Recipes

From now on, I am going to try and start including the recipe to all the foods I make. I do have photos from foods I have made months ago, so I might not be able to come up with recipes for those. But for all my new ones, I will be sure to write them. I realized that I haven’t been writing enough of my recipes down, and that makes it hard to cook that food again! I have to mention one thing though, I have turned out to be one of those people who don’t cook by exact amounts. And when I write recipes, I don’t always include how much of something it calls for. For example, you will see that I often write carrots as an ingredient without including how many. That is because I decide at the time about how much I want to make. Some recipes I will have written down an exact measurement, and on others I don’t. Hopefully you can still use the recipe to make the meal if you are wanting to.

Black Bean Patties

I definitely like beans! There are so many of them and so many things you can do with them. I certainly don’t make enough meals with them. If I were to meet my ideal, I would have about half my meals per week made with meat and the other with beans for the protein. It would be cheaper and very tasty!

As for this meal, I made the patties too fat and I also need to fix them in some way by adding something to make them stick together a little better because two of them fell apart while cooking. I also should have had hamburger buns rather than regular bread. However, they did taste good and I will want to make them again in the future!

Black Bean Patties Recipe

½ onion, finely chopped

1 can black beans

½ cup flour

2 slices of bread, crumbled

2 clothes garlic, minced

Spices (salt, pepper)

Sauté onions till translucent, adding garlic about a minute before done.

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, including sautéed garlic and onions.

Form into a thin patty with your hand.

Cook in oil till hot.

Serve immediately as burger or sandwich.

Breadcrumb Chicken & Veggie Casserole

We enjoyed this and ate it for lunch and dinner that day. We needed to put a lot of salt on the vegetables though. In the future, I might try to mix some seasonings with the vegetables before adding them to the dish. Everything else was good though.

Breadcrumb Chicken & Veggie Casserole Recipe

6 slices soft bread broken or cut into cubes

1 cup cheddar cheese

2 tbs butter

Broccoli florets

2 carrots

1 zucchini

2 stalks celery

1 1/2 onion, chopped

5 small garlic cloves

3 tbs butter

¼-1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

Thyme

cumin

1 ¾ cups milk

2 chicken breasts

1 large tomato

Combine bread cubes with melted butter and cheese. Arrange ½ bread mixture into casserole dish.

Steam vegetables until soft. Put in bowl, sprinkle seasonings of your choice (I chose thyme, salt, pepper and cumin).

Cut chicken breasts into pieces.

Sauté onions until soft, add garlic and chicken.

Cook until chicken is no longer pink.

Remove chicken from pan.

Add flour, salt and milk. Once mixed and hot, turn off heat and add chicken back to it; mix.

Spread vegetables over bread mixture that is in the pan.

Pour chicken mixture on top of vegetables.

Then put the other half of the breadcrumb mixture on top.

I added extra cheese to the top to cover well.

Cook on 325 F for 25-30 minutes.

Bowtie Pasta Primavera

We always enjoy this filling and delicious pasta dish. It certainly has a high amount of fat, but at least includes some vegetables as well. I eat this often.

Bowtie Pasta Primavera Recipe

Bowtie pasta

Broccoli florets

Carrots

1 onion

3-5 garlic cloves

Alfredo sauce (I always make the Betty Crocker kind with butter, cream and parmesan cheese)

Cook pasta as directed.

Steam carrots and broccoli.

Sauté garlic and onions.

Mix alfredo sauce.

Add all together when all done, and enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cookies

These were made with organic peanut butter and turned out really yummy! I will have to make these again too, they certainly made a great snack. I enjoyed them the most with milk.

Cran Orange Ice Cream Pie

This one I made for dessert when our friends came to visit for dinner. I really liked it, although Joel wasn’t crazy about the taste of the cranberries. The recipe calls for you to mix the cranberries in orange juice, and it makes a tart flavor. I think that was what Joel wasn’t crazy about. But the orange ice cream was made by mixing vanilla ice cream with orange zest, and that was so easy and yummy!

White Mini Cupcakes with Hazelnut Coco Filling

This one is a trick because it looks amazing, I think, but doesn’t taste that great at all. Very boring, and I think we didn’t eat them all, and threw a lot out.

Mini Lemon Cupcake Circles

This one is a trick too because this was from the batch in which the icing didn't work out. The cupcakes were ok though, just not the icing.

Brownies from a Box

My parents friend from the church, Janet, who gave us the recipe to the In-Laws chicken had given us a box of brownie mix, so we made it. It just tastes like the normal boxed brownies. I prefer homemade stuff, but it sure was easy to make.

Wheat and White Chocolate Chip Muffins

These were pretty good because I was able to have a yummy flavor with the white chocolate chips but were healthy too with the complex carbohydrates.

Wheat Flax Banana Muffins

These would have been great if the bananas were ripe, but I was short on time because I was making them before I went out of town. So we weren’t too crazy about them. But if made correctly, it can be a tasty healthy snack!