Baked Apple Chips...Mmmmm

This weekend I made baked apple chips to eat with my granola and snack on during the day. I am a big snacker so I have got to find some healthier alternatives to snacking than what I usually find. They turned out so well and are delicious! Here's how it went!

 

 

 

 

You can core the apples before slicing them if you want but it really doesn't matter. Plus if you don't core them the center is a really cool star shape that looks neat when you bake it!

 

 

 

 

Slice the apples thinly for baking. I put them in a bath of water and lemon juice after slicing in order to prevent some browning. Then you pat them dry before putting them on the baking sheet.

 

 

 

 

Place them on a baking pan (parchment paper is a better option than tin foil because they don't stick as much to the parchment paper). The oven should be heated to WARM or around 200 degrees. The apples bake at a low temperature for a long time - it dehydrates them and slightly bakes them.

 

Sprinkle the slices with cinnamon if you want (tastes perfectly fine without anything, too). Bake for about 1 hour (2 hours if the slices are thicker). Remove the slices, flip over, and bake again for another 1-2 hours. Turn off the oven and let the chips stay in and fully cool. They will be crisp only once fully cooled.

 

Here's the finished product!! Delicious!! Perfect as a snack alone, with yogurt, cereals, and granolas!!

 

 

 

 

 Enjoy!!

 



Quiche Crazy!

I asked my mom for a quiche pan for Christmas. First of all, I love quiches. Any chance to fill something with cheese and some veggies I'm all about it! They are super easy to make and to re-heat, and they are also relatively inexpensive, which means I can make one and eat on it for a couple days for a pretty good price.

My mom ended up finding these mini quiche pans, which is actually a much better option than one single pan. The nice thing is they are portioned out for a single meal so I can eat one for dinner or take one in for lunch. The other nice thing is that I can make the base for the quiche (the egg custard) but have different fillings for each mini quiche. So that's what I did!

I made the general quiche base - the egg custard - with 4 eggs, 1.5 cups of half-and-half cream and whipped those together. I mixed in some salt, pepper, basil, oregano, parsley, and thyme. (You can add whatever other seasonings you want, as well. Get creative!)

I made 4 mini quiches - each with different variations of fillings - pictured below!

 

The top left one has: Canadian bacon, cheddar cheese, and onions.

The top right one has: spinach, swiss cheese, onions, and mushrooms.

The bottom left one has tomatoes, swiss cheese, and onions.

The bottom right one has onions, mushrooms, and swiss cheese.

 

 

Here's the recipe:

-Pre-made pie crust
-4 eggs

-1.5 cups half-and-half cream

-salt

-pepper

-spices to your taste, such as basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, etc.

-Quiche fillers to your taste - swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, Canadian bacon, ham, onion, mushrooms, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes, etc.

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1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2) Fit the pie crust in the quiche pan and cut the excess off the top.

3) Line pie crust with tin foil and bake for 8 minutes. (This helps bake the crust just a little bit so that it doesn't get too soggy in the baking process.)

4) In the meantime prep the quiche custard base: whip the eggs, half-and-half, and spices together.

5) Chop whatever fillers you decide to use and set aside - if you are using onions, ham, bacon, mushrooms, or asparagus sauté it in a pan with butter to pull out the flavors a bit.

6) Once you pull the crusts back out of the oven, layer the bottom with your fillers then cover with the custard mix.

7) Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes until the top is browned and you can pull a knife out cleanly.

8) Let cool for about 10 minutes before enjoying.

9) You can refrigerate these for up to 3 days - reheat in microwave for about 1.5 minutes or in oven until warmed.

10) You can freeze these for much longer and reheat them anytime! Cover them tightly and put in freezer. Let it thaw before reheating.

 

 

ENJOY! Let me know how they turned out or if you have any questions!!

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Weekend Fun - Homemade Granola

Of all the meals in the day, I would like to think of myself as a breakfast connoisseur. Recently, in an effort to be a bit more healthy, I've begun to eat more granola in yogurt or as a cereal (instead of my previous faves such as Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Fruity Pebbles, and the like), and I have recently been interested in learning how to make my own so I can include the ingredients that I want. It's also a pretty cost effective method of doing it. You can shop around for the best deals at Aldi, Trader Joes, Walmart, and other grocery stores to see where you can find the best prices on the nuts, seeds, and other additions (dried fruits, dried coconut flakes, etc.). I found a great post on Buzzfeed and it's a great tutorial on making your own granola. I am including my successful first venture into the wild world of granola!!

 There really are only five main ingredients to making your own granola, and then you can get fancy from there. Grain (rolled oats, puffed rice), nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc.), which really I think that nuts can be omitted if you aren't in a nutty mood :), sweetener (syrup, honey, or molasses), oil (olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil), and salt. From there you can add the seeds, dried fruits, coconut flakes, chocolate, etc. The Buzzfeed tutorial really explains everything well, and there's no sense in reinventing the wheel, so go check it out to get the nitty gritty details of what to add and why. I will include the measurements that I used though!

So, once again, the five main ingredients are grain, nuts, sweetener, oil, and salt. I added seeds and dried fruit to this particular combination. My recipe was: 3 cups oats, 1 1/2 cups nuts, 1 1/2 cups seeds (total), 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 cup syrup, ~1/4 cup olive oil, and a small handful of cranberries.

Here we go!

 My ingredients: Oats, slivered almonds, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, and maple syrup (salt, cinnamon, and olive oil not pictured). I was going to dehydrate the apple and include that but decided against it this go 'round.

 

Here I have added the dry ingredients together: oats, almonds, salt, and cinnamon. I did not include the seeds at this point because they were both already toasted and did not want them to be too browned after the baking process. The cranberries also go in at the end.

I have added the olive oil and maple syrup at this point and mixed it very well to disperse them nicely.

Once everything is mixed well you spread it out nicely on a baking pan with parchment paper or tin foil to prevent sticking. Bake it at 300 degrees for 30-45 minutes, until it's started to brown and your house smells like a Christmas wonderland.

Mmmm.... watching it bake.....

About halfway through (20ish minutes in) you can mix it all up in the pan then re-spread it out. If you want bigger chunks of granola instead of more cereal-like texture you don't have to mix it halfway through.

Here is the finished product!!!! All baked up and I've added the pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and dried cranberries, which not only adds some great flavor but some great color as well!! I "taste-tested" a good bit.... it's amazing...

My homemade granola as cereal for breakfast this morning. SUCCESS!!

So, I'd say all in all it turned out really well, was very easy, and ended up being cost effective. I am going to continue to search out better nut and seed prices to lower the cost even more.  I can't wait to make it again and add different things like dehydrated apples, puffed rice, flax seeds, other dried fruits, coconut flakes, even chocolate pieces maybe?!?


Now, get to baking!!



Spicy Chocolate Cupcakes

This weekend, after watching some Cupcake Wars, my best friend and I decided to make some cool cupcakes of our own! We found a recipe for Spicy Chocolate Cupcakes filled with Nutella Chili Chocolate Ganache and Chili Cream Cheese Frosting, which was a super easy and delicious recipe!!! Here are photos of our cupcakes!!

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Here are the finished, baked cupcakes with small holes cut out of the center in order to fill it with the ganache.  

Here's the ganache filling in the cupcake centers.  

We then covered the ganache-filled cupcakes with the spicy, cinnamon, cream cheese frosting.  

Here's a sampler of all the cupcake options that my friend took home: regular filled cupcakes with frosting (top left, center), filled cupcakes with frosting and ganache drizzled on top (three top right), filled cupcakes with frosting and cinnamon on top (bottom left two), ganache-filled cupcakes with no frosting (bottom right two), and four plain mini cupcakes.   

ENJOY:)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

This Thanksgiving I stayed at my house and did my first Thanksgiving meal without my family.  I only had a couple people over so I didn't do a huge meal.  I ended up buying a HoneyBaked Ham, which is absolutely delicious, and I made butternut squash soup, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, cranberry jelly, and crescent rolls, with an apple pie for dessert. I thought it all turned out really well!!

I saw this cinnamon roll crust on theBerry and thought it would be perfect for an apple pie.  I cut each cinnamon roll in half and pressed them down on the bottom of a pie pan then filled it with regular apple pie filling that I made.  I covered it with a regular (pre-made) pie crust and cut a little turkey to put on top :) .

Here is a cheese, sausage and apple plate to eat with crackers during the day.  There is nothing better than cheddar cheese and Granny Smith apples!

 I made a butternut squash soup with cinnamon and nutmeg. It turned out really well!!

Homemade Peach Salsa

I picked up almost all the ingredients I needed at the Birmingham Farmers Market - Clanton peaches, tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos.  I just had to get limes and cilantro.  I used 3 ripe peaches, 4 tomatoes, 1/2 an onion, 2-3 jalapenos, seeded and chopped, 1 clove or 1 tbsp. garlic, 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, and 4-5 tbsp. lime juice.  Cut peaches and tomatoes into small pieces and add together in a large bowl (you can kind of smash up the peaches and tomatoes if you want). Then add rest of ingredients.  Add to taste: salt, pepper, and/or honey.  

Farmers Market

The Birmingham Farmers Market is a really nice little market just north of downtown Birmingham.  They have great local fruit and vegetables like Chilton Co. peaches, big watermelons and cantaloupe, and fresh tomatoes and okra.  

This photo courtesy of Alabama Farmers Market website.

We stopped by the Farmers Market this weekend to get ingredients for fresh peach salsa (tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, peaches, cilantro, garlic, etc.). We also picked up a cantaloupe and enough tomatoes for a Caprese dish.    

I took some fresh basil I am growing, a slice of mozzarella cheese, and a slice of the fresh Farmers Market tomato and topped it with a homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Strawberry Jam

When I was growing up my grandma, then my mom, made homemade strawberry jam.  We'd eat roll-up pancakes (delicious crepe-like pancakes made by making normal Bisquick pancake batter but adding an extra egg and about a cup of milk extra, too) and we'd smother them with the strawberry jam. I decided to try to make my own jam!  I used SURE-JELL's Quick-and-Easy Freezer Jam and Jelly Recipe. I was nervous about my first batch, but here it is!

So the first thing to do was prepare all the ingredients and sterilize the jars and lids. I stemmed and cut the strawberries to make them easier to crush.  

I then boiled the jars and lids to sterilize them and put them on a dish towel until I was ready to ladle jam into the jars.

I could eat the whole bowl of delicious, vibrant red strawberries...mmmm.....

I unfortunately don't have a any sort of masher to crush the strawberries so I had to use a glass....jankity, I know... Anyway, here is me crushing the strawberries one layer at a time to make sure they are even and boiling the lids also. 

Here are the strawberries mashed and mixed with the sugar and pectin - ready to be ladled into the jars.

The final product!! 

I filled 10 - 8 oz. jars with the jam (leaving the top 1" empty).  I will admit that I messed up my first batch a little.  I added more sugar than I was supposed to for the amount of strawberries I ended up with.  It still tastes very well but is a little thicker and grainier than it should be.  Next time, I'll know what to do, though, and it's great to have eight jars of jam in the freezer!!