Beef-a-Roni

Pinterest…that brilliant mixture of feeling like a failure and feeling inspired. Despite my love/hate relationship with it, I do often find amazing recipes through Pinterest, and I’m grateful for having that tool at my fingertips. This Beef-a-Roni from Mostly Homemade Mom is one of my lucky finds. Now, if you’re not American, you might be saying “What on earth is Beef-a-Roni?” Yeah…exactly. What is Beef-a-Roni? Really, it’s just a pasta bolognese with cheese on top. This recipe made enough for my family with 2 younger kiddos to have one 9x9 pan for dinner and save one for later.

Beef-a-Roni

1 lb./16 oz shell pasta or elbow macaroni, cooked and drained

500g ground beef/buff

2 cans tomato puree (or 1 large can)

1 Tablespoon oil

1 onion, diced

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon salt, to taste

1 teaspoon sugar

2 cups shredded cheese

Sauté onion in oil until translucent. Add the ground beef to the pan over medium heat and sauté until meat is browned. To the ground beef and onions, add all the remaining ingredients except the pasta and cheese. Simmer covered for 10 minutes over medium-low heat. Taste and adjust sauce seasonings accordingly. Remove from heat and toss the cooked pasta into the sauce. In a baking dish, layer half of the pasta mixture with half of the cheese. Repeat. Bake in a 170C/350F oven for 20 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and golden.

If you’re wanting to save some for later, split the pasta/cheese between two pans and freeze one before baking. When you’re ready to use it, let it thaw and then bake according to recipe instructions. Pat yourself on the back for preparing something for your future self, just when you needed a quick meal.

Morning Sanity Saver: Oatmeal/Porridge Cakes

My kids (and I) love these things. I found them while perusing Eating Well’s quick, healthy breakfast round up. Trying to get off to school in the morning with no major hiccups is an obstacle in our house. It can often make or break our day. I think breakfast can also be an indicator of how the day will go for homeschooling families. If things start off well, it can set a positive tone for the day. We all know what can happen if the day starts off rotten… These are a great change from boxed cereals and work well for children who aren’t into traditional oatmeal/porridge breakfasts. I make 2 batches of these to keep in the freezer. On school mornings when I have power, I pop them in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. When I don’t have power, I take them out the night before and then heat them up in the Miracle Oven on the stove top in morning.

Oatmeal/Porridge Cakes

2½ cups oats

1½ cups milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup honey, maple syrup, or brown sugar

2 Tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup fresh fruit, chopped (apples, bananas, strawberries, blueberries)

Combine the oats and milk in a large bowl. Once mixed, allow to rest 20-30 minutes so the oats can soak up the milk. After the milk has mostly soaked into the oats, add the remaining ingredients and gently stir to combine. You could also opt to put a tablespoon of the fruit on top if you don’t want to mix it in. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line with papers if you’re lazy like me. Pour ¼ cup of mixture into each muffin cup. Bake in a 190C oven for 25 to 30 minutes until they spring back like a cake when you poke them. Cool and freeze or refrigerate for future use.

Note: Use porridge specifically labeled as "gluten free" if you need that option. Regular oats cannot be assumed to be gluten-free.

1-2-3-4 Soup

I stumbled across this recipe recently through a link to Ciao from Debbie and loved the simplicity of it. When I first moved here, someone shared a similar recipe with me—more of a rough guide—that you could adapt for most kinds of vegetables. This one is incredibly versatile, and the original posting has some interesting flavor suggestions. So far we have made cream of broccoli-potato, zucchini, and spinach-potato varieties. If you start with uncooked starch, reduce the amount to ¾ cup and add some additional liquid to keep the soup from becoming stew.

1-2-3-4 Soup

1 cup onions, diced

2 cups cooked starch (potatoes, rice, beans, etc.)

3 cups vegetables, diced (broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini)

4 cups liquid (4 cups water + 2 stock cubes)

Oil

Salt and pepper, to taste

Milk or Cream, to taste

Cheese, grated (optional)

Heat a small amount of oil over medium heat. Sauté onions in oil until translucent. Add in the cooked starch, vegetables, and liquid. Bring to a boil. Cover and cook on low until vegetables are tender. At this point you can either leave the soup chunky, puree the whole thing, or puree part of the soup. Stir in some cream or milk and heat through. Cream will thicken the soup so it may need to be thinned to your liking.

Super simple! If you can count to 4, you can probably make this soup work for you. It’s a great way to use up leftover potatoes or rice hanging out in the fridge—just make sure they're not growing anything first.

Roasted Winter Vegetables

Yes, I've been intending to post this one for a while, and I am getting to it now that winter is drawing to a close. Ahhh...these vegetable are still around though so go ahead and give it a try. The original inspiration came from Simply in Season, one of my favorite seasonal cooking cookbooks. It's such a valuable book to have living in a place where most foods are just seasonally available. Be sure to include at least one "sweet" vegetable in your mix for that rich, caramel flavor. I used beets and carrots, and they pair beautifully! Kohlrabi and turnips also work well in this one. Omit the vinegar if you want to be sure it's truly gluten-free.

Not the best photo, but you get the idea, right?

Roasted Winter Vegetables
4 cups mixed winter vegetables, cut into 1 inch pieces
3-4 small onions, peeled, root and stem ends removed
1 bulb garlic, top sliced off but otherwise intact
1 Tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons dried herbs of choice (rosemary, oregano, thyme, parsley)
1-2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar (optional)

Lay the vegetables out on a baking tray and sprinkle with oil and other seasonings. Place onions together in a piece of foil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss with some oil. Wrap the foil up. Place the garlic bulb in another piece of foil with a light sprinkling of oil. Wrap that up. Place both foil packets on the pan with the vegetables. Roast in a 220C/425F oven for 30-45 minutes until vegetables are tender and golden. 20 minutes into cooking, remove the foil from the onions to permit browning. After the vegetables are cooked, squeeze the contents of the garlic bulb into a bowl. Toss in the vegetables and a splash of balsamic vinegar. The vegetables should have a shiny glaze once mixed. Enjoy warm or chilled.

Chickpea Salad

Salads....I love that a salad can really be just about anything you want it to be. I especially appreciate salads that you can make when good lettuce is either not available or not in your house that day. This chickpea salad is really not much of a recipe, but hopefully it will be an inspiration to you. This salad works well as the protein for a vegetarian meal. You can make it as simple or deluxe as you like, but here are the basics of what I do. You can use dried chickpeas or canned ones that you've rinsed and drained. You just need to add more salt if you've started from dried chickpeas.

Chickpea Salad
2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained
1 cup tomatoes, diced or chopped
1 cup red onion, sliced thinly
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1-2 Tablespoons vinegar (cider, red wine, or balsamic)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Optional add-ons:
1-2 cups fresh rocket/arugula
1 teaspoon dried herbs (basil, oregano, rosemary)
Crumbled cheese (feta, paneer, or even parmesan)
Fresh herbs (mint or basil)
Cucumber, chopped

Toss everything into a bowl. Adjust seasonings, vinegar, and oil to taste. Allow to chill and marinate at least 30 minutes before serving. 

Pumpkin Pie Granola

I recently had a very sweet new friend haul a big can (2 actually!) of pumpkin over in her luggage to give to me.  After 2 recipes I was dying to make, I still had just a little bit of the pumpkin left, and I wanted to use it nobly! 
The recipe that Lizzy had posted awhile back for Banana Bread Granola (which I have had lots of compliments on when given to people) came to mind, and I thought, mashed bananas and pumpkin puree are probably around the same consistency.  What if I just subbed pumpkin for the banana and tweaked the spices?!  (You can tell by my enthusiasm over this minor notion that I am not the creative genius in the mix here!)

Anyway, I basically did just that.  I considered also using maple syrup instead of the honey because I actually had some (people are good to me in their gifts!), and doesn't that sound yummy?  But, given that I was aiming to see whether it was worth reproducing HERE (where maple syrup isn't available), I decided to stick with the honey.

My tweaks are VERY minor, but to save you a smidge of effort, I've copied and pasted the recipe from Lizzy with the few adjustments I made.

3 cups oats (GF if you need it)
3/4 cup walnuts
1/2 cup almonds
3 T mineral sugar (I don't even know what to generally call this stuff, but we can find it here at times, and it is basically an unrefined, darker sugar, giving it some decent nutrients.  If you don't know or have this stuff, I would suggest using brown sugar, as I think a darker sugar goes well with pumpkin.)
1/2 teaspoon salt (I used the Himalayan pink salt and put in a generous 1/2 t.)
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t allspice
1/8 t nutmeg
1/4 cup coconut oil 
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (I was just a bit short on this, but with increasing the honey a bit and being generous with the oil, the consistency still was great, and the pumpkin flavor was still good, though I look forward to making it again with the full dose!)

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and stir until they are uniformly combined. In a small sauce pan over low heat, combine the coconut oil, honey, and vanilla just until the coconut oil and honey have melted to a liquid. Turn off the heat and add the pumpkin puree. Slowly pour the liquid over the dry ingredients, stirring with a wooden spoon until all the dry ingredients look moistened with the banana mixture. If it looks too dry, mix a little more or add a little more oil. Spread the granola over two baking sheets and place in an oven preheated to 170C/350F. Bake for 20 to 28 minutes, stirring once or twice halfway through baking to get even browning. In the last 10 minutes, watch carefully to ensure it doesn't burn. When it's done, allow to cool and then place in an airtight container. 

Master List for Meal Planning

Rachel here.  I am not as good as Lizzy at writing recipes!  But, I find that sometimes it can be helpful just to know some recipes that work here or that are easily adapted to life where the ingredients sets are a bit different than what you might be used to having in your home country.
So, I wrote up a post on my blog, sharing my "master list" for fall that helps form my base for meal planning.  Hope it might be useful to some, so feel free to pop over and read the original post to see the list with lots of links for recipes (many of them back here on this blog!).

Also, I have a pinterest board where I collect recipes that I know would work where we live here in Nepal (and probably much of Asia) and usually make some quick comments on my pins as to what I would need to change, if anything.