Recipe: Bone Broth

Bone broth is super easy to make! Apparently, it is one of the most healthful foods out there, too. I have been making mine with turkey carcasses left over from Thanksgiving but it can be made with chicken, beef, etc.

The recipe is pretty loose and it is better to make the bone broth from what you have on hand, than not at all. 

I chop my veggies smaller than they need to be because I plan in eating them with some of the broth. You'll especially want to do this if you are going to be making soup with the vegetables included. 

You just throw it all in the crockpot, fill it up with water, and turn it on. 

Yummy soup!

Ingredients:

2 carrots (I use a handful or two of minis)

1 medium onion

2 celeries

3-4 sprigs fresh parsley 

1-2 sprigs fresh thyme

1-2 cloves garlic

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Salt and pepper

Water

Put the bones/carcass in the crockpot. Roughly chop the carrots and celery and then slice and quarter the onion. Throw the veggies and garlic in the crockpot. Pull the leaves of the herbs right off into the pot. Add the bay leaf, vinegar, and any salt and pepper you might want (I usually add just a bit of pepper and wait to add the rest later).  Fill the crockpot with water leaving about 1-1/2 inch space at the top so it doesn't boil over. Turn it on low. Leave for 8-10 hours turning carcass every couple of hours.  (Warning: Your house will smell delicious!!!)

When it is done cooking, strain the broth with a fine wire strainer into a pitcher then pour the broth into your storage containers. Refrigerate until cold, scoop off the layer of fat, then seal and store in the freezer.

-The first time I made bone broth, I only used onion, carrots, celery, and parsley and it was still great!!

What do you put in your bone broth to make it delicious?




References:
100 Days of Real Food, Primally Inspired, Weed'em & Reap, Chow

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Recipe: Easy Homemade Broccoli Cheese Sauce

I whipped this together the other night when I needed a quick dinner before book club. I had some left over broccoli from making Cheesy Cream of Broccoli Soup with Bacon and some left over heavy cream and cheeses from a Baked Ziti recipe I'll be posting soon. 

This pic is actually the leftover sauce that I ate tonight :)

This is a super easy sauce that whips up really quickly and is so good that I literally kept eating it with a spoon while I waited for my baked potatoes to finish cooking. Enjoy!

Start by chopping up the broccoli, boiling the broccoli steaming water, and melting the butter.  Finish chopping the broccoli and get it steaming before you add the flour to the butter, otherwise, you will be trying to stir your roux and chop broccoli and then add cream before the roux browns too much and then be stirring the white sauce so it doesn't burn while still trying to chop broccoli and your broccoli steaming water will be trying to boil out of the pan (no punctuation crazy sentence to reflect the real life craziness).  No good.

3 Cups???

 At this point the thought came to me that Talon, my 3 year old, hadn't gone to the bathroom for a while.  So in the midst of everything else, I ran into my bedroom where he was playing Sonic and found that he had peed right on my bed.  Awesome :| 

Phew, no lumps!

Once it is mixed together, you'll want to taste it...a bunch.  We like ours a little thick, but this would be the point to add milk a little at a time to the consistency you prefer.

Talon's baked potato with the cheese sauce.  He liked it!

 Ingredients:

3 Cups broccoli, chopped small

1/2 Cup water

1 teaspoon sea salt

3 Tablespoons butter

3 Tablespoons flour

1 1/2 Cups heavy cream

1 Cup cheddar cheese, shredded

1/2 Cup mozerella cheese, shredded

1/2 Cup parmesan cheese, shredded

Milk for consistency

 Start by chopping the broccoli into smaller pieces (little chopped stems work perfectly in this sauce).  Bring the water and sea salt to a boil in a medium/small pot with a lid.  Add the broccoli and stir until the water returns to a boil then turn the heat to low and cover.  Cook for 5 minutes and test softness.  (You could use frozen broccoli and follow the cooking directions on the package.)  Melt the butter in a medium/large pot.  Add the flour and stir until combined.  Bring temperature to medium high then add the cream and stir until it starts to bubble and thicken.  Turn the heat off and stir in the cheese.  Add the broccoli and any remaining cooking water to the sauce and stir it in.  This will make a fairly thick sauce so feel free, at this point, to add milk a bit at a time, if you would like your sauce a little more thin.  -Serves 4.

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Recipe: Coconut No Bake Cookies

These are yum.  Simple ingredients and easy to make.  Also, they are semi healthy!!

I like to double the recipe when I make these.  I use 1/3 cup butter and 1/3 cup coconut oil.  

 

I use peanut butter and boy is it good!  Someday, when I have money to spare, I will try Almond butter...but until then...poor man's peanut it is!!

 

Mixing in the deliciousness.  I like the mixture of 1 cup oatmeal and 3 cups oatmeal.  (My Smith's only sells the sweetened coconut so that's what I use.)

 

Oh, yes!

 Ingredients:

(I always double the recipe)

1/3 cup honey (you can probably reduce the amount of honey even more)

1 1/2 Tbsp. cocoa
1/3 cup coconut oil or butter
1/3 cup almond butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups dried, unsweetened coconut

To see the directions, click Here to go to The Unrefined Kitchen's page.

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Recipe: Reese's Fudge

When I saw this recipe, of course I was all over it.  I'm sure you all remember how much I love chocolate peanut butter in ice cream form, so why not in fudge form?  Well, I do love it...so much!!  It was so easy to make and so delicious.  This would be a great recipe to make with kids (so that you could make the kids open all of the Reese's).

I didn't read the recipe very carefully before I sent my husband to the store so I had him buy the mini cups instead of the regular ones.  Also, I don't own a 9x9" pan so I had to use an 8x8" pan.  Luckily for me, neither of those things made a big difference! :)  I unwrapped 25 of the mini cups (making sure to lick the Reese's remnants out of each brown wrapper) and put them in the foil lined and sprayed pan.

I then walked the sauce pan into my living room to get my 3 cups of chocolate chips, because that's where my 37 pounds of chocolate chips live, in my living room.

I then put the chips and the sweetened condensed milk over medium low heat and chopped all of the remaining (minus the one I ate) cups into smaller pieces.

 
With my full attention on the chocolate, I turned the heat up to medium and stirred until smooth.  I very carefully poured it over the peanut butter cups then hurried and sprinkled the chopped pieces.

I gave the fudge a few minutes to cool on the counter (while I ate the extra fudge out of the pan. Yum.) then popped it in the fridge to finish stiffening up.

Good, easy, and not going to see tomorrow ;)



Reese's Fudge

22 individual Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (regular size), unwrapped -16 for the bottom and 6 crumbled on the top

3 cups chocolate chips

1 (14 ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk

 -Next time I might try cutting up the bottom Reese's as well, I think the fudge might cut better and have a better peanut butter distribution.  I'll let you know if I do. :)

You can find the whole recipe at the Six Sister's Stuff website.


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Recipe: Cheesy Tuna Bites

I stumbled upon these Monday when we were out of bread but my son wanted a fried tuna sandwich. So good. So easy.

 

Cheesy Tuna Bites

1 can tuna

1 good squeeze mustard

1ish Tablespoon pickle relish

1 big spoonful mayo

1 handful shredded cheese

1 boxTriscuits

Preheat oven to 350. Drain tuna. Put mustard, relish, and mayo in bowl then mix in the tuna. (I put the mayo in first then use that spoon to get the tuna out of the can. Saves a spoon or tuna from getting in the mayo.) Mix in cheese. Lay out Triscuits on a baking sheet (maybe I used 15-20???). Top with tuna mixture. Bake until cheese melts, about 5ish mins. Makes enough for one adult and one child to have for lunch but still want more because they are so good...better double it.  ;)

Recipe: Cheesy Cream of Broccoli Soup with Bacon

Oh my heck!! I made this soup last night and it is the best soup I have ever made by far. Like, by souper far ;) Easy to make  (awesome!), healthy (bonus!), and so delicious (why I really love it). It is creamy with just a little kick and who can say no to bacon!?!?

The best news is...Talon likes it! He ate broccoli!!

I don't have an emersion blender so I just cut everything really small. The next time I make this soup, I will crisp the bacon a little more. Also, I just used regular ingredients, nothing fancy. 

Let me know how you like it!!

• 1/2 lb. of nitrate-free bacon, chopped
• 4 c broccoli, diced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 T parsley
• 1/8 t cayenne powder
• 4 c chicken bone broth
• 1 c heavy cream
• 1 c milk
• 3 T butter
• 3 T arrowroot powder, or flour
• 1/4 c grated parmesan cheese
• 1/4 c cheddar cheese, cubed
• sea salt and pepper, to taste

For full instructions, see the blog I got the recipe from:

http://learningandyearning.com/cheesy-cream-of-broccoli-soup-with-bacon

Pic of the soup cooking, before the cream was added in. Yummy!!

Recipe: Chocolate Frosting

Am I the only one who only either buys store bought cakes or a container of frosting to go on my box mix cake? Oh, well that's embarrassing. ;) Either way, this chocolate frosting recipe was kind of a life changing event for me. For realsies.

It all started when I picked to bring dessert to my mom's house for lunch this past Sunday. Watching LDS General Conference all day Saturday made it hard for my lazy self to make something. At about 10pm Sat night, I was feeling super excited that I still had a box of yellow cake in my cupboard since I've been trying (and mostly failing) to keep processed foods out of my diet.

Sunday morning we went to my dad's house for breakfast and then were scheduled to be to my mom's house for lunch (It seems like my parents always schedule things on the same day. Divorce kids problems :). So on the way home from my dad's house I googled chocolate frosting recipes. I pulled this one up and saw that I had all the ingredients. Awesome! 

When we got home the first thing I did was run to the fridge, pull out two sticks of butter, and put them under my armpits. Ain't nobody got time for letting butter soften on it's own. With the butter warming under my arms, I pulled out the other ingredients and the mixer. By then the butter was feeling fairly soft, soft enough that a high speed beater was able to whip it into complete softness with only a few bent beater tongs. (I was able to bend the beater back into shape. No need to stress over my beater ;) 

Talon kept begging for a bite so when it was just butter and cocoa I gave him a little piece. Hilarious!! Funniest thing that has happened in a while. :D  Once I got it all mixed up, Talon kept asking for tastes and probably would have eaten the whole bowl by himself, but would have had to fight Mark over it since they both kept 'tasting' it. 

I ate three pieces of cake on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I think Mark ate that same amount. Talon would ask for cake and then just eat the frosting off. Seriously, it's that good. Hope you like it :)

1 cup softened butter

1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted (I totally did Not sift!)
5 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3-4 tablespoons milk

For full instructions check out Laurens Latest.

He was covered in frosting.  We had to change his whole outfit and would have given him a bath, if we weren't already late.

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Recipe: Tropical Quinoa Chicken Salad

This is an easy meal that uses ingredients I commonly have around the house. I invented it one day when my fridge was empty and so was my belly. Hope you like it!!

When I was working full time, I rarely used the crockpot but have been using it more frequently now that I am home. I like using the crockpot for this recipe because I can start the chicken at lunch time and then work on it during nap time. I also like to shred the chicken vs cube it because I think it works better with the quinoa. You, however, can cook and prepare your chicken however you darn well please.

I cook my quinoa in the rice cooker and use only 1.25 cups of liquid per the 1.5 cups of dry quinoa because soggy quinoa is no bueno. To sweeten the quinoa and to give it more of a tropical taste, you can substitute coconut milk for some of the water. When I have it on hand, I use about .5 cup coconut milk and .75 cup water.

When draining the pineapple and oranges, I leave the tiniest bit of juice in the can to mix in with the salad. Make sure you fold the oranges in gently after everything else is mixed in or else you will end up with mangled oranges...like mine. When I am feeling ambitious, I toast coconut flakes in the oven to sprinkle over the top (didn't happen last night).  

Yum!

Tropical Quinoa Chicken Salad

2 Cups cooked chicken, shredded

1 1/2 Cups dry quinoa, cooked

1/2 Cup coconut milk (optional)

2 Cups grapes, halved

2 Cans pineapple, drained

1/2 Cup poppyseed dressing

2 Cans mandarin oranges, drained

Possible delicious add ins:

Toasted coconut flakes

Red bell pepper, chopped

Chives, chopped

Sliced almonds

Let me know what you think, especially if you try a variation. I'll also keep you posted with any variations that I try. 

Update on 10/19/2013

I added a red bell pepper and it was AWESOME! Highly recommended. 

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