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Chex Mix

Chex Mix seems to be as well-known as Pringles or any other common chip item.  However, I've never really eaten them before.  One day when Abby and I were at Winco's and browsing the bulk bin section, we see Chex Mix.  Abby says, I want some.  I don't remember the price but it was high enough that made me think, I bet I can make some cheaper.  So we walk over to the cereal aisle and read the Chex box.  Three kinds of Chex cereal, nuts, pretzels, and bagel chips.  That's it?  Then let's make some homemade ones!  Being the first time, we stuck with one kind of Chex, the corn kind (being the least expensive), pretzel balls (from bulk bins), and black bean crackers (also from bulk bin, to sub the nuts.)  Bagel chips was too costly so instead I got a bag of mini bagels and made that homemade as well.  Followed this recipe, and whola, Chex Mix!

Recipe made a LOT!
 

After this, I had a chance to try the real thing.  Wanted to see how the homemade one compared.  And the homemade one was better.  Happy when that happens. ^_^  Next time I'll try some of the other salty and sweet versions.

Sweet Cherry Cherry Pie

A few days ago we went on our annual cherry picking expedition with my folks.  I had only planned on getting one bucket but somehow came home with two and a half, which meant we had a lot of cherries.  So this year I thought I'd give cherry pie a go although I had never been a fan of cherry pie to begin with, hence I never baked it.  Most recipes I searched for asked for tart or sour cherries but I had sweet cherries.  And then I came across one, very simple and had to get only a couple ingredients from the store so off I went.  The pie was very easy to make, I cheated and used store bought pie crusts.  And in about an hour, the pie was done.  And my goodness, it was good.  I think it was the sweet cherries that did it for me.  The four of us almost finished the entire pie that night.  I'm sure I'll make this one again before the cherry season is over.  Recipe by Kraft Foods.

Watermelon and Feta Salad

A while back I flipped through a book at Costco titled "Plenty" by Yotam Ottolenghi.  I took a picture of the cover with my cell phone which I recently found again on my phone which made me think, oh yeah, I was going to find this at the library.  So I did and saw many interesting recipes, but one really caught my interest.  It's summer now so the watermelon part of it sounded really good.  It was called Watermelon and Feta, and it's a very simple dish.  Watermelon with feta cheese, basil, red onion, olive oil and black pepper.  I didn't have any basil and the stores were still waiting on their delivery, so Abby and I decided to go down to the creek and pick fresh mint instead.  We also added a drizzle of basalmic vinegar.  It was so "fresh" and made a perfect lunch.  We will be eating this one often. ^_^  

Recipe can be found here.

Grapefruit Sorbet

Another one of those times I am truly glad I have an ice cream maker.  This grapefruit sorbet turned out sooo good, perfect for the summer.  Very refreshing and full of grapefruit goodness.  I kinda cheated and used store-bought grapefruit juice instead of squeezing my own.

So simple, just grapefruit juice and sugar.

4c. grapefruit juice

1c + 2T sugar

Cook 1/2c juice with the sugar until the sugar dissolves.  Add the remaining juice and chill.  Then put into the ice cream maker. 

The sorbet was a little hard to scoop after spending time in the freezer.  I've read adding about 1T alcohol will help with that so I'll try that next time.

Watermelon Sherbet

The weather's warming up, which means ice cream season!  So to kick it off, I tried watermelon sherbet, recipe from Allrecipes.  It was yummy.

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Doggie Treats

 I found this awesome blog the other day called Use Real Butter and as I was scrolling down her recipes I found some doggie treats that were simple to make, plus we had all the ingredients.  So Abby made some for Marmu and Roscoe.

Abby rolling out the dough and cookie cutting them.

Pre-bake.  This recipe makes quite a bit, two cookie sheets full.

Post-bake.  Looks gorgeous doesn't it? If it had sugar in it, I probably woulda ate one.

Sniff test.

I think they passed!

Tofu Gyoza

I tried making some gyoza with tofu instead of ground pork. Taste-wise it was pretty good but the texture was a little on the soft side. I made some extra and froze them. It'll be interesting to see if deep frying will make it harder to distinguish from the meat kind.

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Into this batch went into some cabbage, firm tofu (drained all day), nira (garlic chives), bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, salt and pepper, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Matcha Green Tea Syrup

It's snow cone season! One of my favorite flavors is sweet green tea with condensed milk. I haven't had this treat for at least a couple years since sweet green tea costs so much. Thanks to the internet, I found a recipe and made my own. ^_^

In small pan, put in 1/2 c water with 1/2 c sugar. Heat till sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add 1 1/2 t matcha powder. Do not stir, let sit 10 minutes. Then stir. Strain, if desired. If you like this stuff, double the recipe like I did. There's got to be more uses than just snow cones. Maybe on yogurt??? That, actually might be quite good.

Mmmmm. It was soooo good.

Pressure Cooker Split Pea Soup

Lately I've been really bad with meal preparations. The kids don't mind eating whatever and making it themselves so meal planning has not been priority. Life's been pretty hectic, maybe that's why. (not that I'm looking for an excuse...) The other day David pulls out a bag of split peas from the pantry and says, you need to make some soup with these. Of course, I don't get on it first thing in the morning and start my crock pot, rather I waited around till 3pm or so when I realize I need to cook these babies. Hmmm, I wonder how they'd turn out in the pressure cooker... guess I'll find out. One hour later, whola, split pea soup! At first they seemed a little runny but after they sat a couple hrs they thickened up just nicely. Recipe from Food.com. The only change made was that I omitted the ham and used some ham stock.