Spicy Sausage Pasta

This was really good.  I mean, really, really good. Probably my second favorite Pinterest recipe. Simple to make with easy ingredients.  Here is the recipe for Spicy Sausage Pasta.  Her blog is great.  Lots of  awesome recipes. 

 

 So, here's a few pics of my cooking the Spicy Sausage Pasta.

 

 

Ingredients

 

 Sausage and onions

Adding liquids and pasta

Finished dish.

Very yummy and freezes great.  Try it!



Homemade "cream of" soup mix

 

Do you like to cook with cream of _____ soup? I did. Loved making casseroles with the stuff.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm slowly adapting to the Clean Eating idea of eating.  I'm down 17 pounds since Thanksgiving.  Yeah, I know, such a small amount of weight and such a long period of time.  But you know what?  This is the 1st time I've been below 200lbs in almost 10 years.

 

Anyway, back to the point.  When I looked at a can of cream of soup, the sodium content alone made me stop using it.  Also, unless you find a really good sale or buy store brand, the stuff ain't cheap. 

 

I saw a few different versions of homemade cream of soup mixes on Pinterest so I thought I'd give it a try.  Here is where I found the recipe I went with.   

 

 

 As you can see I made a few exchanges due to choice and lack of listed ingredients.  The sodium free chicken (and beef) bullion I discovered some time ago is awesome.

  

Throw it all in a bag or airtight container.

 

Conversion.

 

Nice consistancy.

 



 

 

Made my chicken and noodles with it where I would have used Cream of Chicken soup.  The only difference was the lack of all that sodium.  But for my high blood pressure, that's a necessity.  Sorry about the steam effect, lol.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

Homemade Pockets



 

 

I used to love those pocket type frozen snacks from the freezer section.  I stopped eating them for a while for whatever reason and picked some up one day when they were in sale 2 boxes for 3$  I figured what the heck, I'll have them on hand for a quick lunch.  Then I had one.  The pepperoni pizza I think it was.  All it was was a big lump of dough with some pizza flavored smear in the middle.  There was no filling.  I ate the rest only because I wasn't going to throw them away.

 

So then I thought, why don't you make your own?  I know I'm trying to stay away from processed food, but I had a can of biscuits in the fridge that I wanted to go ahead and use. I also made a huge crock pot of meatballs and sauce a while ago and needed to use them all up because they were just hanging out in the freezer.  Well, as you can see, the rest is history.

 

 

I defrosted them and mashed the meatballs into a mixture. 

 



 

These were the biscuits I had.

 



 

Does popping the can scare the bejeezus out of anyone else?

 



 

Spread them as this as you can and put half a slice of cheese in the middle.  I had sliced mozzarella in the fridge, but you could use shredded.  If I had had shredded I would have mixed some of it in with the meat mixture then some on bottom and top.

 

 

Put some meat in the middle and top with rest of slice.  Just make sure you don't put too much or it will split the dough.  If you get a hole in it, it's very hard to get it to stick back together and stay.

 



Gather the tops and smoosh them up as tight as you can so they stay and bake for the amount of time it says on the biscuit can.  Line your cookie sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray for easy clean-up if one does open and spill out.

 

They turned out really good.  As you can see, the one on the bottom opened a little and you can see the cheese.  No biggie.

These went in the freezer and when I wanted one, I took it out the night before and let it thaw.  Then put it in the microwave for about 2 minutes and then the toaster oven for a few to finish it off.  They weren't as good as fresh out of the oven for obvious reasons, but  a heck of a lot better than pockets of flavored goo.

 



 

The possibilities of filling is endless and plan to do this again with a homemade pizza dough.  Philly cheese steak, pepperoni pizza, Buffalo chicken, chicken enchilada.  You could even do a sweet version with maybe apple pie filling, berry cobbler.

 

 

 

 

Bread

 

I want to make bread.  I need to make bread.  I've never made bread.  Until now.  I've tried a couple recipes and failed.  I don't have a stand mixer (which I hope to remedy soon) or a bread maker which seems to come in handy when it comes to making bread. 

 

The other day, I made bread.  The recipe I used is here.  I'm not going to list recipe because you can find it in the link, but I will share some pictures.

 

Ingredients

 

 

After mixing and going for 1st rise

 



 After rising for hour and a half

After 2nd rising in loaf pan

 

Baked bread

 

1st slice

1st bite of soft, warm bread with butter.  Success tasted so good!

 

I'm not sure what happened the first couple of times but this recipe worked for me.  Next time I might just skip the honey because I don't really want it sweet which this one was.  Not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just looking for more of a whole wheat sandwich bread.  Come to think of it, this would be a perfect bread for French Toast!  Anyway, bread success!

 

 

 



Homemade Dog treats

Dog treats are pricey, especially the good quality ones like chicken tenders and dried sweet potatos.  I don't know why the sweet potatos are so expensive, it's not like it's a rare item...  On that note, I need to learn how to do my own sweet potatos...

Anyway, there's a million ways to make dog treats.  Here's a great page that shows you how to Make Your Own Dog Treats.

If you are going to do this though, and maybe come up with your own recipe, it's a good idea to review the foods that dogs can and cannot have.

So, here's mine that I've done for a while.  I used to make them for Aspen all the time.  I was out of cookies for Calli and after browsing the pet section in the local store, I thought to myself, maybe I should start making these for Calli. 

As I was getting my ingredients, Calli got a little curious and joined me in the kitchen.

So here we go...

 2 cups wheat flour

1 cup oats (doesn't matter what kind)

2 egg whites

1 cup chicken broth - I use a low sodium organic broth (water is fine too)

1 tbs olive oil

flavoring - this time I used 2 jars of Beech Nut Sweet Potato & Turkey baby food - you can use cheese, peanut butter, bananas, or other types of baby food.  Just adjust your liquid according to what you use.
 

 

 Mix everything together in a bowl and drop onto a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

You can make them whatever size you want.  The consistancy should be about that of chocolate chip cookie dough.  Since there's no butter and minimal oil, you can put them close together since they will not spread.
 

 

 Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes, take them out and flip them.  If you have more dough you can put this on the same cookie sheet.  Since they are set, you can put the first batch right next to eachother or even on top if you need to.

Go for another 30 minutes.  When the time is up, take off the 1st batch and flip the second and go for another 30 minutes.

 

This is where you have to decide if these are good enough for you and your pup, or you wand a more dried out crunchy cookie.  I like a dried out crunchy cookie.
 

I did give Calli a bite just to see how she was finding the treat so far.
She approved...

 

 Break them up in smaller pieces if you want to and bake at 200 degrees for about 3 hours.

Finished product

Needless to say, Calli also approved of the finished product.

 

Have fun with the variety!