Po-Tay-Toes

boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew.

i love potatoes.  and since their gluten free its something that i can eat as much of as i like.  i made a whole bunch tonight to go with our every morning eggs, and they turned out so perfectly that i just have to share


Po-Tay-Toes

5 lb bag of potatoes
1 large onion
1/2 c veg oil
Pink Hemylaian Salt
Fresh cracked Pepper
Thyme
Garlic powder
 (honestly, i didn't measure the spices, just do it to taste, i LOVE thyme, so this has a lot in it)

wash and cube the potatoes, chop the onion, pour the spices in the oil, mix up, and dump over the potato/onion.  mix every thing up and put on 2 baking sheets in a 350 oven for 30 minutes.  check after 30 to see if they need a little more time.

these are so wonderful and it makes a lot, so this can be stretched out over several meals, a bunch of breakfasts and probably a dinner or two.

enjoy!

Magic Bullet Peanut Butter

i have a friend on Facebook, Nydia.  she lives in Brazil, and is cool and amazing.  she posted recently that she made her own peanut butter.  i knew that the process was "out there" (aka somewhere on the internet), but i'd never tried it, nor did i know anyone that had ever done it.  Nydia RAVED about her peanut butter.

i was of course intrigued.

i looked around at different sites for instructions, and found them pretty universal.  get roasted peanuts, put in food processor, eat.  i, however, in a fit of lack-of-counter-space pique, had thrown out my food processor (that only worked sometimes anyway) out the door.

i did have a magic bullet, however.

i got it when Bam was still a baby to make his baby food.  it graduated into smoothies and the occasional salsa/sauce.  i also use it to make hummus.

so i tried it with the magic bullet, and it's is so simple it will amaze you.  PLUS, Nydia was right.  it is the most amazing peanut butter you'll ever try.  i will NEVER (with the exception of apocalyptic situations when there is no access to either roasted peanuts OR electricity) eat jar peanut butter again.  no, i'm not being uppity.  it's just a fact.  yes, it's that good.


first start out with peanuts and the small magic bullet dome

grind up the peanuts.  first stage is the "beachy sand" stage.  

it will start to clump up

keep grinding till you get a, well, peanut butter like consistency.  trust me, it's worth the wait.  

and now enjoy!

Adventures in Dressing

To keep up with the real food (and totally not because I forgot the bottle of dressing at work), I made salad dressing last night to go with the organic greens we were having. I shopped around on the interwebs and found a couple of recipes that looked good, but i never seemed to have all the ingredients called for.  So I decided to wing it.  I used this recipe as a jumping off point, and came up with this:

Creamy Avocado Garlic Dressing

2 avocados
1/2 c mayo
1/2 c (ish, I just dumped the almost full 8oz carton of) sour cream
2tbl butter milk (I made my own with milk and lemon juice)
3tbl apple cider vinegar (deluded, it was way strong)
1/4tsp basil
1/4tsp oregino
1/2tsp garlic powder

Plop the avocados, mayo, sour cream in the mixer and start her up.  When it starts to combine add the buttermilk and ACV.  When its all smooth, add the herbs and spices.  Put in the fridge till you're ready to use. 

Now I just need to learn to make my own mayo...

Wordless Wednesday - dinner

dont you wish your girlfriend could cook like me.

i am a kitcheny witchy MACHINE! with the exception of two nights ago when we went to hooters, i have cooked every meal my family has eaten all week. mostly from scratch. i say mostly because of the fish sticks on fish n chips night.

so for the most part ive been in controll of everything thats gone into my body. ive known everything that ive consumed. no dyes, preservatives, no unpronouncables. and with the exception of my quesadilla with fries and blue cheese dressing (cause im an addict) from hooters, ive been cleansing myself from the inside out.

now, i noticed something about day 3. i got very sick, very quickly, of oatmeal and ham n bean soup. especially oatmeal. so i was forced to find new recipes. new ways to make this experiment doable. thank gods for the internet.

as breakfast was the biggest issue, i tackled that first. allrecipes.com had some great (and not so great) granola recipes. yes, some of them called for HFCS (i flat out refuse to call it corn sugar. i have pride), but not all. i finally chose one i could modify, as im not a big fan of dried cranberries or rasins. i simply left them out.

i cooked it up last night, and i have to say that its damn good. like good enough that ill be making this weekly. if not more. i can see hubby and princess gorging themselves on this.

the next hurdle is dinner. because i am so sick of ham n bean soup that i could puke... ham n bean soup. theres a recipe for clam chowder on spoonfedblog that id like to try, but itll have to wait till payday. hubby loves seafood.

mmmmmmm, seafood...