Asian Glaze Beet Chips

It's perhaps a little difficult to explain just how this came about.  I have been looking for some time at all the various fruits and veggies that people have turned into chips.  I like the crunch that a baked chip has over a deep fried variety, because I think they have less of a "greasy dust" texture.  It's the same reason why I like kettle chips.  They are just much crunchier.  I am not a big fan of the instant disintegration of typical mass produced chips.

Plus, I am always looking for ways to sneak in new veggies, and give me a break these chips are BEAUTIFUL.

Anyway the Asian Glaze idea is still a bit of a mystery as to how we ended up with it on these chips.  I use a pretty consistent glaze in my stir fry and similar dishes, because soy sauce apparently wasn't something I could leave alone either...

Asian Glaze Ingredients:
-2 TB Soy Sauce
-Pinch brown sugar
-Quick squirt of honey
-1 packet of True Lime (or a little lime zest, whichever you have on hand)
-1/4 tsp Ginger

Mix up all the glaze ingredients (it will make well over what you need for these bits, we will come back to that in a second) I whipped mine all together with a fork because I am high tech like that.  Using a mandoline and kevlar gloves, so no fingers are lost in the making of these beet chips) thinly slice about 4 beets (ends cut off first of course, I did not peel mine). 

The four I bought were in a bundle so they were smaller than the ones you can buy open stock.  As long as you don't care how many cookie sheets you use, you can clearly slice up as many beets as you wish.

To avoid getting my countertop purple, I put saran wrap down over my cutting area.  I really did not want to stain anything, cutting board included, especially without knowing whether I would like this recipe.  A stained board and a yucky chip would have been a horrible combination.  I also did not want to turn my hands purple, so I made a saran wrap glove to pick the slices up.

I know, wasteful.  But from all the times I have been dyed by cake coloring, I was NOT interested in turning purple.

Anyway, lay the beet slices on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, unless you just enjoy washing purple beet juice off things.  Spoon a drop or two of glaze on them and then use the back of the spoon to rub it over the entire top surface.  I only put the glaze on one side because the soy sauce does have a high salt content and a little bit of glaze goes a long way.  Bake them at 350 for about an hour, flipping the chips every 20 minutes or so.  You may have to pull some of the smaller rings off before time is up.  Depending on your slice thickness, your time may be different, so really pay attention after the first 20 minutes.  I put my chips out on a wire rack after to cool.

I used the thin slice setting on my mandoline, but had I used super thin they might not have taken as long.  I would definitely not go any thicker. 

Happy crafting!
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Freaky Fresh Chunky Chili

That's right! Time to unveil it. 

Ingredients:
-2 Tomatoes, diced
-1/2 pound ground beef
-Big o' handful of noodles (I have mine in baggies, handfuls are easier)
-2 TB Durkees Texas Red Chili Spice (I used 2.5, but this was a little hot for me, you can choose)
-1 C water
-Optional 1/4  c corn (I pretty much add it in everything closely resembling soup)

This makes about 3 bowls of chili, perfect for the solo student that I am!  Anyway, put the beef in your chili pot and get it to browning.  Cut up the tomatoes and add them in after breaking apart the beef if you haven't already.  I tossed in a most minute amount of onion to cook in with this (probably not but several tablespoons of onion pieces I had frozen).

I added a little salt and pepper.  I am thinking I should have just stuck with salt.

Anyway let all that cook for a few minutes and add the seasoning.  Give it a good stir, let it go a minute or two, and add the water.  Let it come to a boil then add the noodles, reduce the heat a bit, and cover it.  Let it sit there and think about what it has done for 15-20 minutes.

Haha, the chili is GROUNDED.

OK so let's say you are like me and you get it too spicy, or you like really spicy chili but your kids don't.  What is the solution?  Ketchup.  I added a squirt to my bowl of it earlier today and the concentrated tomato flavor and sugars really helped tone down the heat level.  I like heat, don't get me wrong, but I had slightly overdone it with pepper and seasoning...

Just a tad.

Anyway kids love ketchup so it is absolutely a viable option to add to their bowls especially if you are having trouble with anyone a little more susceptible to the heat. In fact, I would really argue for adding in a little ketchup regardless and then just increasing the heat after if you need.  A little squirt can go a long way.

Chili is only chili, in my opinion, if there is cheese in it and a PB samich on the side.  Homemade crackers (yesterday's blog) were a seriously amazing added bonus.  I highly recommend that recipe.

So, if you are wondering why I didn't have anything in this like tomato juice, it is really simple.  I was going to buy some, but I noticed how much sodium is in them...and I was over it really quickly! The way I saw it, I was buying fresh tomatoes anyway and I would just make it work. Pretty much all of these ingredients are ones I am guaranteed to have in my fridge, so for me this just makes more sense.

No juice needs to invade this apartment....

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Crazy Good Crackers (from scratch!)

So it's times like these I wish I had a ranking system for some of my blogs.  If I had developed a star rating system for all of these posts, I would easily give these all five.  As far as I am concerned, they put the crack back in crackers. 

Ingredients:
-1/2 Stick butter (salted, for the record that's the only thing I ever use)
-1 C AP flour
-1 ounce of reduced fat cream cheese
-1 tsp salt
-Cold water (I get it in a 1/4 cup measuring cup and add slowly, I used maybe half of the measuring cup or a little less)

Throw the butter, flour, cream cheese, and salt in a mixer bowl.  Beat until it is all combined, I mostly did this on a medium speed.  It will be a pebbly-looking dough.  Add in some water, a little at a time (think tablespoons) until the dough comes together and starts to hold.  You might have to press it into a ball depending on the paddle you are using, which is perfectly fine. 

Pat it into a disk and turn it out on a floured surface.  Roll it out pretty thin (1/8 inch or so) and cut into squares with a pizza cutter.  You can use a fancy fluted cutter or cookie cutter if you want perfect ones or different shapes.  My little cutter I like to use with the fluted edges is apparently avoiding me, so I opted for a pizza cutter instead.

Lay them out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 17 minutes at 375 (time for me is based on a gas oven and a dark sheet).  I poked holes in mine with a fork before baking.  Basically, bake them until they start turning golden.  Pull the pan out and sprinkle a little salt on top (or not if you are anti-salt, I happen to love it).  I just left mine on the pan to cool, I was really hungry by the time they finished baking.

I made them to go with some chili I was whipping up, and they really hit the spot.  Look for my chili recipe tomorrow!  I would have blogged on it tonight, but chili is a lot better the second day and I can't tell if the heat level is right on just yet.

To give you an idea of what these crackers taste like, imagine a super buttery biscuit flavor, but a cracker texture.  I am a BIG fan of saltine crackers, and I like these just as well.  They might have worked with a little more butter instead of the cream cheese, but I like the flavor so much I would not change it.

Getting to try a cracker fresh out of the oven while it is still warm is an experience I HIGHLY recommend.

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Delicious Pumpkin Granola Bars

Ingredients:
-Half a smaller can of pumpkin
-1 C oats
-1/4 C REAL Maple Syrup
-1 Egg
-Handful of pecans, broken into pieces
-Handful of craisins
-1 TB cinnamon*
-5 Shakes ginger
-2 shakes nutmeg

Mix up all of these ingredients, I would suggest doing the egg last and tasting the batter beforehand to make sure it is spiced to your liking.  I recommend the top ones as a starting point.  Also, cloves could be a delicious spice to add in as well, but do so sparingly.  I happen to not have any cloves. 

Anyway, preheat your oven to 350 and turn the batter out onto a cookie sheet with parchment paper over it once you have everything mixed well and spiced to perfection.  Bake at least 22 minutes, or longer for desired texture, let cool for a few minutes and slice.  These came out a lot like my banana ones, which are soft as opposed to crunchy style granolas. 

I really wanted to drizzle white chocolate over them, but I refrained. 

There is a good chance that if I had happened to have any honey flavored greek yogurt on hand, I would most certainly have used that over the egg. I like to add in extra protein in the form of greek yogurt and it also works to hold things together like the egg did.  I also really don't like having an uneven number of eggs, strangely enough.

I am very much a person that completely bottoms out if I don't have protein throughout the day.  I cannot run on sugar, and I am not very pleasant sometimes when I am rather hungry.  So any tasty snack that also is healthy can really help me out.  Granola bars are super simple to make, in my opinion, and can be done with a lot of things you already have on hand. Even if you mess around with a recipe and they won't quite hold together because it is a little too dry, just consider it granola pieces instead of bars! ;)

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Pulled Pork Chimichangas

 Ingredients:
-8 inch taco shells
-Leftover Pulled Pork
-BBQ Sauce of Choice
-Frozen corn
-Cheese Combo: Pepperjack, Mozz, Colby Jack
-Garnishes such as sour cream, tomato, lettuce
-Cooking oil

You can pretty much fill the taco shell with anything you want.  My favorite one had pulled pork, corn, BBQ sauce, all 3 cheeses, and tomato.

You want about 1-2 inches of oil in a skillet. Heated to about medium high (7.5 on our electric stove).  Mom heated it until dropping a drip of water in it sizzled. Fold the top and bottom down on the tortilla and roll it over to make a chimichanga look.  You will probably need to stick a toothpick through it.

Fry unil it reaches desired golden brownness, flipping it occassionally. Garnish as desired.

Words CANNOT describe how fantastically yummy these were.  I would highly suggest starting out with one per person, they are extremely filling, especially with a side.

For the rice, we just mixed a little salsa and corn in with minute rice for a quick side.

Really you can use this same theory on any leftover meat you have or anything you want to throw in them. 

Happy crafting!

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The Coolest Toaster Ever

 If you are on the go, or just love egg mcmuffins, I really think you should consider this Westbend toaster.

It makes eggs AND toast, at the same time.  How cool is that?

When my sister first got it, I made fun of it.  But I tried a samich from it, and it is pretty darn tasty.  You just plop your eggs in the pseudo skillet, add in the amount of water the cup says, and put the lid on for it to steam away.

My sister said it does hardboiling, poaching, over easy, etc.  It really is pretty cool!

It has settings for all kinds of fun combinations, and I see no reason why you co

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Knitted Headband with a Bow (using hat loom)

You need 2 colors of yarn and a hat loom kit.  I used the large hoop and the second to the smallest loop, but the smallest one would also be perfectly acceptable.

You will tie the yarn colors to the side peg to keep them in place on the large loom and loop them both around the pegs in two rows to start out with.  Next, use the hook to take the bottom loop over the top, going all the way around.  When you later do this on the small one to make the bow, you might have to go back around the bottom loops and pull them all again to get everything.  It pretty much doubles the work, but it helps keep things nice and tight.

You will then scoot the loops down on the pegs, add another layer, bottom up and over the top again, pull the bottoms once you get all the way around and retighten, and repeat repeat repeat.

You will make it twice as long as you want the headband to be, because you will fold it and loop it back up.  Attach the very bottom of the headband back onto the pegs and pull the loops over when you have it to the length you want. 

I do something a little bit different than some, I don't cut my cord for the headband.  Instead, I leave a lot of extra string on there and use it to lace through the remaining row of loops and pop them off the pegs.

I end where my starter string still is and then tie them together.  Keep in mind that you don't want to pull this cord real tight unless you need it tight.  You don't want it to cut in your head.  The good thing is, a little bit of tightness really helps to keep it in place.

You will pretty much do all this same process for the little bow. On this one, once I got all the loops up and over, I had to go through pulling the bottom row all the way around to get it all back tight.  It was a little frustrating.

But the end product is SUPER CUTE, so I will tolerate it.

 I really think I just wanted the picture of the mini loop and the grey bow because it made my rippy jeans look like cool kid jeans.  ;)

Anyway, I opted to make the bow solid grey because the band is so loud.  I pulled the middle of the bow down and wrapped grey yarn around it a lot to make a big center in it.  I kept a lot of length on the end, and used the remaining yard to essentially sew it to the headband with the little needle thing in my kit.

My mom is still currently detangling my grey yarn nightmare that I created in all of this... thanks mom!

I tied the string around the back through a headband loop to secure it.  If you don't want the bow to move, you will want to go through the sides of it to keep them in place.  Don't worry too much about placement so much as angle, you can always readjust where it is on your head.

I spent a solid ten minutes thinking about where on the headband I wanted it only to realize that it did not matter as I could just turn it on my head.  I will save you the trouble.  Haha.

Forgive me for not going to great lengths to look all fancy for headband pictures.  Spring Break includes a whole lot of not caring on my part when it comes to things like...makeup.

Pink is in no way shape or form one of my favorite colors, but I do really like neons.  AND I think the grey works well to tone down the pinksanity.

What the grey does not do is untangle easily...seriously how does this even happen?

Yarn apparently hates me.

I bought super soft yarn from Joann's and Michaels, only to discover Hobby Lobby had it cheaper last week...

Oh well.  I tried.

Anyway, to recap you can certainly use the smaller loop for the bow to make a cute and compact jaunty bow.  The instructions in my kit have ones for flowers, but you know how I am about anything that resembles a recipe.  It pretty much just isn't going to happen.  But I DO think the flower theory with one on the bigger small loop and another color from the smallest loop tied together would make a cute flower.

I love earwarmers, and I am a little sad that I did not learn this earlier in the season! However, I will be well prepared for next winter.  Warm ears, all day every day.

Happy crafting!

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