Community Crepes Cinnamon Waffles

Sorry there's been no blogs lately, but David's been home, and trust me, I am going to spend every last available second I have with him. But he's working a job today, which is good for our pocketbooks. I'm actually expecting his parents to drop by soon- I have a fresh batch of gingersnaps waiting for them. But Community! There is only ONE episode left before it goes on hiatus. Make sure you watch it and let the people over at NBC know that they better bring this show back!

This week on the show, Shirley and Jeff get some time together, after Jeff discovers that Shirley is an expert at Foosball. He enlists her to help him become better so that he can beat some annoying Germans who are loudly bogarting the Foosball table. There's a really fun, cute twist , but I won't spoil it for you. This is a clip of Shirley teaching him.

Waffles!

2 3/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 T baking powder
1 ts. salt
2 cups milk
3/4 cup oil
1 T. cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Combine your dry ingredients, and then beat in the wet. Stir in your raisins, if desired. Pour batter onto a hot, greased waffle iron, and cook according to the appliance's specifications.

In all honesty, David made these. He loves to cook, and just didn't have the time when he was working, so I have no problem letting him have some fun in the kitchen....If only he'd clean it! Ha ha. Things are ok here, just hoping to hear from the government. It's frustrating when it could be today, or in 3 months. Just grateful for the time I have with David. Take care, eat some waffles!

Meatball Stew in Whole Wheat Rosemary Garlic Bread Bowls

So, everyone knows we're cranky at my house this week. Poor David is working outside in the cold for 12 hours a day this week, so not only does he  need comfort food, he needs hot, filling, substantial comfort food. And what better than stew? Stew in a bread bowl! David accidentally broke our crock pot this week too, so this is all stove top. Which is fun, since I've never done that before. I've never made bread bowls either, so it was an adventure.

 Stew:

4 cups aromatic liquid*
3 bay leafs
1 tbsp. Cayenne Pepper
1 dozen meatballs**
salt, pepper, to taste
3 carrots, chopped
3 potatoes, cubed
2 onions, chopped
1 head of garlic, chopped
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup H2O

1 cup frozen peas

*Beef Broth is probably best, but I didn't have it, so I did 2 cups chicken broth and 2 cups Dr. Pepper. You could use any dark soda, and even probably beer (and call it Irish!). Just depends on what you're looking for in terms of flavor.


**You can use frozen meatballs here, but homemade meatballs are super easy to make. 1 lb. lean ground beef, 1 egg, 1/2 cup oats, spices (I use sage, oregano, salt, and pepper- plus some Parmesan if I have it.) Shape, and bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes.

Place your aromatic liquid, meatballs, and spices in a dutch oven over medium heat, and allow to simmer covered for at least 30 minutes. Add all except the last 3 ingredients. Cover, and let simmer again for 2 hours (or so! The longer the better.) Stir together your flour and water, and add to the stew to thicken. In the last ten minutes of cooking, add the peas.


Bread:

4 cups AP flour
3 cups Whole Wheat Flour
5 tsp. yeast
1 Tbsp. Sugar
2 tsp. salt

2 1/2 cups warm water
2 Tbsp. EVOO + 2 Tbsp.

2 Tbsp dried rosemary
2 Tbsp. garlic powder
Coarse Salt


Dissolve your yeast in the warm (NOT hot!) water for 10 minutes. Add the sugar, 2 Tbsp EVOO, 2 tsp. salt, spices, and 4 cups of flour. Stir until combined, slowly adding the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time. (This is a lot of flour. It looks ridiculous to me, but it worked.) Knead in the bowl for a good ten minutes until completely combined, smooth, and elastic. Oil your dough ball, cover the bowl with a damp cloth, and let rise for about 45 minutes. It should double in size. After that, pull apart the dough into 6 even sections (I did 8, which would have been good for soup, but was way too small for stew.) and roll into balls. Place them on a greased cookie sheet, cover again, and let rise another 30 minutes. Then top with remaining oil and coarse salt, and bake in a 400 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, turning half way through. Let cool, scoop out the middle, fill with soup/stew, and enjoy!

This camera is awful. Somehow the bread looks anemic. But David loved it, and that's what matters to me. I hope everyone has a happy holiday!

Community Crepes (Mt. Dew Bacon)

Yes, these are about the unhealthiest pancakes you can make. Yes, I'm cranky, because Dave (unfortunately and unfairly) lost his job. Yes, that means he had to take one with a construction crew, meaning while he's standing outside freezing his tookus off, I'll be home alone....on Thanksgiving. Also, Community isn't coming back after Christmas. It's been 'shelved temporarily' whatever that means, so our nice one little thing has been spat on too. So, I'm less than a happy camper lately, so I saw no reason to have healthy Community Crepes this week.

This week on Community, the Dean decides to update the Greendale Community College commercial that has been in place since the 80's. When former student Luis Guzman decides to come help out, the Dean freaks out in an effort to make 'the perfect commercial' and just about loses his mind. Let's watch, shall we?

 

Recipe!

1 cup flour

2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

3 tsp. oil

1 cup (ish) Mountain Dew

3 strips crumbled bacon

Ok, cook your bacon first. Then combine your dry ingredients. Add the oil, stirring to coat, and then the Mountain Dew til your batter forms. Stir in your bacon. Pour the batter into the same griddle or pan that you cooked your bacon in, so that the bacon grease acts as your lubricant, adding lots and lots of bacon flavor. If you don't have Mt. Dew, that's fine, just use milk. The soda adds some of those yummy bubbles as well as some nice height to the pancakes.

Sorry I'm cranky everybody. The good news is I have to move down south in 6 weeks, while we're still waiting on our lawyer to get back to us about David's paper work. Oh wait. I really shouldn't blog when I'm grumpy.

Whole Wheat Ginger Pear Muffins

Tuesday Baking for David's meeting again. I love to cook, but Dave and I are getting admittedly tired of dishes and living on a budget. It's life, and cooking is fun, but every now and then you just get tired of it, and it is so tempting to say to heck with it all, I'm ordering in.  But there always quick choices. I can make these muffins in 30 minutes easily, and they taste just as good as from the store.

1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup ap flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. Ginger
1 large pear, chopped
2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cooking oil



Combine your dry ingredients. Make a well in the dry goods and beat in your wet ingredients, then the pear. Divy out into greased or sleeved muffin cups. Bake at 375 for about 15-20 minutes until slightly browned, and a toothpick comes out clean.

News developing here...stay tuned.

Community Crepes! (Whole Wheat Coconut!)

Happy Community Crepe Day! Also Veteran's Day! Also my friend's birthday! Also 11-11-11! etc., etc. Anyway, Community crepe day came at a good time for Dave and I. Dave's been working more and more hours, and it looks more and more like we're going to be apart for at least a few weeks at the beginning of the new year. We've both been down (winter blues, anyone?) and so it was especially nice to just sit and laugh this week. And it was a great episode for that! A really funny one this week.

Annie decides to move in with Troy and Abed, and of course hilarity ensues. Meanwhile, Jeff feigns sick to get out of helping with the move, but gets caught by an unlikely source. I love the clip above where expertly tricks Britta into believing he's actually sick. Lawyer'd!  Anyway, Pancakes!


1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
 1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. oil
1 cup milk (coconut milk if you have it!)
1 tsp. coconut extract
1/3 cup(ish) of coconut



Mix together your dry ingredients. Add your oil until it coats the flour evenly. Add the milk (coconut milk would be so yummy- plus you can whip the top layer into a whipped cream of sorts as a topping- so good!) and extract. Mix just until combined, and add the coconut. Mix until incorporated, and then ladle onto a hot, greased griddle. Let cook a good 5 or so minutes, then flip. Allow another 2-3 minutes, and then serve!

 Sorry about the pictures, had to use the computer camera again. But they were delicious, I swear! Coconut is fairly cheap, too. Very satisfying. Anyway, since it is Veteran's day (which, by the way, is a much bigger deal in Canada) I hope everyone will take a moment to thank the Veteran's in their life, and offer up a prayer to the ones we've lost, no matter what you're personal beliefs are. We owe them a lot. Enjoy!

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

First of all, in the effort of full disclosure, we got the idea for this from this site ( http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/StuffedPizza ) and I probably won't say anything that they didn't. None the less, David and I made a stuffed pizza last night! It was so, so delicious. I took a lot of pictures, so it will be more a step-by-step guide, more than an actual recipe. We used our 9 inch spring form pan, which worked perfectly. Nice chance to get it out of storage. Huzzah!

How good does that look? You know if you've been reading this blog that Dave and I love to cook, but are by no means professionals. That looks pretty awesome to me. In other words, if we can do it, so can you. First, use your favorite pizza dough recipe. Chances are, you could even do this with the pre-made dough, but you are going to have to roll it out. Pull off about 2/3 of your dough ball, and roll it out to about a 1/4 inch thickness. In other words, the dough needs to be fairly bigger than your pan. Then line your (very well greased!) pan with the dough.

It's supposed to spill over. That will come in handy. Then you fill it! Start with a nice layer of cheese- we chose cheddar, because that's what we had. It's a pizza, so the sky is the limit, really. We also added some crumbled bacon. We used 4 slices, if you're curious

Add the rest of your toppings, we cut up 1 large onion, and sauteed it for a bit, and also about 8 cloves of garlic. We really like garlic. Now is also a good time to add some spices. We stuck with the classics, oregano, cayenne, chili flakes, salt and pepper. We topped it off with a giant handful or two of spinach.








Remember again, that this is a pizza, so you can use absolutely anything you want in the filling. This is what we had and sounded good to us, so this is what we used.
Then take the other 1/3 of your dough and roll it out. Place it on top of everything and crease together it and the dough that has spilled over the lip. It doesn't have to look perfect, ours certainly did not.

Poke a lot of holes in the top dough. If you don't, I imagine it could explode and put quite a mess on your hands which would be, well, bad. Very bad. Then top with some pizza sauce and extra cheese!

Throw it in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Everything gets plenty cooked, believe me. You should remove the outer part of your pan immediately, but let the pie sit for a good ten minutes. Our final results was the first picture, and here, cut open:

It may not be the prettiest thing you've ever seen, but I'll be darned if it wasn't delicious. Dave and I liked it especially because we're not huge sauce fans. We love the cheese, and that was there in spades. The extra dough sponges up the extra juices that making it this way creates. It was SO yummy. I hope everyone will give it a try! It's only slightly more labor intensive than a regular pizza, but certainly looks more impressive. Yum. And again, fairly cheap and healthy(ish). We made our whole wheat dough from scratch, and filled it with yummy, cheap veggies. Hope you enjoy!

Sweet N' Spicy Sloppy Joes

Home made Sloppy Joes. Yum. I feel like I don't really have to say anything else. We didn't do Sloppy Joes a lot when I was a kid, but man are they delicious. When you add some veggies, and make the sauce home made, you can even pretend they're vaguely healthy. David even made some more home made whole wheat buns, so we're sitting pretty. But anyway, recipe!

 Sweet N' Spicy Sloppy Joes


1 lb. lean ground beef
1 large onion
3 large garlic cloves
2 tsp. chili flakes

1 small can tomato paste
1 cup water
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 heaping Tbsp. ginger
1 heaping Tbsp. Cayenne Pepper
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. pepper

Chop your onions, chili flakes, and garlic and sautee over medium heat in a little bit of oil until translucent. Add your ground beef, and stir until completely brown and broken up. Press the ground beef with a paper towel to soak up the excess grease. Add the water, paste, sugar, and spices and mix until completely incorporated. Turn the heat to low, and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes until the sauce thickens. Spoon over buns, added whatever accoutrement you prefer (we like cheese and baby spinach.)

I really enjoy the spice and hint of sweetness in this. But you know, this dish can be so easily personalized. Add a bell pepper, leave out the ginger, whatever you like. And it is so, so cheap. It made about 4 big sandwiches, which I think would normally easily feed 4, but my husband really really liked them, so....he had about 3 1/3. But regardless, it streches that 1 lb. of ground beef a little further than say, hamburgers would. And when you add all the veggies, you end up hitting all your food groups. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!