Peanut Butter Oven-Baked French Toast

Another recipe pilfered from my husband's grandma's 1944 home ec cookbook.  Back in the day, this recipe was called "Peanut Chops", another attempt to pass off an alternate protein source as being "just like meat!!".  The virtues of this recipe in 1944 were being inexpensive, offering protein when meat was rationed, and bearing a passing resemblance to actual pork chops.  Today's virtues are that it's inexpensive, freezer-friendly, kid-friendly, easy to cook (think oven-baked French toast), and it does actually feel like an oven-fried pork chop in your mouth...strange, huh?  Actually they remind me of a vegetarian oven-baked chicken nugget.

My husband is still commenting on how filling this meal was...I guess he had expected differently?  But with 18g of protein and 5 grams of fiber (or more, if you use whole wheat crackers and whole grain bread), who is surprised?

The original recipe calls for cutting 6 slices of rye bread into "fingers".  I used 1/2 a loaf of "cocktail rye", you know those tiny 3"x3" loaves you see up by the deli.  The slices are easy to handle and are perfectly sized for the recipe, but feel free to use regular slices of rye, or even pumpernickel. 

You can also substitute any nut or seed butter you wish to make this recipe allergy-friendly to those with peanut sensitivities.

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Crockpot Sloppy Joes & Mustard Bread buns

Spending some time slow-cooking makes this sloppy joe filling remarkably tender and blends the flavors in a way that just can't happen in 20 minutes on the stovetop.  The real beauty of this recipe (adapted from BH&G's Slower Cooker Recipes) is that it adapts to whatever your cooking time frame is...if you've got a whole day free before you need to serve it, you can do it completely in advance and reheat from fridged or frozen...if you've got just a little time to prep and more to cook, just measure, assemble and freeze the ingredients to finish on Dinner Day...or if you're in between, you can cook the beef and onions and freeze it with the sauce to dump into the crockpot on Dinner Day.  Options, options, options!

This recipe makes A LOT of sloppy joe filling, so serve it for a crowd or serve half for dinner and freeze the remainder for another day.

I'm serving this tonight with Mustard Bread buns, a recipe adapted from one of James Beard's.  If you use a bread machine, add the ingredients in the order recommended by your instruction manual and use the dough setting.  The bread dough can itself be frozen if desired.  If you freeze shaped rolls, simply thaw them at room temp, let them rise until doubled in size (if you take them out of the freezer in the morning, they should be good by afternoon) and bake them off.

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St. Patty's Day Redux

Who didn't make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day?  Anyone?  OK, well, you over there on I Don't Do Silly Holidays Island and your friend in Corned Beef Is Gross City, you two can stop reading now.

Unless you made it for a party, I bet there were some leftovers.  I'm putting my corned beef leftovers into a cheese ball (!!) and into a Reuben flavored macaroni and cheese casserole.  The hubbie loves reubens, the kids love mac and cheese, I have leftover corned beef and thousand island dressing...winners all round! 

I especially like this type of M&C recipe because you don't have to make a roux-based cheese sauce to bathe the pasta in.  It winds up being less work on the front end and slightly more work on the back end as you have to cook the finished casserole longer on account of the eggs, but I think having less prepwork is an advantage here.
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