Online Cooking Resources

Boy, I’m glad I decided to sift through my 1,300 emails tonight. They’ve been sitting there since December! They are my “tech” email subscriptions, and I usually browse through them, well, like every three or four months! But I found some really great videos, tips, software programs, and 4-month old news. :-p

Anyway, buried deep with the emails alongside notices about trimedisyn and ANOTHER Apple product release were some links to nifty and free cooking applications!

Cooklet is an online recipe book. I am not completely ready to give up my books, but I do search for recipes online a LOT. My cookbooks are very old, dating back to the 60s, and some of the recipes are fatty and full of carbohydrates. Online recipes are usually more veggie-like. Anyway, Cooklet looks cute. You might like it.

NoTakeOut looks even better. It even has an iPhone app. It’s a meal planning site, but what’s great about it is that it includes side dishes and not just the main course. The recipes there look very good, and the photos are appealing. Click “today’s menu” for the course for today. I like this one!

My friend Carole mentioned a new site she found called E-Mealz. Read about what she thinks of the program so far. I like it enough, except for two things: their meal plans do not accommodate families larger than 4 (or at least, that’s all I could find. If you know different, please tell me!!). And some of the ingredients for things are expensive. Some are gourmet-ish, others are packaged foods. Because I feed a family of 6 adults, we avoid pricey pre-packaged foods and fancy ingredients. So I don’t know that it would be worth my while to get it.

If you know of any other good recipe or meal sites, please let me know. I’m currently expanding my horizons!

A Nice New Blog About Simple Living

One of my online pals, Rena, has a new blog called Back to Basics. It’s really neat! She’s only just started it, but already it has a lot of very helpful tips and ideas for making your life healthier, simpler, and less toxic. That issue has been on my mind a great deal, too. The kids and I have been reading a book that exposes just how many toxins are all around us. It’s outright creepy!

Rena has some very good “recipes” for homemade toothpaste, detergent, and even dishwasher detergent! I have GOT to try that. I hope she continues to add more content, because I think this fills a need. Sure, we all know that we should choose natural products for cleaning and health and stuff like eczema treatment, but HOW do you do it? So this blog wants to answer those questions.

Check it out!

Easy Quesadillas

I went to a Chili’s restaurant for the first time last week. I’m not terribly fond of Mexican food, and I admit I did hesitate a little when going in there. But I ordered some chicken quesadillas, and they were quite yummy. I was astonished at the portion sizes there, I couldn’t even eat half of what they served! I took the rest home for the kids to try. They thought it was Greek pizza!

Well, all this quesadilla eating started to make me want to try cooking some. So I gave it a shot. My concoction turned out pretty good– very basic but nutritious. I decided to add more veggies and less meat in mine, to pack a vitamin punch; not as potent as, say, prenatal vitamins, but pretty good. Of course, there’s alwats room for improvement. Here’s my basic recipe.

Easy Quesadillas

Chicken breasts- boned, skinned and thinly sliced
White onion
Water
Chili powder
Cumin
Fresh or frozen corn kernels
Red pepper, diced
Kale, destemmed and chopped
Shredded cheese
Tortilla wraps (smaller ones work best)
Butter

Cook the chicken, onion, and spices together in a frying pan. Add a little water if necessary. Add the vegetables and cook until just tender.

Butter one side of each tortilla. Place it on a griddle and sprinkle the cheese. Add a scoop of the chicken and veggies. Fry another tortilla and add a little cheese to that. Once the tortillas turn a golden brown, slap the two together to make the quesadilla. Repeat with additional quesadillas.

I served mine with salsa, but there’s also the traditional sour cream, too. These are even good as leftovers- I had one the next day for lunch, and while the tortilla was a little rubbery, it was still very good.

Four Foods on Friday #134

I hope I got the number correct this time!

It’s Friday! Most people like Friday, but it’s not a big day for me. I work at home, so weekends are the same as any other day. I actually like Mondays! I like the fresh start to the work week, etc. By Friday, I’m dragging a little and wondering how to get rid of dark circles after working so hard all weeks long. And my levels of creativity are usually lower. Which is why I like memes, they help give me a little boost.

This week there are four questions about bread.

1. When making a sandwich do you put condiments on one or both pieces of bread?
2. If you could create a type bread you could buy at the supermarket what
would it be?
3. Do you eat the heels/ends from loaves of bread?
4. What’s one type of bread you don’t like?

1. I usually place the condiment on one side, because when I eat sandwiches, I’m usually in a big hurry and am too lazy to do both sides. However, if the sandwich contents are dry (like turkey or tuna), I may do both sides. Yeah, I’ve got it all down to a science. :-p

2. Uh. I think that’s already been done. It seems like there are a billion types of bread out there already!

3. Nope. Too dry.

4. Just about all. I dislike bread. It’s dry. It makes my stomach feel like I ate a brick. I do like flat bread, though, especially with a Greek salad. That’s pretty much the only kind of bread I eat, unless I am eating a quick sandwich.

These questions were great! I hope we get more like these in the future. Until next week!

Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies

My daughter made these. Oh my word, get ready for the cookie of your dreams!! We found a basic cranberry-white chocolate cookie recipe and then, as is our custom, tweaked it to perfection. We dried our own cranberries for this (in a dehydrator, it’s SO less expensive than buying the packages stuff, which also tends to have additional sugars and preservatives). If you’re interested in how a dehydrator works, I wrote a review of the Nesco product that I bought.

Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies
makes 24 cookies

• 1/2 cup butter (no margarine!)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (we make our own, see our brown sugar recipe here)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of each: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
• 1 Tablespoon brandy (we used whiskey; you can also use pure vanilla)
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup dried cranberries

In one bowl, mash the butter. Add the sugars to make a grainy cream. Add the egg and mix well.

In a second bowl, add the flour, baking soda, and spices. Combine the bowls and add the brandy/whisky/vanilla.

Add the chips and berries and mix lightly.

Scoop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Don’t allow the cookies to overbake.

You may want to stock up on the diet supplements before making these– they are SO good that you may easily eat half a dozen without even realizing it!!! They are not heavy in the stomach. Best served with hot, regular tea. YUMMMMMM!

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