Recipe Resources

Have you ever checked out foodgawker.com?  Thousands of recipes...hundreds of thousands.  It's the best recipe roundup site I've seen.  Food bloggers submit their recipes, so clicking any recipe sends you to the blog source.  Great way to find new blogs, plus, new recipes!

I've added food gawker to my google news feed, so when new recipes are added (100+/day) I just scroll through quickly and 'star' anything that looks interesting.  Just like that, a new stash of recipes to try in 2012!

No Groceries Week

It seems every month and a half to two months I realize that I have A LOT of odds and ends left over from various recipes. This is when I say it's time to 'eat out of the pantry' for the week.  This means I'm not going grocery shopping and we're creating meals out of whatever we have.

This is one of those weeks.  We're just home from visiting family over Christmas, so it's a short week anyway. Here is what we're coming up with this week:
Tues:  Baked tilapia, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls ('brown Tuesday' anyone?)
Wed: Hamburger patties, mac & cheese
Thurs: Chicken pot pie (my favorite 'no brainer' recipe)
Fri: Sausage patties, scrambled eggs, hash browns
Sat: NYE 2011
Sun: who knows!  I really need to get to the grocery store.

Although this meal planning method is typically not as healthy as usual, it is refreshing to get everything wiped out to start from scratch.  Sound like a New Year's Resolution? 

Food Pyramid?

How are you doing on following your food pyramid.. I mean, plate?  Our USDA's new MY PLATE graphic has got me thinking about how my plates look.  Grains are definitely over-represented, fruits are under-represented in the winter months, and veggies pretty much only exist at dinner time. 

How does your plate look?

source

Southwestern Bean Burgers

Meatless meals are becoming more and more popular; I'm hearing about 'Meatless Mondays' often.  I think I could easily live without meat, but having a meat-and-potatoes husband, that doesn't quite fly.  But, he's very open to my growing use of beans!

This recipe from Taste and Tell for Southwestern Bean Burgers was delicious.  I used white beans (dry, so soaked then boiled).  Her avocado spread sounds amazing, but I had ranch dressing on hand so that worked too.  Plus, no buns! 

Side note: I made a half batch of burgers and got 9 medium-small patties out of it.  The left overs got frozen and worked great for a microwave meal night.  

Making Bread

We recently pulled our bread maker (free gift from a friend's basement) out of storage.  I will admit, we rarely eat bread; yes, we eat our hamburgers without a bun.  But, the bread maker has been fun to experiment with; it is great even just to do the dough kneading/rising steps of bread making. 

This recipe for pita bread is VERY yummy.  I've tried 3 combinations of white to wheat flour and my favorite is 2 cups white + 1 cup whole wheat. 

Pita Bread by Lea

The bread maker is also great for making dough for homemade bagels.  There are tons of opportunities for variation on this bagel recipe.  Yum!