Blueberry Crumb Pie

You know when you find a new recipe and it's like...what else can I use as a reason to keep making this??? Well for me it's even more so true when it comes to baking. I'm not worth much in that department and truthfully I don't care much for baking but waaaay back in June (that was ages ago right?) I made this blueberry crumb pie as a father's day dessert and again for a friend after she had a baby. Of course since the pie was not a total disaster I wanted to share! This is a true "If I can, YOU can" kind of deal. I included the tweaks I made to the ingredient list. It was still aplenty sweet.

*Shared from recipe from Allrecipes app*


Ingredients
1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
3/4 cup white sugar (I used a 1/2)
1/3 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. lemon zest (I have zero zesters here so I left this out ;)
1 tbsp. lemon juice
5 cups fresh/frozen blueberries (if frozen, thaw first otherwise a little too juicy)

(topping)
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 rolled oats
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
6 tbsp. butter (I think I used 4)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Press pie crust into bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch pie plate. In a large bowl, stir together the sugar and flour. Mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice. Gently stir in the blueberries. Pour into the pie crust.

In a medium bowl, stir together the brown sugar, oats, flour and cinnamon. Mix in butter using a fork until crumbly. Spread the crumb topping evenly over the pie filling.

Bake for 40 minutes in the preheated oven or until brown on the top. Cool before cutting.

serves 8 or if you're like John and I...maybe 3. J/k...but seriously. Serve with vanilla ice cream!

Roasted Vegetables with sausage and Couscous

Happy Sunday everyone! (posting on a Monday!) I wanted to pass on a little recipe to threw together the other night for dinner. It seems like dinner can fall into one of three categories around here: searched recipe (online/cookbook), family tradition (the kind you call your mom/grandma/aunt for while in the middle of cooking it realizing you forgot half of the directions) and my favorite and most recent pick up: the just swing it meal. You know it; you take stock of what's available in the fridge, decide what your family will turn their nose up at the least and make a meal from it. I love it when john come home from the gym at dinnertime and so excitedly (or cautiously if he's already viewed what's on the counter/stove) asks what I'm cooking. Err..I'm cooking this, this and alittle of this which all together I call "dinner". Mostly these meals consist of a meat, fresh vegetables and usually a starch. This is more common also as I have to make meals a little more quickly now before I run out the door to work. All that said, it's still fun to cook and be creative and through a little creativity this is what I've found to tasty, quick and simple: roasted vegetables with sausage and couscous.

Ingredients:
olive oil
1 box of couscous (we use "Near (far?) East" brand. Its quick and easy.
Several handfuls of fresh okra cut into rounds
One eggplant diced-peeled, soaked for a few mins. in salted water
Sausage of choice (we like "Aidells" chicken sausage-no preservatives)
parsley (optional)
diced onion (optional)
salt to season

Directions:
Preheat oven at 415 F degrees
clean and cut up the vegetables
Spray pan (I used coconut oil spray) and arrange vegetables on tray.
Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt.
Pop in oven for 15-20 minutes (warning: keep an eye on it, okra burns easy it seems)

Add about 2 tbsp. of olive oil to frying pan.
Toss in sausages. Cook just long enough to brown alittle on sides

Cook couscous according to directions. This will take as little as about 7 minutes so I suggest it be one of the last things you do.

When it's all said, done and ready pile your sausage and vegetables on the couscous. Sprinkle with parsley. All done! (I think diced tomatoes would be a nice addition too. Yes, canned ones.)

See our fancy napkins? You don't? Look closer, its the ripped paper towel under the plate ;)

Ellie did not eat the okra FYI. She's a good eater but, not everything goes over well.

Bon appetite.

Paleo-ish Tacos!

Happy Wednesday everyone! Well the forty minutes left of it.

By the post title you'll see we have a little recipe here and I've been wanting to post one for a while. This dish was thrown together not wanting to use ground meat-Ellie hates the texture- and not wanting taco shells-we can do something different. So substitute whole romaine lettuce leaves for shells and voila! Before you run because I mentioned no shells, please do know I used bacon-its not all bad.

So I took a bite of this and thought....hmmm this is really good actually. I think it is blog worthy and original-so bonus points.

Forgive me if the ingredients are a little off...I was definitely eyeballing everything.

Ingredients:   

5 or 6 romaine whole romaine leaves

two small chicken breasts

2 pieces of bacon (I used non cured)

chili powder

about a tbsp. of dry ranch seasoning

4 sweet multi-colored peppers

 

Optional (but needed ;)

grape tomatoes

avocado

shredded cheese

broccoli sprouts

hot sauce

plain greek yogurt (we use Cabot and its the best I think)

 

Directions:

 

1) Wash and set aside lettuce, tomatoes. Slice avocado.

2) Simmer the chicken breasts seasoned with chili powder and dry ranch mix in a little water until tender then shred with fork and knife. set aside

3) Begin cooking bacon separately. While it is starting to cook, chop up sweet peppers.

4) Once bacon is about halfway done, add in peppers. Cook peppers with bacon until bacon is crisp.

5) Once the meat is done, you're good to go! If you're like John and confused as to how to put this together: scoop some chicken/bacon/pepper mixure (can be in one pan now) onto lettuce and top with a couple tomatoes, sprinkle of cheese, sprouts, and couple small dollops of greek yogurt with S&P and hot sauce. Oooh the first bite was soooo good.

 

We had pintos and avocado on the side with this.