Tonight's Dinner & Desserts

Main: Baked chicken thighs with home made sweet & sour BBQ sauce
Sides: Brown rice, warm red cabbage & apple salad
Desserts: (yes, I had two) Pumpkin muffin with home made peach jam (not my own), vanilla frozen yogurt with home made sour cream fudge.

Some recipes based on tonight's meal:

The chicken: a variation on Sunshine Chicken.
1. I used 4 chicken thighs, which I de-boned and de-skinned. Placed in single layer on baking dish. Preheated oven: 350
2. Sliced some oinion, put it on the chicken.
3. The sauce: 1/3 cup ketchup, 2 tablespoons Dijon, 1/4 cup BBQ sauce, few dashes of white wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, fresh ground pepper, 2 cloves grated garlic. Mix it up, spread it on the chicken.
4. Cook for 45 minutes to an hour, turning once half-way through, and recovering chicken with sauce.

Warm Red Cabbage & Apple Salad: (finally used up the rest of my cabbage!)
- 1/3 red cabbage, chopped into thin slices
- 2 apples washed, peels on, diced
- one small onion diced
- couple of dashes of cinnamon
- 1 cup red wine vinegar
- 1.5 cups water (would have made one cup of this red wine, but I was being frugal)
- 1/3 cup lemon juice (would have used a half real lemon, thinly sliced, but had none)
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- fresh grated sea salt & pepper to taste

Throw all the ingredients into a large pot and stir. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 45 minutes. Serve (duh).


Healthy Pumpkin Muffins:
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour
- 4 tbsp of brown sugar
- 1/2 cup wheat germ
-2 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1 tsp of cinnamon
- 1 tsp of nutmeg
- 1 tsp of ginger
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup of soy milk
- 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree
- 1/4 cup of canola oil
- 1 tbsp of vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup of raisins
- 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Butter and flour a 12 muffin tin and set aside.
Stir together the flours, sugar, wheat germ, baking powder, salt and spices.
Mix together the eggs, milk, pumpkin, oil and vanilla.
Pour into flour mixture and mix until just blended.
Stir in raisins and sunflower seeds.
Spoon into muffin pan.
Bake 20-ish minutes until the muffins spring back from your touch.

These muffins are healthy, but the problem is they taste healthy. Next time I will add a bit more sugar, maybe even one cup. The other option is to serve them with jam or honey, or even maple syrup would go very nice.

Maybe one day I will post the fudge recipe. But alas, it is late. Bon nuit et bon apetit!

Poor Man's Soup

I threw some ingredients together to make soup today. I find that whenever I buy a red cabbage, it just keeps on going. Instead of making borscht eight times, I decided to try something a little different with more *cabbage.

Cabbage is inexspensive, as are most of the other ingredients, hence the name "Poor Man's Soup". I might also have called it "I'm not working right now soup", "Someone please call me to be your supply teacher soup", "Flatulence Causing Soup", or "Soup Your Russian Grandmother Would Love".

- 3tbsp olive oil
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 4-5 cloves garlic, chopped

- 1 litre V8 (or 2 cans tomatoes)
- 1 litre water
- 2-3 potatoes, cubed
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 1/2 head of red cabbage, chopped

- 3 bay leaves
- fresh ground pepper to taste
- sea salt to taste
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- pinch of chile

1. Heat oil on medium. Add oinions & garlic. Cook until soft.
2. Add liquids and the rest of the vegetables. Stir in the spices.
3. Bring to a boil. Lower to simmering. Cook about 1-1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

EAT and enjoy. This is definitely the kind of soup a European grandma would make. And teachers who sit around waiting for schools to call. But not me, of course...

*After one big batch of this soup, and another of borscht, I still have about 1/3 of a cabbage left. What's a girl to do?

PB & Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins with a touch of healthy

Found a recipe on www.RecipeGirl.com which I have altered. I alter everything. I also add everything to my baking. Anyway. It's based on her Peanut-Butter Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cut oatmeal
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 mashed bananas
1 cup milk
¾ cup smooth peanut butter
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 12-16muffin tins (could also be bread tins, but muffins are more fun).

2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugars, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

3. In another bowl, combine mashed bananas, milk, peanut butter, vanilla and egg. Add to flour mixture, stirring until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

4. Pour batter into muffin. Bake 25 minutes (give it a check at 20 minutes), or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. If making bread, bake 40-50 minutes.

ENJOY. Peanut butter taste is mild, chocolate and banana combine swell, and hey, there's fibre!