Tuna Casserole

Marc's cholesterol is high and so we're trying to eat more fish. I love this recipe for a healthy, fast meal. When I proudly told my mom we had fish for dinner, she asked what kind of fish I had made, and I replied Starkist. And it counts as our weekly fish.

Cooked noodles
10-3/4 oz. can cream soup
1/3 cup milk
1/2 t dry mustard
1/4 t pepper
1 can tuna (9 oz or 2 6 oz)
1 cup cheddar cheese cube (4 oz)

Combine and place in greased pan. Sprinkle top with 1/2 cup bread crumbs.
Bake uncovered 375 for 20-25 min.

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On a side note, the other night mom gave me some orange roughy she made (I think she's worried now that I can't cook fish). I heated up some tortillas in our toaster oven, cut some Israeli cucumbers into thin slices, spread some of my favorite Newmans Own salsa on top and made us the most yummo fish tacos in minutes. I just love leftovers... never a food goes to waste.

Salmon Burgers

Ever have leftover fish? I made these salmon burgers last night and they were suprisingly easy and yummy.

Mix:
1 beaten egg
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup chopped onion (or dried onion flakes)
1 t dried dill
1/4 t pepper

Mix wet ingredients, salmon and 1/4 c fine dry bread crumbs.
Spray skillet and cook (or grill).
Serve with mustard sauce.

Easy Cheesy Tomatoey Pasta

You may find a new trend. Less pictures but easy recipes. With a new baby my recipes are changing ever so slightly :)

This one is so yummy we keep re-inventing it by substituting different pastas and veggies, and sometimes I add shredded chicken or cut up chicken sausage.

Melt in sauce pan:
1 cup salsa (1/2 jar) Newmans pineapple salsa
2 T low-fat cream cheese

Mix in cooked pasta and blanched veggies (I threw in frozen veggies I had steamed in the microwave with a special bowl I picked up at Fry's... I knew the electronic store Marc loves is good for something).

Viola! Amazing 1 pot meal. Healthy, easy, inexpensive and no fuss cleanup. Doesn't get better than this.

Monkey Bread

aka Applesauce Banana Bread

Delicious very moist bread, even better the day after making. You can mix-and-match different bonus ingredients. The first time I used dried cranberries and dark chocolate pieces. The next time dried apricot pieces and walnuts. YUMMO!

Next time I'm thinking of adding shredded carrot and raisins, or zucchini and walnuts, served toasted with low-fat cream cheese and you have a delic carrot or zucchini cake version. And great for my soon to be 2 year old nieces.

4 bananas, ripe
3/4 cup Splenda
1/2 cup+ applesauce (I make it from scratch using a large apple, recipe below)
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp baking soda
1 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cup flour (1 c all-purpose & 1 c whole-wheat)
bonus: 1/2 cup to 1 cup crasins, walnuts, chocolate pieces, dried fruit

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and spray 2 9x5 loaf pans.
2. Mash bananas in large bowl and stir in Splenda. Let stand 15 minutes.
3. Mix in applesauce and eggs.
4. In separate bowl, combine dry ingredients
5. Slowly add dry mix to banana mixture and mix well. Add bonus ingredients.
6. Pour into pans and bake for 45 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
7. Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes before removing from pan, cool on wire rack.


*Homemade Applesauce*
1. Peel and dice a large apple.
2. Microwave 3 min in a small bowl.
3. Blend apple (I use my Magic Bullet).

Viola! Homemade applesauce.

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.

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

Creamy Italian Chicken (aka Bay of Chicken)

Fam over for dinner so I thought I'd do a crockpot so that we could spend more time together and less in the kitchen. It was a HOT day so I tried something new and put the crockpot outside. When I say hot, it was already reaching the 90s at 9am. This worked out brilliant and I'll do it again. Yes, I know the crockpot doesn't radiate a lot of heat but even a little bit helps when it's a 104 degrees outside.

Creamy Italian Chicken
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
bag of brocolli and cauliflower
1 envelope Italina salad dressing mix*
1/4 water
1 pkg 8oz cream cheese
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
a little milk to make sauce less thick if needed
1 cup mushrooms
hot cooked rice or noodles (like bowtie, penne, etc...)

*homemade seasonings: 1/3 cup Parmasan cheese, 1 Tbl garlic powder (or crushed garlic), 1 Tbl onion powder, 1 Tbl paprika, 1 Tbl Italian seasonings, 1 Tbl basil, 1 Tbl oregeno, 1 Tbl crushed black pepper, 1/2 tsp salt

1. place chicken and veggies in crockpot
2. combine seasonin mix and water; pour over chicken
3. cover and cook on low 6-8 hours.
4. In small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and soup until blended; stir in mushrooms
5. pour over chicken and cook another hour
6. server over rice or noodles

So this recipe got it alias "Bay of Chicken" because in my overzealousness to make the seasonings myself I confused fresh dried bay leaves for basil leaves. They both start with b but only one can be eaten while the other is strictly adds flavor and should be pulled out prior to eating. It tasted wonderfully but we had to pick out the pieces of bay leaves that I managed to crush really, realy small. Note to self for next time.

Oh, Honey

I had some leftover honey from work and decided to make something sweet to celebrate the mother's in my life - my wonderful mom and my sister, the wonderful mother to my 1-1/2 nieces. I followed this up the next week with easy cookies. Thank you bees!

Honey Oatmeal Cookies
Oatmeal Cookies - These were so good and so easy to make! I will definitely be making these again! Makes 2 dozen.

3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup Splenda
1/3 cup honey
2 egg
2 tablespoon water
1 cup whole wheat flour (all-purpouse is good too)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups rolled oats (aka oatmeal)
1 cup cranberries (also use chopped dates, raisins, nuts and/or chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray
2. Mix together the butter, applesauce, sugar, honey, eggs and water thoroughly.
3. Sift together the dry ingredients then stir in the oats.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix. Add any additional ingredients you've chosen.
5. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Strawberry Honey Muffins
I also made strawberry honey muffins and a honey cake but I can't find my recipe notes. I'll update this post when I clean off my counter and find them :)

BBQ Party

We had a couple of friends over to celebrate BIL's birthday. The weather was warm and breezy... perfect for a "summer is almost here" BBQ.

We made Carne Asada with flank steak we picked up at Costco. We got 2 heaping bags full of white corn that we bbq'd in the husk that was delic. We warmed tortillas on the bbq and grilled up foil packet with onion and red peppers cut into thin strips.

Carne Asada
2 pounds marinated flank or skirt steak (serves 6)
10-12 flour tortillas
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup orange juice
6 cloves garlic crushed
1 medium white onion chopped
2 Tbs ground black pepper
1 teaspoon Tabasco

Place steak in center of cooking grate. Grill 15 to 19 minutes for medium, turning and brushing with reserved marinade once halfway through grilling time.

Place foil packet of vegetables on the cooking grate beside steak during the last 10 minutes of grilling time.

Wrap tortillas in heavy-duty aluminium foil; place on cooking grate beside steak during the last 5 minutes of grilling time. Turn tortilla packet once halfway through grilling.

Slice steak diagonally across the grain into thin slices. Serve in tortillas with peppers and onions, salsa and guacamole. Enjoy!

Cheesy Spinach Bowtie Pasta

A great healthy side dish that we served with BBQ teriyaki chicken and a raspberry vinaigrette salad. Everything can be done ahead and popped into the oven when you're ready for dinner. And because this makes a lot you have leftovers another night.

Ingredients
8 oz package bow tie pasta
small can fat free cream of soup (mushroom, asparagus, etc...)
1 cup low fat milk
8 oz low fat ricotta cheese
4 oz low fat mozzarella cheese
bag steamed spinach, water drained

Steps
1. preheat oven 350 and grease 9x13 baking dish.
2. cook pasta.
3. mix together cream soup, milk, ricotta and mozzarella cheese.
4. mix in pasta and spinach, and spread out on baking dish.
5. sprinkle top with parmesan cheese.
6. bake for about 45 minutes. pasta should be hot and cheese melted.

Cream Cheese Bread Pudding

How many ways can you serve up leftover bread?

Ingredients
cooking spray
Bread like french loaf, tear off into small 1" pieces
cream cheese (I used pumpkin flavored for this one)
1/2 cup cranberries
4 eggs
2-1/2 cups non-fat milk
3/4 cup Splenda
1-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray small glass dish.
3. Spread cream cheese on bread slices.
4. Place bread single layer with cream cheese side up in bottom of dish.
5. Sprinkle with cranberries.
6. Mix together eggs, milk, Splenda, and cinnamon.
7. Pour mix on top of bread and cranberries.
8. Bake about 50 - 60 minutes. The bread pudding is ready when you can stick a fork or toothpick in and it comes out clean.
8. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Variations
Monte Cristo bread pudding: Same as above, only no Splenda, regular cream cheese and slices of ham and turkey.

Baked Penne

Easy dinner and wonderfully delicious.

Ingredients
1/2 box (8 oz) whole wheat penne pasta, cooked
1/2 eggplant, cubed
basket diced mushrooms
16oz container skim cottage cheese
2 small cans tomato paste
1 can diced tomato w/ chiles
seasonings to taste - generous ground pepper, generous basil, oregano, parsley, crushed red dried onion flakes, dried garlic flakes and chili peppers.
Parmesan
mozzarella

steps
1. spray 9"x13" baking dish and preheat over 350.
2. mix in bowl cottage cheese, tomato sauces and seasonings.
3. add veggies and pasta.
4. pour into baking dish and sprinkle top with Parmesan and mozzarella.
5. bake about 50 min. top with fried onions 5 min before done (optional).

Baked Cinna-Cranberry French Toast

So yummy and easy. I made this for New Year's Day brunch.

INGREDIENTS
French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch slices
8 eggs
2-1/2 cups skim milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoon Splenda

DIRECTIONS
1. Spray 9"x13" baking dish. Arrange the slices of bread in the bottom. Do not overlap bread.
2. Sprinkle with cranberries.
3. In a large bowl, beat eggs, milk, vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices, cover, and refrigerate overnight.
4. The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes.

Apfel Kugel

I made this for Chanukkah.

Ingredients
1 lb wide cooked whole wheat egg noodles
1 lb low fat cottage cheese
4 eggs
8 oz reduced fat sour cream
1 cup skim milk
1 large apple, chopped without the skin
1/2 cup cranberries
1 cup cornflakes

Steps
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish in oven.
Cook noodles.
Mix cottage cheese eggs, sour cream, and milk.
Mix noodle with cheese mixture and pour into dish.
Sprinkle top with corn flake crumbs.
Bake 1 hour.

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(I found this one later on the Internet that I'm planing to try next time.)

MY MOTHER'S APFEL KUGEL
2 pounds finely sliced appels
1-1/2 cup flour
1-1/4 cup lukewarm milk
1 cup sugar + 2 tablespoons for the top
4 eggs
1 cup ground hazelnuts
1 cup skinless almonds finely sliced
1 cup raisins golden or black
A few drops of vanilla extract or vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg or clove
1 pinch ginger
2 tablespoons rum or brandy - less if you don't like it.
Juice of two lemons
Pinch of salt
Butter flakes

Put the sliced apples and the raisins in a bowl, add the lemon juice; set aside.

In an other large bowl mix well the flour, lukewarm milk. Add the eggs one by one, sugar, vanilla, rum or brandy, spices, salt and the ground hazelnuts. Mix well to make a lightly thick sauce.

Drain apples and raisins in a colander and add them in the sauce. Mix.

Pour the mixture in a baking pan. Sprinkle the sliced almonds, 2 tbsp sugar and some butter flakes on the top.

One hour in a preheated oven 180 degrees Centigrade (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Try with a knife.

You can eat it cold or warm. We like warm with vanilla ice cream.

Sometimes my mother added chopped nuts, chunk of dried figs and/or dried apricots.

Pumpkin Ginger Bread

Nothing says fall like pumpkin anything - pie, cake, muffin and of course bread. I love the hint of ginger and spices in this recipe.

Ingredients
3 cups Splenda
1 cup applesauce
4 eggs
2/3 cup water
2 can 15oz. pumpkin
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp all spice
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
3-1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 boxes of raisins

Steps
1. Preheat over 350 and grease 2 9"x5" pans
2. Mix Splenda, applesauce, eggs
3. Add water
4. Add pumpkin and spices
5. In separate bowl mix flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder
6. Combine dry to wet
7. Bake 1 hour or until toothpick test that they're cooked inside
8. Let cool about 10 minutes then transer to a wire rack

We served this with some pumpkin cream cheese we had left over from a bagel brunch we had the other day.

Campbell's Chicken & Rice Casserole

Easy to make and feeds a family. Campbell's, mmm mmm good.

Ingredients
1 can Campbell's creame of... soup (I prefer mushroom)
1-1/2 cup water
3/4 cup uncooked rice
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 cup fresh or frozen vegetables (brocolli, cauliflower, peas, diced carrots, etc...)
4 skinless, boneless chiicken breast halves
1/2 cup shredded cheese (horseradish cheddar is wonderful)
1/3 cup French's fried onions

Steps
1. Preheat oven 375.
2. Stir soup, water, rice, onion powder, pepper and veggies in an 11"x8"shallow baking dish.
3. Flatten chicken a bit to help it cooken evenly.
4. Top with chicken. Season chicken as desired.
5. Cover with foil and bake 45-50 minutes or unitl chicken and rice are done.
6. Uncover, top with fried onions and bake for another 5 minutes.
7. Top with cheese and let stand 10 min. Stir rice before serving.

Streusel In-Between Pumpkin Cake

This recipe came from my hiking buddy Michelle in Washington D.C. She says this is one of her favorite cakes to bake in the fall. I put my usual healthy/crazy spin and it came out quite nice. My crazy substitutions are in (parenthesis). Hope you Enjoy.

Streusel
½ cup brown sugar (Splenda)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (nutmeg because I didn't have this)
2 teaspoons softened butter
(generous handful of cranberries)

Cake
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened (1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup homemade applesauce)
2 cups sugar (Splenda)
4 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin (puree from a sweet pumpkin)
1 cup sour cream (about 10 oz non-fat white chocolate raspberry yogurt)
1 teaspoon vanilla (skipped because I ran out)

1. Heat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan.
(round spring foam pan because I still haven't bought a bundt pan)
2. Stir all streusel ingredients together in a small bowl.
3. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
4. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs 2 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in pumpkin, sour cream (or yogurt) and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture.
5. Spread ½ of batter in pan. Sprinkle streusel over batter, without letting streusel touch sides of pan. Top with remaining batter.
6. Bake 55-60 minutes.


Let it cool completely before disassembling. Also make sure you have plenty of batter covering the bottom before adding the streusel. I was a little excited and the cake split a little when I unhinged the pan. But the cake was very moist and tasted wonderful.

In fact there's no picture because it was gone before I could grab my camera. I'll just have to make this again.

Easy BBQ Skewers, Pasta Salad & Grilled Corn

Coupled with a simple pasta salad and grilled corn cooked in the husk, these colorful skewers top off the perfect bbq... delish!

Skewers
short rib flanken meat, cubed
chicken steak, cubed
green pepper, cut into square pieces
red onion, cut into square piences
small red vine tomotoes
whole white mushrooms

Dry Rub Marinade
(about 2 tablespoons of each depending on the amount of meat)
ground black pepper
cumin
chili powder
paprika
Chinese 5 spice

steps
1. Soak skewers in water at least 30-60 minutes before preparing ingredients.
2. Place meat in shallow dish and sprinkle with seasonings making sure to coat pieces.

3. Let marinate in the fridge at least 30-60 minutes.

4. Skewer ingredients get a good mix of veggies and meat.

(Yes, veggies are good naked without any seasonings.)

5. BBQ about 15 minutes over low heat until meat is cooked through and veggies aren't falling off the skewer.

Pasta Salad

package of elbow pasta

small bag of brocolli and carrots

bunch of asparagus

steps

1. Cook small elbow pasta according to package.
2. Blanche brocolli and asparagus cut into small bite size pieces and carrot cut into thin lengthwise slivers.
3. Mix together pasta and veggies.
4. Pour on a light dressing or marinade. I used about 2 tablespoons of an apricot chiopotle marinade I had handy but I've also used a rasperry vinagrette which works nice.

Banana Cranberry Bread

This week's leftover ingredient is bananas. This was so easy to make and so yummy that Marc may start buying extra bananas on purpose. This bread comes out super moist.

Ingredients

2 eggs
2/3 cup Splenda
2 very ripe bananas
1/4 cup applesauce
1/3 cup skim milk

2 eggs
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cranberries

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray bread pan and lightly dust with flour.
2. Mix eggs and Splenda.
3. Mash bananas until there's only small pieces and add to mix.
4. Add applesauce, milk, eggs, oil, cinnamon and poppy seeds.
5. In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
6. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet, mixing them together as you go.
7. Add cranberries being careful not to over mix.
8. Bake for about 40 minutes until top is golden brown and toothpick comes out clean.

9. Cool on wire rack.

White Chocolate Cranberry Bites

These cookies are like mini-scones but not dry and crumbly. The white chocolate and cranberries give it a sweet taste. Ingredients
1/4 cup butter spread (Smart Balance)

1/2 cup canola oil

3 cups Splenda

4 large eggs (or egg whites)

1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
5-1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate chips

1-1/2 cups dried cranberries

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Cover cookie sheets with wax paper sprayed with cooking spray.
2. Mix flour, baking soda and salt.

3. In seperate bowl mix butter, oil and Splenda. Gradually add eggs and vanilla.

4. Add flour mixture slowly to well combined. Add chocolate chips and cranberries.

5. Roll into 2" cookies and place onto sheet.

6. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool on wire rack.