I wake up happy!

Green Chile Stacked Enchiladas

These enchiladas are great if you are short on time or just don't want to work in a hot kitchen for an hour.  I love Hatch Green Chile Sauce, but I could not find it at my Walmart. This Las Palmas sauce is good too!

Open the Sauce and poor some into the bottom of a microwavable deep dish.

Place a corn Tortilla in the bottom.
Place roasted green chile on top of tortilla (is your mouth watering yet?). 

Layer mozzarella cheese or Mexican crumbled queso fresco on top of green chile. 

Place a corn tortilla on top, more green chile sauce, more sliced roasted green chile, more cheese, another tortilla, more sauce, etc. until you reach the desired height.  

I used four corn tortillas for two people.  Tops with sauce and a little cheese.

Cook in a microwave on 50% power for 2 minutes.

Cook on 100% power for 2 minutes.

Depending on your microwave, the cheese should be melted.  

Scoop out onto a plate and top with guacamole.  

Add black beans and/or rice as a side dish.

Enjoy!

Banana Nut Mug Muffin

These muffins are so easy to make and they taste great!  Make them in a mug or ramekin.

I created this recipe because I had some ripe bananas and wanted banana bread for breakfast, not an hour later.

Banana Bread Nut Mug Muffin

1 teaspoon Coconut Oil
1/4 Ripe Banana
1 Tablespoon Apple Sauce (no sugar kind, I buy those little single serving cups)
1 1/2 teaspoons Sugar (or less)
1 teaspoon ground Flax Meal
1/4 Cup Pancake Mix (or use flour, soda, salt)
Splash of Vanilla
Dash of Cinnamon
Walnuts

Soften Coconut Oil in bottom of a good-size mug or Custard Cup.  Use a spoon to spread it up on the sides of the mug.

Add Banana and mash with a fork.
Mix in Apple Sauce, Sugar, Vanilla and Flax Meal.

Mix in 1/4 cup of Pancake Mix.


Put in the microwave for about 70 seconds.  Stick a knife or toothpick into the muffin and if it comes out clean (no wet dough on it), it's done!

Loosen the edges with a knife and turn the mug up-side-down onto a plate.  Let cool before eating.

Make another one for your significant other and eat the rest of the banana and apple sauce. ;)

Enjoy!

Back To The Basics - Eating Real Food

We are getting back to basics and eating more fruits and veggies.  This is how I NEED to eat for my physiology.  High Cholesterol & High Triglycerides run in my family and my father and his brothers all passed away due to heart disease.  We eat about 80-90% Vegan except for when we are traveling, or when I'm feeling stressed out. LOL  In the past year we've had a crappy diet and I also had some thyroid problems, so I packed on some weight and, as a result, my blood test show high cholesterol again (must have been the Green Chile Enchiladas I posted earlier! LOL).  I'm on hormones for the thyroid, but I refuse to go on Statins, so, here we go!  Time to prove to my doctor that I can do it without meds!  I've already lowered it 46 points, but I still have a long way to go (and at least 15 pounds)!!

Below are just a few of the salads we've been eating lately.  I love mixing fruit into fresh lettuce salads.  I also made an apple/pear/pecan salad that had a light blue cheese dressing that turned out awesome.  I'll get pictures of it the next time we make it.

What we eat: 

Breakfast: We almost always have a fruit salad with sprouted buckwheat for breakfast. Sometimes we'll have egg beaters and left-over steamed potatoes.   In the winter I love oatmeal with almond milk, banana and red grapes.

Lunch: Lunch is normally a salad or sandwich.  I'll post pictures later of an awesome tofu cream cheese/pickle/avocado sandwich.  We also have tofu sandwiches with dill pickle and lots of lettuce or spinach.  I normally use sprouted grain bread or a whole grain sandwich thin.

Dinner: Dinner varies greatly.  Sometimes it is steamed veggies (potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, sweat potatoes, etc.) with sauteed tofu or a garden burger.  Other times it's just stir-fry veggies with some kind of nut butter sauce.  I also love to make veggie soup in the crock pot in a curry coconut base.  Serve the soup with couscous and/or brown rice.  In the Summer, we sometimes have a large salad for dinner if we didn't have one for lunch.

This way of eating is so easy!!

Pear-Grape Cashew Salad with Balsamic Vinegar
Chopped Pear, Grapes, Orange Bell Pepper, Pecans,
Dressing: Pear Vinegar, Balsamic Vinegar and Crushed Garlic
Serve over a bed of mixed greens.  

White Bean-Black Bean Burger Salad with Guacamole
Drain beans and rinse. Cook burger and cut up.  Split between two bowls.  Smash Avocado and mix with some Salsa.
Serve over a bed of fresh mixed greens.
We try to limit the "Frankenfood" so we split a Black Bean Burger we had in the freezer. ;)

Mango-Pear Sprouted Buckwheat and Almonds

Close up of Mango-Pear Salad

CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO SPROUT BUCKWHEAT!

Cheesy Green Chile Enchiladas

I'm still working on this cheesy green chile enchilada recipe.  In New Mexico, we say, "chile" instead of "chili".  They grow really hot chile here, but I prefer the milder varieties.

We recently traveled to see friends and family in California.  I used different ingredients each time I made this recipe, but it was still awesome!  I will add pictures after the next time I make it.

Sauce:
Make a basic white sauce and increase the quantity based on how many people you are serving.  This recipes serves 4-6 people with beans and/or rice on the side:
3 Tablespoons Butter
3 Tablespoons Flour
Mix and cook in fry pan until bubbling.
Slowly stir in  4 cups or more of either vegetable stock, chicken stock or milk.  If you use milk, you may want to add a little salt.  Continue stirring and cook on medium heat until the sauce thickens.  If it's too thick, thin it with more milk, stock or water.  You don't want it too thick or you can't spread it over the enchiladas.
Add:
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic or 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
1 package of softened cream cheese
1-2 cups chopped green chile (canned or fresh).
Add spices and cream cheese and mix until cheese is melted and everything is blended in.  Add  un-drained green chile.

Putting it all together 'Family Style':
Spread some sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 pan.  Lay corn tortillas on top of the sauce.  Crumble Mexican Queso Fresco cheese on top.  Add another layer of corn tortillas, cheese and more corn tortillas.  Spread the rest of the sauce on top and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes.  The sauce will be thick and bubbly and the cheese will be melted inside the enchiladas.

If you want, you can roll the queso fresco in the corn tortilla, lay them next to each other in a pan and top with sauce.

You can also save some sauce and use on top of microwave enchiladas or use it as a chip dip!

As you can see, this is a very versatile recipe.  Make it your own!

Granny Square Crochet Slippers

I searched the Internet for granny square slipper patterns and I didn't like what I found.  I created my own pattern and it turned out great!  I didn't want them to look like I just stitched granny squares together, but that's what I did!  I made the triangle banner below and discovered the triangle works perfect for the slipper toe pieces. There are easier crochet granny-triangles than these, but I was used to this pattern, so I used it. I posted links to the instructions below and here!

The basic pattern for each slipper is two triangles for the toe piece and two 4 row granny squares for the heel cup.

It's amazing what you can do with different yarns!

I used double-yarn for the heel cup and toe bottom pieces for these camo slippers.  By doubling up the yarn, it made the pieces less flexible and smaller. I had to add three granny-rows to the end of the heal piece to make these slippers a Men's size 9.

Basic Pieces:

If you're experienced, you may not need much more than this to figure out how to piece these slippers.  Others have blogged about this, so I'm not going to recreate the basic here.  But here are some great links to show you how to make the pieces.  Then see below for how to stitch them together. 

Two Granny Triangles - This is how I made mine: 

Detailed Instructions Here!

Instructions for a Different Granny Triangle Pattern Here!

Two Four-Row Granny Squares - Great Granny Square Tutorial Here!

Single crochet the two squares together.

The lighting is horrible on this, but you get the idea... 

Add granny-rows to the end if more length is needed.  If you need a lot larger shoe size or a wider shoe size, start with a 5 or 6 row granny square instead of a four row granny square.  If it just needs to be longer, add granny rows to either end like I did above. You can fit the heel cup and toe piece on your foot (or the foot of the person you're making them for to see how much larger and how many more rows you need to add.

This is the heel cup with only one extra rows added and single crochet (on the outside) to stitch it together.  I later added two more granny-rows to the other edge.

With right-sides together, single crochet the two triangle pieces together, then turn inside out.

You can see that the bottom triangle is double-thick (and I used just black and green yarn).

After squares and triangles are sewn together, single crochet the toe piece to the heel piece.  I centered the heel seem with the center of the triangle, then single crochet it to the toe piece.  I'll have to make one with the colored pieces to show this better...

You are now finished, unless you want to make the sides higher.  I added fringe to the multicolored slippers and extra rows to the top edge of the camo slippers.

You can't really see the extra granny-row I added to the top of the camo slippers.  You can go even higher and make them into more of a boot if you'd like.

Lucy had to get in the picture again. ;)

Gummy Bear Grave Cupcakes

Gummy Bear Grave Cupcakes

My nieces came over to help make a few Gummy Bear Grave Cupcakes.  They didn't turn out as planned (remember, kids made these!), but you'll get the basic idea and you can make them yourself.  With a little time and the right frosting, you can make these a work of art!
We didn't want a huge production with lots of leftovers (and messy hot kitchen), so we only made 2 batches of Chocolate Mug-Cupcakes (See Recipe Here).  It worked great and clean-up was a breeze!  It made 6 small cupcakes.

Spray the sides of the mug with cooking spray, 

then insert a paper cupcake cup into each mug.

Fill 1/2 full with cake batter,  (See Recipe Here) cook in the microwave 

on high for 30 seconds, rotate, then cook another 30 seconds.

We cooked 2 cakes at a time in the microwave so we were done within 5 minutes!

Make the chocolate cupcakes and allow them to cool.  Carve "RIP" in chocolate squares with a toothpick.

 

Cut a square hole in the center of the cupcake, remove the 'plug',

insert a gummy bear (or piece of a gummy worm), then replace the plug.

It's hard to see in this picture, but the plugs are a little higher than the rest of the cake.

Mound up Chocolate Frosting or Chocolate Sauce (we used chocolate chips melted in the microwave) 

over each Gummy Grave

Add green frosting to the outside (this is the grass).

Insert headstones, then place flower sprinkles on the top of each grave. 

Our cakes were still a little warm when we decorated them.  The gummy worms melted as did the bottom of the chocolate headstones.  They tasted awesome!  

If you want to make a large batch of these, use a whole package of cake-mix and make "regular size" cupcakes.  As my sister pointed out, "regulation" size cupcakes might have been easier for the kids to work with.  You can also just buy chocolate and white canned frosting.  We didn't need the whole can, so we made our own vanilla glaze (1 cup powdered sugar, 1 1/2 Tbsp milk and 1/2 tsp vanilla) and melted chocolate chips for the grave area.  We had to be careful with these small cupcakes because they were not very deep.

Eat and Enjoy!