Cooking Endeavors: No Bake Oatmeal Raisin Bites

In the afternoon around 2:00 I always start to get a little rumble in my stomach. Today I decided to throw some things together for my own recipe to cure my hunger!

 No Bake Oatmeal Raisin Bites

You Need:
*1 heaping tablespoon of Molasses or honey (I prefer molasses)
*1 heaping tablespoon Nutella
*1 heaping tablespoon of Peanut Butter
1 small box of raisins
1 packet of maple and brown sugar instant oatmeal

*Honestly, I didn't really measure. This is an estimate of what I think I probably ended up using. I just added what I thought looked right and added a little of this and that until it tasted right and had the consistency that I wanted.

Mix all the ingredients together and add more molasses, Nutella, or peanut butter if you want to get it to taste just right for you. Roll into balls or skip that step and just eat it straight ;) Makes about 6 balls.

Cooking Endeavors: Crock Pot Beef Stew

Beef Stew has long since been a family favorite recipe. It's incredibly easy and you can practically sit back and watch it make itself.

Beef Stew

What you need:

1 large can of whole, peeled tomatoes

2 large onions

6-8 red potatoes (or 2-3 russet potatoes)

6-8 carrots

1 lb of beef cut into strips (I just buy the beef already cut up)

1 clove of garlic

oregano

crushed basil or 2-3 basil leaves

chili powder (optional)

season all (optional)

brown rice

1. Pour the tomatoes into the crockpot

2. Toss in the meat on top of the tomatoes and turn the crockpot on high

3. Cut up the potatoes into quarter sized pieces(no need to peel them) and throw them in on top of the meat

4.Chop up the carrots and onions and pour them in on top of the potatoes.

5. Finely chop the clove of garlic and sprinkle it on top. Sprinkle oregano, basil, chili powder, and season all over top of the crock pot mixture (I don't measure, but it is probably about 1 teaspoon each)

6. Put the lid on the pot and cook for 6-8 hours

7. In the last 30 or so minutes of cooking, prepare the brown rice. Serve over rice with a nice slab of butter for best results. ;)

One thing to note is that it is important to put the vegetables and meat in the crockpot in that order. This way, the things that take longer to cook are on the bottom and the things that don't take as long are on the top.

Prep Time: 15 Minutes

Cook Time: 6 hours

Feeds: 4-6 people, depending on serving size

(Not pictured: meat, red potatoes, season all, chili powder, & tomatoes)

(before cooking) ENJOY!!! I know I will tonight!

Cooking Endeavors: Banana Muffins!

My mom used to make the BEST banana bread and I wanted to make some but realized that I neither had the recipe nor had a baking pan (I know). BUT I found this recipe on the back of the Food Lion brand of low-calorie sweetener and decided to try making muffins!

1 cup of sugar (aka: Splenda, low calorie sweetener, etc. pick your poison)
1/3 cup of margarine or butter (softened)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of mashed ripe bananas
1/3 cup of water
1 2/3 cup of flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder

optional: 1/2 cup of nuts or chocolate chips

From there, it's pretty easy: Preheat the oven to 350, Cream the sugar/butter together, mix in the eggs/bananas/water, mix the dry ingredients separately and combine the wet/dry and then pour into baking tins! They made 10 relatively good sized muffins and were done in about 25 minutes.

Voila! Nom noms for your tum tum!

(Of course no cooking experience is made complete without a little mess... and I am definitely a pro at that.)