Archive for 2011

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Home Archive for 2011

Another Beet Salad

Are you sick of beet salad recipes yet? We're not! After ages and ages of just roasting our beets, I HAD to change it up. This salad consisted of:

Boiled Beets

Sauteed Onions

Cheese and lettuce. The dressing was just lemon juice, olive oil, and salt held together with a little bit of Dijon mustard.

It's so pretty!

This post was shared on Real Food Wednesday!

Coconut Oil Mounds Candies

When I saw this recipe, I knew I had to try it. I looooove me some chocolate! It was so easy to make, and both John and I love it. Check out the original link, and I'll show you the changes I made.

First, I combined coconut oil and coconut palm sugar in a pot.

When it was all melted, I added in cocoa powder.

Once it was all combined, we added salt, vanilla, and shredded coconut.

I mixed it all together!

It was carefully spooned into an ice cube tray and refrigerated.

When all is said and done, it was DELISH! It tastes like a Mounds Bar!

This post was shared with Fat Tuesday!

Lemon-Creamy Chicken and Macaroni... with a salad!

Monday Macaroni this week featured some leftover chicken... How delish!

The first thing I did was saute some onions and leek in olive oil. I bet you thought I was going to say onion and garlic in butter. Hah! I tricked you! Really, I used olive oil because we were out of butter.

When it was smelling good, I added in 1/2 cup of chicken broth.

I let it come to a boil and then added in 3/4 cup of the cream from the top of the milk, some thyme, salt, and a few splashes of lemon juice.

When it was all nice and warm, I added in leftover roasted chicken.

I turned the heat up a bit, and let the chicken warm up.

It was perfect served over macaroni!

Although it had some onions in it, this dish really needed a salad with it. What kind... hmm.... Dandelion Greens!

I whipped up a quick dressing by chopping up some garlic and leeks...

... and mixed it with a 1:1 ratio of olive oil and rice wine vinegar and a bit of salt.

Topped with dried cranberries, it was a good mix of bitter and sweet.

This post was shared with the Hearth and Soul Bloghop and Fat Tuesday!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!

I hope you are all enjoying your holiday!!

See you soon!!

Fermenting Again!

It's so nice to have the energy to devote to creating. We haven't started any fermented veggies in FOREVER, so I tackled that today.

First on the list? Dill Pickles. Don't the cucumbers look so pretty in the jars?

We had fresh dill from our last CSA delivery, so I added that to the jars, along with sea salt, mustard seed, and whey.

The other thing I got fermenting was a sauerkraut concoction. I started out shredding a head of cabbage and 2 apples. I read in a few different places that adding apples will give it a different taste, so I am trying it out.

It needed more color, so I added in a ton of carrots.

I sprinkled salt on top to get the juice out of the produce.

After mixing it together and letting it sit for a little while, I smushed it all up.

Into the jars it went, with some whey and water!

Since our house is relatively chilly, it will take more than a few days for them to get going, so I'll keep you posted!

This post was shared on Real Food Wednesday with Kelly the Kitchen Kop and Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS!

Yummy Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

Apparently I am jumping back into the swing of things by making lots of desserts. Up this time? Peanut Butter Cookies.

I can't believe how east these cookies were. I decided at around 9:15 at night that I Had. To. Have. Cookies. I didn't have any butter defrosted, and there wasn't much left in the fridge. That severely limited the cookie choices I had. I started with this recipe and went from there.

First, I combined a cup of my home made peanut butter, a little less than 3/4 of a cup of turbadino sugar, an egg, a tsp baking soda, and a splash of vanilla in a bowl.

Then, I mixed it together.

Third? Rolled it into little balls.

Lastly, I baked it at 375* until they looked done.

The verdict? They filled a need, but they weren't amazing. I think the sugar needed to be more finely ground. And I needed less of it in the cookies. On the plus side, they were quick and easy and used very few ingredients. With a few more tweaks, they will be a great quick snack!

This post was shared on Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays!

Macaroni and Greens

One of the ways I make sure that I have everything prepped, cut, defrosted, and ready to cook is to meal plan. The hardest part of that is deciding what to eat each day. I am a VERY indecisive person, you know! Having set ideas for each day does make it easier. For instance, we have Pizza Fridays and Monday Macaroni. It may seem simple, but it helps.

This Monday Mac was quick, simple, and delish. It started with onions and garlic sauteed in butter, as most good things do.

When it smelled good, I added in the leaves from some beets and kohlrabi. I love being able to use the "garbage" parts of food.

They cooked down quite quickly, and were soon ready to go.

I added in a little salt and some breadcrumbs.

After mixing it all together, it was plated with macaroni and some more butter. Quick and easy!

This post was shared with Pennywise Platter Thursday and Fight Back Friday!

Egg Drop-ish Soup

I've been fighting a cold (apparently I can't grow a baby AND fight germs at the same time) so I decided to make soup. I wanted to fill up on some yummy and healing chicken broth and John loves soup... WIN-WIN!

I had a weird feeling that John wanted eggs for dinner (turns out I was right, he did) so I decided to try a variation on egg-drop soup. Before I could do anything, though, I had to defrost some chicken broth. 6 cups worth, to be exact.

While they got to work, I sauteed carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and green onions in butter.

When they were soft-ish and delish, I added in leftover turkey that I had frozen from Thanksgiving.

By the time that was done, the broth was nice and hot. I added the pan of veggies-n-poultry to the broth.

I added in some soy sauce, ginger, and sesame oil and brought it to a boil.

As I waited for it to boil, I scrambled up 5 eggs.

Now here was the tough part... I had to sloooooooowly pour the eggs into the boiling soup.

It boiled for a little longer...

... and then was ready to enjoy!

This post was shared with Fight Back Friday on the Food Renegade!

Salmon, Spinach, and Beet Salad

This was one of the easiest and most delicious dinners I have made in a while. Check this out!

First, I sliced up 3 golden beets and 3 regular beets.

Then, I arranged them on a making sheet and sprinkled them with olive oil and sea salt.

They went into the oven at 350* until they were lightly cooked.

While the beets cooked, I cleaned up some baby spinach.

The last prep step I had to do was chop up some spring onions for the salad dressing.

The spring onions were mixed with a 3:2 ratio of olive oil and rice wine vinegar and some sea salt.

When it was time for dinner, John cooked up some salmon and we assembled the salad.

It was so delicious and easy, I could hardly believe it!!!

This post was shared on Simple Lives Thursday!

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About Me

Jackie @ Crest Cottage: Hi! Welcome to Crest Cottage! I’m married (to John, the best!) and we are raising our girls in our little home (Crest Cottage, obviously), “Crest Cottage Creations” explores the things we create. Sometimes I’m sharing food ideas, other times I’m just rambling. No matter what, we’re always creating something!

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