lunch + soups

The days I don't have salad, I like to have soup for lunch. Sometimes I'll do both. I've been trying to make a large pot of soup on sunday (or whatever day works) and then we'll have some for dinner, and then I'll freeze 2 quarts and still have another 2 quarts for the fridge and lunches.

My current favorites are:
http://lrhrecipes.blogspot.com/2017/01/minestrone-soup-by-lisa.html (but I leave out the pasta now since I'm avoiding grain for a while. Really I think the pasta is superfluous.) This recipe will make plenty to freeze.
http://lrhrecipes.blogspot.com/2017/02/wickizer-veggie-chili.html. I'm not sure how much this makes, but I'll probably double it the first time to make sure I had extra.

Wickizer Veggie Chili

My neighbors made this for me after baby, and then brought it again when I asked for the recipe. They are great! I love it vegetarian, but I will add some ground turkey when I make it so it is more filling. I haven't made it yet but I have the right beans finally.

Anyway, we all LOVED the chili. I like it way better than the "30 minute chili" that I have on this sight. I hardly ever make that because I don't really love it. But I'd make this frequently. Ila loves it especially.

Lunch + Salad Vegetables

 About a year and a half ago I tried to get into the "mason jar salad" craze. You get a quart jar (or 5), and put in dressing, then a bunch of veggies, and then squish in some lettuce. This is a great idea if you need it all in one to take to work. But I work from home. So I found it annoying to eat the same salad 5 days in a row, and the dressing got tiring and was always partially wasted since it never comes out of the jar all the way without scraping with a spatula. Which I did not do. Plus you have no idea how much salad you can cram into those things. It comes out and you have way more lettuce then you can handle.

So they did not work for me. But I decided to try again with just the vegetables. And I love it! This is my second week of making mason jar salad vegetables. I actually look forward to my easy lunch salad now since I can customize it so easily. The hard part for me with salads is prepping the vegetables. So if I do that ahead of time and make 4 or 5 quart jars of salad veggies, then all i have to do is chop/spin lettuce, add meat and dressing of choice. That way you can use whatever leftover meat you want, or meatless with eggs and nuts and cheese, or whatever.

I am currently deciding whether I want to try adding salad leaves to the jars too. We will see. It is kind of annoying using the spinner every day and I don't have a lot of time to spare to eat.

So far this is what I do so far, split between 4 quart jars:
handful of cherry tomatoes (or 1.5 clamshells split in 4)
1 cucumber, sliced into semicircles
8 baby radish, sliced
8 oz mushroom, sliced
1 colored bell pepper, chopped in big pieces

I choose 4 from that list, or whatever is on sale.
I'm also really loving the growers mix that aldi sells. It is enough for about 6 salads.

For meat I always buy 1- 6 oz package of southwest grilled chicken. I use that for 1 or 1.5 salads. Other toppings: leftover taco meat twice, shrimp and a hardboiled egg, leftover shredded pork, pistachios, beans, block parmesan cheese, and queso fresco. And lately for dressing I've been using light champagne vinaigrette from trader joes.

Pumpkin Maple Sourdough Cake

http://pinchmysalt.com/pumpkin-maple-sourdough-cake/
Pumpkin Maple Sourdough Cake

This was very delicious. I would make this again for sure. It has a nice cohesion to it, and very moist. I added 2 T of brown sugar after realizing the squash I used was not at all sweet and quite bland. I would not add the sugar if it was a butternut or pumpkin squash. David said he liked it even better the next day.

04/2020: used brown sugar instead of maple syrup, and added 1/2 tsp maple flavoring. Used microwaved sweet potato, and then canned pumpkin a second time.

Overnight Oats + whey powder oatmeal test

I recently purchased some unflavored whey protein powder by Jarrow hoping it could mix into oatmeal and be undetectable. This is what works and what doesn't.

Oatmeal tests:
Add whey powder before microwaving oats/water: FAIL. The cooked whey absorbed water and was chunky and strange texture. It tasted ok, but texture is too big a turn off.

Add whey powder to hot cooked steel cut full liquid oatmeal: WORKED. The addition was undetectable to finished steel cut oats. I think I tried adding half a scoop, but I think a whole scoop would be fine too. Make sure to stir in quick. Only add it to oatmeal that has all the liquid needed.

I tried adding it to hot cooked old fashioned oats with only half the liquid (a microwave trick I do in order to add milk later) and sort of had to mash it in, then I added milk after. This had strange texture again. FAIL.

If I stir it into hot cooked old fashioned oats with full liquid, then x.

Overnight oats:
I like them. This is what I do:

1/2 cup old fashioned oats (the package says this is 40 grams, but 40 grams is actually more like a scant 1/2 cup. I usually do the scant or measure it by weight.)
3/4 scoop unflavored whey powder
1 tbsp chia seeds
1 cup 2% milk
1 tbsp maple syrup
fruit mix in, chopped strawberries are great or half banana.

Shake up first 3 ingredients in wide mouth pint canning jar, then add milk and let sit overnight. Add syrup and fruit before eating.

I'm sure I'll try more variations over time. The strawberry version has 30/13/54g p/f/c. 433 calories.

Another high protein breakfast to do is http://damndelicious.net/2016/07/15/healthy-protein-waffles/

Sourdough Muffins

http://webpages.charter.net/rhamley/bread/quickbreads2.htm
Sourdough Muffins

This recipe is easy to convert to corn muffins or any other grained muffin by subsituting the 1 cup of flour with 1 cup cornmeal, or 1 cup millet, or whatever flour you want. It might work with almond meal too, I haven't done that though.

I have tried it with cornmeal and they were terrific. It baked in 10 minutes in a mini-muffin pan.

Sourdough Pancakes or Waffles

Sourdough Pancakes or Waffles

This recipe is great. It feeds our family of 4 (plus infant) and there were a few extra too. I use whole wheat for the additional cup of flour.

Instructions from Leann about her 40 year old starter:

Put your sourdough starter in a Tupperware that will be its new home. 

Directions for today and after use:  Add flour and cool water to make about 1 1/2 cups of starter that is the consistency of thick pancake batter.  Let it sit on the counter with lid off for a few hours until you start to see bubbles on top.  Put the lid on and put it in the fridge. 

 Directions for before use:  About one hour (or as soon as you remember:)) before use, bring starter out of fridge. Add enough flour ( I usually do two or three spoonfuls) and water to make sure you have enough starter for your recipe with a couple of TBSP leftover as culture. Let sit on the counter until you are ready to make your recipe;  hopefully you will start to see some bubbles at that time.  After you use your starter, you should have a couple of tablespoons left over in your Tupperware.  Follow the "after use" directions. 

 Ideally use the starter every two weeks, but I usually do it once every month or two.

Laura's modifications for the starter and this recipe:
I have been maintaining the starter at 100% hydration (equal parts weight flour and water). 1 cup of starter weighs 250g.

Night before Instant Pot Oatmeal

Using rolled oats:
2 cups old fashioned oats, 2.5 cups water. Use pot in a pot method--I used 1.5 quart souffle dish. Add dried fruit/nuts/seasonings etc.
Put 2 cups water into instant pot, then put in trivet that came with it. Place souffle dish on top of trivet and put on lid.
Set to steam for 13 minutes, then put delay timer so that it will start around 6 am.

Notes:
This worked. But I think the oats were overcooked, and there were too many leftovers and kids didn't want them. Only do 1 cup oats next time, which is enough for 3 people. Try 10 minutes pressure time. Soaking the oats overnight reduce the cooking time needed.

French Toast Casserole

http://fantasticfamilyfavorites.blogspot.com/2010/05/brazos-bakes-french-toast.html

French Toast Casserole

This was terrific. Leann made this for me post baby, and I liked it so much I made it tonight. I have been enjoying more bread lately, and made some this week. I used 3/4 loaf (but should have used a whole one) of this bread. (Because it was only 3/4 of a loaf I left out 2 of the eggs, but with a whole loaf I would use all 10.)

It is not clear from the directions, but this should be baked uncovered. You may need to cover near the end if it is getting too brown (I did not need to).

Alterations:
Instead of half and half I used 1/2 cup milk and 1 cup lowfat cottage cheese blended up. It was thick and worked well (also boosting protein in the dish, and much less fat). It would have been fine to do equal parts milk and cottage cheese also.
I also only put 4 oz cream cheese
and 4 T butter.

I think the butter is totally unnoticeable, I will leave it out next time.

David liked this dish. He usually does not like "soggy bread" dishes so I am glad he likes this.

Microwave Chocolate Mug Cake

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/241038/microwave-chocolate-mug-cake/

Microwave Chocolate Mug Cake

This was great for a mug cake (not as good as a real cake with egg in my opinion..but still delicious). You need an oversized mug or bowl for this or else it will overflow. I've made it a bunch of times now and it was good when i followed the recipe exactly (except did cut out a little sugar). I tried replacing some of the fat with water and the result was terrible.

Pumpkin Yeast Bread Recipe

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/pumpkin-yeast-bread-recipe

This was good, but i don't see much use for this bread since its not very versatile. My yulecake bread would have been far preferred  as a sweet yeast bread. I folled the recipe exactly except put in 1/3 part whole wheat flour by weight, and used only 1 packet of yeast instead of 2 (and proofed it in milk).

Powdered Milk Biscuits

http://seniorark.com/RE/a/powdered%20milk%20biscuits.htm
Powdered Milk Biscuits

I thought these were a bit dry, but they would have turned out better if I'd rolled out dough and cut it out rather than pretending this was a drop biscuit recipe and plopping uneven amounts on the silpat. David and kids liked them though.

FAIL Soaked Whole Wheat Crackers

http://just-making-noise.com/easy-homemade-whole-grain-crackers/

Soaked Whole Wheat Crackers

490 grams whole wheat flour (140 g/cup)
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1 cup water
2 Tbsp. raw apple cider vinegar

Add after soaking:
1 tsp. sea salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
These were terrible.  I did two batches, rolling them out and scoring them with a pastry wheel I have. The first I baked 10 minutes. They were soft and chewy, definitely not cracker like. Ila said they were "noodley." The second batch I did 15 minutes. They were hard, not flaky or anything, just hard. Ila said those were like biscuits.

Either way, I will not be making these again. I think the original recipe called for ww pastry flour, and I think that using regular ww flour just does not work. Thankfully the kids still like them so they will not go to waste!