I'm Out of the Box

And maybe a little crazy.....

Here's proof-

 

I like to think of myself as a food explorer- and since I ditched the box (boxed food)  I make

strange strangely delicious food.  Here's my latest adventure of "out of the box" cooking.

 

What you need-

2 avocados

1-2 c. yogurt

1/4 to 1/3 cup honey

Blend together in a blender until creamy

 1 large bowl of fruit.

  1tsp. fruit fresh to prevent browning of your fruit.

Add to your favorite mix of fruit and stir until well blended.

(mine is whatever I have on hand to throw in there)

 

This closely imitates the boxed pudding idea, except it's way healthier.

 

So...Yum!

 

Blog Button and Venison Bologna

I know I know, and these topics go together how?
My dear friend over at Treasure's From a Shoebox had asked me how I made my blog button, maybe most of you already know how. But just in case you don't, I found a great tutorial at this blog site Oikology 101. I had googled and searched for other tutorials and this was by far the easiest one I found. If you are a follower of Treasure's From a Shoebox, make sure you get her new button!



Are you married to a deer hunter? Or do you and your family love deer meat? I have a GREAT recipe for Venison bologna that is easy to make and so delicious. I have made it twice, and it gets eaten so quickly I wonder if I should go into business and market the stuff for a profit haha.

Tastes great with cheese and crackers!

4 lbs of deer burger (or hamburger or elk meat, just make sure it's lean)

1/4 cup tender quick salt

Mix above ingredients and let stand overnight in the refrigerator.

Next day add:

1 cup brown sugar (more or less according to your preference)

2 or 3 tablespoons Liquid Smoke

1 1/2 tablespoon Pepper

2 tablespoon Mustard Seed

1 tablespoon of both Onion and Garlic powder (optional) I do both

Mix together and shape into 4 rolls, 1 pound each. Bake for 2 hours at 250. Turn every 30 minutes while baking.

I found the Tender quick Salt at our local Bulk Foods store with the jerky making supplies.

Ultimate Pancakes

Ok, ok, before you yell at me for just posting recipes let me share with you that I have been on the look out for several PERFECT recipes. I have been searching for the perfect from scratch brownie recipe, and for the perfect from scratch pancake recipe. I think I may have found the perfect from scratch pancake recipe. I would love for you ladies to try it out and tell me if you agree. I received this recipe from our hostess during our trial sermon trip last weekend. She made these Monday and they were...well PERFECT! I could tell they were different this morning while I was mixing them and pouring them onto the griddle.

Easy Sweet Milk Pancakes
1 tbs. sugar
2 tbs butter (melted)
1 egg
1 cup sweet milk (I used 1 cup milk with 1 Tbs. lemon juice and 1 Tbs. sugar, so I had sweet buttermilk, let sit for one minute)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup flour
4 tsp. baking powder
Mix dry ingredients together. Beat egg and milk together. Add butter and other ingredients to your dry ingredients, and mix well. Cook in frying pan or griddle. These will be light and fluffy (I promise!)

*One trick I do is I pre-heat my griddle to 350, after pouring the batter on I raise it up to 400. As soon as they are done I turn the griddle back down to350 while I remove the pancakes and re-butter the griddle. I do not burn my pancakes this way.
*For those of you who like to use wheat flour, I doubled this recipe and used 1 cup white and 1 cup wheat.
* I doubled this recipe and got about 15 good sized pancakes from it.
*You can also substitute the butter for oil, or shortening, whatever you have on hand. If you do so you will lose some of the buttery flavor.

Granola Bars

Chocolate Chip and Roasted Almond Granola Bars Recipe from Candace Creations

1 cup peanut butter (I just guess..I probably do a bit more..so decide if you like your granola bars more moist and chewy or more dry and crumbly when adding PB)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup Honey (or corn syrup if you don't have honey)
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups oats
1 cup cereal (honey nut cheerios, chex, honey bunches of oats, rice krispies...whatever you want)3/4 cup wheat germ (better to have, but sometimes I'll leave it out if I'm making them gluten free for my sister)
4 tbsp ground flax seed (optional)
3/4 cup toasted almonds (optional)
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 9x13 inch baking pan

(I line mine with foil because it's easier to take the bars out and cut them up.)Mix first 5 ingredients together. Then add the oats, wheat germ and ground flax (optional). Stir in chocolate chips, almonds and cereal.Spread mixture into baking pan and bake for 20 minutes. the let cool.
EASY PEASY! ENJOY!
You can switch these up to make whatever kind of granola bars you like...add dried fruit, different nuts, whatever!
I melted my chocolate chips for a little different texture (it kind of tasted like no bake cookies) I also ommitted the cereal.

Granola

Here is my favorite recipe for granola!

15 cups oatmeal or whole oats

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup honey

5 Tbs. butter, melted

1 cup oil

2 cups water

3 TBS. cinnamon

2 TBS molasses

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups chopped nuts (optional)

Raisins (to be added after you bake the granola as they tend to burn very easily)

Pour dry ingredients into large bowl and mix thoroughly (I let the children help, they love to mix) Combine all wet ingredients and mix in with the dry ingredients. Be sure to mix thoroughly!

Pour into large pan or 2 9x13 pans bake at 300 for 50 minutes, stirring every 15 to 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely, for several hours at least!

*Hint: Measure your butter and oil first before the honey and the honey will come out of the greased cup easily.

Add other ingredients you may enjoy, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, just be sure to add dried fruits after baking.

This mixture keeps for weeks.

I will serve this in the morning to the children, I cook it like oatmeal, add the raisins and serve with milk, they love it!

You can also use this in my Granola Bars recipe in place of the oats, simply omit the sugar.

This makes a lot but keep in mind it keeps for a long time, our family has no trouble eating it up!

Recipe adapted from Wendy Jeub

Simply Delicious Fruit Salad

I can be lazy sometimes, wait let me rephrase that as that sounds bad : ) I love simple things! They make my life so much easier, I especially love simple recipes that my kids enjoy.

This was super easy to make and only required these ingredients:
Simply Delicious Fruit Salad:

1 can any size peaches

1 can any size fruit cocktail

1 can any size mandarin oranges

1 can any size pears

1 can cherry pie filling

Drain all the fruit, and pour into a large bowl, stir in pie filling. Wala! Enjoy

Variations: Use fresh, frozen or your favorite fruit. The cherry pie filling gives this fruit salad a different twist.

Junk Muffins

My amazingly delicious and deceptively healthy muffins.

3 c. bananas (or any fruit or veggie puree) I have used almost everything under the sun including pork'n beans and steamed spinach.

1 c. sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

2 c. flour (I use 1 c. white and 1 c. wheat)

1/2 c. oil

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 eggs

1/2 c. nuts (optional)

1 tsp. lemon juice

Beat all wet ingredients well (I throw all of them into my blender)

Mix all dry ingredients together including sugar. Make a well in flour mixture and pour wet ingredients into it. Mix with large spoon until well blended. Pour into greased or lined muffin tins. Bake 15 to 20 minutes at 350.

Cool for 5 minutes then sneak a warm one.

Variations:

Bannana Cream

Add 1 package of vanilla pudding and 1 tsp. vanilla You may need to add a couple Tbs. of milk to keep batter moist enough.

Tomato Cinnamon

Substitute tomato puree for bananas. 3 cups. 1 & 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

To add wheat bran or flax seed, just subtract from your flour. *Example if you put 1/4 c. wheat bran in you will need 1 & 3/4 c. flour