Lentejas

Since I am trying to base my recipes on what I receive in my bountiful basket I got myself into a real pickle this week. I didn't order one for last Saturday and here it is only Tuesday and my pantry is practically bare. Since I don't want to go to the store and have what happened to me two weeks ago happen again (I went to Costco on Wednesday and when my bountiful basket came on Saturday it was everything I had purchased already earlier in the week- not kidding- sweet potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, blackberries, tangelos, everything), I am trying to hold out and not go grocery shopping until Saturday after my BB arrives.

So, it's been kind of a stretch to make good meals. Janssen sent me a recipe for lentil soup and as I made it I realized it is something we actually have often at our house and Blaine usually makes it. It is something that he ate a lot of in Spain while he was on his mission- lentejas. Anyway, I will post the Janssen/Martha Stewart version here but just know, from Blaine's experimenting that you can add all sorts of things (pepperoni and red peppers are a favorite) to the mix and it makes it all the better.

3 srips bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (duh, use more than this)
1 large onion, chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/4inch moons
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T tomato paste
1 1/2 C lentils, picked over and rinsed
1/2 t dried thyme
2 cans chicken broth (3 1/2 C)
1T red-wine vinegar
coarse salt and ground pepper

In dutch oven, or other large pot with tight fitting lid, cook bacon until browned and crisp. Pour off all but 1T fat. Add onion and carrots, cook until softened (5 minutes). Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about thirty seconds. Stir in tomato paste and cook 1 minute. Add lentils, thyme, broth and 2 C water (oooooooohhh I totally forgot to add this, whoops, no wonder it didn't make much. Idiot). Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook until lentils are tender 30-45 minutes.

Stir in vinegar, 1 1/2 t salt and 1/4 t pepper. Serve immediately. If you want to omit the bacon (weirdo) then you can and cook the onions and carrots in 1T olive oil.

This was really yummy and you should totally double it!

pumpkin black bean soup

This soup was wonderful! Perfect flavor, though not pretty to look at : )

• 3 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (16 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/4 cups chopped onion
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 cups beef broth
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 1/2 pound cubed cooked ham
• 3 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1. Pour 2 cans of the black beans into a food processor or blender, along with the can of tomatoes. Puree until smooth. Set aside.
2. Melt butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and season with salt and pepper. Cook and stir until the onion is softened. Stir in the bean puree, remaining can of beans, beef broth, pumpkin puree, and sherry vinegar. Mix until well blended, then simmer for about 25 minutes, or until thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Stir in the ham, and heat through before serving.

I substituted apple cider vinegar for the sherry vinegar.

Sheperd's Pie

This is another food storage dinner, and I thought it was delicious!, I used beef soup though and I think it would have been better with actual beef stew because there is a lot of juice in the soup and I just dumped it out, but either way it was a crowd pleaser, and very easy!


1 (40 oz) can beef stew
1 (12oz) can vegetables (peas, corn or green beans)
1 cup potato pearls (from your cannery materials)
1/2 cup grated cheese
2 cups very hot water

combine stew and vegi's then pour into an 9 x 9 baking dish.
Combine potato pearls with water, stir briefly, cover and let stand for 5-10 min (or if you are using another kind of instant potatoes just make it like it says on the package)
Spread potatoes over the stew, top with grated cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 min or until hot and bubbly.

serving suggestion:
instead of using a casserole dish, try dividing the entree into individual ramekins.

Semi- homemade cheddar broccoli soup

Ok so i realize that this is cheating a little bit but oh well.

1 bag cheddar broccoli soup mix (Bear Creek)
diced potatoes
frozen or fresh broccoli
corn
season to taste
Ham (optional)

So this is something that I usually keep on hand for cold days. I try to crockpot pretty much everything so I turned this into a crockpot meal too. I put the soup in the crockpot with 8 cups of water as directed then I just add extra stuff to make it extra yummy. I just add whatever i have, and i add a little salt and pepper and just cook it for like 4 or 5 hours.It is delicious. I usually serve it with fresh rolls or bread bowls. Yumm. We are having this tonight since we have like a foot of snow it really sounded good!

BBQ chicken pizza

This is from a book called "Dinner, it's in the bag" by Christine Vanwagonen. She just got called to the general relief society and she wrote this book of recipes to help you cook from your food storage. so the first time i made this i made it how it was written and the second time i did mostly fresh stuff and it was amazing both ways- the smell of canned chicken gets to me, but it tasted pretty much the same as the fresh chicken. I give it four stars!

Pizza Dough
3 1/2 cups white unbleached flour
1T salt
1T sugar
2T active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (no more than 105 degrees)
3T extra virgin olive oil

-In a large mixing bowl, wisk together the flour, salt and sugar.
-In the 1 1/2 cups of warm water, dissolove the 2 rounded Tablespoons of yeast, stir well. Let rest for 5 min- then add olive oil
-Pour yeast mixture into the flour, salt and sugar. Stir withe wooden spoon until dough forms a ball. The dough will be sticky.
-Turn the dough onto a heavily floured board. Gently add flour as you begin to knead the dough. Continue adding flour until the dough stops stickingto your hands (this will take about 10 min)
-Form the dough into a ball
-pat entire ball with olive oil
-place in bowl and cover with cotton cloth, place in a warm place for 20-30 min. Remove it from the bowl and punch it dowm on a floured board and reform into ball, put back in bowl for another 20 min
-preheat oven for 45 min at 500 degrees (warming the pizza stone if you want good results)
-separate the dough into 2 balls for 2 large pizzas or 3 balls for three medium pizzas.


ingredients for the toppings

1-2 (14oz can) chicken
1 bottle BBQ sauce (sweet baby ray's is my favorite kind)
1 small bag of pregrated pizza cheese (parmesean, romano, and asiago grated cheese)
1 (8oz) can pineapple tidbits
1 1/2 T dried onion (I used fresh red onion which added nice flavor)
2 T dried Cilantro

-Reconstite onion with 1/4 cup water.
-in a ziplock bag, combine chicken and 2/3 cup of BBQ sauce. Refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.
-Pour off marinade
-Sprinkle cheese over crust
-spoon 2/3 cup of the bbq sauce over the cheese. top with the chicken, onion, and pineapple tidbits. sprinkle more cheese on top.
-bake for 8 min at 500 degrees. sprinkle with cilantro.


Now like i said this was delicious either way, but I made it with fresh chicken last time and so i just cooked the chicken then added the bbq sauce for the last 5 min of cooking. I didnt have any marinade to pour off though. so i didn't do that. I also added fresh mushrooms and next time i am going to put precrumbled bacon on it too. and like i said, i would recommend red onions- cut up into really small pieces, i also left off the cilantro. this was sooo good though, and i even let the kids make their own pizza and they loved that.

Pinto Beans and Cornbread

This is what we're eating tonight. Batten down the hatches!

Step by step instructions with photos are on this site:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/08/beans_and_cornb/

which, I guess you'll need to copy and paste into your browser. For the beans you just need pinto beans, salt, pepper, and bacon (or a ham hock, etc).

Very healthy and economical ... and ... you can use your food storage.
Oh! And pretty tasty as far as beans go. My husband says only 2 stars if you're comparing it to steak and potatoes. But, it's 3 stars if you're talking comparing to beans. The cornbread is 4 stars.

Taco Soup

I got this recipe from a very old friend back when we were roommates in college. I'd give this 3 stars.

This is the kind of recipe you can always have the ingredients for around the house. It's basically a long list of canned goods, so it's great for creating and cycling food storage.

1 lb ground beef (I know this isn't a can of something, but I always have some ground beef in my freezer)
1 small onion, diced (again, I know not a can but onions keep FOREVER in the fridge, so I always keep some around - I'm sure you could use dehydrated onions from food storage if you were so inclined)
1 can whole kernel corn (about 15 oz size and include the juice)
1 can pinto or black beans (about 15 oz size and include the juice) (the recipe originally said pinto but I've come to prefer black beans in this and I'm sure you could use soaked dry beans of either kind from your food storage, I've just never tried...yet!)
1 can crushed or diced tomatoes (about 15 oz size and include the juice) (again, the recipe originally said crushed but I've always used diced because we already have them around for other recipes)
1 can tomato sauce (about 15 oz size)
1 small can diced green chilies (about 4 oz)
1 pkg or about 1/4 cup taco seasoning (I buy this in bulk or you could be cool like Kristi and make your own!)

For preparation you have 2 choices:

Regular Prep -
Brown the thawed meat and diced onions in a large pot, then add remaining ingredients and cook until heated through, allowing ingredients some time to simmer.

Crock Pot Prep (the way I usually do it) -
Now here's where I get a little unorthodox. Crock pot recipes always tell you to brown your meat first, which basically defeats the entire point of crock pot cooking if you ask me. Maybe it's supposedly to protect against food poisoning or whatever, but we've never gotten sick. Or maybe it's to improve the flavor, but I've never noticed a difference. So if you want, go ahead and thaw your meat then brown it and the onion first and dirty that extra pan, then put it in the crock pot. Otherwise, try it my super lazy way and be done with dinner prep early in the day so you don't have to think about dinner during that horrid twilight zone in the evening when the kids are terrible and you're beat. You don't even have to remember to thaw beef this way! Stick your tube of frozen beef into the crock pot (with it turned on) while you chop your onions and collect your cans. By the time you're done, the outside of the meat should be thawed enough to slit the wrapper and squeeze the meat out easily into the crock pot. Then dump in all the other ingredients (no need to stir yet) and leave the crock pot turned on for about an hour. Then open up your crock pot and stir. The thawed beef will mix into the soup (scrape the sides of the lump of frozen meat if need be). Depending on how frozen your beef was and how high you turn the heat on your crock pot you may have to go back a couple times. And if you forget, and leave some of the meat until the clump has started cooking, just use a wooden spoon and cut up the chunk of meat right there in the pot. I don't even know how long I leave this, but once it's simmering nicely, you should be good.

We like to serve this with tortilla chips either on the side for dipping or crushed in your bowl and
a dollop of sour cream on top.