How to succeed at pie making without really trying

Take one semi-lazy baker.

One text conversation about desserts.

And 1 hour.

What do you get?

Mixed Fruit Pie.

This recipe will make 2 pies.

• 5 cups of random frozen fruit from said baker’s freezer
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (or preferred flour)
• 1-1/2 to 2 cups sugar (depending on how sweet you like your pie)
• 3 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoon butter or margarine or cooking oil

Mix all of the above together in a bowl.  Make sure to mix it well.

2 pre-made pie crusts or homemade crust  (see links below)

Vegan Pie Crust

Pie Crust

Gluten Free, Soy Free, Dairy Free Pie Crust *the recipe is half way down the post…scroll down*

1 crumble topping

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup butter, margarine or cooking oil , melted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Pour the filling into the pie crusts.

Sprinkle any left over flour-sugar-spice mixture over the frozen fruit.  Place the crumble topping over the fruit.

Pat down gently to make a nice crust.

Bake for about 45 minutes or until done.  Once a knife can be inserted into the center of the pie with little to no resistance your pie is done.

Allow pie to fully cool before cutting for best results.

Enjoy.

Irish Stew

Stew and whole wheat soda bread....a perfect pair.

Stew is one of those meals that feels like a hug in a bowl.

My family is Irish, Scottish, German. Our varied heritage means we embrace a little bit from each piece of our backgrounds. Well, mostly we embrace the Irish and the German. I should work on the Scottish.

Irish stew is one of my favorite dishes.

Most Irish stews are made with lamb. The reason, lamb is less expensive in Ireland.

Purist Irish stew is lamb (mutton), potatoes, onions, and water…

This is not a purist stew.

1. I am not using lamb, because of the higher price of lamb vs. beef and because the idea of eating a lamb always causes a mutiny in my household.
2. I add carrots, turnip, garlic and barley.

This stew recipe should work with either lamb or beef.

• 2 1/2 pounds of stew meat (I used beef)
• 1 medium yellow or white onion, diced
• 2 cups of carrots, diced or sliced
• 1 small turnip, peeled and diced
• 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 clove of garlic, diced
• 4 cups of beef stock
• 1- 12 ounce Irish stout beer *optional* if you’re not adding beer, increase your stock my 1 & 1/2 cups
• 1/2 cup of pearl barley
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• 1-2 bay leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of freshly cracked pepper
• 1 teaspoon of parsley
• potatoes *4 large potatoes peeled and diced, or 1 bag (about 4 cups) of small potatoes left whole*
• 1 Tablespoon of olive oil

Heat the oil in a cast iron dutch oven or large stock pot. Add the flour to the meat, coat the meat as evenly as possible. Brown the meat. Once the meat is browned (8-10 minutes), add the beer to the pot. Add the onions, carrots, turnip and garlic. Add the seasoning and spices. Add the beef stock. Add the pearl barley. Stir to combine.

Place the lid on the pot and cook on a medium heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. After 1 hour, add the potatoes. Stir to fully combine the stew with the potatoes. Return the lid to the pot and continue cooking for 1 more hour. (Total cook time, 2 hours).

The lid can be removed for the last 30 minutes to thicken the stew if you wish.

The finished stew

How do you make your stew?

Chicken Pot Pie

What could be more comforting or more fall – winter-ey than

chicken pot pie?

That question was totally rhetorical.

In my opinion, no store-bought pot pie will ever come close to the taste of a home-made pot pie.

I’ll be totally honest, home-made takes a little more time to make, but it is totally worth it.

Creamy, hearty and oh so good.

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The recipe I use is not my own. It’s an Ina Garten recipe.

Here is the ingredient list.

I use less butter than the recipe calls for. I will mark my changes in blue.

I use store-bought crust, but you can totally make your own.

• • 3 whole (6 split) chicken breasts, bone-in, skin-on I used boneless, breast fillets
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon of minced garlic
  • 5 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
  • 2 chicken bouillon cubes
  • 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter I used 1 stick of butter
  • 2 cups yellow onions, chopped (2 onions)
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 2 cups medium-diced carrots, blanched for 2 minutes
  • 1 (10-ounce) package frozen peas (2 cups)
  • 1 1/2 cups frozen small whole onions I omitted the whole onions
  • 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley leaves

The directions and the full recipe are listed on the food network website.

How do you make your pot pies?

And now a teaser about tomorrow’s post……

Banana Pumpkin Muffins

My continuing saga to use up my pie pumpkins…….

I made pumpkin banana muffins on Saturday night. We had some lovely friends over for dinner and I always like to send them home with some baked goodie for breakfast the next morning.

Since I had just baked pumpkin number 3 of 6, I figured pumpkin muffins was the best thing to make.

I planned to make pumpkin muffins. My sweet friend asked if I was adding anything to it. Bananas? Yes, why not.

Bet ya can't eat just one.....

Introducing:

Jamie and Lashelle’s Pumpkin and Banana Muffins

This recipe makes a LOT of muffins/quick bread.

• 2 cups of pumpkin (canned or freshly baked)
• 4 ripe bananas
• 4 eggs
• 2/3 cups of cooking oil
• 2/3 cups of water
• 2 1/3 cups of sugar
• 3 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt
• 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla

Mix the sugar and the liquid ingredients together. Sift together the dry ingredients. Mix the pumpkin mixture with the dry ingredients.

If you want to add nuts or raisins or cranberries do so at this point.

1/3 cup nuts

or

1/3 cup soaked raisins (soak the raisins in boiling water for 1 minute to plump them up)

or

1/3 cup of soaked (dried) cranberries or fresh cranberries

Bake at 350 degrees F for

mini muffins – about 20 minutes

muffins – about 30 minutes

mini bread loaf – about 30-45 minutes

Loaf sized quick bread – about an hour

Enjoy!

It's bite sized, if you have a big mouth like I do.

Slow it Down, Slow cooker beef stew.

The Winner of my Yoplait giveaway was Linda of Savoring Every Bite! She recently posted a lovely Pumpkin Rugelach recipe that you should totally check out!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I adore my slow cookers. Yes, I said cookers…as in plural, as in I have 3. Well, I have 4 of you count the little dipper (warming only). I make oatmeal, applesauce, soups, stews, roasts, cobblers, lasagna (the list goes on and on…) in my slow cooker.

Yes, I adore my slow cookers.

When I was a single gal, I loved making a soup or a stew via the slow cooker. I’d come home to an apartment that smelled lovely and be able to eat a healthy dinner without a lot of after work fuss. Which was good, because without my slow cooker the Taco Bell near my apartment would have known me even better than they already did.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for bean burritos.

Once I was a seriously dating gal and an engaged gal I was able to wow and impress my boyfriend/future husband with my chili and stews. It was in no small part due to the slow cooker. I have found that any meaty morsel that is allowed to cook low and slow for hours will become tender and wonderfully flavorful.

Anyhoo…. Allie and I are hosting a Slow Cooker recipe link-up. This link up will happen every 2 weeks for a while. So, if you have a slow cooker recipe to share please feel free to follow the little blue frog and enter a link to your slow cooker recipe post. We’d love to have you join in the slow cooker fun!

Beefy Stew

Ingredient List:

• 2 lbs beef or pork stew meat
• 2 cups sliced carrots
• 1 red pepper sliced
• 3-4 cups of stock (beef or chicken or veggie) I start with 3 add more if needed
• 2 + 1/4 cups of water
• 2 cups chopped celery
• 3 cups cherry tomatoes (poked with a tooth pick) or 1 can of chopped tomatoes.
• 1 large onion chopped OR 2 cups of frozen caramelized onions
• a splash of red wine
• 1/3 cup + 4 TBSP of corn starch
• 2-3 TBSP of garlic chopped
• 1 TBSP salt
• 1 TBSP pepper
• 1 tsp parsley
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes

What to do:

I like to use a liner in my slow cooker, it makes clean up easier. Reynolds sells slow cooker liners (in fact, there is a coupon on the Reynold website for $1.00 off your purchase in case you’d like to give them a go), and they work wonderfully.

• Mix your stew meat with 1/3 cup of corn starch (or flour if you prefer) making sure to coat each piece of meat.
• Add a little olive oil to a hot skillet and brown the meat, this is an important step that you should not skip.

Brown baby, Brown.

• While your meat is browning, chop your veggies. I prick my cherry tomatoes with a tooth pick so they will cook well and not be little tomato bombs. Trust me that you do not want tomato bombs in your stew. Tomato bombs= bad so poke your tomatoes or use canned tomatoes.

Whoa! Bright red tomatoes.

• Add the stock, wine and water to the slow cooker.
• Add seasoning and garlic to the slow cooker.
• Add the meat and veggies to the slow cooker.

One big happy stew-ey family.

• Stir to combine.
• Place the lid on the slow cooker and Slow cook for 8-10 hours on low or 6-8 hours on high.

About 1 hour before serving, add 4 TBSP of corn starch to the 1/4 cup of water. Mix well to combine. Pour into the stew and mix well to combine.
The corn starch will thicken the stew.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the shocking lack of potatoes in my stew. Shocking right? I do not care for mushy, stew-ey potatoes. So, I make mashed potatoes and serve my stew on top of them.

This one is for my husband.

Enjoy!

For goodness sake, I made a Homemade Foreo!

I made an Oreo like cookie.

Honestly.

What’s better than a homemade Oreo cookie? An over-sized, soft, chewy Oreo cookie…and a foot rub, but the foot rub is totally optional.

It does not taste exactly like a Oreo, but it’s super good.

I decided to make the cookies soft and chewy instead of crisp. They are sweet and soft and fabulous.

I think they might be a tiny bit evil, as they are quite addictive.

I found the recipe here Clockwork Lemon.

I did not fiddle with the cookie recipe at all.

Shocking, I know.

I made really big cookies, ones that are so filling that one is more than enough, so I got fewer than 40 cookies. I got about 20 cookies.

Here is the ingredient list:

I found the recipe here Clockwork Lemon.

makes 40 small cookies or 20 large cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa (if using regular cocoa add an extra tsp of baking soda)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

Go. Try. Make your very own Foreos. (faux Oreos)

I’m off to take a sick child to the doctor. Hope your day is a wonderful one!

Don’t forget to enter the Swanson review and giveaway…

Meatless Monday….3 bean soup.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!   We’ve had a wonderful weekend here in central Texas.    The Texas State Fair opened on Friday, we’re planning to visit the fair tomorrow (Tuesday).  My children have Monday and Tuesday off this week, for the fair and a teacher in-service (6 weeks grade entering day).

On Sunday (yesterday) I decided to make 3 bean soup for Monday dinner.    I’ve got a repair man coming to fix my drippy ice maker today, so it’s won’t be a good day for cooking.

I’ve said it before, but it bares repeating…. I am not great at meal planning.  I usually have some sort of loose plan in my mind of meals to make, but I rarely plan more than 1 or 2 days in advance.  Horrible?  Yes.

Sunday morning  I decided to make bean soup, but I had not soaked my beans overnight.  OOPS!  I decided to throw caution to the wind and make soup without pre-soaking my beans.  Crazy right?

Fo Shizzle….that’s how I roll.

Monday’s meatless soup can become a meaty soup on Tuesday night, since I am going to be tired after my day at the fair.  Hopefully I will not gorge myself on fried Kool-aid, fried bubblegum and fried beer. 

This soup is wonderfully flavorful and so worth the extended time it took to cook it.  11:00 am to 4:00 pm cooking time.

*you could make this soup in the slow cooker, place everything into the slow cooker and cook on high for 6-8 hours, low for 8-10(+) hours*

Ingredient list:

• 4 cups of dried (mixed) beans.  I used a mixture of Organic Navy Beans, Organic Great Northern Beans and Organic Cranberry beans.
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 green and 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 6 cups of veggie stock
• 2 cups of water (plus more if needed) I ended up with 4 cups of water in my soup.
• 2 tablespoons of minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons of garlic salt
• 1 package of sun-dried tomatoes
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 pinch of red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon of parsley

What to do….

Place 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a cast iron pot.  Saute the onion, garlic, and peppers until soft.

Add beans, spices, stock, tomatoes and water to the pot.

Bring the mixture to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer low and slow (stirring every so often) for about 4 hours.

If you need to, add more water or stock to the pot.  I ended up adding about 2 cups of water during the cooking time.

*You could totally cook this a lot quicker if you pre-soaked the beans*

 

 

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I’m making a whole wheat cornbread to enjoy with the soup. 

Are you meatless this Monday?  What are you making?

A Waffle recipe, a Swanson Health Products review and a giveaway!

Yesterday I told you a bit about  Swanson Health Products.  I also shared my sweet and nutty fruit bar recipe.
As I told you yesterday, Swanson Health Products sent me a few items free of charge so I could review them.  Three of the 4 items I picked were “new to me” items.   Ben from Swanson, who is one of the contributors on the Swanson Health Blog,  was so helpful and friendly.  He gave me some great advice on choosing my items.  Thanks to savvy shopping and Ben’s helpful hints I was able to buy 2 of each item.  Which means…1 for me to try and 1 for you to win.  Below is a picture of the items I received for review.  One lucky reader will win a prize pack identical to the one I am reviewing.

One commenter, chosen by random.org will receive 1 Rooibos Tea, 1 Organic Buckwheat Flour, 1 Organic Unsulphured Coconut Shreds,  and 1 No Stir Creamy Almond Butter.

Here is a recap of what I said about Swanson Health Products yesterday……

Swanson Health Products sells a wonderful range of high-quality, competitively priced &  mostly organic products.

From vitamins to shampoo to organic flour to oils and nut butters. They have it.

Swanson Health Products is a family owned business that has been selling quality products since 1969.

I also told you yesterday that I’m a big fan of online shopping, slightly in love with coconut water and that I prefer my pajamas.    Just in case you missed the post. 

Here is a little more information about the 4 items I got from Swanson Health Products.

• Rooibos Tea ~ This tea is caffeine free, which is great for evening drinks, I love coffee…LOVE coffee.  Drinking coffee in the evening is never a good idea for me though, I end up feeling like a nervous, twitchy Chihuahua.  The tea is very flavorful and satisfies my evening warm beverage desire without making me more spastic than usual.   I really like that each of the tea bags are sealed in a non-paper wrapper.  I could pack these into my purse or a camping bag (oh yes, I camp) and know that they would not be damaged as easily as the paper wrapped tea bags.

     

•  Organic Buckwheat Flour  ~ I was a little worried about this flour, I’ve never used buckwheat flour before. I really like that it is gluten-free. I have some extended family members that are gluten intolerant, so having a gluten-free option in the house (just in case they visit) is nice.    The buckwheat flour worked great!  I made waffles with it.  My kids loved them!  In fact, my daughter preferred the 1/2 buckwheat~1/2 all-purpose flour waffles to our normal waffles.  The addition of the buckwheat gave the waffles added depth of flavor and the waffles soaked up the maple syrup without becoming soggy.

My waffle recipe: adapted

Should serve 2 people. Unless they’re really hungry or teenagers. If you’ve got teenagers go ahead and triple the recipe.

1. 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2. 1/2 cup Organic Buckwheat Flour
3. 1 & 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
4. 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
5. 3 teaspoons of sugar
6. 1 egg
7. 1 cup of buttermilk
8. 1/4 cup of water
9. 2 Tablespoons of melted butter or olive oil
10. 2 teaspoons of vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients together.  Mix the wet ingredients together.  Mix the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

Cook using your preferred waffle maker.

• Organic Unsulphured Coconut Shreds ~ See my review of the coconut on yesterday’s post. Sweet and nutty fruit bar recipe  Short answer….Coconut Shreds? Awesome.

Hello tasty goodness...

• No Stir Creamy Almond Butter ~ I was so excited to try a non-peanut butter, nut butter.    I did not love it.  It has a very strong flavor.  Unexpectedly strong.  I picked it because I really like almonds.  On a cracker, it was thick and had an unpleasant texture.  I could not imagine eating an almond butter and jelly sandwich.   Not. At. All.    I did find a way to use the almond butter.  I made peanut-almond butter cookies.  They are flavorful and although the taste is different than a peanut butter cookie, they are totally yummy.  I will use the rest of the almond butter making cookies.  I’ll post the cookie recipe soon.

• I wish I had picked the sunflower butter.   Next time I order from Swanson I will order sunflower butter.

I really like that Swanson Health Products has a return policy that is good for 1 year.  How awesome is that? A year!

The items I received from Swanson Health Products were shipped quickly, packed very well and all in gift-able shape when they arrived at my home.

For more information about Swanson Health Products Check out the **top 5 reasons to shop at Swanson Health Products

Now, for the giveaway.

This giveaway will be open until 10/10/11 at 9:00 pm central.  U.S. residents only. 

The winner will have 4 days to reply to my e-mail with their contact information, if the winner does not provide me shipping information within 4 days I will pick a new winner via random.org.

Each person may enter this giveaway up to 4 time~ choose from the below options.

1. Leave me a comment.  Simple, easy 1st entry.  *Mandatory 1st entry*
2. Visit Swanson Health Products and come back here and tell me 1 “new to you” product you are interested in trying.
3. Like Swanson Health Products on Facebook, and leave me a comment telling me that you did.
4. Like A Dash of Domestic on Facebook, and leave me a comment telling me that you did.
5. Follow @SwansonVitamins on Twitter, and leave me a comment telling me that you did.
6. Follow @adashofdomestic on Twitter, and leave me a comment telling me that you did.
7. Click the link on the upper right hand side of my page to subscribe to my blog via e-mail, and leave me a comment letting me know that you did.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! See you on Monday!

Whole Wheat Apple Crisp

If you have not already, please take a moment and leave a comment on my Giveaway Post! You could win free stuff. Free is good right? Right! **. I’ll wait here…go! The giveaway ends on 9/22/11 at 9:00 pm central.

I had planned to try making the Cheddar and Chilies Cornbread Scones, but I’ve got a sick little girl (okay….she’s 12, but she’s still my little girl!) I took her to the doctor today, yucky sinus infection. Poor baby. It is so awful to have a sick child. As a parent, I want to protect my children, as a mom…I’m the fixer. I can not fix an infection, I can not fix the headache that has been tormenting her. I can only keep her as comfortable and hydrated as possible, give her the medication the doctor prescribed and make her apple crisp.

My daughter loves apples, especially the Apple Pie Filling I canned about a week ago. I adapted the Betty Crocker Caramel-Butterscotch Apple Crisp .

Here is my ingredient list.

• 2 pint jars of Apple Pie Filling
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup Gold Medal® white whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1/3 cup cold butter or margarine, cut into 6 pieces

You can find the recipe here.

As the apple crisp was baking, my house filled with wonderful, fall-ish smells. I simply adore fall smells.

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White Wheat Oat Quick Bread

If you have not already, please take a moment and leave a comment on my Giveaway Post **. I’ll wait here…go! 

How was your weekend?  Mine was very nice!  We went to a house blessing and saw some lovely friends and……We had rain!  Can I get a WOOT?!  It was lovely to hear the rain beating down upon the roof.  We’ve been rain free for so long.

Rain makes me want to bake.  Heh! Who am I kidding, any weather makes me want to bake.  I’m just using the rain as a convenient excuse. 

One of the Gold Medal recipe cards that I received with the myblogspark package, was for a quick bread.

Fruit and Oats, lovely!

Here is the ingredient list.

• 1 cup 5-grain rolled whole-grain cereal or old-fashioned oats  *I used old-fashioned oats
• 3 cups Gold Medal® white whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup cold butter or margarine, cut into small pieces *I used butter
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries, cherries or raisins  *I used 1 cup of dried fruit, half cranberries and half raisins.
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Gather your ingredients and follow this link to the recipe.

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This bread is wonderful.  Not too sweet.  It is moist and lovely.

**And now for a neat surprise.  Go to the Betty Crocker website.  Look through the recipes listed here.  These recipes all use White whole wheat flour.  Pick one recipe from this website that you would like to try using the white whole wheat flour. Return to the giveaway and leave a comment telling me which recipe from the Betty Crocker website you would like to try.    Doing this will give you a 2nd entry in the giveaway.  Please mark that entry as Entry #2  **