Cooking with kefir!

We decided a little while ago to get some kefir grains and make our own kefir at home. It's got probiotic benefits, and we figured making it would be more cost-effective than continuing to buy it, or yogurt, at the store. Apparently our little grains like their environment, because they're thriving! Our kefir runneth over, more than we can reasonably drink (Brian and I like it, but we haven't yet convinced Julian that kefir is good and he should give it a try). So Brian thought he'd look for some recipes.

Tonight we had kefir flat bread. The kefir is the only leavening agent in the bread. It turned out wonderfully! It had a very slight tang to it as compared to regular yeast bread. But the dough rose nicely, and our little flat breads baked up hot and slightly puffy and oh, so good. We made pizzas out of a couple of them for Julian since he wasn't crazy about the sausage, onions and peppers we were having. Tasty good bread, and we can experiment with all sorts of different herbs in it, too!

We've also found recipes for kefir pancakes (they're supposed to freeze well) and kefir cornbread. Pretty much any recipe that calls for buttermilk, you can substitute kefir, or so I understand. I'll post more about the different recipes as we give them a try.

We started our grains with a cup of milk, and the first batch or two was thin and very tangy. As we've gone on, our grains have grown, and we're now using three cups of milk a day to make the kefir, and could probably use four. Pretty soon, we may have grains enough to share!

Ultimate Crockpot Roast

This is from a cookbook from Our Ultimate Home, a message board I was on several years ago (now defunct, sadly). It got rave reviews on the boards, and when I made it for my family last week, they gave it rave reviews, too!

1 roast (I used an arm roast - you can probably go with whatever's on sale)
1 packet Italian dressing mix
1 packet ranch dressing mix
1 packet brown gravy mix
1/2 cup water

Place the roast in the crockpot. Sprinkle the dry packet ingredients over the roast. Pour 1/2 cup water over the top of the roast. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Next time, I think I'll add some potatoes, carrots and onions to make it a one-pot meal. And we found out that the leftovers make really good hash. Brian cooked some frozen potatoes o'brien and onions until the potatoes were mostly done, added some eggs, and when the eggs were about halfway done, added some chopped-up roast. Talk about a good breakfast! So it's two yummy meals in one.

Recipes to save for bulk cooking

I don't always do well at it, but I'm trying to plan ahead and cook ahead and have things on hand. I'm looking for recipes that will work for us, and saving them here.

Money-Saving Mom's Favorite Whole Wheat Waffles (can multiply for bulk cooking)
Freezer Mashed Potatoes
Chocolate Whole Wheat Zucchini Muffins
Italian Stuffed Shells

More to come!

Menu Plan Monday - August 31 - September 6

Yes, it's that time again, Menu Plan Monday!



We do so much better about eating things that are at least halfway good for us, and about having ingredients on hand, when I do a menu plan, so here I go once more.

Monday – Spaghetti squash with meat sauce, garlic bread, green salad

Tuesday – MaMa’s Supper Club Tilapia Parmesan, Piccadilly Cafeteria Carrot Souffle

Wednesday – Chicken Delicious, Zucchini They Will Eat!

Thursday – Roast, rice and gravy, steamed broccoli

Friday – Clean out the fridge!

Saturday – Ground Beef Sukiyaki

Sunday – Bourbon Chicken, Awesome Egg Rolls

Go on over to Organizing Junkie and share your own menu plan!

Menu Plan Monday - March 16-22

Another Monday is upon us, and I've managed to do a menu plan for three weeks in a row! Woo hoo! Without further ado, here's this week's plan - you may notice that I've got some recipes I've listed in the past two weeks listed again here, and that's due to changes made on the fly. What's a plan for if not to deviate from occasionally?

Monday: Cheesecake Factory - dinner out with friends

Tuesday: Fish fry! Brian is picking up dinner, 'cause it's on sale.

Wednesday: Homemade pizzas

Thursday: Grilled steak, Crash Hot Potatoes, green salad, Yummy Delightful Mystery Rolls

Friday: Julie’s Crock Pot Korma, Curried Sweet Potatoes in Coconut Milk

Saturday: Pastitsio, Broccoli Ritz Cracker Casserole (Recipezaar), garlic bread

Sunday: Spaghetti squash, meat sauce, Balsamic and Brown Sugar Roasted Carrots , bread of some kind

Pumpkin Bread/Pumpkin Muffins

This is a recipe I got from my friend Annmarie. I made pumpkin bread for Christmas, and it was so good, I'm making pumpkin muffins now just because I want to.

15 oz. can pumpkin
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
splash of vanilla
1/4 tsp pumpkin spice
1 cup mini chocolate chips
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger

In large bowl, mix together pumpkin, eggs, applesauce, oil, sugar until well blended.

In separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, etc.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour (7 x 3) loaf pans

Stir dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended.

Bake for about an hour or until toothpick tested.

Per Annmarie, muffins take about 30-40 minutes to bake.

Recipes I want to save

In doing the menu plan thing, I'm coming across a lot of recipes I'd like to hang on to. For now, I'm just posting links here so I can go back to them later, and hopefully save them in a more organized fashion! I'll probably keep adding to this as I find more recipes along the way.


Blueberry Wild Rice and Butternut Squash
Tuna, Macaroni and Cheese Casserole
1929 Depression Casserole
Crockpot Country Ribs with Mashed Potatoes
Spaghetti Squash and Chicken Bake
Texas Cowboy's Pie
Crockpot Stuffed Bell Peppers
Chocolate Chip Muffins (can make a big batch and freeze)
Giant Breakfast Cookies
Cuban Black Beans and Rice
Breakfast Burritos to Go
Pasta Carbonara
Chicken Spaghetti
BBQ Chicken and Cornbread Casserole (crockpot)
Mexican Chicken Skillet
Ginger Sweet Potato Chicken Bake
Ham and Potato Pockets (OAMC)
Chicken Ziti
Slow Cooker Apricot Chicken
Beef and Black Bean Burritos
Slow Cooker Curried Coconut Chicken
BBQ Chicken Pizza
Crockpot Country Ribs with Mashed Potatoes
Chicken Wraps with Balsam-melized Onions

Angel Biscuits

This is a recipe my mother used to make when I was growing up. It makes some tasty biscuits, and it's good for once-a-month/bulk cooking, as they can be rolled out and cut and then frozen unbaked.

5 cups all-purpose flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons sugar
1 cup shortening
2 cups buttermilk
1 package yeast
1/4 cup warm water

Dissolve yeast in water and set aside. Sift all dry ingredients and cut in shortening. Add buttermilk and yeast and mix well. Pour onto floured board and knead. Then roll out to 1/4 or 1/2 inch thickness and cut. Put into greased baking pan and let rise to double size (about 1 1/2 hours).

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

This dough will keep in a refrigerator for a week if covered tightly. Also, after cutting the biscuits out, they can be frozen on the pan and then placed in a plastic bag. They will not stick together. Take out as many as necessary and let them rise from one to two hours. Then bake.

Oregano-Lemon Chicken

Another for the menu plan.

4 chicken leg quarters (3 1/2 pounds)
3 T. lemon juice
2 T. honey
1 T. olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2-4 tsp. dried oregano

With a sharp knife, cut leg quarters at the joints if desired. Place chicken in a greased 13" x 9" baking dish. Combine the lemon juice, honey, oil, garlic, and oregano; spoon over chicken.

Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 180 degrees and chicken juices run clear, basting occasionally with pan juices.

Cabbage with Meat Sauce

I guess this is sort of like an unrolled cabbage roll. We'll be trying it as part of our menu plan for the upcoming week.

1 pound bulk pork sausage
1 green pepper, chopped
1 C. chopped onion
1 C. tomato juice
1 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. salt
Pepper to taste
1/4 C. butter
1 medium head cabbage, thinly sliced

In a skillet, cook sausage, green pepper and onion until the sausage is browned; drain. Stir in the tomato juice, tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper; simmer for 1 hour. Melt butter in a Dutch oven; saute cabbage over medium heat until tender, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a serving platter and top with the meat sauce.

NOTE: I always make big batches of homemade meat sauce and I plan to use that for this recipe. If the one that's posted doesn't sound good, feel free to improvise!

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

This recipe comes from the Better Homes & Gardens Fast Fix Family Food cookbook.

1 20-ounce can pineapple chunks
3/4 C. maple syrup or maple-flavor syrup
1/2 C. cider vinegar
1 12- to 16-oz. package frozen cooked meatballs
2 medium sweet red peppers
1/4 C. cold water
2 T. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. salt
2 C. hot cooked Asian noodles or rice

Drain pineapple; reserve liquid. In a large saucepan, stir together pineapple liquid, syrup, and vinegar. Add meatballs. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

Remove seeds from sweet peppers and cut into 3/4-inch pieces. Add to meatballs. Simmer, covered, for 5 minutes.

In a bowl, stir together water, cornstarch and salt until smooth. Stir into meatball mixture. Cook and stir 1 to 2 minutes or until thickened and bubbly. Stir in pineapple chunks; heat through.

Serve over hot cooked noodles or rice.

Makes 4 servings.

Cookie Exchange!

Tracy P. at The Journey is hosting a cookie exchange! So there are lots of yummy recipes there to try out, just in time for Christmas baking! Hop on over and check out all the goodness, and let me share one of my favorites with you.

This isn't a cookie recipe, per se, but it's something we always had for Christmas get-togethers when I was growing up. I think I got the recipe from my Aunt Jo, but it's been so long, I can't say for sure. It's tasty and easy, and a great addition to any tray of holiday treats.

Butterscotch Candy

1 6-oz. package butterscotch morsels
1 C. Spanish peanuts
1 can chow mein noodles

Melt butterscotch morsels. Mix in nuts and noodles until well coated. Drop by spoonfuls on waxed paper and let set.

And that's it!

Just for fun, I'll put another one out there. I got this from a co-worker back when I worked at the Ellis County DA's office, and it's another easy party favorite that would be good for any holiday gathering.

White Trash

1 C. Rice Krispies
1 C. peanut butter crunch cereal
1 C. salted peanuts
1 C. mini marshmallows
1/2 package almond bark, melted

Mix all ingredients together until all the dry ingredients are coated with almond bark. Drop onto waxed paper by spoonfuls and let set.

Happy eating!

Like a warm fuzzy blanket in a mug

I found this on Recipezaar, posted by CountryLady - it's so good, I had to share.

The Snowy Boulevard

3/4 ounce vanilla vodka (plain plus a shot of vanilla extract works just fine)
3/4 ounce coffee liqueur (I used Kahlua)
6 ounces hot cocoa
Homemade marshmallows or whipped cream

Put vodka and liqueur into a heatproof mug. Add hot cocoa and stir. Top with a homemade marshmallow or whipped cream.

Mmmmmmm.

After two of these, my destination is a good night's sleep.

Good ideas for leftovers?

I've got gobs of leftover ham and turkey - anyone have any good suggestions on what I can do with them?