Pepper Paints

Thursdays Quarter Recipe

Good Morning! I am not someone who gets up and eats breakfast right away. Sometimes 2 or 3 hours pass before I am ready to eat. When I have time I often make smoothies. I am working on making those green smoothies actually taste good. I make bad, bad green smoothies. But I recently found this site-with over 70 green smoothie recipes!!! So there is hope for me. Did I already link to this last week?  If so, sorry I am getting old!

Sometimes I just have plain fruit and sometimes I have museli. It is really expensive to buy but not too expensive to make your own. And you can customize it to your taste! I use a large container and start with raw oats and various nuts and or seeds. I usually use almonds, pecans and sunflower seeds. Then I add some dried fruit-I love raisins, some apples and strawberries that we dehydrated and cocoa nibs.  Shake it up!

I always add fresh fruit either berries, a grated up apple or a banana. I use almond milk from the carton-so technically not raw but very convenient for the 1/4 to 1/2 cup that really use. If you pour the milk and let it sit, the oats will soften some. I prefer it chewy. And I like to top it with lots of cinnamon.  Especially on chilly mornings.

Ginger-well she just prefers icicles!

If you have a raw recipe that you want to include this week just leave a comment here with a link to your raw recipe post! I would love to have others join in!

Mmm Mmm Apple Cake-Thursdays Quarter Recipe

If you have more apples than you know what to do with, this is a great recipe that uses approximately 8  large apples.

preheat 350 grease 9 x 13 pan

In a medium bowl atir together 2 cups sugar (or less!) 4 cups chopped apples, mix well

stir together  2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoon baking soda , 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon salt.

In a large bowl, stir together 1/2 cup veg oil, 2 eggs beaten, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract.  Add the apples and the sugar,  mix well, stir in the dry ingredients and 1 cup chopped walnuts.  Bake 45 mins

Thursdays Quarter Recipe

I really enjoy cooking…when I have a clean kitchen, time, and  people who are actually going to eat what I make.  This is usually not the case these days so my dinners are usually easy  to make and easy to clean up.  But tonight I actually made a whole Indian meal.  It wasn’t too time consuming.  I used the crock pot and the rice cooker and got those started around 12:30pm and we ate around 5:30.

I made Chicken Curry, Rice, Curried cauliflower, Cucumbers and sour Cream and heated up some Naan.

The Sri Lankan Chicken Curry is really easy.  This recipe serves 4.  I always make more.

3 T oil

2 onions finely sliced

1 one inch long piece of ginger chopped

2 garlic cloves

1/2 t turmeric

1 t chili powder

2 t garam masala

14 oz boneless chix (today I used a bag of the flash frozen chix tenders)

3/4 cup plus 2 T unsweetended coconut milk

2 tomatoes quartered

1/2 t salt

heat oil in a medium saucepn.  Add onions cook till golden. add ginger, garlic and spices-mix well for one minute.  add chicken mix well cook stirring for 5 minutes.  (at this point I threw mine in the crock pot with all the rest of the ingredients!)

Pour in 1 cup plus 2 T water.  bring to a boil.  reduce heat, cover and cook for 10 minutes

reduce heat to very low. add the coconut milk.  cook 10 minutes of until chicken is thoroughly cooked.  stir in tomatoes and salt.  cook 5 more minutes.  add fresh cilantro to taste-I add LOTS!

serve this over rice.  basmati is what we like best-I mix 1/2 brown and 1/2 white-cuz my family won’t just eat brown!  I added some olive oil, salt, frozen peas, a couple cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, and some whole cloves in with the rice to cook.  It smells divine!

I also always serve this with cucumbers and sour cream-or you can make a riata.  I skin cucumbers and use the slicer part on my grater and grate into a bowl.  add salt-don’t be stingy with the salt here- and set aside so they make some juice.  add a few spoonfuls of sour cream and lots of black pepper.

Curried Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower cut up into pieces and put in a bowl with 1 t turmeric and 1 t salt.

Heat 6 T ghee (butter or oil will do) and saute cauliflower until tender. remove and set aside.  In same pan fry 1 t cumin, 1 t cayenne (use less this will be HOT), 1 t fresh ginger stirring constantly.  add 3 small chopped tomatoes and 1 t sugar and cook for 5 minutes.  add cauliflower back to pan stir, lower the heat, cover.  cook 8-10 minutes.  garnish with chopped coriander leaves (aka  whole lot of fresh cilantro).

We also always have Nan with this meal.  You can usually find it frozen if you can’t find it fresh.

Thursdays Quarter Recipe

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

It’s almost the height of zucchini season!  This will help get rid of some of them!

Combine:  1/4 c sugar (I used succanant), 3 T oil (I use extra virgin olive oil), 2 eggs

add 1 c applesauce or 2 mashed bananas (I used bananas)

mix well.  Add:  2 c flour, 2 T unsweetened cocoa (I used 1 T cocoa and 1 T raw cocoa) 1 1/4 t baking soda,

1t cinnamon, 1/4 t salt  mix well.

Stir in 1 1/2 c shredded zucchini (I used 2c)  1/2 c choc chips

fill 3/4 full bake 350 degrees for 20 mins.

These can be eaten as muffins or frosted and used as cupcakes.

Sorry Thursday potluck friends-I am not sharing!!!!

Thursdays Quarter Recipe (only it’s friday)

I hinted last Saturday that this weeks recipe would include beets. For several years we belonged to a CSA. Our wonderful farmer sold us a wonderful cookbook full of recipes for all of our fresh local produce. This recipe is taken from that wonderful cookbook. FROM ASPARAGUS TO ZUCCHINI; A GUIDE TO FARM-FRESH SEASONAL PRODUCE. (Sorry about the crappy photos)

Fried Beets n’ Carrots

2 T olive oil

2 t dried cumin seeds or more!!

2 medium beets, scrubbed, quartered and sliced no need to peel, the skins are full of minerals!

2 medium carrots same hear, no need to peel!

tamari (like soy sauce-only better)

optional: beet tops, fresh spinich, swiss chard or other greens (We love this mostly for the beet greens so if you are planning on using your greens make this soon after bringing your beets home as the tops tend to wilt quickly)

Heat oil, sprinkle in cumin and cook 1 minute. Add beets and carrots; fry until tender.

Remove from heat, sprinkle on a little tamari and serve. Variation: If using greens or tops, add once beets and carrots are soft, cover with the lid and cook until soft. Sprinkle with tamari and serve.

Strawberries and Whine

It was a beautiful day for strawberry picking and eating and picking and eating….

And for picking peas

And by late afternoon it was one of those days when I  want to run far, far away from my children.  It doesn’t happen too often, thank god, but when it does it makes for a long day.  The fighting, crying, arguing, testing and what really got me yesterday ; the rudeness, selfishness, meanness.  I was even down one child for a few hours and I was still brought to tears of frustration.

I ask very little of my kids, which is part of the problem, so when there is an opportunity for them to help out I stupidly expect them to, if not willingly volunteer, at least unbegrudgingly help upon request.  These are not characteristics that I can change with a word and my impatient self can’t think of ways to discourage these attitudes for the long haul. I just wanted to wake up today with a bright look on a new day, with different kids but so far it ain’t lookin’ to be that way.   I am all ready annoyed at the prospects of the day and I only have my “easy” kid up and about so far.  It is already after 8 am as I sit on this time sucking computer and I still have 2 bags of strawberries to contend with among all the other day to day grind.  Part of it is my pessimistic attitude that needs some regular exercise and partly the results of an extremely laid back parenting approach.

So what do I do?

I will now walk out of this house into the park behind me with my camera in hand for a mini vacation and re-focusing.  I will return shortly to 3 kids, that I am hoping my husband, who has taken a little extra time home this morning, will have straightened out a bit. And if that’s not the case, I will muddle through one more day, because tomorrow is Thursday-and on Thursdays days all is right in my world.  At least from 1:30 until bed time my outlook on life is sunny.  And it seems to carry me through till at least Monday when I may once again be ready to give my kids away to the nearest taker.

Quarter Beers….Quarter Recipes

It seems Thursdays have always been the start of the weekend for me.  It all started many moons ago, before I was even of legal drinking age-shhh, my friends and I used to head out every Thursday night to a dive, motorcycle bar for quarter beers.  It wasn’t good beer but the DJ was great and always played great tunes.  At least that’s what I remember.   Later in college we walked what seemed like miles North to Dick’s Den for quarter beers on what this middle aged memory  remembers to be Thursdays.  Although it could have been Wednesdays but I wouldn’t want to admit starting my weekend so early and it would ruin the set up of my post so I am going to say it was Thursdays.  The jukebox was great and again the beer was not.  But week after week we always came back.

And still to this day my weekend begins on Thursdays. I may not drag my sorry old ass out to a bar to  drink warm quarter beers and listen to great tunes  But I do pack up more than a quarters worth of snacks and water bottles to head to a local park to play with friends for most of the day and then off to our weekly potluck.  I look forward to Thursdays starting on Mondays!

A few weeks ago I wrote about wanting to make a schedule for myself and change my site and because I am so techno challenged I need to wait for a dear friend to make those changes when she has time, and she’s been busy working or something!  hehe  So no changes yet -but I have a million ideas in my head and decided I would get started.  Stay with me, this really does relate to the quarter beers and thursdays stories.  So, I wanted to make a spot for food recipes on my blog-more so than just a catagory or tag.  My dear friend thought  I should come up with a catchy title like Monday’s Menus, or Fridays food, but nothing sounded right to me.  I kept thinking that Thursdays are our potluck days and the beginning of our weekends, a good time to post about food.  And as far as a catchy title…Quarter Recipes in honor of the beginning of the weekend and hopefully a step up from warm beer!

So here is week 1 of Quarter Recipes to be posted each Thursday!  May you enjoy these as much as I remember enjoying quarter beers and as much  as I look forward to Thursdays on Mondays!

Overnight Lemon Coffeecake        (Maybe a Father’s Day breakfast!)

Cake:

nonstick cooking spray. 1/2 cup butter softened, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 2 containers-6 oz each-lemon yogurt, 2 teaspoons lemon zest, 2 1/3 cups flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 tespoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Topping:  1/3 cup flour, 3 Tablespoons, packed brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 3 tablespoons butter

Glaze:  1/2 cup confectioners sugar, 1 to 2 teaspoons of milk

Grease 9 x 13 pan

In large bowl combine butter and sugar.  Beat until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add yogurt and zest.  Beat well add flour, baking powder, salt and soda.  Beat at low speed until smooth.

Spread batter into prepared pan.  Cover and  .  When ready to bake, let cake stand at room temperature while preheating oven to 350.  Meanwhile, prepare topping.  In small bowl. combine all topping ingredients.  Mix well.  Sprinkle topping evenly over cake.

Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool15 minutes.  In small bowl combine the glaze ingredients.  Drizzle over warm cake.  Serve warm.

To bake cake immediately-without refrigeration-sprinkle with topping and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

I am thinking about trying a different flavor yogurt next time-I’ll let you know!

And for those that aren’t interested in my coffecake maybe my kids circus utube videos, hot off the presses,  will be worth reading all the way down this post!

clowning

spinning

trapeze

And don’t forget to enter my 100thpost give way -deadline fast approaching!