Triple Berry Crisp

I had some frozen berries left and a whole bag of gluten free oaks. What should I do with my day? I know make crisp! I have never tried crisp before, but this was a super easy recipe and it came out really tasty!!

1 1/2 Cup Blueberries
1 1/2 Cup Strawberries
1 1/2 cup Blackberries
4 table spoons sugar (You could use honey or agave sprup. The berries just need to get a little runny.)
2 cups flour (I used one cup corn flour and one cup biscuit/pancake flour. Any gluten free flour will work, but remember to try and use at least two different types of flour)
2 Cups gluten free oats
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups butter/earth balance/smart balance

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Mix together berries and the sugar. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl mix together flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg
4. Cut the butter in until the mixture is crumbly.
5. Take the mixture and press half of it to the bottom of an 9x13 inch baking pan.
7. Put the berry mixture over the top of the press oat and flour mixture.
8. Sprinkle the remaining mixture over the top of the mixture.
9. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. You want the fruit to bubble and the top to get golden brown.
10. I served this warm with a little bit of whipping cream. You could also serve it with ice cream and even serve it plain.

Also I make my own whip cream. I buy the cream in a carton and then mix it with a beater If you want the whip cream thick you can add granulated sugar as a sweetener. Also if you want it a little runny then add some honey and or agave syrup instead of the sugar.

Potato Brocolli Soup

It is cold so why not make soup! I like to make a big batch so that we can eat it for two or three days and than I also freeze a container of it, so that if we get sick we have homemade soup ready to go!!

1 onion
10 or 15 potatoes (I use 3 different varieties, so that the taste is awesome!)
2 or 3 sweet potatoes
2 or 3 small heads of broccoli
four or five cloves of garlic
Vegetable of chicken broth need about 40 fluid ounces
Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
Cheese (optional) for garnish

1. Peel half of the potatoes.
2. Cut half of the onion into small pieces. Saute with a little olive oil. When onions are golden brown add about 20 ounces on broth to the onions.
3. Add pealed potatoes and bring mixture to a slow boil.
4. Cut half of the broccoli into small pieces and add the broccoli with the potatoes and broth. Cook mixture until all potatoes and broccoli are soft.
5. Puree mixture with a food processor or blender until in this smooth.
6. Once mixture is smooth return it to the pot.
7. Peel sweet potatoes
8. Cut sweet potatoes, the rest of the potatoes unpeeled, and the other half of the onion, and garlic in an oven roasting pan.
9. Roast potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, and garlic at 350 for about twenty minutes are until potatoes and sweet potatoes are soft.
10. Add the rest of the broth to the pureed mixture and than added the roasted mixture.
11. Cut the rest of the broccoli into bit size pieces and than add it to the pot. Bring mixture to a soft boil, and boil for five minutes.
12. Add salt, pepper, and garlic powder
12. Bring mixture to a slow boil.
13. Serve into bowls and garnish with your favorite kind of cheese. You can always leave out cheese if you want less calories or you have dinner guests over that are vegan.
(You could also put a little bit of crushed bacon on the top as a garnish if you like!)

Enjoy

Tips to Save

One thing that I do is freeze!! I love to go berry picking in the spring and summer and than in fall and winter you can make smoothies, pies, crisps, or even just have berries for your pancakes and oatmeal. In general picking saves a lot of money. In Eugene off of River road I have found a 100% organic loyal strawberry patch. They charge $11.00 for a bucket that fits 7 to 8 pints. Also you can eat as many as you want when you are in the field, so go for breakfast!! Blackberries are free in Oregon. I Suggest that when you go pick you try and find a place that is away from highways, so that the berries are as free from sprays and toxins as possible. I also freeze summer squash, freezer jam, peppers, carrots, bread, soup, spaghetti sauce, and meat.

Buy in bulk. It saves money and the environment. The store I buy my bulk from lets me bring my own container, so I do not have to use bags. They just weigh the contains empty for me :) I then write the weight on the top of the jar, so that next time I do not have to ask them to weigh it for me. Love it, Sundance Grocery in Eugene is an awesome store!

Plan meals!! One of the biggest mistakes that people make is that they do not plan out meals for the week. Try to look through what you have and what is on sale and eat accordingly.

Vegetable Fajita

The other day I had a couple of friends over for dinner and we made fajitas together. Fajitas are really fun to make this time of year. For these use whatever vegetables you like. The night that I made these I was really wanting peppers (even though they are not in season in Eugene), so these costs me more money then they normally would. If you want to kept costs down remember to use vegetables that are in season where you live.

Filling for the Fajitas
One Onion
One yellow pepper
One red pepper
One orange pepper
One zucchini
About 15 baby carrots
2 cloves of garlic
Olive oil

Topping for the Fajitas
Salsa
Avocado
Olives
Spinach (from my garden)
Cilantro
Black Beans
Rice
Sour Cream
Tortillas corn or flour

1. Saute onions in olive oil for three minutes.

2. Add in the rest of the vegetables and cook on medium heat until they are tender.

3. While the vegetables are cooking warm-up black beans on the stove and cook your rice. I love using my rice cooker because it cooks my rice perfectly every time. I got mine for about 15 dollars and it has been worth every penny. If you are going to be gluten free for life I suggest investing in a rice cooker!!!

4.Make sure to stir your vegetables!!

5. Cut up spinach, tomatoes, cilantro, olives, and avocado. I like to put these on a plate so that everyone can put on what they like in the amount that they like it! Also get out the sour cream and salsa!!

6. Make sure to stir your vegetables!!

7. Then once everything is hot than call in your friends and family to put together their own fajitas.

You can always cut costs by not using so many toppings. Of course you can also put in tofu, chicken, beef, or even shrimp.

Here are the fajitas that my friends and I made.

Breakfast Scramble

One of favorite dishes to make are egg scrambles. I like them because you are able to put whatever you want in them. The trick to making a good scramble to making sure that you cut small pieces of vegetables and that you always cook vegetables in the order of whatever takes the longest to cook. For example if you were cooking a scramble with onions, cauliflower, bok choy then you would want to first cook the onions and cauliflower and then finally add the bok choy. You want the vegetables to be cooked but still have a little crunch. Play around and use whatever vegetables or meats that you like or have on hand. Sometimes I will put in salsa, top it with avocado, wrap it in a tortilla, put cheese in at the very end, or even serve it on toast. Just play around and have fun with scrambles!

Scramble for two
Broccoli
Cauliflower
zucchini
Peppers
Garlic
Spinach
4 eggs
Salt and Pepper (to taste)

1. Cut all the vegetables (except the spinach) into small equal size pieces.

These vegetables will need to cook for about five minutes before you add the spinach.

2. Cut the spinach into smallish size pieces. I have a lot of spinach so I used about three cups in this recipe. Then add the spinach into the pan with your other vegetables. Let the spinach cook with the other vegetables for about two minutes.

3. Take the eggs break them into a bowl and then whisk them to make them a little fluffy. I like to add a little bit of milk so that I am able to stretch the eggs and cook with a little less cholesterol and calories.

4. Add eggs in with the vegetables. I cook this on a medium heat because then the eggs do not stick.

5. Serve and enjoy!! I like to serve my eggs with fruit instead of gluten free toast because then it will have less calories. Serve with toast, fruit, cottage cheese, or even do potatoes (there is a recipe for potatoes in with the Indian Food post that is before this post).

More tips to save $

Buy your spices in bulk. Normally you will only need a couple of teaspoons so just buy that. Also that way you can always have fresh spices.

If you can plant a garden and then plant what you like but also plant what cost you a lot of money to buy. Also plant a variety of things so that you are able to buy less at the store.

Get to know your locally farms and go visit them at least once a week during the growing season. The produce is legally grown, fresher, and often times is much cheaper than at the grocery store!

Popcorn is a great gluten free snack. I buy the kennels (not the microwave stuff) and put a little olive oil in the bottom of a pan and cook it over my burner. You simple take a pot and cover the bottom of the pot with a layer of popcorn kennels than you put a tablespoon of oil in the pot. Make sure to move the popcorn around often so that it does not burn. You sometimes will need to let some of the popcorn out if the lid is coming off. Put it is a bowl and than leave it plain, or salt and or butter it :) It is much cheaper to make popcorn this way. You can also buy popcorn in bulk which makes it even cheaper!!

Indian Food

So I still have a ton of spinach in the garden. Therefore the other day I decided to try my hand out at a Saag. I had never tried one before, so to get some ideas of how to do it I went online and found some simple easy Saag recipes. The first time that I made Saag it did not turn out well at all. This was because the first time I did it I used ginger root and coriander that was chopped instead of ground. The second time I did it I used ground spices and it was completely smooth and tasted wonderful! The recipe that I ended up using is basically a recipe that I made up after looking at about twenty different recipes and deciding what sounded good in what ratios. This is what is came up with! I also wanted it low fat and cheap. So are not many ingredients to buy.

Sagg
One and a half pounds Spinach
One large onion
4 to 10 cloves garlic(Use as much as you taste buds like:)
1 Tablespoon ground ginger
2 to 3 teaspoons ground coriander
1 Teaspoon Turmeric
One cup plain yogurt
1 cup water
salt to taste

Saute onions until they are translucent. Then add in garlic and spice saute another 2 minutes. Add spinach and cook with the water. You want to spinach to cook on a slow boil. It will take about 7-12 minutes to cook. Then you want to puree your spinach with a blender or food processor. Once it is completely smooth than return it to the pot or sauce pan and bring to a boil. Make sure to stir or it will stick. Once boiling add yogurt and remove for heat. Then serve over rice, potatoes, polenta, steamed vegetables or plain.

Potatoes
Andi wanted potatoes so she cooked the potatoes with garlic salt and a little salt and pepper and a little oil olive (so that the food does not stick). She covered them in tin foil and then put it on the grill. Rotate every five minutes and cook for 20 about twenty minutes. she used red, Yukon, and purple to make them look so pretty.

Cauliflower
All that I did was steam it with a little water and curry sauce. I used a curry powder. You could use coconut milk instead of water if you wanted it to be a little sweet.

Peas
The peas are also from my garden. These peas I grew in pots on my balcony. I like to grow them because sugar snap peas are pretty to watch grow and they like cold and a lot of water so you can start them in pots as early as March in Eugene,Oregon. Also they are expensive!!

This was a wonderful meal and was only about five dollars to make. First the spices cost twenty cents because I buy my spices in bulk. Then all I needed was a quarter head of cauliflower, an onion, about a dollar worth of potatoes, one cup of rice, one head of garlic, and one yogurt. All of the spinach was from my garden:)