Gyros and Tzatziki Sauce

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Gyros-Burgers/Detail.aspx

http://greekfood.about.com/od/dipsspreadspures1/r/Tzatziki.htm

I used the two recipes posted above to make Gyros with Tzatziki sauce. I halved the sauce recipe. This was very tasty! It was a bit more involved to prepare since I had to make a sauce & meat mixture, but was really good. I also found some thin gyro style wraps (that look like pitas but don't have an air pocket) that were fabulous.

Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/butternut-squash-pasta-sauce

This was ok. I had butternut squash ravioli once at Trio in Salt Lake City, and this was my attempt to recreate it. It did not work. It would have been better if there had been chunks in it, like crunchy fried onion or garlic, or unseasoned croutons or something. I froze what we didn't use and hope to make it into soup another time.

Navy Bean Soup with Ham

I baked a ham (no glaze). I saved the ham water and used it as stock in this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 lb navy beans (or white..I really can't tell the difference)

4 T oil

2 large onions, chopped

2-3 carrots, chopped

2-3 stalks celery, chopped

3-5 garlic cloves, minced

6 cups chicken broth (or ham broth if you've got it)

3 cups water or broth ((use water if you are going to be clever and boil a ham bone in in the soup to get more flavor). I used chicken broth here. I might have added more so there was enough liquid. I forget.)

2 bay leaves

1 T italian seasoning

2 large potatoes, chopped

chopped ham (2 cups?)

directions:

I think I soaked the beans overnight and then made the beans in the crockpot. Cooked on low for 8 hrs I think, along with ham broth.

Saute onion, carrot, celery, and garlic until softish. Add beans (soaked or fully cooked) and the rest of ingredients. Boil until veges are cooked. (or for 2 hrs if beans were only soaked)

note: (I got this recipe off of the back of the Safeway Navy Beans wrapper. It says to use a 2 lb ham hock and cook it for 2 hrs with all the ingredients (and soaked beans). Then says to remove ham hock, cut ham off of it and return to soup.)

Turkey Chili with White Beans

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Turkey-Chili-with-White-Beans-3090

I have made this according to the directions, as well as in the pressure cooker. It is good either way.

For the pressure cooker:

I browned the turkey and soaked ~1.5 cups dried white beans for 6 hours (longer is fine for sure, soak at least 4 hrs I think though). Rinse the beans. Then I put it all in my 4 quart pressure cooker pot with the rest of ingredients (raw chopped onion) and brought it to pressure, then cooked for 15-20 min, then let sit for 10 minutes off heat (so to let it naturally depressurize), then pulled off the pressure regulator and let the rest of the steam escape. Turned out great.

Roasted Chicken and Bow Tie Salad

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/roasted-chicken-bow-tie-pasta-salad
Roasted Chicken and Bow Tie Salad

Really good pasta with a lot of flavors. I have made it with other pasta shapes.

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

http://grandmasrolls.blogspot.com/2010/10/creamy-tomato-basil-soup.html (thanks Lib!)

Changes--

I used fresh roma tomatoes, probably 10-15 of them. It was a big bag, a few pounds. Also, I cut the cream in half and used only one cup, which was plenty. And I added salt--1/2 to 1 tsp and dried basil at the end. Finally, I used my hand blender to blend it all up (leaving it semi-chunky).

This was tasty soup. It goes great with a roll or breadstick (we had crescent rolls). Next time I will add basil in the beginning so the flavor is distributed better.

---

this was too sweet. Too creamy..it made me feel not so great. Alas. The leftovers weren't really eaten.

Onion Pandade

http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2010/09/onion-pandade-is-this-the-ultimate-comfort-food-5-ingredients/

This is onion and bread pudding. It was very good, if you are a bread pudding kind of person. I think it might have been too wet though. DH is not a bread pudding kind of person, but he still rated it a 3, which must mean the flavor was excellent! He doesn't like turkey stuffing either. Poor DH.

I used fresh parmesan cheese.

Stuffed Green Peppers

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1626,130178-251195,00.html

STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS

1 lb. ground beef

1 lb. ground pork sausage or ground pork

4 eggs

1 cup Italian style bread crumbs

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 cloves fresh garlic

salt

pepper

Italian seasoning

1/2 cup cooked rice

4 large green peppers, sliced in half
2 8 oz cans tomato sauce

Grease bottom of pan with olive oil. Mix meat, eggs, bread crumbs, cheese, garlic, and all seasonings in large bowl (DON'T ADD TOMATO SAUCE. IT GOES ON AS A TOPPING). Add rice and mix together. Slice green peppers so that you have 8 halves. (You can also slice off the top of the pepper and use the whole pepper instead). Stuff peppers with meat mixture. Place in pan and pour both cans of tomato sauce over top and along bottom of pan. Cook @ 350 F for about 1 hour. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes. Serves 4 people, 2 halves each.

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David and I loved this recipe. We found that there was no need for a side of rice. It is satisfying as is, and there is rice in the filling. It was so tasty. I made a point of not buying diet lean ground beef for this recipe, just "lean" (whatever that is..) so there would be more flavor. The flavor of the filling was fantastic. I used bulk pork sausage instead of ground pork as the original recipe calls for. The peppers I bought were massive and thick, so even after an hour there was still some crunch. So if you don't like that, be sure to buy peppers that are not as big.

Calories: 780 per serving / 4 servings (using sausage and 91/9 beef)

Persimmon Bread

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Persimmon-Bread-I/Detail.aspx

I've made this bread twice now, and it is very good. The first time I made it was a few years ago. I bought a few fuya persimmons (the flat ones that look like mini pumpkins) and didn't eat them all before they went soft. It was soft enough that I just scraped out the pulp into a baggy and froze it. I think about 3 persimmons make a cup of pulp, and that is all you need for this recipe.

Last year I bought a bunch of persimmons when they were on sale, waited (weeks) for them to ripen, and as each one became soft I scraped out the pulp and froze it. At the end, I had 2 cups of pulp that I put into two ziplock baggies.

So that is a lot of prep, but most of it is just letting it ripen. I've never made it with firm persimmons, but I don't think the flavor would be as strong or sweet.

Recipe alterations:

I used whole wheat flour, only 1/2 cup sugar, and 3/8 cup oil. It was great. Not too sweet to have with lunch.

Makes one loaf.

Cabbage and Crispy noodle salad

http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2010/09/pack-backers-do-you-overlook-this-wonderful-source-of-recipes-5-ingredients-10-minutes/

This was very fast. I used these Vietnamese style wheat noodles I saw at Safeway. They had a high fat content for pasta, so I assumed they were as close to "fried" as I could find at the moment. I left out the sugar because of DH's tastes. It was good. Very light, and DH kept snacking on the noodles long after the cabbage was gone. I added some chopped green onions as well.

No Sugar Banana Muffins

I made these for Janie and she loved them!

http://hubpages.com/hub/No-Sugar-Added-Banana-Muffins-Recipe

Ingredients:

3 lg. bananas

1 tsp cinnamon

1 egg

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1/3 c. melted butter

Preparation:

Mash bananas.

Add cinnamon and slightly beaten egg.

Add melted butter.

Sift dry ingredients together and add to above mixture.

Mix until moistened.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

This makes one dozen muffins.

Note: I have made these with 1/2 cup chopped walnuts and 1/3 cup chocolate chips added.

Berry Tart

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/berry_tart/

I used all strawberries in this, and no liqueur. Instead of liqueur, I added 1 tsp sugar and 1 tbsp water to the marmalade and heated them in a pot so the sugar dissolved.

The crust is a pain and a lot of work, but it gets rave reviews. I served this to a couple of DH's economics department friends that we had over for dinner, and one asked for the recipe. It would be SO much easier if I had a food processor. But I used a pastry cutter and did it by hand. Which took forever.

My 9 inch tart pan was a bit small for all the cream filling. The strawberries were piled pretty high. Next time I make this, I think I will use half as much mascarpone/cream/sugar. Not sure if the cream is necessary, but it definitely tasted great.

Spinach and Ham Quiche

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Light-and-Fluffy-Spinach-Quiche/Detail.aspx

Alterations:

5 eggs

instead of 8 oz cheddar, used half cheddar half feta.

used plain yogurt instead of mayo.

Next time only do 1/4th feta. Too much salt.

This was good. I added 3-4 oz chopped ham and used a bunch of fresh spinach that I sauteed with onions until they were dry enough.

Spicy Orange Chicken Stir-Fry

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spicy-Orange-Chicken-Stir-Fry-353398

This title is a misnomer because there is zero spice in this chicken. I added some garlic and chopped ginger to this dish. I don't think I have ever cooked something where DH liked it so much and I hated it so much. It was perfectly edible, I just didn't like the flavor.

Stir-Fried Egg and Tomato

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Stir-Fried-Egg-and-Tomato-352835

This was good. It would be better with garden fresh sweet tomatoes.