Scratch Red Pepper Hummus

My mama made this and shared it with me...and it has been a HUGE hit!!

 

HUMMUS

1 15 oz. can chick peas (rinsed & drained)

1 head of garlic

1 red bell pepper

Sea Salt

Fresh ground pepper

2 Tbs. Olive oil (optional)

Preheat oven to 375. Slice a clean cut off the top of the entire head of garlic (to expose the very tip of the cloves). Loosely wrap garlic in foil with a Tbs or so of water. Place wrapped garlic and bell pepper in baking dish. Roast for 45 minutes. The bell pepper should get pretty dark, maybe even black in places. That’s good!

After pepper has cooled, remove skin & seeds. Slice pepper into strips. Use a blender or food processor for remaining steps. Pour chick peas into processor. Add pepper strips. Squeeze all of that delicious, roasted garlic goodness into blender. Gently pulse until it starts to come together. At this point you can drizzle in olive oil or leave it out. Continue to pulse until smooth dip consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately or refrigerate to let the flavors really mesh.

Granola with extras

Okay...today NEEDED some granola...badly.  And so I succumbed.  And had to fight myself not to eat it hot off the cookie sheet.

(This is a half-batch...)

Um, I feel the need to 'fess up where I got it, ethics and all that...but it is still delicious for EVERYONE!  I found this recipe on diaperswappers.com, as a recipe for up-ing your milk production while nursing...BUT it doesn't have anything in it that isn't great for everyone's health, so please don't let that stop you!!

One of the things I loved about this recipe, is that it is easy to make in small amounts.  I had to change the sunflower kernals to bashed up/crushed cocktail peanuts, with Charlotte's new allergy...and sometimes I have been known to use agave syrup mixed with honey, half-and-half proportions when I was running low on honey...which seems to happen more and more...I need to get a scarey big jug of local raw honey...And as with many of my recipes, you can add what you like and leave out whatever you don't or are allergic to...and it's still delish!!  :)

4 cups regular or steel cut oats
1/2 cup flaked coconut (optional)
1/2 cup sunflower kernels
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 tbsp flaxseed meal
2 tbsp brewer's yeast
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans, peanuts, almonds, or a mix)
1 cup dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, dates, apricots, or a mix)

Combine everything except nuts and fruit in a large bowl. Spread onto a lightly greased cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Pull out of oven and stir in nuts and fruit. Cool and store in an airtight container.


Eat with milk, almond milk, on ice cream, on yogurt...throw it in a baggie and eat it as you drive, dry like a trail mix...  Top it on the Cinnamon Banana Apple Stew and pretend it's streusel!!  Your mouth would never know the difference!!!

Homemade Jerky

We LOVE jerky.  It is SOO good, but have had a harder and harder time eating it with all the preservatives in it.  I have a lot of allergies to preservatives and my son and husband have both gotten headaches from MSG, which is in a LOT of jerky...and now, pushed by the Little Miss, we are reassessing our options. 

My brother and his wife got me a small dehydrator from Ace Hardware for my birthday.  I cannot tell you how excited I am about it...and so here is my favorite and most successful jerky recipe:

1.5lbs of meat (deer!!!) lean beef sliced thinly, a little thicker is moister and tasty, but different than you may be used to...

Take:
1/4 teasp garlic salt
1/4 ground black pepper
1/2 teasp sorgum molassas
mixed into 1/4 cup of soy sauce....pour over into meat...it's supposed to soak into the meat for 2-4 hours.

Then put in oven at 150* for 4 hours or cook in skillet until not pink, then put into dehydrator for 1-2 days. I recommend deer cube steak, deer tenderloin, or deer hams jerky cut.

Store in an airtight container until it's gone...a couple of days, here!!  :)

Homemade Larabars

Okay, so snacks have become the biggest problem in Charlotte's eating overhaul.  I have spent the most amount of money in this area.  You can make scratch meals more easily, I think, than making snacks that look like everyone else's...

The costs are what's making me more desperate to find my options.  In my joy about Larabars, I posted about them on Facebook...and a friend posted this link up for me:  Oh, She Glows offers homemade options...and they turned out brilliantly.

I even packaged them individually for snack travels...I am going to have to find a short-cut for that one...it took longer to wrap them than to make them.

I then realized that it was more a proportional thing than a real recipe per se so I experimented with it am came out with this:

Almond Honey Bars*
1 cup of dates (no pits!)
1/2 cup of quick oats
2/3 cup of raw almonds
2 TBSP almond butter
2 TBSP honey

Throw everything in a cuisinart chop/mix it.  To me, it tastes very Baklava-y...delicious!!

*These are "-ish" measurements, I am not a scientific cooker...you will know it came out right, if  you can take a pinch out and mold it into a ball...