Gingerbread Cookies Cooked with Applesauce?

Last week was pretty slow in the culinary department, with Thomas working late, his dad sick, and his sister staying with her mom. With only really two and a half people to cook for, I wasn't really feeling the inspiration for cooking any full-on meals. Because of that though, I randomly got the urge to make gingerbread cookies. I didn't have molasses, so that originally set me back, but I was ready to hit the web hard and find a recipe without it.

 The problem I came up with then was, sure, there were tons of substitutions(corn syrup, butterscotch pudding, etc.) but I had none of them either! I ended up settling with the first one here, which called for something called golden syrup...which I replaced with regular Hungry Jack Maple Syrup (I figured they mainly just needed the gooey texture to keep them together.)

 The next issue that came up was that I had nowhere near enough butter to pull this thing off, so I again went searching for substitutions. What I found came as a shock (though it shouldn't be for you, because you know... the title); a healthy alternative for butter (in baking only I believe) is applesauce, which apparently makes them more moist to boot (which I'll never complain about).

Everything else went pretty much as planned, though I admittedly didn't really follow the order of how to mix the ingredients and I accidentally put baking powder in instead of baking soda (so I had to accomodate for  that when it happened). I did frost a few, but I realized late in the came that I wished I'd have nixed that idea altogether because it left them a bit too sweet for me. The cookies, on their own, have a nice subtle taste to them (that would be great with tea or coffee), so you're definitely free to ice them if you wish, but I wish I'd at least made my own icing instead of using the leftover frosting from the fridge (prepackaged Pillsbury stuff). I solved the problem pretty easily however, I just gave most of them to my husband to take with him to work (where they were apparently promptly devoured).

Just as a last little thing, this recipe makes like two and a half cookie sheets worth of goodies (much more than I expected), so just be wary of that.

Happy Nomming!

Ginger Fried Chicken Salad

All today I battled over whether to make something new or just go with something I made a few days ago/weeks ago that wasn't really anything special. I wasn't sure if salad counted as a recipe...and I still don't...but it turned out pretty well, (and it's honestly pretty new to me), so here you go.

What you need:

• Chicken Tenderloins
• Ground Ginger
• Salt
• Breadcrumbs
• Lettuce (we had the fancy hydroponic kind from Costco)
• At least two Bell Peppers (ours were both red)
• Olive Oil
• Carrots
• Ginger Dressing
• Eggs

What you do:

1. First you need to make sure your chicken is completely thawed. I have a horrible habit of waiting to do this until much too late and, believe me, you don't want to work with frozen chicken on this recipe...you're fingers won't like you too much. 
2. Take out at least two plates for breading the chicken. I can't remember if I've gone over this in the past or not, so if I have, bare with me. Fill one with your egg and whisk it around a bit (no whisk required, I just use my fingers) and the other with a mixture of breadcrumbs, ginger, and salt. I have honestly no clue as to how much I used of which, as usual, I just sort of wafted my way to the perfect mixture.
3. Go ahead and put your pan on the stove with some olive oil so it'll be hot and ready for you when you're ready for it to be. 
4. In the past I've gone with the pattern of roll all of my chicken and then fry it all, but the last few times I've ended up with super burnt chicken. My strategy this time around seemed to work much better. I took one tenderloin, coated it with egg, rolled it in the breadcrumb mixture, and then laid it in the oil (it's very important that there's enough oil to properly fry the stuff, but not so much that it'll splatter up and attack you...it just takes some practice to get there...and you'll probably have to add more throughout the process so it doesn't run out and burn the chicken). You watch chicken until it's white halfway up and then flip. Then you add your other pieces. This way, you know that once your new pieces are halfway cooked, your older ones should be done...though I'd still make a slice halfway through to make sure. I saw on Ramsay's F Word once that you only want to flip it once and then my husband confirmed that's how they did it at the Four Diamond restaurant he used to wash dishes at. It's nice and juicy that way)
5. After that's through with (or while you're waiting to flip), break up your lettuce, cut up your bell peppers, shred your carrots, and toss it all in a light coating of ginger dressing. 
6. Serve on a plate with a few pieces of the chicken over it and there you have it, a relatively healthy way to have your fried chicken and not feel so bad for it. 

P.S.- I'll hopefully start having pictures after Christmas. Also, I think I like this format. I'm still playing with things, but I think this is on the right track. 

Banana Nut Bread

A month or two ago, we had an annoying fruit fly infestation that forced me to immediately freeze our bananas since we couldn't really keep them on the counter and no one was eating them after a day or so. Thomas has been intent on me trying out either Banana Nut Bread or Banana Pudding, so today, when I had a minute (knowing I needed a recipe for this post), I hit google and went with my first find (surprisingly, I didn't have to go searching all over kingdom come for a recipe that had just the ingredients I had at hand).

Property of SimplyRecipes.com

• Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 1 hour

INGREDIENTS

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

METHOD

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

After reading through the comments, I thawed out my bananas (I went with four) and set to work. I went ahead and just used my masher to not only mash the bananas, but mix the entire thing, step by step, as well. Everything went perfectly and I even added in some steel cut oats (I was running low on rolled oats and didn't have any nuts) and some nutmeg for a little something extra. The only issue I had, honestly, was that I didn't have an appropriate bread pan, so I just went ahead and made them into muffins, following a commenter's lead (it made 11 for both of us and took 35 minutes instead of an hour for them to be nice, brown, and ready to eat).

I've been really wanting to find more healthy alternatives to all of the junk we eat as a family, so hopefully this is another step into the right direction. 

Pulled Pork, You're that easy?

So, I'm sure you remember my escapades with crock pot pork chops (it was only two weeks ago after all). Well, I was determined to do them right this time, and turn them into pulled pork.

A few weeks ago we went to Costco and got a huge package of pork chops, pork chops that were like two or three times as thick as the ones you get from Walmart. We also made sure to grab some actual barbecue sauce (someday I'll make my own work, but not again yet) to make sure things went according to plan.

So, when the day came, I emptied in my two bottles of sauce, put in my three pork chops, and let it go on low for about 8 hours or so. By the time it was dinner, the chops were perfectly plump and ready for the eating. I wasn't quite sure how to pull them though, so I just grabbed two forks, and went to town, trying to rip them apart (which turned out to be pretty easy).

We ended up going out to eat for a friend's birthday, so I didn't eat the pulled pork until the next day, but I think it turned out great (plus we had enough to eat for several days of barbecue sandwiches) . We liked it enough that we got some different sauce yesterday to try out this week. I definitely suggest trying this recipe. It's super easy and pretty delicious.

Simple and Delicious Salmon

So, I've been staying pretty far away from fresh fish. Though I'd love to have some sort of strong moral argument as to why, it's really just because I'm horrified of ordering from the seafood counter at Publix (what can I say, I'm shy). Costco saved me though, because they have a ton of fresh fish ready and waiting for me  to buy.

On our last few shopping trips, I've been eyeing their salmon filet (all 2.2 lbs of it), so we finally snatched it up on Sunday to take it home and become good friends with it. After deciding that it would make three well portioned meals, I divided it up, saran-wrapped the portions, and put two of  them in the freezer for later. For the last third I:

1) Preheated the oven for 350 degrees.
2) Placed the three pieces (a serving is supposedly 3 oz) in a glass dish, coated them with extra-virgin olive oil, squeezed out a bit of lemon juice on them, and then sprinkled on a tad bit of salt and a healthy bit of dill weed (we're trying to watch our sodium intake).
3) The fish goes into the oven for a quick 15 minutes and voila, it comes out perfectly cooked.

There's nothing I'd change about this recipe...except, of course, the spices every now and then. The original recipe called for butter, but, in an attempt to be healthier again, I opted for the olive oil.

I served it over campanelle pasta that was tossed with some olive oil and a few cooked bell peppers and spinach.  Overall, a great meal, if I do say so myself. I hope you enjoy it too!

Happy Eating!

A Second Attempt at Butternut Squash

Happy Halloween Everyone!

I can't, for the life of me, remember if I posted my original attempt at butternut squash (and I'm too lazy to go check at the moment) and I know this is a day late, but even so, here I go:

The last time I tried out this lovely gourd, I was very much a novice when it came to cooking things in the oven (especially thickly skinned things like these buggers). I forgot to add a tad bit of salt to off set the sweet and it was just...not good. I had pretty much decided I was never going to try again.

However, I'm not one to give up so easily. So, knowing that this family as a whole needs a good bit more nutrition in their diet and butternut squash has plenty to give, I figured I'd try again.

So what did I do?

Well, I took

• One butternut squash
• some thyme
• a pinch of salt
• brown sugar
• cooking oil

and

1. Peeled the buttenut squash (a regular peeler works fine, but you'll have to go over it a few times before you get to the good stuff) and cut it into cubes.
2. Did my normal, coat the cubes in oil, sprinkle the spices, and then mix it all together with my hands thing.
3. Popped it in the oven 

Now this is where it gets tricky. I put it in for 25 minutes at 350 because I was pretty sure that's what the recipe online said (I know the time is right at least), but all of the cubes were still pretty hard (no fork was puncturing them with any sort of ease). So, I decided to up the temperature to 400 and left them in for at least thirty more minutes. I can't remember the exact time though, so you'll just have to keep an eye on things.

Overall, I found it to be pretty tasty, but I'm not positive the whole family shared my opinion...so we'll have to see when and if I attempt to conquer this veggie (or fruit?) a third time.

Barbecue Pork Chops

It's not that I was getting tired of my normal pork chops per say, but I think it's probably good to know how to cook meat in more than one way, so yesterday, I went in search of a way to cook them in the slow-cooker (I was feeling pretty lazy).

Basically, everything just said to put them into the slow-cooker covered in a bottle barbecue sauce   and whatever additives you want (with possibly a little extra water so they don't dry out) and cook them on low for 6-8 hours. It sounded simple enough. I was even reassured that, if I wanted to, they'd be tender enough to make into pulled pork...something I will be trying, but not with four little pork chops.

Anyway, I got all excited and got my stuff together, only to find that the barbecue sauce we had went bad in May (whoops). So, I tried to make my own...meaning the pork chops were basically cooked in tomato soup mixed with a variety of spices and several random sauces/condiments. For what they were, they were actually pretty good, but I definitely learned to make sure you have everything before you start cooking (a lesson I think I've already been taught once or twice in the past...I'm just hard to calm when I get excited and intent on something).

I'll definitely be trying this again and if I get around to it, you can bet I'll tell you how well it works for pulled pork.