Sweet Potato Corn Muffins

Things didn't go exactly as planned this week. Husband was sick and not in the mood for hearty eating. I had a few sweet potatoes left that I was planning on making oven fries with, but instead I figured I'd try to make something less perishable from them. Never mind all the baking stuff I already have around the house. I found a recipe for Sweet Potato Cornbread and was off to the races.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 sweet potatoes or 1 (16 ounce) can sweet potatoes
• 2 eggs
• 6 tablespoons milk
• 3 tablespoons oil (I used canola)

Mix wet ingredients and dry ingredients separately; pour into 12 muffin cups. Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Notes:
-Given my repeated failures baking any kind of cornbread with GF flour, I used regular old wheat baking flour just like the recipe says.
-I baked three sweet potatoes at 375 degrees for 45 minutes and probably should have kept them in there for an hour.
-I added a half teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.
-I used light brown sugar, not regular sugar, and probably used closer to 3/4 a cup than a half.

The result was a little nutty, a little sweet, perfect for breakfast or a dinner side. I'll definitely make these again someday.

The Super Salad

BEHOLD. The Super Salad.

It contains all things good and delicious:

Spinach

Bacon

Hardboiled eggs

Avocado

Tomato

Carrot

Celery

Kalamata olives

Olive oil

Vinegar

It is the world's best and easiest-to-make dinner, if you make the bacon and eggs ahead of time. 

EVEN BETTER with pepitas, parsley, peppers, and broccoli--but that's the beauty of the super salad. 

No Onions, No Garlic: Comforting Crockpot Beef Chili

Ingredients and prices:

2 lbs of organic ground beef at Whole Foods. $16! :( this had better serve a goddamn village when I'm done.
28 oz can crushed tomatoes ($1.99)
16 oz can organic diced tomatoes, sodium-free ($2.99)
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 chopped green bell pepper
2 zucchini, grated
1 16 oz bag dried kidney beans, hot soaked
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 tsp oregano
4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

My last chili recipe used twice the spices and no sugar, and had paprika. I omitted paprika because I found some kind of insect nesting in my paprika I bought from Kalustyan's ew ew ew ew. To do: find spice jars.

The beef was frozen, so I put it in the slow cooker first on high and added the crushed tomatoes for a couple of hours.

Once it was tender enough to be broken into pieces, I added the vegetables and spices.

After about an hour I added the hot soaked kidney beans. (Note: Beans are very high FODMAP foods. Omit if to reduce FODMAPs.)

Then I cooked on low for another three hours. Truth be told, it could have used more time to soften up the beans... or I could have just used canned beans. But overall, it turned out great.

Serving suggestions: in a bowl with cheese and tortilla chips; in a taco with avocado and cheese; on a baked sweet potato (pictured above) with cheese; on a hot dog!

Meal plan for the week 1/20

Here goes yet another week of meal planning. It's a short week, since Monday was MLK Day, and doesn't count in terms of the daily grind of work/food/work/food. This week we're experimenting with adding beans back into the diet, and I thought a hearty bowl of beef chili would be just the thing for the third week of January. Still no onions and no garlic - that looks like it might be a permanent rule around here.

Breakfast:

* Coffee with homemade peppermint mocha creamer
*Yogurt
*Chocolate zucchini banana bread

Lunch:
* Super salads (spinach, celery, carrots, tomatoes, cilantro, olives, green and red bell peppers) with hardboiled eggs and bacon, and croutons and pepitas

Dinner:
* Ground beef chili (+ kidney beans) Use to make:
 (a) tacos with cheese and avocado
(b) Chili stuffed peppers
(c) Beef chili scramble (chili + eggs)
(d) Baked sweet potatoes with chili
(e) Chili cheese sweet potato fries

Grocery list:

For a whopping $100.67, here are the groceries for the week (crossed out things I couldn't find)

3 each Green and red bell peppers
4 Zucchini
1 small bag dried kidney beans
6 Sweet potatoes
Dozen eggs
1 bunch bananas
1 carton spinach
1 bunch organic carrots
1 bag celery
3 fresh tomatoes
1 avocado
1 bunch cilantro
1 bag shredded cheddar cheese
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
Corn tortillas
Bacon
Croutons
3 Fage 2% berry yogurts
1 small whole milk
peppermint extract
Coffee
Canned pumpkin (for dog)
Bread for sandwiches
Deli meats for sandwiches
2 bags Garden of Eatin tortilla chips
2 boxes Kind bars
Unsalted raw pumpkin seeds/pepitas


(Ground beef for chili previously purchased at Whole Foods; in freezer)

Blueberry Banana Ginger Breakfast Bread

So, what to do with all my leftovers?

After some intrepid Googling, I found this recipe for Blueberry-Banana Muffins with ginger.

I adapted it to work with the ingredients I had on hand, and my laziness. Namely, substituting rice flour for whole wheat flour, fresh ginger for dried, adding more sugar, and using whole flaxseed instead of ground because I didn't feel like grinding.

This is NOT a low-FODMAP food, due to all that wheat flour and who knows what else. But it was delicious. In fact, it only made for 4 servings. Cost-wise it's a disaster on its own, but given I'd already bought all these ingredients for other purposes at some point, it worked out well.

Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats

½ cup all-purpose unbleached wheat flour

½ cup brown rice flour

¼ cup whole flaxseed

1½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tbsp candied (crystallized) ginger, very finely diced

1 egg

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 tsp fresh mashed ginger

¼ cup canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1½ cups ripe bananas, mashed (about 3 large)

1 carton fresh blueberries

Instructions:

1. Combine dry ingredients (oats, flours, flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda, salt, candied ginger) and set aside. 

2. In a new bowl, beat sugars, egg, oil, and vanilla extract; add ginger and banana and mix well. 

3. Mix together with dry ingredients. Fold in blueberries. 

4. Pour mixture into a well-greased bread loaf pan. 

5. Bake at 350 for 1 hour and 10 minutes or so. 

It was very, very moist, and could have been cooked a little longer. And perhaps taken fewer blueberries. But it was good! Success! 

Friday: Chicken Vegetable Soup with Brown Rice

As we draw to the end of the week, I feel like I've been doing pretty good on my grocery haul. Thanks to some scary flu symptoms I downed several gallons of chicken bone broth yesterday (seasoned with ginger and lemon) and I feel infinitely better. I still have three eggs, two lemons, some ginger, some olives, a handful of salad greens, half a head of broccoli, one carrot, four stalks of celery, one tupper of cooked chicken, half a jar of chicken juice, and one unopened carton of blueberries in the fridge. The goal is to "spend down" all the perishables every week, so we're doing ok. But after today, I think we'll be in better shape, because I'm making SOUP.

When I was growing up my grandma always used to collect any uneaten salad from family gatherings and take it home to make a soup. The thought terrified us kids. While I don't hope to go quite that far, I like to think this soup draws some inspiration from her thriftiness.

Leftovers.

Ingredients:

1 carrot, chopped finely
2 stalks celery, chopped finely
1 tupperware of precooked chicken meat
2-3 cups chicken juice from roasted chicken (note: salty!)
1/3 cup frozen corn
1 head broccoli, chopped
Handful of salad greens and parsley
Bay leaf
Peppercorns
1/2 cup brown rice

Instructions:

1. In a large pot, bring chicken juice, 6-8 cups water, carrot, celery, chicken, frozen corn and brown rice to a boil. Add bay leaf and peppercorns, reduce heat to a simmer.
2. Throw in chopped broccoli, salad greens, and parsley. Cover and set timer to 20 min. After 20 min, remove cover and simmer for another 10-15 min or until rice is done.
3. Serve, with croutons if that's your thing, and eat.

Optional: drop an egg into the bowl before serving; add more salt & pepper & parmesan to taste.

FACTS AND FIGURES 

Prep time: <10 min. 

Servings: 4-6
Agony rating: 3/10. Cooking needs watching/multiple steps.
Taste and stuff: It's a little bland, but light, and surprisingly filling.

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

Again, it's hard to parse out the cost of the ingredients since these were all remnants from other recipes this week, but it's mostly about the cost of the chicken. $10? $12? $15? I have no idea. 

Now, what to do with the leftover blueberries and ginger? (Edit: solution found.)

Wednesday: Chicken Egg Drop Soup with Ginger (Low FODMAP)

I've gotten into the habit of cooking a whole chicken every Sunday, and saving the juice/meat/bones for uses later in the week. Last Sunday I made both a huge batch of bone broth (using frozen bones from 3 chickens, 1 turkey, set at 24 hours in the crockpot) and also made a whole roast chicken in the crockpot (1 organic chicken, rub with salt and pepper, set on low for 8 hours) I'm having fun coming up with uses for all of it.

To top it all off I came down with some sort of bug, and it being January and all, it's the perfect time for variations on chicken soup.

I drew on this post from the Kitchn for inspiration and added a few other goodies, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. It's a little on the light side for dinner, but served with the right side dish could make for a good staple. 

Ingredients (per serving):

2 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup precooked chicken meat

1 egg, whisked

Crushed fresh ginger to taste

Optional:
Handful of salad greens

Fresh squeezed lemon juice to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Soy sauce to taste

Hot sauce to taste

Green onions (not for low-FODMAP diets)

Instructions:

1. Heat up chicken broth and chicken meat. Add ginger, salt and pepper, salad greens if you're using them, and stir. Bring to a boil and turn off burner.

2. Stir in whisked egg.

3. Add lemon juice, soy sauce, hot sauce, and anything else your heart desires and your gut can tolerate.

4. Serve and eat fast.

FACTS AND FIGURES 

Prep time: 10 min.

Servings: 1
Agony rating: 2/10. 
Taste and stuff: 8/10. Bonus points for being super healthy and warming!

*COSTS OF STUFF I HAD TO BUY SPECIAL*

It's hard to parse out the cost of the ingredients, but I'll approximate this was $2 worth of chicken and stock, $0.70 per egg, and $0.50 for little dribs and drabs of everything else - or $3.20 per serving. A little more expensive than I'd thought, but it's mostly about the chicken.