Bountiful Baskets – 11/5/2011

6 Nov

Sorry for the lack of posts over this week.  Life has been a little hectic, so not as much cooking going on.

Anyway, this week I ordered the conventional basket for $15.  Here is what was in this week’s basket.

Bananas, watermelon, pears, apples, kiwi, blackberries, fennel, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, and red peppers.  Working on ideas for all of it!

 

Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how the ends of produce cases are distributed after everything has been distributed evenly.

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Change Your Clock, Change your Batteries

5 Nov

On Sunday, November 6, it’s time to “fall back” and change your clocks.  Well, unless you live in Arizona, like me, and don’t do daylight savings time, so our time won’t change.  However, whether you change your clocks or not, it’s a good opportunity to check and change the batteries in your smoke detectors.  I have done all but one of my smoke detectors, one requires a ladder which I am still working on getting.  But all the ones in our bedrooms have fresh batteries, have been tested, and are in working order.  You can click on the picture above to get more information on smoke alarms and fire safety.

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Pumpkin Carving, Part 2

31 Oct

Well, I got roped in to carve the other pumpkin we have by my younger daughter.  She didn’t like any of the Disney characters I showed her, so we had to figure out what to do.  She is a big Scooby Doo fan, so I searched for a pumpkin carving stencil and came across some on this site, Cartoon Jr., which also has other printables and games.  Carving this pattern wasn’t too bad, there were some areas that were close to each other without a lot of pumpkin in between, but I was able to manage to get the whole pattern without loosing more pumpkin.  My kids were very pleased with the results!

Bountiful Baskets – 10/29/2011

30 Oct

This week I ordered the conventional basket for $15 and a bushel of fuji apples for $24.

The conventional basket had celery, lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, black seedless grapes, bananas, apples, strawberries, avocados, pomegranates, and kiwis.  The cabbage I will use to make a stew with potatoes, carrots, ground beef, and peas.  Still working on what to make with the rest.

A bushel is approximately 40 pounds, so it works out to about $.60/lb of apples.  There are 125 apples in the box, thank goodness I’m sharing them with some friends!   With my part, I will be making Apple Crisp and Applesauce.   Yum!

 

Note: The amount of food may vary from another basket because of volunteering and because of variances in how the ends of produce cases are distributed after everything has been distributed evenly.

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Pumpkin carving!

29 Oct

I participate in the Disney Movie Rewards program, and they always have some free rewards.  For Halloween, one of the free rewards was downloadable templates for pumpkin carving with Disney characters.  I had a set of the pumpkin carving tools I bought a few years ago, but no patterns left, so this was the perfect find.  I went through with my older daughter, and she picked out Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas, or “Scary Christmas” as she refers to it.   The time consuming part was his mouth, but otherwise it wasn’t too bad.  My girls were very pleased with the results.  Of course, I can’t find our light for it, so I will have to get one.

And for those of you not familiar with Jack Skellington, here is a clip of him in Nightmare Before Christmas.  It’s been too long since we’ve watched this movie!

Spaghetti Pie

29 Oct

My mom makes this occasionally when we visit, and while I’ve always enjoyed it, I’ve never actually made it.  I finally got around to asking my mom for the recipe, and while they are in town visiting, we made it for dinner tonight.  Since we had 5 adults and 2 kids to feed, we doubled the recipe and made it in 2 8×8 baking dishes instead of a 10″ round baking dish.  So, while one of my pictures will show it in 2 8×8 dishes, I will give the directions for 1 Spaghetti pie in a 10″ round baking dish.

Spaghetti Pie

What you need:

1/2 box of spaghetti
2 Tbsp butter, melted
2 eggs, well beaten
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 lb ground beef
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Hot to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cook spaghetti according to package directions, drain.  Stir in the butter, eggs,  and Parmesan cheese.  Spray a  10″ round baking dish and press spaghetti mixture into the dish along the bottom and sides, forming it like a crust.

Meanwhile, brown ground beef, drain.  Add spaghetti sauce and simmer.

Spread the cottage cheese over the spaghetti crust.  Top with beef mixture.

Bake uncovered for 30 minutes.  Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and bake 5 minutes longer, or until cheese melts.

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Parmesan Garlic Pull Apart Bread

29 Oct

Over the last 2 weeks of Bountiful Baskets, I have gotten a lot of garlic.  I don’t usually use fresh garlic, but since I have it, I needed to find ways to use it.  This recipe is a lot like monkey bread, a favorite of mine that my sister always makes for Christmas morning breakfast.  I had read a post about the Parmesan Pull Apart Bread at My Kinda Rain, and changed up the recipe a bit based on what I had and what pans I had.  Tonight I decided it was time to make it again with the fresh garlic I had, and oh man, I had forgotten how good this bread is!  It was the perfect complement to the Spaghetti Pie we had (which I will be writing about very soon!).

Parmesan Garlic Pull Apart Bread

What you need:

1 can Pillsbury Grands biscuits (not the flaky layered kind)*
1/2 stick of butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp garlic salt

How to make it:

Preheat your oven to 375 F.  Melt butter in a small pan on the stove, and stir in the minced garlic. Pour the mixture into a 9 in round baking pan.  Sprinkle in the Parmesan cheese and garlic salt.

Cut each Grands biscuit into 4 pieces and gently roll each piece in your hands.  Drop into the pan.  It doesn’t have to be too tightly together, there can be small gaps because the dough will expand some while baking.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until tops of dough just start to brown.  Remove from oven and immediately flip bread onto a plate to serve.

* You can also make biscuit dough according to the package directions on a box of Bisquick.  With regular Bisquick, it is 2 1/4 cups Bisquick and 2/3 cup milk, then just mix together.  Roll the dough into balls, and follow the remaining directions above.

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Roasting Hatch Green Chiles

28 Oct

Just before I started this blog, one of the extra offerings for Bountiful Baskets was 30 pounds of Hatch green chiles.  I cooked with some tonight, so I wanted to go back and share the process of preparing the chiles.

I did not order them, but a friend did and was looking to share, so I hopped on the opportunity to get some.  I don’t use green chiles a lot, but the Hatch green chiles are supposedly some of the best, so I wanted to see what it was all about.  First, I had a hard time imagining what 30 pounds of chiles would look like, but apparently they come in a large burlap sack.  The second that sack was opened, wow, the smell of the chiles was amazing.  I got 5 pounds from my friend, as shown in the picture above, plus a few more in my basket that week.

Once I got them home, I washed and dried all of them.  I started up the grill, and put the chiles directly on the grill, in batches.

My backyard smelled amazing!  You want to grill them, turning every so often, until the skins are mostly blackened. The next step is to put them in a zipper bag or sealed container to let them steam for about 20 minutes.  This allows you to be able to get the skin off very easily.

Once you remove them from the container, you remove the blackened skin, and hopefully, it will just flake off easily using your hands.  (NOTE: When handling you chiles, you may want to wear gloves to protect your skin.)  Once the skin is removed, cut off the cap, slit open, and remove the seeds.  Dice, the chiles, then divide in containers for later.  I chose to put 1 cup of diced green chiles into snack size zipper bags.  I was able to get 7 1 cup bags of chiles out of the 5 pounds I started with.

I made a green chile mac & cheese with one bag, enchiladas with another bag, then put the rest in the freezer.  Before I put them in the freezer, I made sure to remove as much air as I could from the bag.  Tonight I pulled out one of the bags to make breakfast burritos, that also had onion, turkey breakfast sausage, scrambled eggs, and shredded Mexican blend cheese.

I used the large tortillas from Bountiful Baskets, and assembled them like I did for the Steak, Egg, & Potato Burritos.  My husband commented that these were the best breakfast burritos I’ve made for him yet, and wanted to know what I did differently.  Must have been those wonderful Hatch chiles!

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Butterfly Snack Bags

27 Oct

My oldest daughter is turning 5 soon, so she wanted to take in treats to share with her friends at school.  I came across a cute idea on Pinterest that was snack bags that looked like butterflies.  I had snack sized zipper bags, clothespins leftover from some other activities I made, and plenty of pipe cleaners.   Don’t have googly eyes, but decided to use a marker to draw a face.  Then, we needed to pick a snack, so we picked frosted animal cookies to give them a little color.

Here is how I went about making them.  I cut the pipe cleaners into 3 pieces to get the right size for the antenna of the butterfly.  I kept the snack bag sealed and clipped the middle with the clothespin.  Then, I opened each side, put in the cookies, and re-sealed the sides.  Then, I drew eyes and a smile on the clothespin.  I folded a pipe cleaner in half, rolled up each end a little, and cinched it in the clothespin in the hole at the top.  Here is the finished product.

 

You could decorate the clothespins with paint or markers to spruce it up a little.  But, my almost  year old was pretty impressed with this, especially when I let her help draw the smiley faces.

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3 Ways to Cook Pumpkins

26 Oct

Apparently, there may be a shortage of canned pumpkin this year.  I’m not too worried, because luckily there is a local farm here, Dad’s Farm, that grows pumpkins.  They also have a petting zoo, a tractor ride, a hay ride, and other produce available.  We took the girls a couple weeks ago, and we got pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns and for baking.  We paid $20 for all of these pumpkins.

The 6 smaller ones are the ones for baking.  The smaller pumpkins tend to be sweeter, so that’s why they are good for baking.   I believe they are around $.60/lb at this farm, so the 2 larger pumpkins were about 25 pounds combined, the 6 smaller were about 8 pounds.  That works out to $4.80 for the 6 small pumpkins, which after cooking I got 7 cups of pumpkin for baking.  A 15 oz can of Libby’s pumpkin is 1 3/4 cups, so I have 4 cans worth of fresh pumpkin.  This works out to $1.20 for the equivalent of a can.  I checked the price at Fry’s Food Stores today, and 15 oz cans of pumpkin are $2.29, or $1.99 after you use your VIP card.   Preparing the pumpkins for baking is time consuming, so paying a little more for a can is probably worth the time savings, but if you can’t find canned pumpkin or like to do things like this (like I do) to get fresh ingredients, it’s worth a try to prepare your own.

I took the 6 pumpkins I had and prepared them 3 different ways, in the oven, in the steamer, and in the slow cooker.’

Pumpkin Puree for Baking

First thing, no matter your method, you need to wash and dry the outside of the pumpkins.  Then, cut each pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds and innards.  If you want, set the seeds aside for roasting.

Method #1: In the oven

Preheat your oven to 350 F.  Line a baking sheet with foil and place pumpkins cut side down. Pierce the skin with a fork.  Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until skin has softened and easily pierces with a fork.  Flip pumpkins over and allow to cool.

Method #2: In the steamer

Fill the bottom of the steamer to the Lo water line.  Place pumpkins in the steamer, cutting up more if necessary to get them to fit. Cook in steamer for 30 minutes, or until soft.  Remove from steamer and allow to cool.

Method #3: In the slow cooker

Arrange pumpkins in slow cooker, cutting up more if necessary to get them to fit.  Add 1 cup of water to the bottom of the slow cooker.  Cover, and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or high for 3-4 hours.  Remove from slow cooker and allow to cool.

Once pumpkins have cooled, scoop the flesh from the skin using a spoon into a food processor or blender.

Puree the pumpkin until smooth.  If there seems to be a lot of water in the puree, line a colander with paper towels and pour the pumpkin puree onto the paper towel.  Let sit to allow some of the water top drip out of the pumpkin.

Measure out 1 3/4 cups of the puree and put into a sandwich sized zipper bag, or whatever type of container you desire for storage.  Label, and store in fridge or freezer until you are ready to bake with it.

Now I need to get together all my pumpkin recipes to decide what to make.  I’m thinking Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins, Pumpkin Pancakes, and Pumpkin Pie so far.  Yum!

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