouting to put in there and I'm looking for creeping thyme to put with it. I have oregano, chocolate mint and sweet potatoes on the front porch, I'll be adding cilantro, parsley and chives when they're a little bigger. It's my herb area since it gets plenty of sun and is close to the kitchen.
The side deck is my veggie area since it's the largest. I'll have tomatoes there, carrots, spinach, mustard greens, radishes, scarlet runner beans on the pergola, bell peppers, zucchini and a couple other odds and ends. I'm taking advantage of vertical space as much as I can. I watch Craigslist and other sources for plant stands, the kind like a metal bookcase, so I can stack plants a few high without compromising too much light. I have a couple hanging planters, some pots on the rail, some on shelves made of wood and cinderblocks. Some will grow on the pergola, some will be staked or caged (tomatoes, beans and squash).
The rear deck is the smallest and it's where we have living space with a table. It has a GIANT strawberry pot, and a dish pot full of radishes. I just got a hanging planter to go out there that I'm going to plant edible flowers in, I have one of those seed starter greenhouse things full of pansies, johnny-jump-ups and violas for it, and I'll put nasturtiums around the edge so they'll hang down and look gorgeous. Radishes grow really fast, so I can do a few batches in that one dish pot, and when I get bored of them I can fill it up with more flowers or some mustard greens. I'd eventually like to get a dwarf lemon or orange tree to put out there, I already have a giant pot I can put it in - a real find on clearance at Kmart for about $5! It's about 2 feet across, bigger than a barrell half and deeper.
The hands down easiest stuff to grow in small spaces:
mustard greens
radishes (seriously. You can grow them anywhere, and they're ready in 1-2 months)
spinach
Anything else takes a little work or know-how, I learn as I go. Decide what you like to eat and look it up to see if it will grow well in the space you have! No matter what I grow, I make room in the summer for tomatoes. Store bought tomatoes taste like nothing, and they're criminally expensive. I don't get much food from that much space, but it's fun and what I do get is a lot better than store bought stuff.
If you're just starting out though or trying to expand your container gardening know how, check out that book! I'm having a lot of fun planning new things to try out with it, I keep checking back. It tells you the minimum pot depth needed for various things too, which is really useful and hard info to find!
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Chili Lime Shrimp
This is one of my most common side dishes. Cut up fresh fruit, whatever is on sale. Wednesday is super cheap produce sale day and the ethnic market I go to, so I'm all stocked up right now! Today papaya and pears were some of the great deals. This is just 2 pears and about 1/8 of a papaya.
First harvest of the year
Monday, February 2, 2009
Stuffed Cabbage
1/2 tsp worchestershire sauce
Meanwhile, prepare filling. Combine turkey with cauliflower, onion, parmesan, worchestershire sauce, garlic, pepper and herbs.
At this point you can put them away for later if you want. Just put foil over the top and into the fridge. I like to assemble them during morning nap time so I know there are no "little helpers" in the kitchen when I'm messing with boiling water. Or you can cook them right away.