Crock Pot Salisbury Steak

So I decided to make Salisbury steak. I totally forgot to take pictures! My husband has bought frozen tenderized steaks that I had to make something with. I cooked an onion & can of mushrooms in a pan until the onions turned clear and dumped them over 2 big steaks[they were frozen but thin enough I didn't worry about it] in the crock pot set on high. Then I heated 2.5 cups of beef broth [from a box - low sodium] in the pan whisking in enough powder of brown gravy mix. Once it began to thicken I dumped it over the steaks and popped the lid on the crock Cooked on high for an hour and then dropped to low for the last 90 minutes. Made mashed potatoes and called it dinner. I am sure we could have had another veggie but the gravy was SO amazingly awesome DH and I both has seconds of potatoes just to eat the gravy. The left over steak and gravy went to work with DH with bread for his lunch. He said it was amazing even re-heated.

It was not salty even with using the mix and the broth but you'll have to judge how your family likes their food.

My wonderful husband recently found Orrington Farms Brown Gravy Mix. It's soy free! We haven't had gravy mix in a few years since we noticed one by one the mixes we used to buy started becoming 'soy contaminated' as we say in our house. Not that I don't mind making my own gravy but sometimes you know you want that 'brown gravy' taste [think poutine - it's just not the same with something else] and I cannot seem to replicate it completely from scratch. Google them and check out their products. I know I'll be seeing what else they have to offer and will be buying this gravy mix again.


If you don't know what Poutine is or you've never had it. Try it! If you can't get cheese curd - grated mozzarella works well even if some fans might turn up their nose. Fries, cheese and gravy! Nom!!

Being normal

I usually hate the word normal. I was never normal growing up. I was too tall, too skinny, didn't like what the other kids liked. I wanted Star Trek toys for Christmas and didn't get them because I was a girl. My parents claimed I would grow out of my whole Star Trek thing. Then I met a guy debating Star Trek and we several years and hundreds of Trek debates later named our daughter after a Star Trek character. My husband and I were not normal. We were weird, nerds, geeks, losers.

Yet it breaks a mother's heart when you realize that the other kids don't see your child as normal. One boy tells my son he's allergic to him. My son is a strong advocate for himself at school. I am so amazed how he asks if there is soy. Yet when he tells me this other boy doesn't like him and says he's allergic to him. It breaks my heart. Just a whole big bunch. He's a sweet, amazingly smart, funny even if slightly annoying sometimes kid.

I know not everyone can like my kid. Not everyone likes me. That's life. Still. I won't admit to wanting to smack this kid I don't know. How dare you not like my baby. He's awesome.

What is awesome is my son says it's okay because he's got his friends and he names the friends he has who like him. That warms my heart.

Back to what made me think normal today.

My two year old is stilling on the floor in the front room happily enjoying a bag of animal crackers. What is more normal than that? Owls. Penguins. Elephants. She's making the animal noises and eating away. I find a bunny and tell her he's going to get into mischief. She smiles and eats him. Yep. Just like Mr. Rabbit who ended up in a pie. <3

Banana Bread

I had 2 bananas way past their prime so while dinner was in the oven I whipped up this banana bread to go in the crock pot. I recently got a 6 quart slow cooker so I can now bake my quick breads in a loaf cans I have instead of round baking dishes. The apple and pear puree replaces the egg and milk found in most typically recipes.

2 very ripe bananas mashed
4oz stage 2 pureed pears
4oz unsweetened apple sauce
1\4 cup oil [I used safflower]
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1\2 cup brown sugar
1\2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1\4 teaspoon salt

Mix wet and dry separately. Mix together. Don't worry about lumps. Pour into greased baking dish. You can bake in a crock pot by placing on an overturned bowl. Add some water [1\2inch to the bottom of the crock. Pop on the lid and bake on high for 3-3.5 hours. You'll know it's done same way you tell if it's done from the oven. Your whole house will smell like banana bread, a cake tester or tooth pick will come out clean from the middle. You can also bake in the oven at 350 for about an hour check it and rotate it if your oven typically needs that when baking.

This is about an hour into baking - the batter has doubled. See how the baking dish is sitting on an overturned bowl. I added maybe 1\2 inch of water. It was gone by the time the bread was done 3 hours later.




This was the bread after about 3 hours give or take 10 minutes. It was perfect. It bounced back and pulled away from the sides perfectly.

I'm not a baby

My daughter who's proud to be a 2 year old has declared baby food off limits. I had been slowly but surely using up the last of our baby food and not making new. It's hard through - trying to get food into her diet other ways. She's rejecting acorn squash apple sauce which made me feel so creative at the time. I guess this is life - now she wants big girl food all the time. Can't blame her.

I am going to try sweet potato fries again. I'm trying to find bigger safe noodles - alphabets are hard to scoop up and eat. Maybe I'll find stars or something.

She's doing really well - loves pears, peaches, apples, crackers.

We failed our lamb trial. I was wondering how much we'd be able to add to her diet when it's $6.87 a pound but it would have been nice to have an easy protein. I am thinking of trying Sunflower seed butter - see if that will work since it's a seed not a nut\legume.

In other news my son is five years old in a week! He refuses to have a party and does NOT want presents or anything else which will make him five. So once again I am keeping his birthday low key since he doesn't want a party. We'll see how this goes.

First tastes of Fall

Homemade Alphabet soup

I used beef broth which my husband loved and instead of actual tomatoes, tomato paste so the boys wouldn't complain about tomato pieces. Alphabet noodles because my son loves alphabet soup in the can and the car noodles get too mushy.


Canadian style baked beans. Even after soaking them for about 18 hours or so they took a long time. Next time I think I might boil them after soaking them overnight before adding them to the crock pot with the goodies. I did not use bacon or ham and they still tasted amazing.




This is the first Pumpkin Puree of the season. I steamed the tiny pumpkin in a pot on the stove only took about 25 minutes. Usually I do hard squash in the crock pot and it takes about 3.5 hours. She doesn't like it plain or flavored like pumpkin pie [cinnamon and sugar added] but she loves it mixed with apple sauce.

Muffins & Jam

So I had some blueberries past their prime - not good enough to eat fresh but not bad. I also cut up 2 apples and cooked them down with some sugar, mashed with the potato masher and called it jam. DS of course says "Where are the muffins?" as he always does.

I wanted my daughter to have muffins too. She's almost two now and she knows when someone gets to eat something and she can't. I looked online and found a recipe by Chef Bette. I had to make a lot of changes but it turned out well.

Here's the original recipe. http://www.your-vegetarian-kitchen.com/basic-eggless-muffin-recipe.html

My recipe

1\2 Cup vanilla rice milk
1 Cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons safflower oil
1 tablespoon real maple syrup
1\4 tsp salt


I mixed them using the muffin method. Mixed together dry then wet. Added wet to dry and mixed just enough. Baked them at 400. I did cut the batch in half but I got 9 little muffins out of it - some plain and some with mini chocolate chips for my son.

They did not taste very sweet to me but DD LOVED them. I will make a full batch next time and try some of the other ideas I had. Like using whole wheat flour or replacing some of the milk with fruit puree. I even thought about using jam as a fruit surprise.

Winter Squash

One great and easy thing to feed babies & toddlers is squash. I prefer to cook butternut squash, acorn squash and pumpkin in the crock pot. split, seed and chop into small enough pieces to into into your crock pot flesh side down. Add about half an inch of water, cover and set on high. In 3.5 hours you'll have cooked squash. Cool and scoop out of the skins. Blended with some of the cooking water it makes great puree or with a fork or potato masher to have more texture for an older baby\toddlers. I prefer mine mashed with butter and brown sugar but real maple syrup is awesome and pumpkin is great for bread and pie of course.


I did however notice in the summer the acorn squash I made for my daughter was bitter. So I came up with an idea as I didn't want the squash to go to waste.

Flesh of one acorn squash, pureed about 4 cups
2 cups of unsweetened apple sauce
dash of cinnamon
1 tablespoon white sugar

I mixed it all in the blended it all in my regular blender. I would guess other sweeteners would work too or not using one at all.

My daughter loves acorn squash apple sauce - I'm so glad I did it.

Another great way to use it is in bread [banana squash bread] or muffins. My son hopefully will never know his chocolate chip muffins for school have a serving of veggies in them.

Apple-Pear-Squash & Blueberry bread

8oz of pear-squash puree
1.5 cups of apple sauce
1\4 cup oil
1\2 cup brown sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
dash of cinnamon
1\4 teaspoon salt
2\3 cup fresh whole blueberries

Mix dry. Mix wet. Combine. Fold berries in at the end. I washed them and patted them dry.

As for baking I would expect it would bake in an oven like a typical banana bread. I however have never baked this in my oven. I bake it in the crock pot.

Pour battered into a greased dish smaller than the vessel of the crock pot. Turn a heat safe bowl over inside the crock pot.I just use a small cereal bowl. Make sure it's not too high as the lid of the crock pot has to fit on top with the bread in the dish inside. Add half an inch of water. Place dish inside the crock pot on the over turned bowl. Put lid on crock pot. Cook on high. It won't look like it's doing anything but you will see about an hour inside the batter swell and 2.5 hours in or so you will begin to smell cooking bread. 3.5-4 hours later your bread will be done. Use a knife when it comes out clean it's done.

Warm with butter it was even an awesome Momma breakfast.

Pancakes

I found a recipe for vegan pancakes for the kids. While my son can have lactose free milk my daughter cannot have any dairy or eggs.I am trying to have more and more recipes everyone in the family can eat. Sometimes looking for vegan recipes can be frustrating as people simply replace dairy with soy or some other food which is also an allergen. Or these recipes are long and involve complicated things I can't find in a typical grocery store. Although this is easier as no one in our family is gluten or corn free.

I found this recipe from allrecipes.com:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 tablespoon oil - plus extra to fry with if you need\want to.
  

It works well. They turn out nice and fluffy and even passed as 'normal' pancakes for my husband. However plain pancakes [my son does not do sauce - like maple syrup] can get boring so I tweaked the recipe.

Vanilla maple vegan pancakes

3\4 cup Whole Wheat flour
1\2 cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups vanilla rice milk
1 tablespoon real maple syrup
1 tablespoon oil

Oil to fry with - I use coconut oil shortening while safflower oil in the batter.

I have made this recipe with cow's milk, water, rice milk without issue. I have also used canola, safflower or coconut oil without noticing a difference. So it seems an easy recipe to modify for allergies and switching things up. Mix and cook like typical pancakes - mix dry, then wet, mix together and cook in frying pan or griddle and I use a little oil or coconut shortening - helps to keep from sticking and with browning.

I am going to try adding blueberries and other fruit some time soon - we'll see how that turns out.