Chips and Salsa for pennies!

I am huge into hitting the discount racks at the supermarket. The produce rack is my favorite!  Most of the time, the produce it totally unblemished and in perfect condition. I don't know what their criteria is for things like apples, but I would say I have only found about 5% of the apples having something like a dime sized bruise on them. Otherwise I am able to run away with pounds and pounds of honeycrisps, galas, a range of organics, grannys, etc. Most of these apples usually run for about $2.50/lb and I am getting them at 49 cents a pound!  

The other day I came away with 25 pounds of apples for $12.  Then a mixture of tomatoes, lemons,  and avocado's that would normally have been about $30 for just $6.50!

So.. today (my 12/12/12 birthday by the way) is produce processing day!  
Usually I come home and fill my dehydrator with apple slices and make apple sauce, but the tomatoes won't keep as long, so I needed to do something with the 7 pounds of tomatoes I had!  

I decided to throw a bunch into the dehydrator to make "sun dried" tomatoes. I sliced them about 1/4 inch and placed them on the trays, then sprinkled them with a bit of salt and some dried basil. 

I also have a bunch of jalapenos I had picked up last week. I am planning on making chipotle out of them, but need to make a smoker for that and have a full day available to tend them. So, I figured I would use up some of them. I found a recipe for jalapeno salsa.  Very easy!

I took 

• 6 jalapenos and just cut the stems off (I decided to leave the seeds in order to make a HOT salsa! If you want it more mild, remove the seeds)
• quartered 6 large tomatoes
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• 1 small onion quartered
• salt
• sugar

I  rubbed the peppers and tomatoes with a little olive oil and put them into a couple large glass baking dishes at 400° for about a half hour. Then after they cooled a bit threw them into the food processor with the garlic, onion and about a tsp of salt. I tweaked it a bit with a smidge more salt and a little bit of sugar to cut the acid and Viola! Salsa!

Well.. now I needed something to have the salsa with.... and sooooooo I made corn chips! I couldn't believe how easy these were. 

• 1 cup of cornmeal
• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1/2 c boiling water
• salt to taste (about 1 tsp)

  I spread this out on a parchment lined cookie tray and placed another piece of parchment over it so I could smish it really thin.You may need to add more corn meal, or more water to get it to a spreadable consistency.  I scored it into corn chip shapes, then baked at 400° for about 10-15 min. I did one batch that wasn't quite thin enough and they didn't quite get crispy. 

Turned out to be pretty good if I do say so myself!  Salsa (like granola is something you can play with. You can make it chunkier, smoother, add green or red bell peppers, maybe red onion. I wish I had some chipotle to add to it! Have fun with it 

Teaberry (Wintergreen) Muffins and Tea

I spent a couple hours yesterday tromping around the woods gathering teaberry berries and leaves with the intent of making muffins and tea. 

At first, I had my plan that I would gather the required 1 cup of berries on my way out into the woods, then I would gather leaves on my way back. After I had gathered about 3/4 cup of berries, I realized, I really should be gathering the greens at the same time!

So.. I have determined the most efficient way of gathering teaberry.  Basically, when you see a berry (which is relatively few and far between compared to the vast landscape of greenery).. just pull the whole thing up!  These plants will definitely NOT suffer a loss if they are pulled up by the root. I originally just tried to pull the leaves along with the berry, but inevitably the whole plant would come up most of the time. I found that if I just put the plant stem between my cupped fingers and pulled up, I could strip off the green along with the berry. This turned out to be quite efficient and I was able to gather enough leaves and berries to make a large batch of tea and muffins. 

My page on teaberry will help you to identify the plant and give you information about the benefits if you want to attempt these adventures yourself. 


In order to make a medicinal tea:


Fresh leaves have to be fermented in water to develop the wintergreen in them. Pack a jar loosely with fresh leaves and cover it, set it in a warm place for several days until the water is bubbly. Warm the tea by setting it in a pan of hot water. This will be a strong, good-tasting minty tea. The leaves can be strained out and dried in order to use for a tea that won't be so strong. I will be putting them into the dehydrator to make a nice supply!


The muffin recipe I ended up with is:

• 1 cup oat flour
• 1 cup quinoa flour (you can create both of these yourself. I use my grain mill, but you could use a food processor or a coffee grinder)
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 cup vanilla almond milk (you can use your preferred milk whether it be cow, soy, etc)
• 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup washed teaberry berries

Mix flours, baking powder, sugar and salt. In separate bowl mix egg, milk and oil. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix well. (if you use quinoa flour I suggest letting it sit a bit to give the quinoa a chance to soften up a bit) Fold in berries. 

Fill greased muffin tins 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Oh wait, that's Stephen King. I saw him live last night in Lowell :)
.. He doesn't have anything to do with teaberry.. it's just cool!

Chewy Granola Bars

I have a friend who's daughter has many many food allergies. She had said she would love to try my granola and then mentioned that her daughter loves granola bars. So... I decided to try my hand at granola bars. Personally, I like the chewy granola bars over crunchy. 

Whenever I try something, I check out a whole bunch of recipes, and then tweak it into what I want to make. One thing I have learned from reading recipes on line, is to read the comments!  I have found soooo many recipes where people comment saying that it is an AMAZING recipe.. but they changed this, this, this and that.  I have literally found a few comments where they changed every single ingredient!  .... ... ... 

Anyway, I decided I would just come up with my own recipe and see how it goes. 

First consideration for this particular recipe is that it doesn't have any nuts, corn (including corn syrup), egg, or coconut. Then, I wanted to keep it wheat gluten free.. so no wheat flour.  And of course I want to keep the refined sugar down. 

So.. here is what I came up with:

• 4 cups Old Fashioned Oats
• 1 cup Oat Flour (just grind some oats.. I have a mill.. but you can use a food processor or coffee grinder)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon (I used freshly grated cause I'm all about cinnamon)
• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup apple sauce
• 1 cup honey
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325°

Use a 9x13 pan. I line it with parchment (cause parchment ROCKS) but you can either line it with aluminum foil that you then grease, or just grease the pan. But.. lining it is helpful because you can remove the entire pan of bars in order to slice them easier. 

Mix oats, oat flour, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large bowl.

Melt butter, applesauce, honey and brown sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat. Stir, stir, stir until it JUST starts to bubble, then remove from heat and add in vanilla. 

Pour wet mixture over dry and mix it up really well. Let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes to let it really soak into the oats. If you use quick oats you may not need to do this. 

Fold in any add-ins you would like, dried fruits, nuts, chocolate chips etc. I  took some chocolate I had made and just put it on top of half of the tray to see how that would work. 

Press FIRMLY (when I say firmly I mean STUFF IT IN!) into lined pan. If it isn't packed down well, the bars will end up being crumbly. I take another piece of parchment and put it over then push down with something flat and wide.. or even another pan. (I read one review where a woman took another cookie sheet and STOOD on it.... ... ..yeah that's not gonna happen here)

Anyway.. bake for 18-20 minutes (or until it turns golden brown) You can take it out half way and press again if you like.

I smished it again after I took it out cause it seemed to have fluffed a lot. And then I actually kept smishing as it cooled. 

Let it cool about 10 minutes and cut, then let it cool completely. 

They are nice and chewy! Not crumbly at all!  In fact they are a good consistency that can be shaped a bit. So you can wrap them up in wax paper or something and send it off in a lunch box :)

Quinoa flour? What!? My try at Quinoa Apple Muffins

I just LOVE when I make a recipe from scratch, and end up having to make the actual INGREDIENTS from scratch too!

I can't remember now what I was looking for, but came across a recipe for Quinoa Apple Muffins.  I am trying to go the way of gluten free, and so this intrigued me. I have quinoa on my shelf... I have apples... I like muffins... hmmmmmmmmm

Well, the recipe called for quinoa flour. THAT I did NOT have on my shelf, but... I DO have my handy dandy trusty coffee grinder that I use for EVERYTHING!  SOOOOOO I made myself the flour.  The original recipe called for 2 1/2 cups of it, and I really didn't want to use up that much in case it turns out to be like the dandelion soup (a whole story for another day). So, I decided I would halve the recipe. It seems that a half cup of quinoa ends up yielding about 3/4 cup of quinoa flour. 

The recipe also called for applesauce. Of course I used the last of my applesauce just yesterday and had just washed out the jar. That was definitely not a big deal since I have a HUGE supply of apples at the moment. So, I made some applesauce and used 3 different types of apples and maple syrup instead of any sugar. (oh, and for the record, I always only use PURE maple syrup... the other stuff isn't even anything maple .. its just grossness)

The original recipe also said something about how it probably wouldn't rise, and so to fill the tins right to the top. Well, my Acorn Banana Bread raised nicely and that had both baking powder and baking soda in it. This recipe only called for baking soda, so I decided I would add in some baking powder also. 

I think that was the right choice :)

Ok, so here is what the recipe ended up being:

• ½ cup apple sauce
• ¼ cup olive oil (original recipe called for vegetable but I don't have any)
• 1/3 cup PURE maple syrup
• 2 eggs
• 1 small grated apple
• ¼ vanilla
• 1¼ cup quinoa flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ salt
• ½ tsp cinnamon 

Preheat oven to 350°F/175°C.

Mix together oil and maple syrup. Beat in eggs. Stir in applesauce, grated apple and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, stir together the remaining dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet mixture, and stir by hand until well combined.

Pour into a greased or lined muffin tray 3/4 full. 

Bake for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

So, they rose nicely, the consistency is PERFECT! They are not crumbly or anything!  I think perhaps a smidge more salt maybe, or I might try using butter instead of oil, or half oil, half butter. 

Mom gave it a good review. In fact I had to send her away and tell her she couldn't have anymore!

original recipe

Acorn Banana Bread

Acorn Banana Bread

1 cup acorn flour
2 tsp baking powder 
¾ cup corn meal
½ tsp salt 
¼ tsp baking soda 
1/3 cup butter, softened
2 eggs, beaten
3 bananas, mashed
1/3 cup maple syrup 
¼ cup honey


Grease an 8x4 inch loaf pan. Preheat oven to 350° F. 
In medium bowl sift all dry ingredients. Flour, corn meal, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
Mix eggs, butter, bananas and honey in large bowl and slowly add flour mixture and beat until well blended. 
Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake about 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

 (You can also use wheat flour instead of acorn flour. Also walnuts or pecans in place of acorns and it’s still delicious).

I used the mix of honey and maple syrup because well, I only had 1/4 cup of honey. So, I think it came out a bit sweeter than a straight honey recipe would. If you are going to use just honey, use 2/3 cup. 

It's a little crumbly, which I believe is because it is gluten free. I might look into adding things such as xantham gum, arrowroot, or.. maybe just another eggwhite!  

I used my mother, my son and one of his friends as taste testers and they all liked it a lot. When the boys were told what it was they were REALLY impressed and said "Well knowing what it is, it REALLY is good!"