Category — Side Dishes

For the last several years, my family has bypassed our usual sweet potato recipes in favor of this sweet potato casserole with a brown sugary, strudel-like topping.  It would make a great addition to your Thanksgiving recipes!  In fact, if you’re expecting a crowd, I’d make a double batch…there are rarely any leftovers on this one.

Sweet Potato Crunch

Base:

• 3 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup milk

Combine all above ingredients in a large mixing bowl, blend well, and place in a square baking dish.  Set aside, and prepare topping.

Topping:

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3 tbsp. melted butter
• 1/2 cup pecans

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, and blend with a fork.  Mixture will be crumbly.  Sprinkle on top of sweet potato mixture.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes, or until bubbly on the sides and topping is crisp.

No Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a heaping helping of piping hot and buttery mashed potatoes.  There are several ways to make delicious mashed potatoes.  Here are a few variations on “mashed potato recipes”.

Old-Fashioned Mashed Potatoes: Mashed potatoes made with a hand potato masher, like the one above, will give you that irregular, a little bit lumpy, texture in your mashed potatoes.  For those who want mashed potatoes like Grandma used to make, this is probably the way to go.  Peel potatoes, boil, and drain before mashing.  Add milk, butter and salt to taste.

[Read more →]

If you’re trying to turn back the hands of time, you may want to give blueberries a try.  These plump and royal-hued berries should be considered little gems when it comes to maintaining a youthful appearance and good nutrition.

Here are just a few of the health benefits of eating blueberries:

• Blueberries contain more antioxidants than any other fruit.   Eating blueberries wards off cancers and heart disease because of their high concentration of anthocyanin.
• Blueberries slow the aging process, preserve eyesight, and help us stay mentally alert.
• Blueberries prevent urinary tract infections.

Here’s a recipe that will help you add blueberries to your diet!

Banana Blueberry Bran Muffins

• 4 ripe bananas, pureed in blender or food processor
• 1 package frozen blueberries
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 2 eggs
• 3 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups oat bran
• 1 quart of buttermilk (see below for substitute info)
• 4 cups Kellogg’s All Bran cereal
• 2 1/2 cups flour

In a large mixing bowl, combine bananas, blueberries, walnuts, eggs, baking soda, sugar, vanilla, and oat bran until coarsely blended.  Then, add buttermilk, cereal, and flour.  Stir until thoroughly mixed.  Fill muffin pans 2/3 full and bake at 375 degrees F for approximately 30 minutes.

No buttermilk?  You can make your own buttermilk substitute in 5 minutes.  To make 1 cup of buttermilk, add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to a measuring cup.  Then fill to the one cup line with regular milk.  Gently stir, then set aside for 5 minutes before using.  The muffin recipe above requires 1 quart (4 cups) of buttermilk, so you’ll need to do this four times, or quadruple the recipe.

Here are many more blueberry recipes.

In my never ending quest to squeeze more veggies into my family’s diet, I was reading the other day about the health benefits of sweet potatoes.  Turns out these funny looking root vegetables are an excellent source of vitamin A, and a good source of both calcium and vitamin C. In addition, the antioxidants contained in sweet potatoes are linked to helping the body heal itself, and fight cancer and other diseases.  This article on sweet potatoes even rates them as the most nutritious vegetable in existence.

You can make baked sweet potatoes in the oven, or even in your microwave, just like a regular baked potato, or mash them.  I’m also going to try this skillet recipe:

Skillet Sweet Potatoes

• 2 tsp. olive oil
• 2 whole sweet potatoes
• 1 cup sliced onions
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock
• Salt and pepper

Peel sweet potatoes with a vegetable peeler.  Using a mandolin slicer or a knife, slice the potatoes into 1/2 inch strips, and then the onion into medium-thick slices.

In a nonstick skillet, cook onions in oil for 5 minutes, or until softened.  Next, add sweet potatoes and vegetable stock.  Cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes until potatoes are tender.   Serves 2-4.

Sweet potatoes pair well with pork dishes, or baked chicken breasts. Here are more sweet potato recipes.

Did you know you can transform your favorite deviled egg recipes into spooky eyeballs for Halloween?  I’ve done this for my Halloween party for the last few years, and they always get gobbled up pretty fast.  With a little bit of ketchup and stuffed olives, it’s a snap.

In a large saucepan or stockpot, boil enough eggs to make the desired amount of deviled eggs.  Adding some salt to the boiling water will make it easier to remove the shells later.  You can make your deviled egg filling from any recipe, but here’s the recipe I use:

• A dozen hard-boiled eggs, peeled
• 1 can deviled ham (4.5 ounces)
• 1/4 cup sweet relish
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 4 tsp. mustard
• 12 green olives (stuffed with pimientos)
• Ketchup

Cut boiled and peel eggs in half lengthwise, remove yolks, and set aside whites.  Place egg yolks in a small mixing bowl and mash with a fork.  Add ham, mayo, relish, and mustard.  Mix well, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Fill egg whites with filling.  Top with olive halves to create the eyeball look.  If you want to make bloodshot eyeballs, use ketchup to create blood vessels.  This is easily done by placing the desired amount of ketchup in a disposable plastic bag.  Make a small hole in the bag and use it like an icing bag.  You can also poke a hole in a fast food ketchup packet. If you’re taking these to a Halloween party, I  recommend using a deviled egg carrier, as they like to slide around.

The photo above shows sliced black olives with a dot of ketchup in the center rather than stuffed green olives, and they’ve colored their egg filling green.  Anything goes here!

Here are more Halloween recipes for an especially fun Halloween night.

Lately, I’ve been trying to introduce more whole grain foods to our family’s menu.  I know the health benefits of whole grain foods are amazing, but we don’t like the ‘cardboard-ish’ texture of some of them.  I have found some delicious 100% whole wheat bagels that everyone likes, and even some whole grain toaster pastries that make a great quick breakfast, but I’m going to try to make my own whole wheat bread too.

If you have a bread machine, this looks like a very simple whole wheat bread recipe:

Whole Wheat Honey Bread

• 1 1/8 cups water
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
• 1/3 cup of honey
• 1 tbsp. dry milk powder
• 1 1/2 tbsp. shortening
• 1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast

Place all ingredients in the pan within your bread machine.  Following the directions for your particular model, adjust to whole wheat setting, and start. Source:  All Recipes.

Homemade macaroni and cheese always disappears quickly at my house.  When the weather turns a little chilly, my husband and I both take our turns in the kitchen whipping up our respective macaroni and cheese recipes. Whether you make it in a casserole dish, a sauce pan, or even the crock pot, macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food.

Here’s one of our favorite recipes for macaroni and cheese:

• 1 package elbow macaroni (8 ounces)
• 1 container cottage cheese (12 ounces, small curd)
• Shredded cheddar cheese (8 ounce bag)
• 8 oz. sour cream
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• 1 cup dry bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

Cook macaroni according to package directions, and drain well using a collander.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Then, in a  9X13 baking pan, mix together cooked macaroni, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, and sour cream.  In a small mixing bowl, combine melted butter and bread crumbs and sprinkle over macaroni mixture.

Bake for 35 minutes, or until top is golden and bubbly around the edges.

I learned this simple recipe in a Parisian kitchen from a friend named Jacques. Apparently, it has been passed down for generations and once you make it you’ll see why. You will need:

• 1 bunch of Swiss chard
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped or pressed (with a garlic press)
• 1 medium sized tomato, chopped
• olive oil
• sea salt
• 1 lemon for juice
• 1 deep pot or pan with a lid

Wash the chard thoroughly (often there will be dirt stuck to it so make sure you give it a good scrub). Cut each stalk long ways down the middle, then chop the stalk and leaves into inch pieces (The leafy parts will be longer than the stalk parts but it will all be nice bite sized pieces once cooked). Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in the pot. Add the garlic and cook until translucent – do not let the garlic turn brown because it will become bitter! Add the tomato and cook for a minute or two. Add the chard and salt to taste. Stir then cover with the lid. Keep over medium heat for a few minutes. The steam will cook and shrink the chard. You’ll know it’s ready to eat once the leaves are floppy like cooked spinach. Stir it again to coat the chard with the tomatoes evenly. THE FINISHING TOUCH: This makes the dish so don’t skip this part! Serve it hot with the juice of a lemon slice squeezed over each portion. It’s so delicious you won’t believe you’re eating green vegetables!