Quick Pizza Recipe

Are you ready for something besides Christmas leftovers? This is a dressed up frozen pizza. Wait before you turn me off! My two grown sons would never eat frozen pizza until I sneaked this one in on them. It's really good - I promise.

I'm writing this in the middle of winter when fresh herbs are hard to find here in the mid-south. You may have to buy fresh ones at the grocery but dried ones work well too.

Here's all I do to make a quick, cheap pizza that tastes like gourmet:

Fresh Herbs

*One frozen pizza - flavor is up to you. I used a store brand 3 cheese because Bill's heart diet does not allow the sausages
*Fresh, frozen or dried Oregano, fennel, basil, chives,parsley and thyme - all chopped. A little extra garlic powder or better still - fresh garlic chopped.
*Extra graded Romano cheese and extra Mozzarella shredded.

Add the extra cheeses -we like ours REAL cheesy! Sprinkle the herbs on top and bake. I find it takes at least 15 minutes longer than the instructions on the box. Take it out when it is brown and bubbly like the one at the top of the page. Below is what it looks like when it is ready to go into oven.

Pizza ready to bake

Fresh Cranberry Orange Relish

I have no idea where I first got this recipe. I may have created it myself. I never use a printed recipe so when I share one of my favorites, it's hard for me to come up with exact measurements. Cooking is a matter of tastes and personal preferences so taste as you go and I will do my best to tell you how I make this traditional family recipe.

Today I was cooking for about 12 people so this recipe will serve about 12 or 15 people a 1/3 cup serving. Half it or double depending on your family. This is best made a day or tow ahead of time to allow the flavors to meld. Keeps for a couple of weeks in frig. Make enough for Christmas and freeze up to two months.

Place the ingredients below into a food processor and process to the consistency you see in my photo. This is also good served along side any dish that needs a little zip! I serve it with while beans and homemade buttermilk cornbread - yummy!

KATHY'S FRESH CRANBERRY ORANGE RELISH
2 12 oz bags fresh cranberries
2 oranges (peeled, sliced and remove as much of the white inner lining as you can) see picture of what mine looked like
Peeling from one of those oranges
2 small Gala Apples cored and cut into chunks
1 cup pecans halves
1 teas. cinnamon (I use Ceylon)
                                                         1 cup sugar
                                                         juice of 1 small lemon

So Easy Recipe!

I saw this on Facebook - I do not bake dessert. Too lazy to spend too much time in the kitchen BUT... I am seriously going to try this one.

Three Ingredient Fruit Cobbler - Frozen Fruit, Cake Mix, and a 7-up 

Place frozen fruit in a baking dish. Add dry cake mix over the top. Pour soda slowly over cake mix. DO NOT stir the cake mix and the soda - this will give you a 'crust'.

Bake 350 for 45-50 min or longer until berries are cooked...that's it...seriously!

What to do with all that squash you grew

Are you in the middle of a squash bonanza like me? I've eaten it fried, dried, in casseroles and stir fried! I wanted to share a simple way to preserve squash by dehydrating and also this good recipe for dried squash chips that I made this week.

First how to dry squash:
I use a purchased dehydrator. It was not expensive and there are lots of choices for these on line. There are also instructions for making your own solar dehydrator too. I like the one I have. It has served me well for several years and is plenty big for what I need to dry. The photos below are a step-by-step on drying zucchini. The same method works for any summer squash. If the squash was extra large I cut the round slices into two sections.

1. Slice 1/8 in. thick

   

2. Layer slices on rack 

3. Ready to remove and store in baggies

Seasoned Squash Chips:

Using the same method as above except before layering slices on your racks, put the squash slices into a gallon sized baggie and add 1-2 teaspoons each of dried oregano, dried basil and garlic salt plus about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Zip up the baggie and shake to coat all the slices. You can use purchased Italian seasoning mix if you don't have dried basil and oregano. If you do that use less salt. Now put on the racks and dry as above. These make a great healthy snack

seasoned chips ready for drying

Next week I will post my Zucchini Lasagna experiment. The photo below shows that it was a hit!

Tad slurped it up!

Make Your Own Mustard -- Who Knew!

This sounds so good and so easy! I'm going to try it myself! I bet you will like it to. Here is the link to a really good blog post from my friends over at DIYNatural  

Drink a Cup of Thyme Tea Instead of Coffee and Promote Good Health

Drink a Cup of Thyme Tea Instead of Coffee and Promote Good Health  This links to a very informative post about Thyme: what it's useful for, how to make tea, using it in cooking ... lot's more. I've sold all sorts of Thyme in my little back yard nursery. In fact, I started some cuttings of variegated lemon Thyme under the mist in the greenhouse yesterday.

Make Bath Salts from Your Rose Petals

 

 

 

May and June are the months that our roses are at their peak of bloom. I always hate to see all those beautiful fragrant petals go to waste. How timely it was for me to receive this recipe for Rose petal bath salts in the mail today. I'll pass it along to you as well as my recipe for rose petal potpourri.

 

For bath salts you will need to mix  1/2 cup each Epsom Salt and sea salt with one tablespoon rose petals (or more if you like) and two drops of rose oil or lavender oil - optional but it will smell yummy. Add all this to a big tub of warm water for a relaxing soak. I'm going to make four times this recipe and store in a container. That way I'll have plenty for long tub soaks after a day of working in the garden. 

Rose and Lavender Potpourri

For a pretty as well as fragrant potpourri, use two cups dried rose petals, 2 cups dried lavender (leaves and flowers) and one tablespoon Orris Root powder. The Orris Root fixes the fragrance so it doesn't fade away as quickly. Mix all ingredients together in a glass or stainless steel bowl and store for a few days in a container with a tight fitting lid until all fragrances are blended. Put into a pretty bowl or make little sheer bags of it to place in closets or give to friends, Hint: dry your rose petals and lavender together in an open container to blend the fragrance even more.

Make your own Croutons

Home made croutons

Why spend two or three dollars a box for dry tasteless croutons when you can make your own from left over bread. I save the end pieces and any left over bread and make croutons with my dried herbs (or Italian spice mix) and olive oil spray - real simple and quick!

Seasoning ingredients

Start with the bread and use kitchen scissors to cut it into small squares,

bread ready to cube

cubed and ready to bake

Now spray the pieces with olive oil spray. Spray is cheaper and easier than pouring messy olive oil all over the place. I use my fresh dried oregano and basil plus garlic salt but Italian spice mix will work too. I use it generously! Toss to coat well and pop into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Stir the croutons about half way through.They should be golden brown and crispy when done.  Let cool before storing in a baggie or tin. Enjoy!

Simple Orange Vinegar Cleaning Solution

I use vinegar for lots of things around the house. We even make a drink with it to help prevent kidney stones. I had a kidney stone recently from taking too much calcium supplements! I never want another one! I'll post that one at another time.

Here is a "smell good" all purpose simple cleaner:

2 quart jar of orange peels
white vinegar

Put fresh orange peels in jar, cover with vinegar and let sit for about six weeks.Strain out the liquid, pour into a spray bottle and use it to clean sinks and counters, stove top too. Add a little baking soda and spray to make an abrasive for cooked on stain.  Don't forget to toss the used orange peels in the compost.

Herb Butters

I hope you all are enjoying the herbs you dried over the past summer; I certainly am. If you didn't dry any or you don't know how next weeks post will be about preserving your herbs so you can save some money next year by making your own herb mixes.

One of my favorite ways to use my dried herbs - fresh ones too - is in herb butters. I actually used a butter substitute made from Olive oil ( Smart Balance) but real butter works too. Bill has a triple heart by pass so we avoid butter when we can.

Pictured above is the start of garlic/parsley spread and here is the finished product all ready for the table.

My favorite recipes:

Garlic Parsley Spread

1/2 cup butter substitute spread or 1/2 stick of real butter (softened)

2 Tablespoons fresh chopped parsley( 3 Tb if using dried)

1 teaspoon pressed fresh garlic plus dash of salt or 2 teaspoons garlic salt (more if you REALLY like garlic) 

Mix all together, press into a bowl or butter mold if you have one,chill to firm the mix a little, add a spring of fresh parsley for a pretty garnish. Yummy on Italian bread with soup!

This next one is good on sourdough bread and compliments Chicken dishes and dried beans. BTW: Rosemary is wonderful added to dried navy beans while cooking.

Rosemary Butter

Same amounts of butter as above

1 1/2 Teaspoons dried Rosemary (less if using fresh)

a dash of salt and fresh cracked pepper

Mix as above

I found this next one on TipNut web site. It is for bulk dill spread. I like the idea of making butter balls with a melon ball tool and freezing them for later use.

Garlic Dill – Bulk Recipe
Scoop balls or slice into pats then freeze.
Recipe:
12 to 14 cloves garlic
1 cup butter
2 to 2 1/2 TBS dill (finely chopped, fresh)
Paprika (a dash or two to taste)
Directions:

• Cover garlic cloves with water, bring to a boil then simmer for about 10 minutes. Strain cloves from water and allow to cool. Once cool, remove the skins and crush the cloves.
• Mix with the rest of the ingredients using a food processor or blender. You can also do this by hand if the butter has first been softened.
• Once everything has been thoroughly mixed, chill in the refrigerator then make individual pats and freeze.

If you have a favorite Herb recipe, please post it in our comment section and be sure to leave us a link to your site if you have one.

 

No Bake Energy Bites

I know it's a gardening blog but we all eat and gardeners need more energy than the average bear! Besides it's the middle of one of the coldest winters Tennessee has had in years and I'm bored. I found this on Facebook and am going to try it - looks yummy. Thought you might like it too. Post a comment if you try it, let everybody know what you think.

The Great Granola Experiment

Now that I'm not working as much,  I have more time to play in the kitchen as well as in the garden. Saving money where ever I can has become more important too. With all that in mind and the fact that we eat granola and yogurt almost every morning, I decided to make my own granola again. I had a really good granola recipe from back in the 70's and I guess if I had wanted to wade through a ton of old recipes I could have found it. But heck, life is an adventure so I figured I could recreate it from memory.

What I came up with turned out pretty good but there were a couple of things I will do different next time. I remembered that the old recipe called for apple sauce, of course oats, nuts and cinnamon. I decided to add brown sugar, raisins, dried bananas and apples (that I had dried last fall) dried cranberries, flax seeds and I used English walnuts instead of the pecans that the original recipe had called for.  The applesauce was cinnamon applesauce so I didn't add extra cinnamon. I started with 8 cups of old fashioned oats and added about half of a 48 oz. jar of apple sauce - this turned out to be too much. I had to cook it way too long to get it to crisp up. Next time I will use one 12 oz. jar instead. I also put mine in baking dishes to cook - ended up taking it out of the oven and spreading out on cookie sheets to finish it up.

I waited till the oat, applesauce, brown sugar and nut mixture was browned and cool before I added the dried fruit. Even with the extra cooking and  too much applesauce the finished product was real good! So here is the recipe I will use next time.

8 cups of old fashioned oats
12 oz. cinnamon applesauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup of chopped walnuts
2 Tablespoons Flax Seeds
Mix all the above in a large mixing bowl until moistened. Spread this mixture onto cookie sheets covered with parchment paper or lightly oiled with vegetable spray. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until lightly browned, stir a couple of times during cooking to keep the bottom from burning.  Cool mixture on the baking sheets. After oat mixture is cool put back into large bowl and add any or all the following:
1 cup raisins
1 cup Craisins
1 cup dried apples (cut into bite size pieces)
1 cup dried bananas
Dried cherries would be good too as well as dried mango or pineapple pieces.

I put enough for us to use for a week in a plastic container and stored the rest in vacuum sealed bags and put them into my freezer to eat later. For less than $10 I made enough preservative free cereal for us to eat for a month; bearing in mind that we normally go through one $3.00 box of store bought granola a week.

Give it a try. It actually doesn't take much time and the results are yummy!