Peach Cobbler Wontons

Sometimes you just want a bite of something. It's really hard to control myself when I have an entire cobbler sitting in front of me. Especially if it was my grandma's blackberry cobbler. She made the best. I can still smell it baking in her oven, all bubbly and golden. I don't know how she did it but her cobbler was amazing. I haven't been able to recreate it. I think it's better as a memory.

I really wanted peaches the other day. Someone made peach cobbler in the international lab at my culinary school and I managed to swipe a big ol' plate full. It was pretty tasty. Not really how I think a cobbler should be, however, I'm basing all my cobbler experience on only ever having my grandma's. I wanted to make peach cobbler at home. I knew though, if I did, I would do 1 of 2 things:

1) Eat the entire thing by myself
2) Eat one serving and never touch it again

So, I decided to be a little creative.

Mix together brown sugar and white sugar.

Start melting some butter.

Add some cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg (it's always better like that).

Stir in the melted butter

Add some flour. 

I added oatmeal too. You know, for extra health benefits. 

Dice 2 peaches and toss them with a tablespoon of sugar.

Add 1/2 pint of blueberries.

Also here for health reasons. 

Get your crumb topping ready! 

It should be moist but crumbly. 

Fill your muffin tin with wontons

Fill the wontons with the fruit.

About 1/8 cup per wonton.

Sprinkle on the delicious (& good for you - it's the oatmeal) crumb topping.

Bake.

 

They should come out golden and your kitchen should smell like cinnamon and sugar. 

SO GOOD!

Remember my predicament from above? Well I think I handled it pretty well. I ate two and took the rest to work. 

I may have had a third one once I got there... But it has fruit so it has to be healthy right??

I used Ina Garten's crumb topping. It's really easy. The only thing I did differently was add 1/2 cup Quaker Instant Oatmeal. 

For the filling:

2 peaches, diced - skin on

1/2 pint fresh blueberries

1 tablespoon sugar. 

Toss all ingredients together. 

Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling. 

You can also make this dessert sugar free by omitting the brown sugar and replacing all white sugar with Splenda. 

Cheesy Southwestern Chili Enchiladas

Happy New Year dear followers! Hope your new year is off to a great start and everyone is making good on their resolutions. They are not the easiest things to stick to. I know that first hand. This year I've decided to make mine a little more attainable, if you will. Budgeting has never been my thing, ever. But I've tried and tried and I always say this time I'm going to make it work. Well then comes along the cutest pair of wedges you ever did see... Story of my life. Shoes are one of my weaknesses. 

Food however, is my downfall. So I've decided this is where I need to make necessary cuts. I go to the store, stock up on what I think I need (think being the key word here) and as many people out there experience, half of it goes to waste. Produce mostly. It's costly and if not used within a few days it goes bad. Compost bucket full of dollars. Dollars I don't have to spend on compost. 

What to do? Recycle the ingredients I buy. Why didn't I think of that before? There's a whole time slot on Food Network devoted it stretching your dollars by using the same ingredients in several different recipes. And, now that I'm being more frugal and really paying attention to my food budget I can eat for days on just a few things from the store. 

I was craving my summer veggie casserole so I went and bought all the stuff to make it. I made a small one for dinner and had a lot of vegetables left over so I combined it all in a container and saved it for the next day. I used some for vegetable and cheese quesadillas, a quick and easy lunch or dinner option, and used the rest to make a vegetarian chili.

2 cups diced mixed veggies: squash, zucchini, red/orange peppers, onion

1 can petit diced tomatoes w/ juice

1/2 can black beans

1/2 can red kidney beans

2 cups water

1 packet low sodium chili seasoning

Super easy, and healthy. It was a cold day so it was perfect. But I didn't eat it all. I was craving enchiladas but didn't have everything to make it so I improvised. This is what I came up with. And I have pictures! So you can see just how easy this was. It only took about 5 minutes to throw together and I had another delicious and healthy meal. 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. And grease your baking dish.

The first thing I did was make some rice. Any kind you like will do. I had some basmati on hand. Just follow the directions on the package. Then strain off the liquid that's in the chili into a sauté pan. Reduce by half over medium heat. While that's reducing mix the rice into the veggie/bean mixture.

Add some cheese to your tortilla shells.

I used some pepper jack cheese leftover from my veggie casserole but feel free to use whatever you like or have on hand.

Add the rice mixture.

Roll it up! 

Fold in the sides.

Then pull over the end closest to you. 

Then finish rolling it up. 

This is how our sauce should look. 

You're really just evaporating water and chili seasoning but the starch in the beans will also help it to thicken. YUM!

Spoon that over each tortilla roll. 

Sprinkle with a little more cheese.

Bake to perfection. 

About 10-15 minutes. Just until it's bubbly and golden. 

Cheesy Southwestern Chili Enchiladas (because they're made from chili - the soup, not the pepper)

Roughly:

1/2 cup prepared rice

1 cup veggie mix

3 flour tortillas

3/4 cup pepper jack cheese

1/2 cup chili sauce reduction. 

Heat over to 350. Grease baking dish. 

Combine rice and veggies. Add cheese and veggie mix to tortilla shells and roll up. 

Heat wide, shallow sauté pan over medium high heat. Add liquid from chili and reduce by half. Spoon over tortillas and top with extra cheese. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until bubbly and cheese is melted and golden brown. 

Pistachio Blueberry Muffins and A New Found Like For Vegan Food?

My sister came back from Peru this past summer with an entirely new appetite. I'm not sure what they eat down in the Amazon but I do know it's a drastic contrast from our plant produced and processed American food. Most of the food she had been eating came from her back yard, the Amazon Jungle. All grown right in front of her. They kill their own chickens. We haven't had to kill our own chickens for about a century. Unless we plant a garden in our 4x4 backyards the food we eat here is mostly genetically modified for mass consumption, grown in a warehouse, or raised in a confined space so small I'm surprised chickens don't need to see a therapist for claustrophobia or social anxiety.

My sister says she is "95% vegan". She's having a hard time giving up staples like cheese. While vegan cheese is available, it's just not the same. Personally I just love cheeseburgers and could NOT imagine a life without them. Pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, cheese and crackers, chili cheese fries, mac n cheese! I mean how could you not want to have cheese! It's essential. But whatever floats your boat. I'm all for healthy living. Even tho I'm convinced some of the vegan products out on the shelves are not "natural" and therefore are probably worse for you than non-vegan foods eaten in moderation. But my research on the subject is... limited. So I indulge her for her 95% vegan-ism. And I have to admit, some of the things, just some, are actually pretty tasty. They're not much different from their carnivorous cousins. Just a few minor changes.

The other day she was craving blueberry muffins. I usually just buy the box mix from Betty Crocker to save time. She went to a work event and they said their muffins were freshly baked but she said they were more like fresh bricks. So I baked her some myself to keep her love of blueberry muffins alive. And since blueberry muffins can be so... blue, I decided is add a little pistachio pizazz.  She's been going around the house all week saying, "I love having a chef for a sister". Like I'm adopted or something. She should say she likes have a sister who is a chef. Regardless, even my mom liked these muffins and she's skeptical on all things vegan.

(Pistachio) Blueberry Muffins

Adapted from Sweet Vegan by Emily Mainquist

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar in the raw

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon all natural applesauce

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup frozen blueberries. 

2 tablespoons chopped pistachios

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line 12 standard-size muffin cavities with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Add the oil, milk, applesauce, and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Fold in the blueberries and pistachios.* The batter will be very thick.

Scoop 1/4 cup of the batter into each muffin liner. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

*I kept the blueberries frozen until I was ready to use them. Blueberries can be fragile and when putting them in fresh or thawed I find they usually break. 

Oatmeal Banana Bread

Bad banana = yummy bread

Keeping up with the theme of things that go bad before I can use them I'd like to talk about this banana bread recipe I came across. I buy bananas mostly so I can make things with them. On their own I don't really like them. Therefore, I don't buy them often. My roommate had gotten some and I was in the kitchen making dinner one night and there they were sitting on the counter turning brown.

Usually, I wouldn't think anything of it and just toss them out but I was feeling crafty that day. I have a pretty good banana bread recipe I've used for years but I wanted something different. I've been thinking of ways to make recipes a little healthier. Lately healthier has been just to add a tablespoon of ground flaxseed into everything but that wasn't going to cut it this time. So I started googling recipes for banana bread that gave it a little power punch of better for you. There were all sorts of recipes out there and more so than not they called for oatmeal. I'd never thought to do that so I decided to give it a whirl.

That loaf of bread weighed like 5 pounds. But it was really good!

Mix your dry ingredients together and make a whole in the center of it all. 

Like a little well.

Next for the wet ingredients.

Mix those all together. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the center of the dry.

Mix it all up! 

Magic! 

It's all ready. 

Oatmeal Banana Bread

(Recipe courtesy of: www.food.com )

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup oats (I used old-fashioned)

1 cup mashed banana

1/3 buttermilk (I didn't have any, I used 2%)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs, beaten

cooking spray or butter (I used butter)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray or butter an 8 x 4 inch loaf pan

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl

Combine banana, oil, milk, vanilla, and eggs in a small bowl or measuring cup

Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened

Spoon batter into prepared pan and bake for 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean

Cool on a wire rack, in the pan, for about 15 minutes

Remove bread from the pan and cool thoroughly on the rack

Or cut into it and slab some butter on it. That's what I did. I mean who wants to eat cold banana bread? Not me. I want it nice and hot with all kinds of melty butter. And again, my apologies for not having any after pictures but I ate a slice then ate it all... There would have been only crumbs. 

Also, for those of you truly health conscious people out there, if you click on the link above to go to the website you get all sorts of fun nutritional facts. So you can pretend to calorie count as you cut yourself another slice. 

Spicy Summer Casserole

Summer summer summer! I just love it. Gardens are flourishing and all the Farmer Fred's of town are out to sell their bundles. It's so easy to get carried away at the local farmer's markets all over town. There's just too much to choose from. I find myself buying it all up only to have a good chunk of it go bad before I can use it. I have a hard time limiting myself to a few things every week. I want it all! So this week, I had a plan.

This is Grace

A few weeks ago I was getting together with my friend Grace. We were going to rectify a little speeding ticket I acquired and I was meeting her at her place. She said to come over early to help her eat a casserole she made. She had lots of veggies that were going to go bad if she didn't use them. It was really good! I couldn't stop eating it. So this week I bought extra produce just so I could make it. It's super easy, and you can use whatever produce you like. Just another yummy idea to get all those vegetables eaten. After all, they make you grow up big and strong.

I used several different peppers, onion, tomato, and asparagus. The great thing about this dish is you can add what you like. There's no "recipe".  But I'll tell you what I did anyway. Mostly because I have pictures...

I sliced and diced:

1 zucchini

1 red bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

1/2 medium yellow onion

1 tomato

Toss that with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Added 2 big handfuls of shredded pepper jack cheese.

Put it in a greased baking dish and topped it with more cheese.

Then I covered it in panko bread crumbs.

Drizzle some olive oil over top and bake at 350 degrees.

The end result should be bubbling and golden. 

I turned on the broiler for a few minutes to get it extra golden. 

Enjoy as a side dish or as a main course. Either way, it's tasty and easy and something everyone will love! Sorry there's no after picture, I ate it all...

Pesto Cream Sauce

OMG!!!!! How long has it been since my last post????
Way to long. It's crazy I didn't post anything over Christmas. I wanted to. I had ideas. However, I started a new job and all I do is work and sleep, work and sleep. Now that the holidays are officially over and I have some more time to myself I can't wait to get back in my cooking groove. I am super excited about getting this year started. Better late than never, right? New job, new apartment, new recipes!

We all know I get a little scatterbrained when I get in my kitchen. Funny story! I just moved into a new place and I've been getting unpacked and organized. My kitchen is finally coming together and the other day I had a free day so I wanted to cook. First meal in the new apartment! I was so excited. I rushed to the grocery. I came home, laid everything out and had a HUGE "OMG" moment. I bought veggies to roast in the oven. I don't have knives! Well, I have butter knives. NOT the same. But I'd been running errands all day and all I wanted was dinner. I did not want to go back out. So, I didn't. I had to slice potatoes and squash with a butter knife. I sliced an onion with a butter knife! I must have had extra anti-onion powers that day because I didn't shed a tear. Well, I almost cried due to my lack of cutlery, but I made it work. And dinner was delish.

In my dilemma, I forgot to capture my misfortune. Not that I want it on record but you should see this sauce. It was so yummy. And, I've never really had pesto. It looks disgusting in the jar. But it makes a really flavorful sauce. So here's the recipe. It's super simple and I'm sure I'll take a picture of my leftovers and add it to the post. It looks the same as it did when I made it. Taste just as good too.

Pesto Cream Sauce

1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
16 oz heavy whipping cream
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup pesto (I used a store bought pesto but you can make your own.)

Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan over medium.

Whisk in the flour and cook until the color is blonde and the flour has cooked.

Heat the heavy cream in a small sauce pan over low heat until it just just beginning to simmer.

Slowly whisk it into the rue.

Allow it to cook over medium heat until it begins to thicken and it coats the back of a wooden spoon.

Do not let it boil.

Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Stirring constantly, add the pesto and remove of the heat.

Toss with your favorite pasta or veggies.


I poured my sauce over manicotti with sausage. It just hit the spot and was a really great, first meal for my new place. Even if I had to use a butter knife for my veggies.

Extra tidbit: Add a good creamy cheese to the sauce and pour it over veggies for a perfect gratin. 

Enchiladas Sin Queso

I got this recipe from the same friend who gave me the Cafe Rio Pork recipe. It does not disappoint. A big plus to this meal, it's not only delish, it's very healthy for you and your wallet.
I added my own little touches to it. I'll post the original recipe as well as my changes.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup finely chopped white or Spanish onion
2 Tbs canned diced green chilies
2 cups cooked black beans
1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn (do not thaw)
1/2 cup zucchini, diced
1/2 cup summer squash, diced
1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
24-30 oz Enchilada Sauce (recipe at bottom)
Ten 5" tortillas


My Ingredients: (I add just a itty bit of cheese)
1 medium white onion, finely chopped
1 small zucchini, diced
1 small yellow squash, diced
1 4 oz. can diced green chiles
1 14 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 tbsp. dried cilantro
Zest & juice of 1 lime
Salt & Pepper to taste
Eight 5" tortillas
10 oz. can red enchilada sauce
1/4 cup of shredded jack cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 450 F.
Lightly oil a 9x13 pan and cover the entire bottom of cooking dish with Enchilada Sauce, just until coated.
Combine onions, green chilies,  black beans, corn, zucchini, squash, cilantro, and 6 ounces of Enchilada Sauce in a medium bowl.
I don't use corn and I don't add the enchilada sauce to the filling. Add all of cheese to the filling and combine.
Heat tortillas, five at a time, for 30 seconds in microwave to soften.
Fill each tortilla evenly with bean/vegetable mixture, roll, and place seam side down in cooking dish.
When all enchiladas have been assembled, pour remaining Enchilada Sauce over them.
Bake for 25 minutes covered in foil.