Mom's Famous Strawberry Bread

When I think of Christmas growing up and the things we did or the foods we make, one of them that stands out most in my mind is strawberry bread. My mom made it every year for as long as I can remember. We only make it at Christmas time and I look forward to it every year. Of course it can be made at ANY time during the year. Its funny because every time I mention this bread to someone they always get a confused look on their face and say "strawberry bread?!", it may not be a commonly made bread but it seriously should be!

Serving Size: 2 loaves

Ingredients:
2 containers of fresh strawberries, slightly mashed with a potato masher
2.5 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/3 cup canola oil (or any oil if your choice)
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
1 cup walnuts (I have used pecans too)

Directions:

Grease loaf pans and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium/large bowl mix strawberries, eggs, and oil.

In a stand mixer combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nuts.

Add strawberry mixer, stir until blended. 

Pour batter into prepared loaf pans. 

Bake for one hour or until bread passes tooth pick test. 

Your welcome. Don't blame me when you become highly addicted to this stuff! :)

Crockpot Potato Soup

This soup is so easy and delicious. The first thing my husband said after having it the first time was to definitely put this on the rotation! Although it IS a crockpot recipe, its one of the faster crockpot recipes out there. Which can be good for those days where you forget first thing in the morning to get the crockpot going!

Ingredients: 

1.5 bags frozen hashbrowns
32 oz chicken broth 
1 can cream of chicken soup
8oz light cream cheese
1 cup diced carrots
1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup milk

Directions:

Dice your onion & carrots.

In a steamer add your carrots and onion until softened. You can also saute them in a little olive oil if you do not have a steamer.

Once softened add carrots, onion, garlic, chicken broth and frozen hashbrowns into the crockpot and cook on HIGH for 1 hour.

After one hour, stir, and turn your crockpot to LOW and cook for 1 hour.

Cube your cream cheese so it melts a little easier, remove lid and add to crockpot. Add your frozen peas and cook for 30-40 minutes on low.

Add your cup of milk and let cook for an additional 15 minutes and your done!

Lentil Bruschetta Dip

Today I'm going to share with you a dip I discovered that I am now o.b.s.e.s.s.e.d with. It is SO good. Not only that but it actually is a healthier option than say a dip made with a whole carton of sour cream or cheese. Not that those aren't delicious, but you know what I mean ;). 

So we do all our shopping at Trader Joes. If you didn't already know I'm somewhat in love with the store. It's the BEST. They always have samples of their products in the store, similar to costco, and a few weeks ago they had some sort of dip, I noticed it said lentils, and I love lentils, so I tried it...and oh my...gosh! A flavor explosion was happening in my mouth. It was SO good. SUPER simple to make as well! 

Ingredients:
-I buy the prepacked cooked lentils for this, but you can absolutely make your own. You'll need about 2.5 cups lentils if you cook them
-1 6oz package of feta cheese
-1 container of bruschetta sauce. Now if you do shop at TJs. Buy the fresh. It turns out MUCH better than getting the jar bruschetta. 

Mix all your ingredients in a large bowl!

 And serve with pita chips! TJs also sells pita crackers which also go really well with this dip.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Pancake "Muffins"

So fall is one of my favorite times of the year, I love the change in weather (this cali girl HATES summer, go figure) the smell of fall, the pumpkins, apples, spices. All of it. Especially because it leads towards my FAVORITE time, Christmas time. But that's not what this is about. Usually on the weekend my husband makes a special breakfast. If we don't have time in the mornings because it's busy on the ranch that day, he will make breakfast for dinner. That was the case today. I also decided to make homemade apple sauce in the crock pot so fall was in the air at our house. He mentioned to me he might want to make pancakes but it's such a mess we figured to just put them in the muffin tins. Since fall is approaching, and the applesauce was cooking away smelling SO good I told him we should make pumpkin pancakes since the can of pumpkin puree in our pantry has just been staring at me lately. 

Holy moly. I had no idea the deliciousness we were about to experience. The pancake "muffins" turned out SO good that I had to share them with you all. They would be fantastic to make the night before also and have for quick on the go breakfasts in the morning as well.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups milk

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 egg

2 tablespoons coconut oil

2 cups all purpose flour

4-5 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice 

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In one large bowl mix your milk, pumpkin, egg & coconut oil until combined. If the pumpkin or coconut oil is a little lumpy that's ok. 

In a separate large bowl combine your flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice & salt.

Slowly incorporate your dry into your wet ingredients. The important rule of thumb here is to not over-mix. Once the wet and dry are mixed together you're pretty much good.

Spray your muffin tins with non stick spray.

Use a 1/3 cup to scoop your pancake mix into the tins. All together this ended up making 17 pancake muffins for us. 

Bake for 13-16 minutes, or until it passes the tooth pic test. I want to add that our bottom rack cooks faster than our top rack so watch out for that with your oven. Our bottom rack was done at 13 minutes and our top rack was done closer to 16-17 minutes. 

These were SO moist and delicious. 

But putting a little syrup on top took them to a WHOLE other level! 

Easy & Delicious Shepherds Pie

This is a dish I've been making for years, and even though I seem to not make it that often, its definitely a family favorite. Especially my husbands. (Its meat and potatoes, duh). For those of you who don't know my husband and I were actually vegetarian for about a year and a half not to long ago and I still made this dish! Our favorite meat substitute was Trader Joes meatless ground beef. Just an FYI ;)

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef 
1 bag of frozen mixed vegetables
1 onion
2 potatoes
About a cup of cheddar cheese give or take
Brown Gravy Packet
Heaping spoonful of sour cream
2 tablespoons butter 
Splash or two of milk
Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large pan cook your ground beef and diced onion until cooked through. Drain fat.

In a large pot or saucepan cook your peeled and largely diced potatoes, I never time this, I just generally stick a fork in them from time to time to check. Probably about 10-15 minutes.

Add your frozen mixed vegetables to your beef, season with salt and pepper. **I usually add a few cloves of minced garlic in at this point but I didn't have any this night* 

Start to make your gravy, I usually always use the packets you can find in the spice aisle, but you can use your favorite brand of gravy. 

Once your potatoes are done add them to a large bowl with your butter, milk, sour cream and season with salt and pepper. (I always usually also sprinkle in some garlic powder and cayenne pepper to my mashed potatoes but use whatever YOU like)

And mash! Sad day in our household. My hand mixer broke! Womp Womp Wooomp. But look at me doing it all old fashioned like ;) it works just as well!

Add your gravy to your meat mixture.

Spoon mixture into a 13x9 baking dish and spread evenly.

Spread your mashed potatoes on top!

Then, add your cheese.

Add to your preheated oven, and cook uncovered for 20 minutes.

Let cool and serve! Enjoy :)

Quick & Easy Pesto Pasta with Peas & Tomato!

I love cooking, love it. My love for it has developed over the years and its something I've really grown to enjoy. Now, with that being said, since becoming a mom my time has become just a tiny bit limited-as you can imagine-and I don't mind it one bit! BUT, it has put cooking on the backburner a bit. We hardly EVER go out to eat, 1-because have you taken a 5 month old to a restaurant before? Enough said. 2-Its 'spennnnsive! $$$ 3-fast food makes me want to hurl. So I have to get creative in the kitchen! Lately, I've been making really quick and easy recipes most of the time otherwise we won't eat until 9:00pm (yes, its happened before, more than once!). So tonight I threw this together and it was great! Definitely a hit, and something I will continue to make. I've TRIED making homemade pesto once in the past and wasn't a huge fan. Trader Joes has a great pesto I've found, and that's what I used tonight. 


Ingredients:

*1/2 lb pasta (so half your bag of rigatoni, or any pasta you like basically)
*Pesto- however much you like, I ended up using about two large spoonfuls of it
*Small tomato, diced
*1/2 onion, diced 
*3/4-1 cup of frozen peas (however much you like)
*Salt & Pepper to taste
*Grated Parm for topping

Directions:

Boil your water for your pasta.

Add pasta and cook according to package directions. 

In a small saute pan, cook your onions. This ingredient is absolutely optional if your not a big onion fan. I am, and I pretty much put them in everything, ha! :)

When your pasta is about 4-5 minutes from being done, here is my secret trick. I dump my frozen peas in the water with the pasta and let it finish cooking. Peas end up being perfectly done and I didn't have to dirty another pot! 

Strain pasta and put back into the pot, add your onions, tomato, pesto, salt and pepper.

Combine and your done! Enjoy! 

Italian Pasta Salad

This pasta salad is SO good, and totally versatile as well. You could add olives, artichokes, etc to it. I personally just added what we like to it, but you can definitely add or replace ingredients as well to make it your own! 

Salad Ingredients:
(makes a large salad)

1 lb uncooked rotini (corkscrew) 
1 package sliced pepperoni, cut into quarters 
1 package salami (I get the one from trader joes, that size was perfect for this salad), sliced and cut into quarters  
1 tomato diced
1/2 of a medium onion, very finely diced
1 (1 lb.) block mozzarella cheese, cubed
Large handful of spinach, roughly chopped

Dressing Ingredients:

1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano 
1 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon italian seasoning

Directions:

Cook pasta according to the directions on the package. Rinse under cool water. 

Combine the rest of the salad ingredients in a LARGE bowl. Once pasta is cooled add it to the bowl.

In a separate small bowl combine dressing ingredients and whisk until sugar is dissolved.

Combine dressing with the salad and serve! I personally think its better the next day but it can be served immediately as well.

Store in the refrigerator.  

BLT Salad

So I found this recipe on pinterest (Here is the original recipe) and I had to try it. BLT's are probably my favorite salad but I wasn't sure how the whole lime juice thing would go over as the dressing. AND IT WAS AMAZING. Probably one of the best salads ever...in my little old opinion at least. So I had to share!

Serves 2
Ingredients:
-Handful (you know I don't measure anything) of your favorite lettuce. I used a combo of iceburg, spinach and romaine. Chop it all up to your desired size.
-about 1/2 cup or so of corn
-1/2 tomato diced
-4 to 5 slices of cooked bacon, chopped
-4 oz feta cheese
-1 avocado diced
-1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
-Juice of 1 lime
-pepper to taste

Cook your bacon, and combine everything in a bowl. And your done! SO easy and seriously delicious. The avocado and feta mixed with the oil and lime juice almost make it creamy.

Cuban Black Beans

So that isn't the best picture of this dish, BUT, it's so good I wanted to come on here and post the recipe anyway.

This dish is pretty versatile and you can pretty much serve it however you would like, and with tons of different options for toppings.

Ingredients:

-2 cups dried black beans, rinsed

-1 large onion, diced

-2 bell peppers, diced

-5 garlic cloves, minced

-2 dried bay leaves

-1 14.5 can diced tomatoes

-2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

-3 cups water

-2 tablespoons olive oil

-4 teaspoons cumin

-1 to 2 tablespoons chili powder

-few dashes of cayenne pepper (optional) 

-salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Combine all ingredients into your crockpot.

Cover, and cook on high for 6-8 hours (mine went for about 7.5 hrs)

Remove bay leaves and serve!

We served ours over brown rice, with lettuce, tomato, and a tablespoon of sour cream. Delicious! 

One Pot Chili Mac!

One Pot Chili Mac

This is similar to something you could maybe make from Hamburger Helper, but its HOMEMADE not processed and SOOOO much tastier! AND its all in one pot, so hardly any dishes to wash!

Ingredients:

-1 tablespoon Olive Oil

-1 lb lean ground beef or turkey

-4 garlic cloves minced

-1 onion, diced

-2 tablespoons flour

-1 tablespoon chili powder

-3 to 4 dashes of cayenne depending on how much 'kick' you want

-1/2 teaspoon paprika 

-sprinkle to taste of Oregano (im not a huge herbs person, so this is totally up to your tastes)

-8oz tomato sauce

-2 cups beef broth

-2 cups dry macaroni (or any of your favorite small pasta)

-1 can corn, drained

-cheddar cheese for topping

Add olive oil to large pot over medium high heat, and add your diced onion and ground beef. Mince garlic while that's cooking. Cook until brown and drain fat. 

Add garlic to beef and onion mixture. Cook for a couple of minutes. Add your flour. Stir constantly and cook for a minute or two. Don't let the flour burn. 

Add your spices, tomato sauce, and broth. Combine.

Add the dry pasta and corn. Bring to a simmer, not quite a boil. Place lid on top and turn down to medium-low. Simmer for around 15 minutes. Stir a few times while its cooking so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.  

Check pasta, once its done, serve with shredded cheddar cheese on top!!

Enjoy!