Snacks for a Crowd

When we can find someone who can stand to spend time with us, we like to feed them.  Usually it's dinner or something, but we also have people over between meals sometimes and it's nice to have a little snack with them.  Here are a few ideas for things that aren't too expensive:

Popcorn (popcorn balls or just with a little butter and a sprinkle of salt)
Homemade Granola Bars
Banana Bread
Peanut butter hearts (if there are no allergies), this is great for kids, you just take a piece of brad, smear peanut butter on it like you would if you were making a sandwich, and then make a heart shape in the peanut butter with the tip of the spreading knife!
Fruit (apples cut into slices, clementines (make sure no one chokes!), grapes, watermelon. etc.
No Bake Cookies
Peach Cobbler
Chocolate Lentil Cake
Zucchini Bread
Zucchini Cookies (remember, you can replace the fat with cooked pureed beans!)


These are also the snacks that I sometimes feed my kids between meals, though I may have to have even more filling things when they are all teenagers (if they're like I was when I was a teenager I may have to make hamburgers between meals, but I digress)




This is linked to the four moms linky for feeding a crowd at Smockity Frocks!

I am "Super Cook"!

I found a website today called supercook.com  where you can enter the ingredients you have on hand and it will give you a large list of recipes that you have the ingredients to make!  I got this recipe for southwestern chicken from it today.  Normally I'm very skeptical about southwestern style things because they end up being too spicy for me and too spicy for the kids.  This one though had a nice blend of flavors!  I did notice that a lot of juice came off while cooking, so when it was all done I took the chicken out of the pan, added some flour tot eh extra liquid, and whipped that up for a few minutes to make a bit of a sauce.  Then I heated the chicken in the microwave for a few seconds so they wouldn't be cold, and poured the sauce over it. To go with it I cooked some brown rice in the slow cooker with a teaspoon or two of low sodium taco seasoning a few shakes of cumin, and a healthy sprinkle of dried minced onions.  When it was all cooked I added some corn and about half a can of black beans (I drained and rinsed them first).  The rice had a really mild flavor, which was good because it didn't overpower the chicken, and also didn't drown it in blandness.  I've noticed more and more that I don't measure very often.  I just add until it looks about right and smell it after a few minutes of cooking.  Some things flop but this went rather well.  My usually VERY picky three year old asked for seconds and told me several times that he likes chicken! 

This was also a good opportunity to use what we have on hand.  The rice was part of our food storage (obviously not from the cannery since they don't have brown rice) The corn and chicken were part of our frozen food, the beans had been canned but I used half of the can in another recipe a while back so I froze the rest to use another day so that worked out great, and I always have those spices on hand! Not to mention that it was pretty healthy.  I used a little less salt than the recipe calls for in the chicken, though it doesn't call for much.  With the holidays going on we've recently been eating food that had been way too unhealthy for us!  My husband even got sick this weekend from eating (someone else's) turkey deep fried in lard (though he was raised with old fashioned fatty food, he's gotten used to the reduced sodium, whole grain goodness that I usually make!)  So we were all glad to be eating high fiber, low sodium and low fat stuff again!  Who knew such healthy food would be so welcome!

Just thinking of all the lard that must have been involved in deep frying that turkey, I can feel my arteries clogging!

They guy who made the turkey insisted that it wasn't bad because it was a natural fat and not hydrogenated oil.  To me.....fat is still fat, you don't need that much!  I prefer to bake my turkey!

Pizza Sauce

A while back, I posted about the worlds best spaghetti sauce.  I've tried it on pizza too but it never quite seemed to fit.  On Sunday, my husband's cousin was in town and we decided to make pizza.  I didn't know what modifications to make to the spaghetti sauce so I figured I'd make it regular and just go with it.  Then I discovered that we were almost out of beef and we were completely out of beef bouillon. So I did a half pound of beef and no bouillon, an since I was spreading it I didn't add corn starch either, and while I was at it I tweaked a few other ingredients too.  It came out BEAUTIFULLY!  We put barbeque sauce and cheddar cheese on it to make a hamburger pizza and it was a huge hit.   I felt so accomplished!  Here's the recipe for the pizza sauce:

1/2 Lb. ground beef
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (12 oz.) can tomato soup
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 Tbs. onion powder
1 Tbs. parsley
1/2 Tbs. brown sugar
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. black pepper



ENJOY!

No Bake Cookies

My husband and I share a big vise.  That vise is sweets.  We just love cookies and cake and brownies and candy and ice cream and whatever else is full of sugar!  The biggest thing for us is chocolate!  Cocoa powder is as basic an ingredient around our house as is flour or milk!  We're slowly working on keeping this in check, and we eat pretty healthy in every other way (whole wheat bread, brown rice, lots of veggies, very little salt or fat) and we're working on making our homemade sweets healthier by adding beans instead of butter in most cases, but this post isn't about being healthy, it's about comfort food.
Since store bought sweets can get pretty pricey, we opt to make our own.  Generally this involves baking for the kinds of sweets we really get into.  When we were living in the motel, it had a little kitchenette, which we were very grateful for.  It had two burners, a microwave, and a fridge.  But nothing that could be used to bake.  This was a very stressful time for us, with my hubby recovering from brain surgery, no income, living off our tax return in a little motel, feeling like things hadn't gone anywhere close to the way we'd hoped.  So when we'd put the kids to bed we'd want to do something to relax.  Not much you can do in a motel room.  So one day we said, hey, let's make something sweet!  Brownies....no, no oven, cookies....same problem......cake......hmmmmm.  We took out one of the few cookbooks we had kept wen we moved and looked through it and found a recipe for no bake cookies.  It became our regular treat while we were there, the only sweet we could think to make to forget the hard time we were going through.  We don't do it much anymore, since we have an oven now, but when we do it's very nostalgic!

No Bake Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups oatmeal

Melt butter in sauce pan.  Add milk, sugar, and cocoa.  Mix well.  Heat to boiling (I keep it on medium heat, it may take a little longer, but it prevents a burnt taste) stirring regularly.  Boil for one minute.  Remove from heat.  Add peanut butter, stir in until melted (you don't have to, but it prevents clumps) add vanilla and oatmeal.  Stir well.  Scoop onto plates with a tablespoon.  You can also do wax paper or aluminum foil, but we like to use reusable things.
use stirring spoon to carefully lick the pan, be careful, it's hot.
Try to wait until the cookies cool.  At least wait until they aren't scalding hot anymore before you have 5 or 6.  Give your husband at least one plate of cookies and some milk.  If there are any left, save them in an air tight container and give to your kids the next day after they eat their breakfast, but only give them one each and make a big deal out of it so they will feel special!

Peach Cobbler With One Hand!

I just had to post about a recipe my good friend Stephanie, from Fun Foods on a Budget posted!  It's called quick fruit cobbler and she means quick!  I managed to put this together in about 5 minutes with one hand because the other hand was holding the baby, and he was trying to "help" (you know the kind, grabbing whatever he can, trying to wrap his toes around the mixing bowl, grabbing my arm when I'm measuring something...) But this was so easy that I managed quite nicely, and it smelled so good baking!  I never make cobblers..well I didn't, until now, and I was very happy that this turned out so nicely!  You can see the recipe here.  Keep up the good work Stephanie!

Healthier Banana Bread

As I've said before, I'm a big fan of everydayfoodstorage.net and one thing that Crystal shows how to do is replace the butter and oil in baking with cooked and pureed beans.  I normally would opt to use dry beans and cook them, but I was feeling lazy so I use canned beans and didn't add the salt the recipe called for since canned beans are already salted.  I though for sure my efforts would be ruined when I was blending the beans because I was using a submersible blender in a big bowl and my five year old came in to help.  As she was helping, she matter of factly stated "Mom, this smells disgusting."  However she still ate the banana bread right up!  To make the banana bread a little MORE healthy, I replaced most of the flour with oat flour (put oatmeal in the food processor and hit on until it was powder-like.  The oat flour is more coarse than regular white flour, but once you mix it in with the bananas and beans, there's not noticeable difference.  The best part about this recipe is that no one suspected it was remotely healthy!  Lately, when I bake something that is moist and cakey, he looks at me suspiciously and asks "Did you put beans in this?"  This time he didn't suspect.  Maybe  should have told him because he ate quite a lot last night so I had to suffer the consequences of him eating beans.  The thing I did that I don't do other times is put the whole contents of the can of beans in there and blend them up.  normally I'll drain the beans and then blend them with a tiny bit of water, but then you can tell a difference in the texture of that food versus something that had butter in it.  Another great thing about using beans and oat flour was that normally when I make this recipe it takes a lot longer for it to cook and then it's usually still doughy in the middle and falls apart when I take it out of the loaf pan.  This time it took just a little longer than the original recipe called for and came out of the loaf pan beautifully!  So without further ado, here is the recipe:

1 c sugar
1/2 c white bean puree (if you make it from dry beans then you'll have to add a pinch of salt)
2 eggs
3 mashed bananas ( just freeze them wen they get brown and then when I'm going to make banana bread I take them out and let them thaw on the counter for an hour or two, then cut off the stems with a knife and squeeze them into the mixing bowl  like a tube of toothpaste, then use a fork to mash if there are any big chunks.  Note, this it kind of weird in texture so I wouldn't recommend it to people who are pregnant or otherwise squeamish) 
3 T milk (sour, regular, or powdered, it all works)
1 t baking soda
2 c oat flour (I only did 1 1/2 cups of oat four because I have a really small food processor and more than that would have made a mess and I was too lazy to do two runs with it, so I filled in the rest with regular white death  flour)
1 c mini chocolate chips (or one cup walnuts, I just really like chocolate!)

Mix beans, sugar, eggs, banana, and milk really well.  Add dry ingredients (I always add baking soda last because it starts the leavening process as soon as it gets wet and you want as much leavening to happen in the oven as possible.  Don't over stir.  Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 325 degrees for 60 to 65 minutes. I let it sit in the pan to cool a little ( it seems to stay together that way a little bit better) and take it out and cut it about 5 minutes later.
Enjoy!

X-salada

My  brother served a two year mission for our Church in Brazil.  While he was there he discovered Brazilian cheeseburgers.  They're basically like American cheeseburgers, but you put corn and peas and shoestring potatoes and maybe a fried egg on them.  Keep in mind that if you put regular french fries on them, it won't be nearly as tasty, so here's the ever-so-complicated recipe for shoestring potatoes:

2 pounds (about) potatoes
2-3 Tbs. vegetable oil (depending on your preference for oily-ness)
1/4 tsp. salt (or more to taste)
1/4 tsp. pepper

Wash potatoes and cu them into very thin, long pieces, like french fries on weight watchers.  Put the other stuff in a large, seal able plastic bag and mix, add potatoes to bag, seal, shake to mix (very fun for little helpers in the kitchen).  Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet, bake at 450 degrees until crisp, about 1/2 hour.  I like to kind of "stir" them around once or twice while baking so they brown a little better and don't stick to the cookie sheet as much.

Once your potatoes are ready and crispy, put them on your burger with your peas, corn, meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and whatever else you like.  This is really good, and my picky eater even ate the peas and corn with no complaint this way!

Mediterranean Potato Salad

First off, let me say that I am NOT a potato salad person!  I never was big on it, and then I lived in Germany for 6 months and they LOVE potato salad.  In six months, I probably had some kind of potato salad close to a hundred times!  And I NEVER enjoyed any variation of it, and they make it like most Americans.  Fast forward to the past few months, my husband's chiropractor suggested he try to follow a little more of a Mediterranean diet.  So I set out to find at least a few dishes so that we could incorporate it into our meals a little bit more.  So I braved the potato salad world once more and am pleased with the results!
2 pounds potatoes
1 green bell pepper, minced (this is the part that I dislike the most, but my hubby LOVES it, so I just set it to the side so that he could have some but I could avoid it!  Maybe that's why I actually liked it!)
1 large cucumber, sliced and quartered
1/2 cup sliced red onion ( I used a little less than a a half cup and soaked it in water for a few minutes before adding it so the onion wouldn't take over the flavor)
8 ounces crumbled feta cheese
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 cup Italian salad dressing
salt and pepper to taste
3 pita breads, cut in wedges (the store I went to didn't have pita bread, so I used multi-grain thin buns and they were very tasty and looked like wedged pita bread!)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add potatoes, and cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes.  Drain, cool, and chop.
In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, (green peppers), cucumbers, red onion, and cheese.
Whisk together the lemon juice, salad dressing, salt and pepper.  Pour over salad and toss to coat.  Serve with pita bread wedges.

This is another one that I was very surprised to see that my kids enjoyed it!  The even asked for seconds!

Stove Top Beef and Penne Casserole

I am all about saving time and doing few dishes, so one pan meals really appeal to me!  I have this recipe that is good, but the kids will only eat maybe one serving and the recipe makes a LOT.  Good to freeze some and enjoy later.  And it's not one pan, but we'll get into that in a minute.

2 cups dry penne pasta (or small pasta of your choice)
2 Lbs. lean ground beef
1 med onion, chopped
2 cans (12 fl. oz. each) evaporated milk
1 can (15 oz.) 100% pure pumpkin
1 can tomato sauce
1 Tbs. packed brown sugar
1 Tbs paprika
1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 cups frozen peas, thawed

Cook pasta in large saucepan for 1 to 2 minutes less than package directions (pasta should be slightly firm in texture); drain.
Cook beef and onion in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until beef is no longer pink, drain.  Reduce heat to medium.  Stir in evaporated milk, pumpkin, tomato sauce, sugar, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, salt, garlic powder, and black pepper.  Cook, stirring occationally until mixture begins to simmer.  Add pasta and peas; stir until heated.



I decided the other day to make this recipe, but ran into quite a few snafus. We were out of milk and out of evaporated milk, out of tomato sauce, I usually used cooked and pureed squash, but we didn't have any.  To top it off, I started cooking only one pound of ground beef and realized that the recipe called for two pounds right around the time the first pound was done cooking and the rest of the beef was frozen and raw.  I got to thinking about the website Everyday Food Storage where Crystal talks about replacing one or two things with food storage things to help incorporate it into your diet.  She also has conversion charts for using non-instant powdered milk, which I happened to have on hand, in making things like evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk or buttermilk.  We also had two fresh tomatoes, and died onions (another food storage item), so my recipe looked more like this:

1 heaping cup dry whole wheat penne pasta (macaroni works really well too)
1 pound ground beef
2 Tbs (about, I didn't really measure) dried chopped onions
1/2 cup + 1 Tbs dry powdered non-instant milk
1 1/2 cup water
2 finely diced tomatos
1   6 oz. jar of baby food-squash
1 scant T packed brown sugar
1 scant T paprika
1 scant Tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3/4 cup frozen peas

Cook beef with onion, drain, add powdered milk and water, stir VERY well, add dry pasta.  Turn to medium heat, while heating, add other ingredients, cover, and simmer, stirring occationally.  Cook for about 15 minutes or so until pasta is tender.

I really reduced the salt, it's one small change we've been working on to be a little healthier.

One pan, using what I had on hand, and it was really good!  Since my tomatoes were so juicy it ended up being a little watery, but you could add a little flour or corn starch to thicken it up (interesting fact: flour will give sauces a more opaque appearance, while corn starch will give a more glossy, clear look).  It would also be good with a side of some hot homemade biscuits!

Chocolate Lentil Cake

This one is a good one!

A few years ago my mom told me about this recipe for chocolate lentil cake, my first though was "what's a lentil?"  I had always avoided beans or any bean-ish thing because I didn't like the texture and I didn't like the taste of the canned beans.  Lentils are awesome because they don't require soaking, and they cook in like 45 minutes!  I made some on Monday, but it was devoured before I could remember to take a picture!
First you need to make lentil puree.

Lentil Puree
1 Cup lentils
2 1/2 cups water

Rinse Lentils.  Cover with water in saucepan.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat.  Cover and simmer until lentils are very tender (40-45 minutes).  Drain lentils, reserving stock. 
When cool (it doesn't have to cool all the way, just enough that you can handle it without hurting yourself and it won't burn you if you get some on your skin), transfer lentils to blender or mixing bowl, whip on high speed for one to two minutes.  As puree forms, stop and scrape the side of the container.  Add some of the stock as needed and continue whipping until lentils form a smooth puree the consistency of canned pumpkin.  It can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days or frozen for later use.  Makes about 3 cups.
Puree can be substituted for pumpkin in many recipies calling for canned pumpkin.


Cake
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup oil (less if your like my husband an want to dip the cake in milk)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups lentil puree
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt (I use just over 1/2)

Cream sugar, oil, and eggs on medium speed of mixer for two minutes.  Add lentil puree, water, and vanilla and beat on medium speed for one minute.  Mix dry dry ingredients together and add to creamed mixture.  Beat for two minutes at medium speed.  Divide batter betweent wo well-greased 9 inch round cake pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched in middle.
Cool and frost as desired.

Cheater tips: I sometimes just put it all into one greased 9"x13" pan, only if we're going to serve it right out of the pan though.  I also am too lazy to mix the dry stuff separately, and I don't like to do extra dishes if I don't have to, so I will generally just add the dry stuff right to the batter, with the baking soda LAST because it will start the leavening process as soon as it gets wet and we want it to do that leavening IN the oven!

I love this cake because it is so moist and it's a good way of sneaking some extra health into your diet!

Pho Soup (slow cooker)

So it doesn't look so soupy, but I still enjoyed it!  It's not something that I think I would want EVERY day, but it'll be nice to change things up every once in a while!  And to my great shock, my kids gobbled it up!  I thought it's be too strange and different for them, I guess they were hungry!  The original recipe called for one teaspoon of fish sauce, and setting the ick factor aside, we have a child with very bad fish allergies, so I omitted that entirely, but if you're brave, knock yourself out!  The original also called for a chunk of fresh ginger, but the store only had large bags of ginger and I only needed a small chuck, so I got some ground ginger.

6 cups beef broth or stock
1 heaping tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp anise
1 cinnemon stick
2 sliced green onions
1 pound thin sliced beef
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 package rice noodles

Put everything except noodles in slow cooker, mix, cover, cook high 3-4 hours or low 4-6 hours.  Done when meat is fully cooked.  15 minutes before serving, add entire package of rice nookdles to the pot. Push them under the liquid with a wooden spoon and cover.  Garnis with bean sprouts, basil, or lime wedges if desired.
We didn't garnish with anything and still enjoyed it.  I had it going while we were at church on Sunday and it had a different smell when we came home, so don't let that put you off!

Zucchini Cookies

A while back I posted about zucchini bread.  Another thing that she did with the zucchini in our garden was make zucchini cookies!  I thought they were normal when I was growing up, but truly, home was the only place I ever had them.

ZUCCHINI COOKIES

1/2 cup shortning
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
                           Beat these ingredients until fluffy, then add:
3 cups grated zucchini
                           In a separate bowl, sift together
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4  tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
4 1/2 cups flour
                         Add to the other ingredients.Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Note: You can spread into greased cookie sheet and make bars.  2 cups oatmeal can be substituted for 1 cup flour, or you can grind the oatmeal in a food processor and replace cup for cup for flour.  If you like you can add 1 cup nuts or 1 cup raisins for variety.

Sweet Corn Bread (with secret ingredient)

When I was growing up, my mom always had a good sized garden.  One thing that she seemed to grow a lot of was various squash and pumpkins.  Since we usually bout our Halloween pumpkins from a local farm, and we never had squash as a side dish (as far as I knew) at dinner, I eventually got old enough to wonder why in the world she grew so much of something we never ate.  Often, we would have corn bread as a side dish a dinner, being a picky eater, that would be the majority of what I would eat.  Sometimes, when we got home from school, my mom would have a not TOO sweet but still delicious snack cake waiting for us as an after school snack.  I went off to college, not knowing why my mother grew squash.

My sophomore year of college, one of my roommates made cornbread with a special ingredient.  The secret ingredient was yellow cake mix.  It was very sweet but I thought it was much too dry and crumbly compared to what I was used to.  When I made my weekly phone call home I mentioned in passing to my moth about the overly dry cornbread.  It was then that my mom told me HER secret ingredient, which was pureed squash!  What?  How sneaky!  As a picky kid all I could tell was that it was sweet and moist.  My kids also enjoy this cornbread.  My mom would cook and then puree the squash when it was ripe and then freeze it in small quantities in Ziploc bags in the freezer so she could make her sneaky healthier recipes all year long!  I late deduced that the snack cakes must have been secretly healthy too, after all, squash grew really well in her garden.

SWEET CORN BREAD

1/2 cup butter, soffened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1  1/2 cups flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1  1/2 cups milk (we use skim)
1 cup cooked, pureed squash

Mix ingredients well.  Pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan ( or 8 inch square pan if you like thicker cornbread).  Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

Zucchini Bread

When I was a kid, my mom used to make this.  I couldn't pronounce "zucchini bread" so I called it "bikini bed." That sure puts a different mental image in your mind, doesn't it?

I love bread that you don't have to let rise!

Zucchini Bread
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
1 Tbs vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs cinnamon
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Combine ingredients.  Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.  Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.
Tip: If you grow zucchini in your garden, or if a friend of yours does and gives you a lot come harvest time.  A good thing to do is wash and grate the zucchini and freeze it in small freezer bags in 1 or two cup quantities, so you can make this and other recipes with zucchini throughout the year and all you have to do is take it out of the freezer.  Note: sometimes frozen zucchini comes out a little watery, so you can drain off excess water, or just have a little more moist bread!

Chinese Chicken

Chinese Chicken
5-7 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or however many fit into your 9x13 inch pan without layering)
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar

Place chicken in 9x13 inch pan.  In bowl, combine soy sauce and brown sugar until thoroughly mixed.  Pour evenly (as possible) over chicken.  Bake 350 degrees for about 1 hour.  I usually flip them with a fork about halfway through, and cut them into smaller strips in the last few minutes so they're a more manageable size and it makes your family think that you made more. :)
Serve over rice, or..........

Fried Rice
4 cups cooked rice (that's 1 1/3 cups uncooked rice), I like to use brown rice
3 scrambled eggs
about 1/3 to 1/2 cup (each) corn and peas.  I usually pour frozen peas in until it looks like the proportions I want.
1 tsp soy sauce (it's best to just use the juice that come from the chicken and pour that over your rice when you dish it onto your plate)
1-2 tsp dried minced onions (optional, if you like a more varied taste)
salt and pepper to taste

After cooking rice (before it starts to stick to the pan, add other ingredients and mix well.  Keep on low until well heated.  Folding the mixture works best for making it even.

And for those of you trying to be a little healthier with your carbs by having brown rice, but find that even after the longer cooking time, it still tends to be harder and more seed like than white rice, here's a tip: bring water to a boil first (make sure you add about 1/4 cup extra water in addition to twice the amount of rice) with about 1 TBS salted butter, then add rice.  When it returns to a boil, lower heat and simmer 45-50 minutes, then when all the water is absorbed but it's not sticking to the pan yet, stir it to make it fluffy, keep it covered as much as you can even after it's done cooking so it doesn't dry out!

It may sound like it's really involved, but in small steps it's really easy!  And delicious!

Basic Muffins

There's nothing like muffins for breakfast to make a person feel right at home!  The other nice thing about muffins is that they're fairly easy to make, even for someone as domestically challenged as I have been, and sometimes still am.
Here's the basic reipe:

2 cups flour (you can use white, but I like to use whole wheat, or at least half whole wheat, because it makes it a little healthier, and muffins are sweet enough to disguise most of the wheat flavor)
up to 1 cup sweetener (while sugar, brown sugar, some people use applesauce, whatever)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
up to 1 1/2 cups additions*

Combine ingredients. Bake 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes (until fork or toothpick inserted comes out clean.)
Notes: 
*additions can mean anything from banana, chocolate chips, berries, cinnamon applesauce, whatever you're in the mood for!
Mix with a fork, overmixing will make your muffins pointy on top.
If you want a sort of chocolate chip cookie muffin, use brown sugar for the sweetener, and of course add chocolate chips!
ENJOY!

World's best spagetti sauce

When I was a teenager, I somehow got the worldly notion that learning homemaking skills would mean that I wasn't going to do anything "real" with my life and that I would be a better person to leave that to "lesser" women.  I feel sad and ashamed to admit that now and wish I could travel back in time to slap my teenage self in the face.  *sigh* Oh well. So while I wait for the perfection of the flux capacitor, I will just share this recipe and a brief background.  To overcome my hardheaded feminism, one thing my parents did was make a rule that every Sunday, someone besides my mom would make dinner.  We each took turns rotating each week who would be the one to make it.  My brother hated the fact that every time it was my turn I would chose spaghetti.  And not just any spaghetti, my mom's recipe of homemade spaghetti sauce!  I may have only learned to cook a few things before I got married, but at least I learned to make something that is TRULY delicious.  It also fooled a lot of people into thinking that I was an accomplished cook.  This recipe started from an old cookbook, and over the years my mom changed this and that and eventually half of the ingredients were crossed out and new ones written in all the margins.  This is the final result:
WORLD'S BEST SPAGHETTI SAUCE 
1 Lb. ground beef
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (12 oz.) can tomato soup
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 Tbs. onion powder
1 cube beef bouillon
1 Tbs. parsley
1 Tbs. brown sugar
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbs. corn starch
Break up and cook ground beef in skillet.  Drain.  Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Cook on low until heated through.  This tastes great if you put it in a slow cooker on low for 2-3 hours. 
We like to put this in the slow cooker before church and then we just have to cook some thin spaghetti noodles and we're ready to go.  My husband also really likes to put a little cheddar cheese on this.