7/29/2008

Crockpot Manicotti

100 degree weather has come back making the oven a horrible 4-letter word. Because we've having such a warm summer, I've been doing a lot of crockpot cooking and turning on the crockpot outside on our backyard porch to keep from using the oven. I feel like the woman who started the blog A Year of Crockpotting, which has provided some ideas for past and future dishes.

Typically I cook traditional crockpot menus like stews, chilli and roasts but today I tried manicotti. I prepared it following the box, with a few healthier substitutions.

1. Cooked the manicotti noodles for 7 min in boiling water.
2. Steamed a bag of spinach.
3. In a bowl, mixed 2 eggs, 1/3 cup basil and pinch of pepper and parsley.
4. Add 16 oz fat free cottage cheese, spinach, diced uncooked mushrooms, and 1/2 cup skim shredded mozeralla and cheddar blend.
4. In bottom of crockpot mixed together 8 oz can of diced tomatoes and small can of tomato paste, along with seasonings - basil, oregano, dried garlic, dried onion flakes, crushed red pepper, pepper and salt.
5. Stuffed shells with cheese mix and placed into crockpot.
6. Repeated step #4 on top of stuffed shells.

Cook on low about 3 hours.

This tasted cooked through and was hot. More juice at the bottom then I expected but the stuffed shells were tender and not dry so I think the recipe translated well to the crockpot.

7/11/2008

Summer Tart


We had ripe peaches and strawberries in the fridge and I came across this recipe for peach cake. With my healthy modifications mine came out more like a tart, but absolutely yummy. I've also nicknamed this a fruit cookie because the bottom has a scone-like texture. This recipe makes a good base for other seasonal fruits. I had made it again the other night and used frozen blueberries for the middle. Yummo!

1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1 tbs butter
3/4 cup applesauce (1 apple)
1 cup Splenda

3 large eggs

1. Heat oven to 350 and generously spray 9" spring form pan.
2. Mix in small bowl 1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour, 1-1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt
3. In large bowl mix 1 tbs butter, 3/4 cup applesauce (1 apple), 1 cup Splenda
4. Beat 3 large eggs and add to wet mix.
5. Slowly mix flour ingredients to wet mixture
6. Pour into pan
7. Arrange peach slices around outside edge and strawberry slices on the inside
8. Dust tops of fruit with Splenda
9. Bake about 1 hour
10. Cool completely on rack then remove from pan