Buttermilk Pancakes

I'm on a diet.  Diets are the worse. Buttermilk pancakes are the best.  Scrambled eggs are okay, but geez, everyday? Diets are the worst. Serve these pancakes with fruit so you never have to diet.  Then take a nap because pancakes and naps are made for each other and well, frankly, you deserve it. 

Oh and I'm a cheater. Not on my diet. Well that too. But I don't use buttermilk because I can never finish the rest of it.  If you need one cup of buttermilk put one tablespoon of lemon juice in a one cup measuring cup, then fill the rest up with milk. I use whole milk. 

Buttermilk Pancakes

Downright stolen from Joy the Baker

Serves 3-4 adults

• 1 cup buttermilk (or 1 tablespoon lemon juice in a measuring cup and fill the rest up with milk)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

Measure out all ingredients and preheat your griddle or skillet to a bit higher than medium heat.

Whisk together the first three ingredients in a medium bowl, then whisk in the butter. In another medium bowl whisk in the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, brown sugar, and salt). Whisk the wet mixture into the dry mixture.  May you be judged if you do it the other way around.

Spray the griddle or skillet with nonstick spray.  Pour 1/3 cup of mixture onto skillet - fit however many pancakes the skillet will hold.  Flip when the top of the batter has lots of bubbles (about 2 minutes). Cook the underside until golden (about 1 minute).  Respray the skillet between batches. Serve hot with syrup or fruit.

Stadium Beans

Lessons learned from our most recent BBQ and swim session. Number one- you can never have enough beans. Number two - never check the swim diaper for poop when the swim diaper is underwater. Number three - if your kid eats over a pint of blueberries in one day, he will literally poop blueberries. It smelled just like blueberries....and chlorine.

This recipe makes some fancy beans. So many colors. Throwing all the beans in a slow cooker takes one thing off my list early in the morning and allows for maximum swim time. You see - I'm always thinking.

My God, its hard to take good photos of food.  It is prettier than baked beans in real life. And tastes better too.

Stadium Beans
Serves: Well, at least 6 adults and 6 kids, with two sandwich bags left over.
Adapted from Everyday Slow Cooker

• 1/2 pound bacon
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cans 16 ounce baked beans, drained
• 16 ounce can kidney beans, drained
• 15 1/2 ounce can chili beans, drained
• 2 cans 14 1/2 ounce green beans, drained
• 2/3 cups ketchup
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Cook bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon to paper towel, keeping the bacon grease in the skillet. Crumble bacon. Add onion to skillet and saute until tender.

Combine all the beans, the bacon, onion, and any remaining grease from the skillet to the slow cooker.

Stir together ketchup, brown sugar, chili powder, and cumin in a small bowl.  Fold into the slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low setting for 3 to 6 hours.

Next time: I need to learn to cook dry beans instead of always cooking them from a can. Eventually.

Hamburger Tomato Pizza

We always plan when we are going out to eat but never what restaurant we are going to. The un-evolving conversation of "where do you want to go" "I don't care, where do you want to go" infuriates me to no end. To the point where it ruins the experience.  It would actually be quicker to cook something, we take so long deciding. That would certainly be cheaper. 

So now instead of going out X times a week or (X-1) as we have been trying to do. We are waiting until we really crave something before we treat ourselves.  I predict this will last one week. Ha.

This homemade pizza was perfect to mark the beginning of our weekend. And it was easy because I cheated and used frozen pizza dough and store bought pizza sauce.  This is real life.

The odd thing about this pizza is the use of raw ground beef. It makes the pizza deliciously greasy. But everything was cooked through and it saved having to clean a skillet.

Hamburger Tomato Pizza
Adapted from Shutterbean
Serves 2 to 3

• Non-stick spray
• Small handful of flour for your work surface
• frozen pizza dough, thawed
• marinara sauce, store-bought
• 1 package provolone cheese
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 pound ground beef, raw
• salt and pepper
• handful of basil, sliced

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Spray large baking sheet with non-stick spray.

Stretch out the dough to fit the baking sheet with either a rolling pin or your hands. Move to the baking sheet.

Spread sauce over dough. Top with provolone, tomatoes, onions, pinches of raw beef, salt, pepper, and basil.

Bake until crust is golden, beef is cooked, and cheese is melted. About 20 minutes.

Chicken Salad

I love good crock pot recipes. Especially the cheap and easy ones where you don't have to brown any meat before hand. That's the good life, right there.

I hate crock pot recipes that are cheap and easy but then they don't taste good. What the heck am I supposed to do with six slightly dry chicken breasts covered in pineapple.  Would I be a terrible person if I just threw away perfectly edible but offensively bland food? Yes. Yes I would. It would literally keep me up at night.  So I wiped off the pineapple and made chicken salad. If only mayonnaise could fix all of life's problems.

You don't have to go through a terrible crock pot attempt to make chicken salad. Get some chicken breasts and boil them until tender. Or one of those rotisserie chickens they sellat the front of the stores. Then shred 'er up.

The only other heat involving element is toasting pine nuts. I just heat them on an ungreased skillet until they are brown, stirring constantly. It takes like five minutes. Do not walk away from the stove. Do not burn them. DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM THE STOVE. Once you see how much they are you will understand.

Turns out I make ugly food. It tastes good, though.  I have even made these for a wedding shower. I folded flour tortilla halves into cones and filled them up with the chicken salad.  People thought I bought them even though I completely forgot to toast the pine nuts. Opps. Picture to come (maybe, probably not) of the wrapped chicken salad, it was a lot prettier.

Chicken Salad
Serves 8

• 6 cups shredded, cooked chicken
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (or more)
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• pepper to taste
• 2 celery stalks, sliced and diced
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 3/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Add chicken, mayonnaise, mustard powder, salt and pepper to a large bowl and combine with a fork.

Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir and combine with a fork. Once all the ingredient are combined, add more mayonnaise if desired.

Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.  Serve cool on top of mixed greens, toasted bread, or croissant. 

Next time: Make my own mayonnaise. How hard could it be?

Anything and Everything Breakfast Hash

If you have any sort of potato and any sort of leftovers then you also have a potential hash. Oh, eggs. You also need eggs. 

This is more of a breakfast for dinner type of situation because it takes forever to grate a potato. No one wants to grate a potato any time of day, especially in the mornings.  I guess you could buy frozen grated potatoes. Then you would be smarter than me. But really, this recipe is about using up your almost-bad leftovers. Not bringing more stuff in. Man up and grate that potato that has been sitting in your pantry and will probably go bad tomorrow.

Anything and Everything Breakfast Hash

Serves 2-3

• anything you have in your kitchen...truly, the possibilities are endless.
• 4 slices of bacon, diced in 1 inch peices
• 1 bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 sweet potato, shredded
• 2 links of smoked sausage, precooked
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 4 eggs
• salt and pepper

Place large skillet over medium high heat. Add bacon and cook until about halfway done. 

Add bell pepper, onion, and sweet potato.  Mix well, cover, and cook for about 8 minutes. 

Add sausage, garlic, and paprika. Mix well, cover, and cook for another 8 minutes. Mix while cooking or don't to crisp the bottom. This is a choose your own adventure hash.

Stir the mixture around. Make four wells into the hash mixture and crack an egg in each spot.  Add a tablespoon of water to the skillet and cover to steam the eggs. Don't mix.

Steam the eggs until they are cooked to preference.  Over easy is the best preference (duh).

Serve warm and with homegrown tomatoes for extra points.

Next time: Add mushrooms!

Tuna Patties

Tuna patties are generally ugly. But they are quick, easy, and versatile. The only ingredients you truly need are tuna, eggs, and breadcrumbs. The rest is just frill. But sometimes frill is nice.  Our favorite add-ons are pesto and mozzarella. Kitchen sink tuna patties sound gross so lets just call them Tuna Patties and know that you can throw a lot of different food in there and they will still be good. 

We eat this once a week every week until we are sick of it. Then we eat it one more time just to be sure. It always ends up back in our rotation after a couple of months anyways. Its the perfect 'need-to-plan-one-more-meal-before-I-go-shopping' filler in our weekly meal planning routine. 

Tuna Patties

Serves 2 and a toddler

Adapted from watching my college roommate Jenn make them

• two cans white tuna in water, drained
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons pesto plus more to garnish
• 1/2 - 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs 
• 1-2 tablespoons oil, (I use grapeseed, vegetable or canola works too)

Mix tuna, eggs, pesto, and mozzarella cheese in a medium bowl making sure to break up the tuna.  Stir in breadcrumbs slowly and let rest for a minute.  If the mixture is really runny add more breadcrumbs.  You should be able to make a solid patty without liquid running out or losing form. See picture below.

Heat oil in a large skillet on medium-high. Divide mixture into 5 or 6 mini patties and cook uncovered on skillet until the bottom is crispy and brown. Then flip and cook until the other side is crispy. Remove to plate and garnish with extra cheese or pesto (or both, you deserve it).

Serve with a vegetable so you don't get fat.