Cheater Pants Gluten Free Banana Fosters Muffins

Jeez could that name get any longer? ha! :) This is why it's "cheater pants"

I added oatmeal and banana (not pictured here...obviously). 

I also substituted the rum flavor for the vanilla and added some cinnamon. 

My hubby is amazing and wrote it all down for me as I did it. Why can't he cook with me more often?! So much easier than wiping my hands off a billion times while i wing it...

Pop 'em into the oven for 10 min at 350 degrees

DEVOUR!!!

Recipe

• 1 box Gluten Free Cake Mix (Betty Crocker)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup oats
• 2 bananas
• 2 tsp rum flavor
• 1/3 c. water
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 c. butter
• Follow instructions on box for baking in muffin tin :) 

Fry-Day! Eggplant Fries and Fried Chicken Tacos

Some neighbors gave us a bunch of eggplant. I am not against eggplants but I don't love it either. Still, waste not want not, I needed to figure out a way to use this stuff without getting to sick of it. On pinterest (DON'T YOU FREAKING LOVE PINTEREST?!?!) I saw this recipe for Eggplant Fries by Use Real Butter.

Hers look a WHOLE lot better than mine, but never mind that. I have never fried anything in oil before /shrug. So I am ok with it, they tasted very nummy and that's what matter more! Because that means someone besides Grandma will be eating them! (I made mine gluten free using GF flour.)

Seemed like such a waste to not use the oil and the seasoning up completely (Grandma is rubbing off on me) so since some chicken was thawed out in the fridge, I broke an egg in a plate to use to coat the chicken in and then seasoned and fried that up too. 

Well heck, while I am at it, why not fry some corm tortillas?

Chop up some tequila peppers and green onions, add some mango salsa and you've got some tasty tasty tacos! I did fish sticks for Grandma though, it's fish friday after all. 

Broccoli-Mushroom Rice: Crockpot style

The nice thing about this recipe is that it has diverse application. So far I've used it for both Italian and Chinese dishes with success! As a side note, I HATE cooking rice on the stove, mainly because I seem to SUCK at it. My husband can do it without having a half inch layer of rice stuck to the pan, why can't I??? /sigh. I'll be ok. I just prefer a rice cooker, and right now we don't have one (our other one broke and I want a very specific new one so....I'm a picky little whiner lol!) Trolling one of my favorite websites ever, A Year f Slow Cooking, I found out you can do rice in the crockpot. SCORE! So this is an adaptation of the Sun-Dried Tomato Risotto. Because I didn't have the right rice or the right cheese...or the sun-dried tomatoes....and my crockpot is bigger...

Broccoli-Mushroom Rice
8 quart Crockpot
1 cup olive oil
3 cups brown rice
1 can condensed mushroom soup
1 cup water
7 cups chicken broth
2 heads of Broccoli, chopped

Pour in oil and rice, swirl together so the rice is well coated. Add the mushroom soup and water, mix together. Add the chicken broth and broccoli. Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours (personally mine took 4 hours, brown rice is like that and there's more of it)

So there you have it! Since it was so much more, I decided to serve different entree's with it. For the Italian themed dinner, I had chicken marinated in an Italian blend of spices, oil and vinegar and then I added cheese to the rice. For the Asian flair, I stir-fried a variety of veggies in oil, garlic and ginger; then in another pan I did beef marinated in equal parts sweet-chili sauce and soy sauce. Super yummy both times and I bet you can do even more!

Dinner and a Movie: How To Train Your Dragon

Tomorrow we have our first dinner and a movie experience with my parents, his parents and his sister. Its kind of exciting since we rarely have a time when both of our dad's have the same night off!

I am pretty excited to be playing hostess, even if it is at my parents house. Its the kind of thing I really love to do! I already told you my popcorn idea and now you get to find out about my dinner menu. (I went to this website for my inspiration. Who knew there was a Viking Answer Lady?! Pretty darn cool if you ask me!) My menu....Behold:

-Side: Dill Rye Toast with Salted Butter (easy enough, I just bought it.)
-Main Course: Chicken Stew with Beer (Viking Answer Lady posted this recipe but I changed it a smidge)

• 3 lbs chicken thighs
• 6 carrots
• 3 yellow onions
• 2 turnips
• 1/8 c. chopped Thyme
• 1/8 c. chopped Parsley
• 2 Tbsp Garlic minced
• 2 bottles of dark gluten free beer

Directions: Chop the chicken into 8 pieces.  Peel and cut the vegetables into pieces.  Fry the chicken in butter, about 5 minutes on each side.  Season with salt and pepper and place in a pot.  Add the vegetables, thyme, allspice and beer.  Let boil for about 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender.  Serve the dish with bread. (Note: I am using the crock pot, on low 6-8 hours)

-Dessert: "Skyr" (Ok it's not really Skyr but Skyr sure sounded a lot like this so I made it up. If I had time to stay home and make Skyr then I totally would have given it a shot, but I work...sad face. Still, i tried to stay true to the flavors that the Viking Lady had explained)

• 18 ounces whipped cream cheese
• 8 ounces sour cream
• 1/2 cup of honey (or to taste....the hubby worked on this, i dunno how much honey he ended up using in the end)
• 4 (I know it shows six but four was enough) fuji apples sliced, tossed with butter and cinnamon, and baked in the oven until soft

Dragon's Breathe Popcorn

You would think I would start this off talking about the movie this is all for....but I'm not. Actually, I think I'll lead in with popcorn. Popcorn is pretty big deal in my family. Being on the poorer-side of things growing up, it was one cheap snack food mom could make in bulk. And I'm not talking about that air-popped crap. I remember the first time I had that stuff at a friends house, it was like eating wadded up cardboard, totally tasteless. I grew up with the "Clardy-style" (as it has become known to others) which was originally popped in a large black pot with saved bacon grease and seasoned with Lawry's Seasoning Salt. Then we got healthier and started using olive oil sometime towards the beginning of the two thousands. 

Really... i think we just started eating less bacon. 

Which is probably good. 

You know....theoretically speaking.

Popcorn is cheap, easy and pretty healthy as a snack food. Its one of the few things my youngest brother knows how to make. Its also shown it can be transformed into a wide range of flavors. I think one of the all time favorite endeavors of my mom's was nacho popcorn. We ran out of Lawry's so she had to come up with an alternative. It had taco seasoning and grated cheese on top and it was soooooo gooooood, let me tell ya. It was a whole new world after that. A world with no boundaries....

So it's plain that I am an addict, and yet I am such a foodie I can't just have it simple. Whenever I am at my in-laws and they bust out the good ol' butter and salt, I inevitably sneak off to the kitchen to sprinkle some spice or another onto it. It just NEEDS something!

This week I am taking this blank canvas of a starch and dressing it up for a DVD premier my husband cannot wait for: How To Train Your Dragon. I dunno the last time he was this excited about a movie. We bought it, it's in the mail and it's supposed to arrive this Friday. He even invited his parents and mine to see it, since they had thus far missed out on what is apparently his new all-time-fave. So to show my support of his excitement, I proposed a themed dinner to go along with it! (yeah....It's what I do.) 

Immediately, I thought "Dragon Wings" (who wouldn't) but this was not ok with the Man since (spoiler alert) the dragons are ultimately good creatures. We can't eat the good guys. Good point. So then I proposed looking into viking foods and seeing what I can come up with. Excellent idea, I will let you know how it goes in a different note. And I am all for authentic.....ish.... 

Back to amazing popcorn. I haven't made it yet but i know it's gonna be awesome. The plan is to have some of the sweet honey flavor common to the Viking's common fare (which I now know because of THIS site) and mix it with the spicy everyone expects when you hear the word "dragon." Stay tuned for the results and the recipe :)

(time lapse: a few hours later)

Woot! I experimented with it tonight, my parents were willing test subjects (hubby doesn't like popcorn...go figure), and it was AWSOME. Therefore, it is definitely a go for tomorrow.

This was a pretty big batch, but a normal one for my family. Mom claims the popcorn accidentally over-poured into the pot.....but I think she was just hungry. Anyway, it was a lot. So I am going to half the recipe:

Honey Butter:
4 oz stick of butter, melted in the microwave with about an 1/8 c of honey mixed

Seasoning:
1/2 tsp each of cayenne pepper, paprika, chili powder, ginger powder, and salt
2 tsp garlic salt
Mix together and use to taste

Directions:
Pop the corn. Toss popcorn with Honey-Butter mixture. Then take seasoning mix and toss to taste. (We like it hot so we added more cayenne)

Winging It: Two meals made with...love and randomness?

The hubster and I are living small at the moment, until we hear from a couple of people about jobs. In the mean time we are spending as little money as possible, which means I am buying a lot of things in cans. As much as I love organic etc. its kinda expensive so we are taking a sabbatical and just trying to eat as healthy as canned goods allow.

Hence the Meatloaf and the Chorizo Quiche.

Last week, we were living off taco salad so my husband got a four pound discount thing of ground beef. We didn't use it all so I was looking at using up about two pounds fast. Why not make a dish I have never made before?! Sure, sounds great. Oh and lets go to store without looking at a recipe first! Totally the right thing to do.

So yeah, I called my mom, she lists off some usual ingredients for a meatloaf and I ask for some general quantities and we go from there. In other words, I winged it. Turns out we don't have a loaf pan at home either (we are staying with my parents for a month so i am totally reliant on mom's kitchen things). So i used a nine inch round cake pan. Turned out fine! Looks like a meat bundt cake....but it's edible! The only thing is, I dunno if it's "good" as far at meatloaf goes. I wasn't really raised on it, it gave both my parents heart burn, i guess. Tastes fine to me! Needs ketchup though... but that's normal right?

In that same shopping trip I bought some breakfast stuff, the Man of the House (MOTH? hmmm i need a nickname for him.... MOTH is....well it's weird) had asked for Chorizo. Another thing I have never made ever. Seemed pretty easy though! Which is why I decided to make it complicated:

• Right side of my Brain: You can make quiche in the oven too, right?
• Left side of my Brain: Well yeah but you don't even know what goes in quiche, its been like six years since you made it last. 
• Right side of my Brain: Whats your point? I'm sure it will be fine, just buy a whole lot of eggs, what could go wrong?
• Left side of my Brain: Can't we look up a recipe? 
• Right side of my Brain: Sure! (looks up about four recipes) Ok, I think i have the general idea, lets do this!

That's about how most of my cooking projects go actually....Anyway, I winged it. I put a whole thing of chorizo, six eggs, some cheese and some beans all mixed together and then poured it into the other cake pan. I didn't use a crust because I don't generally do gluten. The only thing that went wrong was the chorizo got greasy and dripped so the oven got a little smokey towards the end. Other than that, looks great. The plan is to take that mixture, heat it up and put it into some corn crunchy taco shells. TA DA! Breakfast Tacos. nom :)