Apple almond mini muffins (GFCF, dye-free)

These have become a breakfast favorite.

They're dead easy to make, but they do require spensy almond meal.  Here's the neat thing...the recipe is basically a densely filled baked quiche.  Predominantly an egg base with finely milled/grated stuff suspended heavily within.  GF oatmeal can substitute for part of the almond meal if you so desire (Bob's Red Mill has certified GF oatmeal; McCann's...my preferred oatmeal brand, gf or not, processes in dedicated facilities but does not have an official GF certification).

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Cranberry jelly

My husband is a cranberry jelly fiend.  It's not a holiday meal (*a*n*y* holiday) without cranberry jelly. I love homemade cooking (duh, right?) but it's one thing he will not get on board with me making homemade.  Cuz nothing is as good as the slices of Ocean Spray canned cranberry jelly. Pthbthbthb.

This year, I found a game-changing recipe.  It's dye-free (important at our house these days, though I don't know for sure whether canned cranberry jelly typically has artificial dyes...didn't buy any this year, didn't check), and uses honey instead of refined sugar.  Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, loved it.  The baby, the boys, my husband, even the especially picky eaters at my table.  It does like strongly of honey, unlike commercial canned jelly which tastes like white sugar. So if honey's not your thing, you might try using a lighter-flavored sweetening syrup like agave or rice syrup.

I did not do this insanely genius thing from Food52, but the next time I make this recipe, I totally will.  It will make it an even better "copycat" of the store bought jelly.  I'm curious to try Food52's pectin-based recipe vs. this gelatin-based recipe, but either way, molding the jelly in a recycling tin can is brilliant.

After you simmer the cranberries for their juice, you're left with a fair bit of cranberry squish.  Use it again to flavor a simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar) for cocktails, or put the cranberry squish in with a bottle of vodka to make flavored vodka (also for cocktails).  Or add some to your next smoothie.  Just be advised that cranberries have very little natural sweetness, so you'll have to compensate with your other flavors and ingredients.

Original recipe from: The Kid-Friendly ADHD & Autism Cookbook by Pamela Compart

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Honey Oatmeal Pie

Warning: big fat brag to come.

The honey pie is the one dead center on the table

I won a blue ribbon at the State Fair for this pie this year ::pop my collar:: I'm quite pleased with that fact alone, but even better is that the honey pie category was the one of the few in which this year's Grand Champion pie maker (and one of the top ribbon winners for DECADES at the State Fair) entered and did not take 1st place.  So good on me :-D.

Bragging done now.

I think the "secret" to this pie is three-fold...

1) Use very flavorful honey.  The best is going to be a locally harvested honey rather than a commercially-available national brand.  I use a wildflower honey from a producer two counties south of where I live. You can use this locator to find local producers in your area.

2) Use quick-cooking steel oats instead of conventional rolled oats.  Rolled oats will come out, well, mushy-feeling.  You know, like oatmeal.  The steel-cut oats will be chewy and a bit like finely chopped nuts.

3) Use bourbon in your pie crust.  Oh yeah.  Trust me.

I totally understand using a prepared crust (in fact, I have posted several times about using those guys without *any* shame *at all*), but I have sworn off store-bought crusts personally.

Not because I am a crust snob though.  I am a homemade crust convert because a) as a competitive baker, it seemed appropriate to learn how to make them and because b) I found a recipe I cannot screw up and because c) all brands of store-bought crusts I have found have artificial dyes in them which we have cut out of my son's/our diet.

So use whatever you like, but really, the homemade crust will make a difference...not so much because of the homemade-ness of it, but because you can put bourbon in it.

And really, the pie itself is so freaking easy to make that you have plenty of energy for making homemade crust.

Finally, you may not, absolutely not, make this pie on the bottom shelf with something else baking away above it.  I didn't have a fancy scientific convection-current-tracking setup in my oven, but I'm *pretty* sure that having something on the top shelf forces heat back down into the pie that would otherwise move and circulate more freely.  I am *completely* sure that if you try this, you will wind up with a pie volcano.  I screw up so you don't have to.

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Honey Beer Chicken

Adapted from Cooking Light.

Delicious!  And freezable!  I'm starting to make and freeze meal kits in preparation for the arrival of Kiddo #3 and this one is on the list.  I made a kit of this recipe for my husband to make for dinner one night that I worked late...he said it was easy to make, easy to follow and tasted great.  So it's even husband-proof ;)

My grocery store had 4 lb. bags of frozen chicken breasts on sale, so I'm making two kits of this recipe along with 4 kits of gumbo.  If you wanted not to have extra of anything hanging around (like 4 oz. of beer out of a 12 oz. bottle), plan to make 3 honey beer chicken kits.  Fortunately, I have a willing volunteer to take care of the extra for me today (the aforementioned test cook/Dear Husband).

Btw, I completely spaced out and didn't take a *single* photograph of this dish, any of the 3 opportunities I've had.  Go see the Cooking Light site for a beautifully food-styled picture.

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Healthy Sweet Potato Pie

I am told this pie was delicious, but alas, I didn't get to try any before my 1.5yo penetrated the kitchen countertop forcefield and pulled the cake dome down, ruining both the cake dome and pie.

Before Destructo Toddler

The recipe came in a mailer about women's health or heart health or something like that from a local hospital (who would be sending you recipes chock full o' fat and calories if they were really serious about drumming up business).  It includes several Miracles of Modern Chemistry.  I've retained one or two calorie/carb-reducing elements and reverted the remainder to "real food" which is IMHO where "healthy" really lives.


After Destructo Toddler

Because there are no eggs in the recipe, it can be stored at room temperature for a few days rather than in the fridge.  You can also freeze it for future service, and perhaps even serve it frozen in an ice-cream-cake sort of way (didn't get to try that one, but I had planned to).

If you happen to bake a lot of pies, these are very nice for weighting a prebaked pie shell to prevent bubbles in the crust.  I used dry beans for a number of years, but the ceramic beads do a better job.

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Beef and berry stew

WHAT kind of stew??  (I can hear some readers asking already)

Beef stew.  With blackberries.  Calm down, it's delicious.  And easy with only 5 ingredients.  And seasonal.  And a lesson in our nation's cultural heritage.  According to the Frugal Gourmet (from whom the original recipe comes), this is a Sioux recipe that would have been made with bison meat charred briefly over an open fire with wild berries picked at the height of summer. 

This is a great recipe for me as my blackberry plants only produce a handful of berries at a time toward the end of the season, where most blackberry recipes call for several cups.  If you use frozen berries and plan to make freezer kits, one 12 oz. bag will make 2 batches of this stew so go ahead and get double the beef and broth and make one batch for dinner and one batch into a freezer kit.

Stew beef is a more convenient choice than a slab o' buffalo IMHO. And cooking it in a crockpot instead on the stovetop is a far more convenient choice.

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