Category Archives: health

Food, health, money saving, pulses, weight loss

Lentil Ball Base

Leave a comment

One thing we eat a ton of are pulses. Pulses are the best- high protein, high fiber, low fat, cheap and taste good. The perfect food, for us.

We have a little too many dry lentils in the pantry, so I played around with them and came up with a lentil base for ‘meatballs’. Take this base and add your favorite meatball add-ins to it, and enjoy!

It’s simple, hands-off, and easy. We use it a lot, because the leftovers are an asked for lunch – they go great in wraps.

Lentil Ball Base:

Serves four for dinner

1 cup dry lentils (about ½ a pound)

2+ cups water

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

1 chopped carrot

Put all ingredients in a pot and simmer covered about 30 minutes. Add water during cooking if they threaten to dry out.

this is all it is. Plus water

Strain them when they are done and allow to cool.

Done. You can mush the lentils on the side of the pot with a spoon.

Add

About ½ cup bread crumbs (you want the mix to stick together, so add ins can be gooey)

with bread crumbs mixed in

Whatever flavors you want

Form into balls I get 24-28 golf ball sized ones.

Bake at 350F sprayed with oil for about 30 minutes, turning once.

After they are baked, they can be reheated slowly in a sauce *gently* without falling apart.

That’s it.

Cheap, healthy, vegan, free of most allergens, and infinitely adaptable.

Food, health, money saving, scratch cooking

Foods to Take

Leave a comment

We do a lot of event over the course of the year. And a huge amount of them have delicious food offereingsin the form of food stands or food trucks. And that’s delicious. And convenient.

Some of the time.

Some of the time, you wait on line for half an hour for somthing that is ok at best,  you want something healthy and nothing is available, or you simply don’t want to spend money on a meal for everyone in your family.

What we generally do is put aside money for a treat (not nothing that we can make at home easily!) and bring our own food.

Now, bologna on Wonder  may be the stuff your ‘pack a lunch’ memories are founded on, chewing on the salty fluff while looking at food trucks is probably going to make you less satisfied.

My guys are going to UBCon this weekend. They are packing meals (as our son said ‘mom, you didn’t see the food prices!) So I will run a series of blog posts on the foods we’re making to make them feel just as spoiled as if they got special foods from the trucks.

And then they will spend the money they saved on a game or two.  🙂 Last year it was Affliction. I wonder what it will be this year.

 

desserts, health, scratch cooking, Uncategorized

Brown sugar cornstarch pudding.

Leave a comment

Well, if you know me, and I think you do by now, you know I am going to use that brown sugar from yesterday and make something today. The other day, Van, our son, had his tooth out, and I am making him brown sugar cornstarch pudding. It is more pale than a store bought one, because there is no coloring added, natural or otherwise. But it is a mild, clean, butterscotch flavored pudding.

Starting with 1/4 cup of butter in a double boiler. This was my grandfather’s. It has served our family well. Anyway, if you don’t have a double boiler, put a heatproof bowl over summering water.

Add 1/2 cup brown sugar and a generous pinch of salt, and mix until it is all smooth.

Meanwhile, I added a tsp of vanilla to 1 cup of milk and 3 tablespoons of cornstarch to 1/2 cup milk in a small jar with a lid.

Mix the vanilla milk with the butter sugar until smooth, and let warm up tightly cap the cornstarch milk and shake it like heck.

When the milk is warm, add the cornstarch milk while stirring. Cook until it thickens, about 5 minutes, stirring often, then pour into a bowl to chill. If you don’t want to have a skin form, top with plastic wrap. We love skin here, so no plastic for us!