by jphilo | Oct 10, 2012 | Recipes
After yesterday’s top ten list of chilly weather meals, today’s post features a new recipe that might end up on next fall’s list. This crockpot chili recipe took a little work to throw together, but it was worth it. The house smelled wonderful all day while it cooked, and it made so much chili, I froze half. Woo-hoo!
Served with cornbread, the meal received the Hiram coveted seal of approval, which doesn’t happen often when beans are a major ingredient in a main dish. I liked it because it was hearty, low-fat, and dairy-free. Thanks to www.SkinnyTaste.com for first posting the recipe. Here’s my version:
1 onion, chopped
1 16 oz. can black beans, drained
1 16 oz. can kidney beans, drained
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
10 oz. package frozen corn kernels
3 10 oz. cans mild Rotelle tomatoes
1 package taco seasoning
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 large skinless, boneless, chicken breasts
1/4 cup chopped fresh chopped cilantro
Combine onion, beans, tomato sauce, tomatoes, taco seasoning, cumin, and chili powder in crockpot. Place chicken breasts on top and cover. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6. A half hour before serving, remove chicken. Allow to cool, then shred, and stir into mixture in crock pot. Serve, topping each bowlful with fresh cilantro. Add shredded cheese and sour cream if you like.
by jphilo | Oct 9, 2012 | Recipes, Top Ten Tuesday
For the past week, a chill’s been in the air. Hot suppers jumped to the top of my what-to-cook-tonight list. So I opened the recipe file and came up with this list of top ten favorite chilly weather foods. Please, leave a comment about your favorite hot meal and a link to the recipe if you like. The more recipes to try this fall and winter, the better!
10. Uncle Ben’s Sausage and Rice is super easy and always receives Hiram’s coveted seal of approval.
9. Crockpot Applesauce is a big winner at our house during apple season. It makes the house smell yummy while it cooks and tastes great.
8. Skillet Spaghetti Carbona is sinfully rich and so delicious. So just make it for special occasions. And if anyone has a dairy-free version, please send the recipe!
7. Some might argue that Turkey Tortilla Soup should be ranked higher, but since the Man of Steel doesn’t give it the seal of approval, it only makes it to #7. It’s a very tasty and low-cal soup.
6. Turkey Hash isn’t photogenic, but it sure tastes good in either the regular or dairy-free version. The recipe, passed down by Elsie Philo, is a family favorite.
5. Balkan Meatballs land firmly in the comfort food category. This week, I’ll try converting it to a dairy-free recipe. Watch for an update on how that goes.
4. Hearty Cheeseburger Chowder is another family favorite. It’s another one that needs converting to dairy-free. Winter won’t be bearable without the stuff!
3. French Stew is daughter Anne’s favorite and can be cooked in the crock pot. I always make a double batch and freeze half.
2. Joni’s Cashew Chicken is so good, it gets made all year round at our house. The veggies vary depending on availability. Sometimes it gets topped with peanuts or almonds instead of cashews. However it’s made, it’s always good.
1. Turkey (or chicken) Tetrazzini is the number one chilly weather food at the Philo house. The kids loved it when they were young and still like it. And it’s really easy to make a small, dairy-free pan for me along with the regular recipe for everyone else.
Which recipe tempts you the most? What would you add to the list? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Oct 3, 2012 | Recipes
Turkey hash is one of the few recipes handed down to our family by Hiram’s mom, Elsie Philo. She was, by her own admission, a reluctant cook. Part of that reluctance may have stemmed from learning to cook in the territory of Alaska in the 1950s–on a wood stove, with limited provisions, while raising three very active little boys, and teaching school.
Fresh milk was hard to come by, even though her husband was a dairy farmer, and she added canned evaporated milk to almost every main dish. Turkey hash was no exception, and for years I made it according to her recipe. Not too long ago, I finally worked up the nerve to try it with almond milk. To my surprise, it tasted delicious. It even received Hiram’s coveted seal of approval. So here’s the non-dairy version (dairy ingredients are in parentheses) of the ultimate Philo comfort food, turkey hash.
Elsie Philo’s Turkey Hash
1/4 cup margarine (1/4 cup butter)
5–6 medium potatoes, peeled, washed, and sliced in thin rounds
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cups cooked turkey, chopped
1 1/2 cups unflavored, unsweetened almond milk (1 large can evaporated milk)
1/4 cup flour (omit for dairy version)
Set a large frying pan over medium heat. Add margarine and melt.
Put sliced potatoes in the pan. Cover and cook for 5–10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in onions and cover again. Cook for 5–10 minutes more, stirring occasionally and adjusting heat to avoid burning, until potatoes are soft. Stir in turkey. Cover and cook for 5 more minutes, until turkey is warmed through.
Sprinkle a few tablespoons of the flour on top of the meat and vegetable mixture. Stir until flour is absorbed. Repeat until all flour is absorbed. Pour 1/3 cup of almond milk and stir well. Repeat until the milk is gone. Continue cooking until the hash begins to bubble and the milk thickens.
Salt and pepper to taste at the table.
by jphilo | Sep 26, 2012 | Recipes
Today’s recipe was born of desperation. Desperation to find a new way to use the abundance of cherry tomatoes in our CSA bag every week. Apparently, since several other gardeners have mentioned plentiful supplies of the little things, this summer’s heat was perfect for a bumper crop for gardeners who watered their plants.
Those of you in that predicament may want to give this dish a whirl. It’s not a new recipe, but the latest twist on one of our favorite stir fry dishes, Joni’s Cashew Chicken. Consider serving it over brown rice, our newest bow to healthier living, but put the rice pot on the stove earlier than regular rice. Brown needs at least an extra 10 minutes of cooking time or the end result will be watery and unpleasantly chewy. (Don’t ask me how I know this.)
Peanut Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons peanut butter
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons peanut sauce
4 tablespoons sesame or peanut oil
1/2 cup raw peanuts
1 whole chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 cups onions, cleaned and quartered, with layers separated
2 cup peeled carrots, sliced into thin, one inch pieces
2 cups sweet red pepper, washed, seeded, and cut into half-inch pieces
2 – 3 cups cherry tomatoes, washed and halved
Sauce: Combine soy sauce, peanut butter and honey in a 1 cup measuring cup. Heat in the microwave for one minute on high. Stir until peanut butter is mostly melted. Add peanut sauce to mixture and set it aside.
Turn burner to high and heat 1 tablespoon of oil in large frying pan or wok. Add peanuts and stir for one minute, until they begin to brown. Spoon them onto paper towels to drain.
Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in pan. Add vegetables, except for the tomatoes, one kind at a time, at one minute intervals. (Add the thickest first and work down to thinnest. In this mixture, the order was carrots, peppers, onions.) Pour cooked vegetables into a large bowl.
Heat final tablespoon of oil in pan. Turn burner to medium high and add chicken. Stir until meat is completely cooked and begins to brown.
Add vegetable mixture and stir for 1 minute. Add tomatoes and stir for 1 more minute. Pour sauce over all and stir until the stir fry ingredients are coated and sauce is bubbly.
Spoon mixture onto a bed of rice and sprinkle with peanuts. Serve hot.
by jphilo | Sep 19, 2012 | Recipes
Today’s yummy and totally decadent recipe comes from the same issue of P31 Woman Magazine as did the blueberry crumble bar recipe posted last month. I converted the bars to non-dairy status (they were already gulten and egg free for those of you with those allergies) by substituting coconut oil for butter and unsweetened baking chocolate and agave syrup for the dark chocolate chips.
The chocolate substitution was a winner, but I’m not yet sold on the coconut oil as a substitute for 2 reasons. First, it didn’t bind the oats together very well, so the bottom oat layer was hard to get out of the pan. Second, whenever I use coconut oil in baking recipes, the end product seems heavy.
Neither of those reservations stopped the fam from eating the layered oat bars at our Labor Day Family reunion. In fact, the bars were gone pretty quick. Still, next time I try this recipe, I’ll use margarine instead of butter and report back. Now, here’s the recipe.
Layered Oat Bars
1 cup margarine or coconut oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups oatmeal
8 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
3/4 cup natural, no sugar added peanut butter
1/4 cup agave syrup
Spray a 9 x 9 or 7 1/2 x 10 inch baking pan with cooking spray.
Put shortening in a large saucepan over medium heat. As soon as it starts to melt, add the brown sugar. Cook and stir until shortening is completely melted, and the mixture is smooth. Stir in vanilla. Add oats and cook, stirring constantly for 1 – 2 minutes. Press 2/3 of mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan.
Place chocolate and peanut butter in a glass bowl. Put in microwave for one minute. Remove and stir. Repeat until the chocolate and peanut butter are completely melted and mixed together. Add agave and stir well, scraping sides of bowl often. Pour over oatmeal mixture in bottom of pan. Use spatula to spread evenly. Sprinkle remaining oatmeal mixture on top of chocolate/peanut butter. Press gently into chocolate mixture to set the oats.
Refrigerate several hours until set. Remove from refrigerator for 30 minutes before cutting into bars. Cut into VERY SMALL PIECES since these bars are very rich. Store in refrigerator in a covered container.
by jphilo | Sep 5, 2012 | Recipes
The hunt for recipes that allow us to use our weekly bag full of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) vegetables and fruits continues. Our allotment of cucumbers is one I find difficult to use – often I leave them in my brother and sister-in-law’s fridge during Tuesday visits with Mom at his house. So when the August 17-19 issue of USA Weekend ran this recipe, I was delighted.
As usual, I messed with the recipe by adding onion, which we both like, relegating the feta cheese to stand-by status to accommodate dairy allergies, and cutting down on the amount of tomato and cucumber, (Even though I wanted to use mine up, I can only eat so much of that veggie.) So here’s my version of this yummy sandwich that is healthy, easy and delicious. Hiram and I gave this recipe 2 thumbs up. What about you?
Zesty Greek Salad Pitas with Olive-Garlic Tapende
1 small to medium cucumber, seeded and cut into chunks (about 1 cup)
1 cup of chopped tomato
4 medium radishes, cut into chunks
1 – 2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 – 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tsp. dried oregano or 2 teaspoons fresh
Fresh ground black pepper
3 cups lightly packed baby spinach leaves, washed
2/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
4 whole-wheat pita pockets
1/4 cup Olive-Garlic Tapenade (see recipe below)
In a medium bowl, combine all vegetables except spinach. Add olive oil, vinegar, oregano, and black pepper to taste. Mix well and set aside.
In blender or food processor, combine 2 cloves garlic (I ran mine through a garlic press first), 1 cup Kalamata olives, 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar, and 1-2 tablespoons olive oil. Process in blender or food processor until mixture is spreadable, but not completely smooth.
Spread inside of each pita pocket with a tablespoon of olive-garlic tapenade. Stuff with 3/4 cup spinach and 1/2 cup of salad mixture. Sprinkle with crumbled feta cheese. Enjoy!
