Pizza Sunday

Mmmm...Pizza.  I like my cheese a little browned. So Yummy!!!

For the last several months I've been working on making my own homemade pizza. At the beginning of 2012 I decided to make pizza every Sunday night for the year and have been getting better and better at it.  I'm not a fancy pizzaioli (had to look that up and that's what a pizza chef is called), but my family seems to love my Sunday night pizza.  And we always have leftovers for lunch on Monday.


Here are my recipes for the crust and the sauce....


Double Homemade Crust (I got this recipe from a friend but I'm not sure where she got this from.  I always use one crust and freeze the other for the next week.  Sometimes I even do this twice so I have 3 frozen crusts ready to go.  This is a no-rise pizza crust so you can use it right away or throw it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.)


Ingredients:

• 2 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F.)
• 2 Tbsp. active dry yeast 
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 2 tsp. salt
• 4 Tbsp. (1/4 cup) coconut oil (vegetable oil works too. I just have been trying to use coconut because it is healthier.)
• 5 cups white whole wheat flour (could also use a half and half combo of white flour and red whole wheat or all white flour)

Directions (I do this all in my KitchenAid Mixer but I think you could easily do it by hand):

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water in mixing bowl (8-10 minutes) 
2. Add the rest of the ingredients in and knead with the dough hook (speed 2) for 2-4 minutes
3. While kneading add more flour as needed by the tablespoon until dough clings to dough hook and cleans sides of the bowl
4. Dump onto a floured surface and divide in half (can freeze half or make 2 pizzas:)
5. Roll out and press down onto a greased pizza pan or use pizza paddle and pizza stone (which is what I've been using lately and love!)
6. Top with pizza sauce and toppings and cook at 450 for 12-13 minutes

No-Cook Pizza Sauce (I stumbled across this on All-Recipes and on Pinterest so I had to try it and it's awesome! This is enough for 2 pizza's so again use one and freeze the other and you're ready for another pizza)


Ingredients:

• 1 (12-ounce) can tomato paste
• 12 fluid ounces warm water (Just fill the empty tomato paste can)
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1.5 teaspoons onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
• 2 teaspoons Kosher salt

Directions:

1. In a bowl, combine all ingredients and stir until well combined.
2. Allow to sit for at least a half hour for flavors to blend. Refrigerate if it will be sitting for more than 30 minutes.
3. Use anywhere you would use pizza sauce.

Our Cow, Frank (well at least 1/4 of him)

This December Matt and I decided to buy a split side of beef to fill our new deep freezer with.  This is not a completely foreign concept to me since my parents used to do this.  My dad has a friend who raises grass-fed beef that embraces the spirit of organic even though they aren't certified.  We figured we could get good quality, local, grass-fed beef by buying from them.  It's been great to have ground beef on hand and amazing steaks and roasts too.  After eating this high quality of meat I doubt I'll go back to grocery store stuff. And of course we had to name our cow and we named him Frank.  So, now we often talking about eating Frank for dinner.

Meet Frank, from Grazin' Acres....



My next meat adventure might just be looking into local chickens.

Freezer Cooking Recipe: Fajitas

This is a super easy and super yummy recipe.  It's great because you don't have to do any cooking before you freeze it.  The cooking happens on the day you eat it but everything is ready to go.  Freeze 2 batches at once and you have a couple of meals ready to go.

Freezer Fajita (Single Recipe)

3 or 4 large chicken breasts
1/2 cup lime juice
½ teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
2 onions

Slice the meat into thin stips and put in freezer bag with lime juice, garlic, salt and pepper.

Cut onions and bell peppers and put in freezer bag.

To serve: Thaw 2 bags, saute meat and vegetables in olive oil.  Serve in tortillas with cheese, sour cream and salsa.

Freezer Cooking Recipe: Chicken Enchilada Lasagna

A long time ago I promised I would post some of my favorite freezer cooking recipes so here is one for you.  I'll give instructions on eating it the day you prepared it and freezing it.  Since this is a double recipe you can make one to eat and one to freeze or just split the recipe in half and only make one. The foundation of this recipe came from onceamonthmom.com but I changed it a ton.

Chicken Enchilada Lasagna (Double Recipe - Rectangular Pans)

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken, cooked and shredded (or 4 chicken breasts cooked and shredded)
• 4 cups Mexican blend cheese, shredded
• 3 cans cream of celery soup (use 2 for single recipe)
• 1.5 cups sour cream
• 7 ounces diced green chilies
• 2 teaspoon cumin
• 3 cans black beans (use 1 for single recipe)
• 16 oz. frozen corn
• 12 medium flour tortillas

Directions:

In a bowl, mix soups, sour cream, chiles, and cumin.
In a 9 x 13 baking dish, layer lasagna-style: tortilla, soup mixture, chicken, beans, corn, cheese.
Repeat 2 more times
Bake uncovered, at 425F for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and enchiladas are heated through.

Freezing Directions:

After preparing, do not bake. Instead, seal, label, and freeze. To serve: Thaw in fridge (I find thawing for 48 hours is best) then bake as directed above.

Servings: 6

Butternut Squash and Prosciutto Spaghetti

This is one of my favorite new recipes. I couldn't find one online that was exactly to my tastes so this is a combination of several recipes of the same vain. Enjoy!

Butternut Squash and Prosciutto Spaghetti

Ingredients:

• 1 medium butternut squash, about 2 pounds
• onion powder
• 1 scant teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 ounces spaghetti
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 Tbs sage
• 1 Tbs rosemary
• 2 medium cloves garlic, minced
• 1 package proscuitto, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste
• shredded Parmesan for garnish

Preparation:

• Heat oven to 375°.
• Using a vegetable peeler, peel the squash.  Cut in half and scoop out seeds and cut into 1/2- to 1-inch cubes (I find after peeling the squash it helps to microwave it for a couple of minutes to make it softer for cutting).
• Combine squash, onion powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and 3 to 4 tablespoons of olive oil.
• Toss to coat and spread out in a large foil lined cookie sheet.
• Roast for about 30 to 35 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned, turning about halfway through the roasting time.

• Meanwhile, cook pasta as directed on the package; drain and rinse with hot water. Set aside.
• In a large saucepan or skillet over medium-low heat, cook butter, rosemary and sage until the butter begins to brown.
• When the sediment turns medium brown, add the garlic and proscuitto and continue cooking for about 1 minute. Do not let the butter burn.
• Add the cooked and drained pasta and roasted butternut squash to the butter mixture.
• Put back on the heat and continue cooking stirring, until pasta and squash are hot.
• Taste and add salt and pepper, as needed.
• Garnish with more Parmesan.

Serves 4 to 6.

Freezer Cooking

A few posts ago I mentioned that I had been freezer cooking and I was loving it.  I have been meaning to blog about my adventures in freezer cooking for a while so here it goes.

My friend Amy posed the idea of regularly freezer cooking almost a year ago and while I was a fan of the idea I really had no clue what she was talking about.  I mean I knew she meant that we would cook meals ahead of time and freeze them to eat later.  But, I had no clue how to actually do this.  So, 2 weeks before Caleb was born we sort of freezer cooked.  I think we spent about 2 hours making some random things and froze them.  I'm pretty sure I ate everything within a week.  So, really we probably could have just put the stuff in the fridge.

Fast forward to 5 months later.  Amy brought freezer cooking up again and since I wasn't 9 months pregnant and didn't have a newborn anymore I was game.  We actually got together to plan our first cooking adventure which helped a lot.  And a week after we planned we embarked on cooking.  Since then we just do all of our planning via email and shared Google docs and get together to cook once a month.

Now to explain how it all works.  Every month we plan to cook 8 double meals.  So we each go home with 8 ready to heat and eat entrees for our family for that month.  Some of the meals turn out huge so we end up with leftovers for another dinner or a weeks worth of lunches.  I can usually avoid cooking 2-4 days a week (depending on how I plan out leftovers) because of these freezer meals.

Each month we have a shared Google doc with our cooking plan and one with our shopping list.  Because we do the cooking at my house I do the majority of the shopping.  It just makes sense to do it that way instead of transporting it twice.  We also cook the meat ahead of time if it needs to be cooked, chop vegetables, cook rice, beans and anything else that's easy to do ahead.  That way on cooking day we do mostly assembling and a little bit of cooking.

Cooking day is a little crazy but it's fun.  Amy starts the day by dropping of her oldest (C) at preschool and come over to our house with her youngest (A).  Caleb naps and Grace and A run around the house.  During this time Amy and I do round 1 of cooking.  Then Amy takes Grace and A to go pick up C while I clean the kitchen, make lunch and deal with Caleb.  Then everyone eats lunch and the kids all go down for nap.  And round 2 of cooking begins.  We have about 4 hours total of good cooking time and we manage to get it all done.

I'm going to blog some of our recipes soon but for now I'm just going to give you a list of some of the things we've made in the last 3 months.

Taco Soup
Goulash
Chicken Tetrazzini
Vegetable Soup
Penne with Chickpeas
Oriental Chicken
Zesty Pineapple Chicken
Chicken Stuffing Bake
Chicken Enchilada Lasagna
Chili
Meatball Subs
Meatloaf Muffins
Chicken and Corn Tortelini Soup
Southeast Asian Curry
Chipotle Macaroni Casserole
Chicken Pot Pie
Lasagna
Turkey Black Bean Soup
Chimichangas
Buffalo Chicken Calzones
Sausage, Eggplant, Tomato Pasta
Chicken Broccoli Casserole

Baby Led Weaning

I wanted to do a quick post on Baby Led Weaning.  I mentioned in Caleb's 7 month post that this is the way we decided to introduce solid foods to him.  I'm not psycho about it and I think it's weird that it's named.  In my opinion it's just feeding babies food.  Anyway, I recently emailed a friend asking about starting her baby on solids that had a lot of info about Baby Led Weaning so below is my blog version of the email.

"With Grace I started giving her cereal right at 6 months and did that for a couple of weeks morning and evening. Then I made my own baby food and started giving her a little bit in the morning and a few weeks later gave her some at night too. At 8 months I started giving her lunch and only gave her finger foods for lunch. She really like finger foods so I slowly started replacing her purees with finger foods. By 10.5 months she wasn’t eating purees anymore and was eating all table foods.

With Caleb I’m 1000x more laid back and doing it slightly differently. I decided to completely skip the purees. So he just eats finger food. I love doing it this way. However, I don’t regret making purees for Grace. The nice thing about Caleb is I’ve never had to feed him. He just gets a pile of food at breakfast, lunch and dinner with us and feeds himself. It’s kind of lazy on my part. This method of feeding is called baby led weaning.

There is a book on the subject that I like.  I actually read the book when Grace was a baby so it motivated me to move quickly to finger foods and then I re-read it before starting Caleb on solids. There is also a BLW board on Babycenter with an FAQ section with some good info.

Basically we just started with chunks of banana and sweet potato fries. I peel and then cut sweet potatoes length wise, coat with a little oil, and bake them on a cookie sheet in the oven. I keep them in the freezer and reheat as needed. They worked great because he could hold onto one end and gnaw on the other. Now I’m giving Caleb diced food (about pea sized). I quickly moved to that because he was getting good at picking things up. I pretty much give him whatever I eat. I’m not super anal about giving him only one food and then waiting a couple days for the next. We don’t have a history of allergies.

I know a lot of people who do Baby Led Weaning swear by it and say they’d never do it any other way. It’s working great for us but I also think if we would have done things the way we did with Grace it would have been fine that way too."

Congrats if you read this to the end.  I hope you didn't fall asleep:)

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Here's an awesome (easy) sweet recipe that I got from a friend.

15 oz. can pumpkin
1 box yellow cake mix
Mini-chocolate chips
Cream cheese frosting

1. Mix the pumkin and cake mix together (it helps to use an electric mixer because it is dense)
2. Fold in as many chocolate chips as you want
3. Fill cupcake pan (the recipe is supposed to make 24 but I can never get as many as it says)
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes
5. Cool and frost

I was skeptical of this recipe at first because I didn't understand how I could do this without eggs, oil and water that I usually would add to a boxed mixed.  It was so moist and yummy though.  It just seems weird not adding the other stuff.

Graham Cracker Lasagna

One of my half eaten desserts.

Thanks to my friend Sonya I have a great summer dessert recipe.  I wanted to post it before Labor Day weekend in case you have a cookout to go to and need to bring something to share.  This is sure to be a hit and it is sooooo easy.

Ingredients:
1 box graham crackers
2 boxes pudding
1 container cool whip
1 container chocolate frosting

Directions:

1. Prepare both boxes of pudding together according to package directions.
2. After pudding is done mix in cool whip
3. In 9x13 pan layer graham crackers, half of pudding mixture, graham crackers, other half of pudding mixture and graham crackers.
4. Melt frosting in microwave until it is runny.
5. Pour frosting over the top of last layer of graham crackers
6. Refrigerate to let frosting harden.

My Favorite Food Experiences

In light of the horrible stories about the famine happening in the Horn of Africa I have been thinking a lot about food lately.  I am so thankful that I have never ever in my whole life had to go hungry.  I practice preventative eating which means planning and eating ahead of time so I never am hungry.  I am so blessed that I can do this.  I don't deserve this life that God has given me!

Just thinking about how fortunate I am to have always had food on my plate has reminded me of some of my favorite eating experiences.  You can assume I went away from every experience stuffed!  So, in no particular order here are the top 10.

1. Chinese tacos. When I spent the summer in China I had some wonderful meals.  One of my favorites was with a Chinese student.  She took me to this restaurant that she loved.  The best way to describe it was we made Chinese tacos.  We had bowls of meat and vegetables that we pilled high on tortilla shells.

2.  German breakfast. When I lived in Germany I often went to a little cafe called the Uni Cafe and had a delicious breakfast called the Yale.  It consisted of bread, cheese, and fruit.

3. Pad Thai in Switzerland.  Matt and I traveled to Europe in 2008 and we able to spend some time in Switzerland.  We read about this off the beaten track Thai restaurant in Interlaken and set off to find it.  The food didn't disappoint!

4. Authentic Korean. This one I will never forget.  My dear friend Tasha's mom had a Korean restaurant and made dinner for a group of us at the restaurant one evening.  I honestly can't remember why we were all together (maybe because none of this group had kids at the time and travel was easy) but I do remember eating tons of yummy Korean food.

5. Pizza in Pisa.  While living in Germany I was able to visit Pisa with the same group of people that I ate Tasha's mom's food with.  We went to this awesome pizza place.  The pizza was long and as big as the table and the pieces were droopy.  You had to roll them up to eat them.  My mouth is watering just thinking about that pizza.

6. Coffee Steak at a local joint.  When my friend Emily got married she had her rehearsal dinner at a local nice restaurant.  I'm pretty sure we had a few choices and I will never regret the choice I made.  I had a coffee marinated steak.  I'm pretty sure it just melted in my mouth.  I have been back to the restaurant a few times since then but have never ordered the same meal.  I think I just want to associate it with Emily's wedding.

7.  My mom's lasagna.  I've never had better lasagna than my mom's and I never remember being less than excited about it when it was on the menu.  I still love to eat it and love to make it myself.

8. McDonald's.  What post about food written by me would not be complete without a mention of McDonald's.  When I was 18 months old I could eat a whole cheeseburger and fries from McDonald's.  Now I think I could eat multiple sandwiches but I don't because it does upset my stomach and I try to be somewhat healthy.  I have so many memories of eating McDonald's after soccer, while working there, in college, on road trips, and while pregnant that I have to include it as a top food experience.

9. Couples Negril Food.  Matt and I were able to spend our honeymoon in Jamaica and while I loved the beach and resort I think I would go back for the food. We had huge breakfast buffets, constant snacks, yummy and varied lunches and dinners so it's hard to pick one good meal from it.  I think my favorite thing though was the breakfast.

10. Dinner from the R family.  After Grace was born a family from our church brought us dinner one evening.  It was awesome.  Warren's family is from the Philippines so I'm assuming the food is Philippino fare but if not it's Asian. O my it was good.  I still think about dinner that night over 2 years ago.

Some honorable mentions: The H family Heaven Cookies, most food people brought us after each baby arrived, Jerusha's cooking, M County Fair porkburgers, What was the name of the restaurant I went to with Sonya and Jerusha in Philly? It was amazing, Authentic Philly Cheesteak, and Mike W's chili made by Gina (and myself since I stole the recipe)

Again, I am so thankful that I've never known what it means to go hungry.  I've eaten a lot of good food in my life.

Next food post? My Least Favorite Food Experiences

Beef BBQ Biscuits

After Caleb was born several people brought us yummy meals. Ryan and Melissa brought us one that we've also made a couple of time since then. Melissa got the recipe from allrecipes.com and it is easy. Below is my extra simple version. Here is the original. We always eat ours with mashed potatoes and gravy.

• Ingredients

  • 3/4 pound ground beef
  • 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
  • 4 teaspoons brown sugar
  • 1 (12 ounce) package refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
  • 3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

  Directions

  1. In a skillet, brown beef; drain.
  2. Add barbecue sauce and brown sugar; set aside.
  3. Separate dough into 10 biscuits and flatten into circles.
  4. Press firmly into the bottom and up the sides of greased muffin cups.
  5. Spoon beef mixture into each cup and sprinkle with cheese.
  6. Bake at 400 degrees F for 10-15 minutes or until biscuits are golden and cheese is melted.

Buried Cherry Cookies

I just made 5 dozen of my most favoritest cookies in the world for a church cookie exchange tomorrow night. I hope the required 3 dozen make it out the door without me eating them all. Here is the recipe...

Buried Cherry Cookies

Source: Better Homes and Gardens

Ingredients:

1 10-ounce jar maraschino cherries (42 to 48)
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk or low-fat sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain cherries, reserving juice. Halve any large cherries. In a medium mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in cocoa powder and as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour.

2. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press your thumb into the center of each ball. Place a cherry in each center.

3. For frosting, in a small saucepan combine chocolate pieces and sweetened condensed milk. Cook and stir over low heat until chocolate melts. Stir in 4 teaspoons reserved cherry juice. (If necessary, frosting may be thinned with additional cherry juice.) Spoon 1 teaspoon frosting over each cherry, spreading to cover.

4. Bake about 10 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool. Makes 42 to 48 cookies

Cake

1. I am pregnant and when I want something to eat I want it right away.

2. I've been watching "Cake Boss" on Netflix waaaay too much.

3. I saw a picture of my friends' kid eating cake on Facebook.

These are the 3 reasons to justify why I put a yellow cake in the oven at 7:50pm. I will not go to bed tonight until the cake has been frosted in chocolate and partially devoured.

Mexican Meatballs

Thanks to my friend Amy we have a new favorite recipe in our house. I made her Mexican Meatballs tonight and we LOVED them. The only thing I did differently from her recipe is I didn't measure anything (just guessed), skipped the onions and used onion powder instead, and I used medium instead of mild enchilada sauce. As Grace says when she eats something she likes these were nummy!

Ingredients :

• 1 pound ground turkey or ground beef
• ½ cup finely crushed tortilla chips
• ½ cup grated zucchini (sub. shredded carrots)
• ¼ cup green onions, finely chopped (sub. white onions)
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon oregano
• salt and pepper to taste

• 1 can (10 oz) mild enchilada sauce
• ½ cup water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients except enchilada sauce and water. Shape into 1 ½ inch meatballs. Place on a sprayed baking sheet with a rim. Bake for 20 minutes or until browned. (Freeze after this step, if freezing to eat later. Then thaw and follow directions below.)

In a large skillet, combine enchilada sauce and water. Add cooked meatballs, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Serve over rice. Sprinkle shredded cheddar on top.

Meaty Cornbread Casserole

Here is a great recipe I found in my Taste of Home cookbook (also stole the picture from Taste of Home) if you're looking for some yummy comfort food. I left a couple of things out and this is the simplified (awesome) version.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1/2 pound bulk pork sausage
• 1-3/4 cups frozen corn, thawed
• 1 cup water
• 1 envelope brown gravy mix
• 1 package (8-1/2 ounces) corn bread/muffin mix
• 1 envelope country gravy mix

Directions

• In a large skillet, cook beef and sausage over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Stir in the corn, water and brown gravy mix. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1 minute or until thickened. Spoon into a greased 8-in. square baking dish.
• Prepare corn bread batter according to package directions. Spread over meat mixture.
• Bake, uncovered, at 400° for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into corn bread layer comes out clean.
  
• Meanwhile, prepare country gravy mix according to package directions; serve with casserole. (This step is what makes this meal go from good to great!)
  

Ranch Dressing

Are you looking for a good and healthier ranch dressing? Well give this one a try....
I am a HUGE fan of ranch dressing and love the really really bad for you buttermilk ranch. I cannot tell you how many times I've tried the low-fat or fat-free version of ranch and ended up leaving it in the fridge until it expired and then throwing it away. They are usually just plain gross. But I have finally discovered an amazing ranch dressing that is actually really good. It contains half the calories and less than half the fat. It's also twice the price. But it is worth it.

In case you're looking to buy it for yourself the grocery store we frequent has it in the produce section near the bagged salads. So, I wouldn't count on finding it in the dressing aisle.

Avocado Chicken Casserole

I just made this yummy recipe from Taste of Home. If you want the original recipe go here or use mine with some slight modifications. I downsized from the original recipe a little bit and had enough for 2 adults and 2 toddlers with leftovers for dinner tonight. Now the question is will Matt eat it? I also used lasagna noodles instead of egg noodles. I thought this was delicious so enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter
  
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon each garlic powder, onion powder, dried basil, and thyme
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup half-and-half cream
• 2 layers of lasagna noodles for whatever pan you use, cooked and drained
• 2 medium ripe avocados, cubed
  
• 1/2 lb cooked chicken
• 1-2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

• In a saucepan, melt butter; stir in flour and seasonings until smooth. Gradually add milk and cream. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.
  
• In a greased 9-in. x 9-in. baking dish, layer half of the noodles, avocados, chicken, white sauce and cheese. Repeat layers.
  
• Cover and bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes. Uncover; bake 5 minutes longer or until bubbly.
  

Grace's First Bratwurst

Matt grilled out for the first time this year on Tuesday and we shared some of our yummy meat with Grace. She loved it. Unfortunately I don't know how to edit video so it starts with Matt saying, "Oh frick" because he thought he was taking a picture. Turns out we are happy to have Grace's first bratwurst eating experience on camera. Also, don't mind my voice I was very sick at the beginning of this week.

Vegetarian Enchilada Casserole

I bet you blinked your eyes when you saw one of my recipes was vegetarian. Yes, I do cook without meat but only for special occasions. And Matt didn't eat a bite of this so I've been eating it for a week strait. Grace loved it though and signed more (which I had only taught her once a week before after I gave her some). I hope you find time to make this yummy dish. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 chopped medium onion
  
• 2 chopped peppers (I did one yellow and one red)
  
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3/4 cup salsa
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 15.8 ounce cans black beans, drained
• 6-8 tortillas (I've been buying all whole wheat products and Meijer sells some yummy whole wheat flour tortillas)
  
• 2 cups cheese shredded
• 3 tomatoes chopped (optional)
• sour cream (optional)
• sliced black olives (optional)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine onion pepper, garlic, salsa, cumin and black beans in large skillet and bring to simmer over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently for 3 minutes.

Arrange 1/2 of the tortillas in bottom of 9" x 13" baking dish overlapping them as necessary. Spread half of bean mixture over tortillas and sprinkle with half of cheese. Repeat layering process with remaining tortillas, bean mixture and cheese.

Cover dish with foil and bake 15 minutes. Carefully remove foil and serve warm.

*******Garnish with tomatoes, sour cream and olives.*******The garnish made it go from really good to delicious!

Homemade Salsa

I have been trying for the last several months to make the perfect homemade salsa. I tried and failed and tried and failed several times. I finally found a great recipe on a fun blog I read. I didn't modify it much. The main difference between my recipe and hers is mine is modified to fit in my 11 cup food processor. I learned the hard way that the liquid max fill line is there for a reason.

Ingredients

1 15 oz. can whole tomatoes
1 can Rotel tomatoes
1/4 yellow or white onion
1 jalapeno
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1 large handful cilantro

Preparation

Cut jalapeno and onion in to chunks. Slice garlic into a few pieces. Put everything in the food processor and run until desired consistency it reached.

Eat and enjoy!