Ranch Egg Salad Sandwich

I started making these sandwiches at lunchtime. They fill me up and are good for me. 

 I don't like mayonnaise or salad dressing much (anymore-Andy doesn't like them and I just stopped buying them when we got married and did without), so I use ranch dressing instead. I love ranch (and yes, I know that ranch has most of the same ingredients as mayo and salad dressing.)

Here's the finished product.  

Egg Salad on whole wheat toasted bread with a Kraft Singles American Cheese and carrots.

Start with a boiled egg.  I usually use large eggs, but this one was a medium and was plenty for my sandwich.

After peeling (obviously), I just use a fork to make it into crumbles.  I'm sure I could buy a fancy egg dicer tool, but I'd rather just stick with the fork I already have.

See?  Beautiful egg crumbles.

I add about a Tablespoon of Ranch dressing and some ground black pepper (salt isn't needed for me) and then stir it up.

Toast the bread, add some cheese, and then spread the egg salad on top before topping with the second piece of cheese.

You have to cut it diagonally, right?  My almost eight year old can make this herself.

Easy, filling, and good-for-you lunch. 

I think it'd be great with a slice of tomato, lettuce, bacon, or turkey on top too.  

Maybe all of them, like a fancy BLT.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

This is really more like cake than bread. It's so good! The site I got the recipe from (Sweet Pea's Kitchen) made them into muffins, but I didn't have time to fill muffin tins with Abby needing me (always!)
I doubled this recipe because I have so much zucchini to use. I'm freezing 2 gallon bags of it now. Doubling the recipe made four medium loaves.
This is the recipe without doubling.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Melted Butter (or Margarine)
3/4 cup Vegetable Oil
3 Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1/2 cup Buttermilk (add 1 Tablespoon to regular milk and let it sit for five minutes)
2 cups Shredded Zucchini
2 cups Flour
1 cup Baking Cocoa
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1 cup Mini Chocolate Chips (you can put them inside or sprinkle them on top)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the sugar, butter, and oil. Beat in eggs. Mix in vanilla, buttermilk, and zucchini. Add salt, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon.Then add cocoa and flour. Spray two loaf pans or 20 muffin tins with non-stick spray.
Divide batter equally among prepared loaf pans or muffin tins. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Bake 35-40 minutes for loaves, 20 to 24 minutes for muffins, until the middle is solid. Like the picture below: Let cool in the pan for five minutes (if you can stand it) before letting them cool on a wire rack.

NaDell Tip #1: Directions always say to mix all the dry ingredients together before mixing the wet ingredients in a different bowl. I haven't found much use in that and always just add the smallest amount of dry ingredients first (ie: salt, baking soda, spices) and the flour last. Works just fine for me....especially with a Kitchen Aid.

NaDell Tip #2: My Kitchen Aid has a shredder attachment, so in less than an hour I had eight big zucchinis all cleaned, cut, deseeded, shredded, bagged, and cleaned up. I leave the peel on and just pick out the big chunks that are occasionally are too thick to shred. I even used some of the yellow summer squash and mixed them all together. I love that attachment (they sell them at Walmart!) and use it for cheese all the time. It's well worth the investment and as a bonus, Andy likes to use it because it's a cool tool. It also comes with a slicer. There are two different sizes for each slicer or shredder. I used the larger shredder for the zucchini.
It just melted right into the bread. YUM!

Homemade Tortillas

A few weeks ago I decided to make tacos for dinner and after starting realized that I didn't have enough tortillas and instead of calling Andy to stop at the store on his way home, I decided to use a recipe my mom had that I added to my cookbook that I typed up for our family years ago and hadn't tried.
Ingredients:
4 cups Flour
1 tsp Salt
½ cup Shortening
1 cup Hot Water

Instructions:
Mix all ingredients in order. Knead, roll, and cook on griddle. I could cook two or three on my big griddle at a time.
I just did this by hand because it didn't take much effort to make the dough. Here is some of the dough.
Here are some tortillas that I rolled out while waiting for the others to brown. One side browned. They take about three minutes to cook each side at the 300 degree temperature I had my griddle set on.The recipe said that it makes 36, but for me it actually made about 16 tortillas. Maybe I should have rolled them out thinner... I would just make what you plan on eating because theses didn't work well reheated. They were great for dinner though and cheap because of the ingredients. The kids loved these. Next on the list: Pitas!

Cheese Muffins

I got this recipe from Addictive Allen's and they got it from Pioneer Woman, so I really should have known that it would be SO good. They whipped up really fast. I had enough time to boil the noodles and heat up the sauce for spaghetti while they baked. I made them last night and just finished the last one (heated up) this afternoon. It only made 12, but somehow we didn't devour every one of them last night. Must have been that yummy spaghetti...

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
3 cups Cheese (Any kind works: colby-jack, cheddar, mozzarella, etc)
1 cup Milk
1 Egg
1/4 cup Melted Butter

Instructions:
It doesn't even matter how you put these ingredients together. Just mix and spoon into muffin tins. Yes, it is THREE cups of cheese.
(The official directions are to whisk dry ingredients, stir in cheese(s), then in a separate bowl whisk egg, milk, and melted butter before mixing them into the dry ingredients. )
I just added everything to one bowl and mixed and added the cheese last. They worked beautifully. It will seem as though there is too much cheese, but is there really such a thing as too much cheese????
Bake in greased muffin tins at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
These muffins are airy and cheesy and delightful! They taste best when the cheese on the inside is melty enough to be a little stringy when you take a bite.
Also, the recipe says it makes 12, but I think it could easily make 15 or so.
Sorry most of my recipes are muffins. I really like them and so do my kids. =)

Blueberry Applesauce Loaf

This recipe came from Seneca. The line just before the recipe says to use applesauce for healthy baking. This makes one large loaf (9x5x3 pan) or two small loaves with the 6 inch pan.Ingredients:
1/4 cup Butter, Softened
3/4 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Applesauce (I used a wild berry cup and ate the last few spoonfuls.)
1/4 cup Apple Juice
2 Eggs
1/2 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 3/4 cups Flour
1/8 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 cup Fresh or Frozen Blueberries (I only had 1/2 cup of frozen, so I added Crasins too.)

Topping:
2 teaspoons Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon

Instructions:
In a mixing bowl, cream together butter, sugar, applesauce, and apple juice. Beat in eggs, milk, and vanilla. Combine flour, salt, and baking powder and add to creamed mixture just until combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. I checked mine at 30 minutes and it was starting to brown up on the edges a lot, so I put a piece of tin foil over the pans. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack to cool completely.

I think this bread is delicious. Try it and tell me if you did.

Bagels

One of my classmates from high school posted on Facebook that she made her own bagels. It had never occurred to me that I could make my own bagels. They seemed too fancy to make and I had no idea that I could. I looked at the recipe and it was easy. There are many steps, but the end result is perfectly delicious!
Sorry about my pictures. I don't have a lot of light in my kitchen and took 41 pictures just for these ones.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups warm milk or water (I used half water and half milk.)
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Instructions:
In a mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm milk. Add the butter, sugar, salt and egg yolk. Mix well. Stir in enough flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top.Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.Punch dough down. Shape into 12 balls. Push thumb through centers to form a 1-in. hole. Place on a floured surface.Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Flatten. In a large saucepan, bring water to a boil. Drop bagels, one at a time, into boiling water. When bagels float to the surface, remove with a slotted spoon and place 2 in. apart (I did less than that and they were fine.) on greased baking sheets. Boiling the bagel makes the special smooth texture on the outside of the bagel.
After boiling and ready to go in the oven.Bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
Halfway through baking.All done. The lighting is bad, but this is how they looked.Remove from pans to wire racks to cool. I've never eaten a warm bagel before, but YUM! They are so good! I think this recipe would work well for pretzels too.

I made several smaller bagels and several bigger normal sized ones. The smaller ones were perfect for Vincent to hold and just the right amount to eat. I made 13 bagels total. I'm going to double the recipe for the next batch. Everyone loved them!
The batch I took pictures of is a doubled batch. It made 28 bagels. They are slightly smaller than the average bagel, but perfect for us. I love using my special $5 bagel cutter that I found at Big Lots years ago. It's product name is Ronco, so anytime we use it we say "Ronco!" over and over.

Nauvoo Wheat Bread

This recipe came from a recipe book called Tried and True Recipes my friend put together for our Relief Society about a year ago.
I was wanting to try another wheat bread recipe and this one had the best and easiest ingredient list. It is also great for a food storage recipe because it doesn't use eggs, milk (just powdered milk), or butter.
I do have a wheat grinder. It's an attachment with my Kitchen Aid. I love it, but if you wanted to buy a bag of ground wheat at the store, that would work just fine too.
Nauvoo Bread
Ingredients:
5 cups Hot Water
1/2 cup Potato Flakes
1/2 cup Sugar
1 cup Powdered Milk
2 Tablespoons Salt
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
2 Tablespoons Yeast
10-14 cups Fresh Ground Whole Wheat Flour

Instructions:
Combine hot water, potato flakes, sugar, powdered milk, salt, and vegetable oil in mixer (or large bowl). When water temperature is luke warm, add yeast. Mix in 5 cups of wheat flour until the dough is elastic. Mix well. Then add 5-7 more cups. I ran out of my freshly ground wheat, so I added a cup or so of regular white flour. I didn't want to open a new can of wheat and get my grinder out again for one cup. Cover and let rise for 45 minutes. Punch down and turn dough over in bowl. Let rise 45 more minutes. After second rising, shape into loaves (mine made five medium sized loaves). Let rise a third time for 45 minutes and then bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Place on cooling rack and wait until it is cool enough to eat. I used a little bit of margarine to melt on the top of the bread after it came out to make it extra yummy and a little shiny.
Elizabeth (7 years old) ate this as her afternoon snack. She was so excited!

Crepes!

Alright, so I didn't make crepes for a long time because I had a really bad time making them when Andy and I were first married. I checked out a kid book ("Crepes By Suzette" by Monica Wellington) at the library that had a crepe recipe in the back of the book (the girl in the book lived in France and made crepes to different people with different fillings). This recipe is great! I made some on Sunday night and used the rest of the batter on Monday mid-morning as a snack and just made another batch this afternoon. YUM!
Here's the recipe for 8 crepes.

Ingredients:
2 Eggs
1 cup Milk
1 cup Flour
1 Tablespoon Melted Butter (I used margarine, like always-and it worked)
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
and desired toppings

Utensils needed:
Large bowl (not giant bowl though, 2 quart bowl should work)
Whisk
Ladle
Spatula
Large Frying Pan

Instructions:
In the bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Beat in the milk. Then add the flour and mix until very smooth. Add the melted butter, sugar, and salt to the batter and blend well. It should be the consistency of heavy cream. Add slightly more milk if necessary (I had the perfect ratio.) The batter can be used immediately, but even better, cover and chill for one hour or overnight.

Heat the pan and brush lightly with melted butter (I used spray PAM). Pour in a ladleful of batter (about 3 Tablespoons-I'd go with 1/3 cup). Quickly swirl the pan around so the batter spreads out thin. Cook over medium-high heat until the crepe is set and the edges are lightly browned and lift up easily, about 2 minutes. Flip it, spread it with your favorite filling, and cook for another minute. Fold it in half, dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Filling ideas:
Strawberry Jam (or other flavors) with chocolate syrup, if desired
Peanut butter with chocolate chips
Cinnamon/sugar with Carmel Syrup
Any pie filling
Banana
Honey

Yummy French Bread

Yummy French Bread

Ingredients:
1 package Yeast (1 ½ Tablespoons)
2 ½ cups Hot Water, divided
3 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Tablespoon Salt
5 Tablespoons Oil
6 cups Flour, divided (1/4 cup more for rolling out)
1 Egg (optional)
Poppy or Sesame Seeds (optional)

Instructions:
Mix together yeast and ½ cup water and set aside for 10 minutes. In a plastic or wooden bowl mix remaining 2 cups water, sugar, salt, and oil until salt and sugar dissolve. Add 3 cups flour. Add yeast mixture.
Add 3 more cups of flour.
Stir with a wooden spoon until well mixed. Leave spoon in the batter. Set aside 10 minutes. Stir again, leaving spoon in batter. Repeat 2 more times (total of 4 mix, then wait 10 min). Divide dough into 2 parts. On a floured board (or counter), roll out each part dough to a flat rectangle. Then roll up to make a loaf and place on greased cookie sheet. Let loaves rise for 30 min. Brush loaves with egg and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds, if desired. Bake @ 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Let cool before cutting.

Don't use metal bowls or spoons--just wooden or plastic.

I have done both ways. I used my metal Kitchen Aid to make it do the work before and it seemed to turn out the same, but if you need to work out your arms or don't have a fabulous Kitchen Aid, you can easily do it by hand. After making this bread, I don’t know that I can spend a dollar or more on the French bread at the store.
Andy made this on Saturday (by hand, I didn't let him use the mixer) and it was delicious. He even won a bread contest!

This recipe came from Andy’s cousin, Sunny. THANKS!

Ham Breakfast Casserole

Ham Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients:
6 slices Bread
Butter or Margarine
1 pound Ham
1 ½ cups Shredded Cheese
6 Eggs, Beaten
2 cups Half and Half
1 teaspoon Salt

Instructions:
Remove crusts from bread. Spread with butter. Place in 9x13 pan. Set aside. Spooon ham over bread slices. Sprinkle with cheese. Combine eggs, half and half, and salt. Mix well and pour over cheese. Cover and chill overnight. Remove 15 minutes before baking at 350° for 45 minutes or until set.

Ham and Swiss Cheese Pockets

What to do with Leftovers?
Today, after picking Elizabeth up from school, I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner (since it's one of my goals this year to make healthy frugal dinners).
I came up with Calzone Pockets. I made some dough (couldn't even find the recipe I wanted in my binder, so I made it up) and then shredded up the ham from yesterday, sliced some yummy Swiss cheese and rolled out about 9 parts of dough to make them. I put in some of the shredded ham and broke up the slices of cheese on top and closed them up. 15 minutes later, YUM!

Andy loved them and the girls even ate all of theirs and all of their corn. Vincent had some of the roll part and some corn. I couldn't give up the yummy Swiss cheese. I love that stuff!
What do you do with leftovers?