Breadmaker Raisin Bread

Do you own a breadmaker? If not why not, having one can save you a lot of money from having to buy bread, and honestly its very easy to use, just takes a bit of time, and honestly it tastes better, and has more flavor and honestly one of the best investments you’ll ever make.

This is super easy, you just have to put these ingredients in the order in which I tell you.

First off, you want 1 cup of warm water, make sure its warm not hot.

2 Table spoons of margarine, or butter.

3 Cups of Four.

3 Table spoons of sugar (not that important, I don’t always add even half of that.

4. 1/2 table spoon of salt, I usually just sprinkle a little in, I never add a lot, and even still mine is Lo-Salt, so its very low sodium as it is.

1 Tea spoon of cinnimon, you can actually add more of this if you want.

2 Tablespoons of yeast.

3/4th cup of Raisons.

Set them on what ever setting your breadmaker needs, you may have to look in your instructions or online mine is fruit and nut.

Just let it take its time, and should work fine, and in no time you’ll have some amazing Raisin bread, and if I’m being honest we both absolutely love it!

Mac & Cheese

In Canada growing up, one of the most popular meals you would look forward to was Kraft Dinner, to our neighbors to the south they would just simply call it Mac and Cheese, making this homemade is so much better, and tastes sooooo amazing, its worth the time and effort we promise!

Phase 1 Noodles.

You can use what ever noodles you want, its your choice, make one you feel a sauce will stick to rather easily, make them as per its directions.

When the noodles are all cooked drain them, don’t rinse them, this will make the sauce incredibly hard to stick to, and you want it sticky so leave that noodle starch on.

Phase 2 Making a Rue.

So in another pot you want to add some margarine, or butter, its your choice butter is a better choice, but we understand butter can be super expensive, and also not always something you have available.

You then want to add some flour, maybe half a cup and mix it to add it into the butter and make sure you get this well mixed or your going to wind up with clumps of flour in your mouth, it doesn’t taste good, I can promise you!

Add in 2 cans of coconut milk and stir that around.

Now take 2 types of cheese, maybe half a block of 2 cheeses, choose the cheese you like and start to slowly add it in and stir it, (You need to constantly stir this or it will burn) add more cheese after what you added has melted in and keep doing this until all your cheese is incorporated.

Taste your sauce make sure it tastes the way you want it, you may have to add more cheese in.

When its finished pour it into the noodles, and stir it well, the only other thing you may want to add is fresh cracked pepper, but honestly it should be good enough!

We hope you like this, you can ask around, many people will say Kraft Dinner is Crap Dinner, but they will all love Homemade Mac and Cheese! We hope you do too.

Blueberry Rhubarb Jam

This is an easy, fast and healthy jam to spread on your toast in the morning, super fun to make and worth every moment it takes to make.

This does not require any pectin as rhubarb makes it own natural pectin, you also don’t need to add water as there will be enough natural juices in it already.

And you can use frozen fruit, it will work perfectly fine!

All you need is a few spoonful’s of brown sugar.

Frozen Blueberries, frozen rhubarb, some lemon juice and cinimon!

Add that all into a tall pot and boil for 30 minutes, just leave it simmer, you can mix it a bit if you want, but thats it, super simple and easy right?

Once its done boiling take it off the heat and give it about 30 minutes or so to cool down before you put it in containers, this will help thicken it up alot.

What do you think, I think it tastes amazing, and has a great taste to it and absolutely one of my favorite jams!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

BBQ Chicken Pizza just happens to be one of my wife’s favorite pizzas, she really enjoys it,. a lot, so this is one I end up making a lot for her.

Pizza is fun to make, you can buy your crust, you can make it, and I would encourage you to get a bread maker, with the price of bread these days making your own would be so much more simple and cheaper, and making pizza dough is so much easier that way.

In this recipe I’m going to let you choose how you want your own dough, I did not include a dough making recipe as I use a bread maker, and I’m aware that not everyone does.

So lets take some chicken breast chunk it up and start cooking with it, use any spice you want, its more your taste, you can make it hot, or not the choice is yours, Make sure your using some BBQ sauce as you cook it. I would say no salt, and use pepper and garlic to it.

Make sure your chickens is fully cooked.

At this time I would go ahead and pre heat your oven to 500 degrees.

Now on your pizza dough, add a layer of BBQ Sauce, now this sauce should be something you really enjoy a good flavored BBQ Sauce will go a long way instead of just a cheap flavorless one, we are not going to be using a tomato based sauce for this just a BBQ Sauce so lets make it good.

Put your chicken over it so there is a good coverage of it.

Add some chopped up onion green pepper and mushrooms over it.

And finish off with some nice shredded cheese (Please shred this your self, pre bought is not healthy and also more expensive so its not worth the money.

When the oven is done pre heating, bake the pizza for 20 minutes, or when nice and golden (Keep an eye on it, every oven is different.)

Thats it, let the pizza cool a bit before digging in, give it at least 5 to 10 minutes, then cut it up and enjoy.

We hope you enjoy this, and try it sometime, Aimee loves sharing this one.

BTW just a side note, yes Pineapple does belong on pizza, js.

Liver and Onions

Ok, so first off yes, I get it, liver and onions can be terrible, however it is an old time favorite, and on top of that, there are people out there with iron issues, and some people who go to the hospital a lot because of it, so liver and onions are an important part of their diet to help them stay out of the hospital, and that is serious, our very own Chef Alex has a brother who is one of those. The trick is to make live and onions taste acceptable, so it can be eaten with out issue, and I think I have solved the issue, so lets get to it.

Phase 1 Dealing with the Liver!

Slice up your liver into small pieces and put into a bowl and cover with white vinegar for 30 minutes. This is a very important step as the vinegar will dull a lot of the horrid taste out of it, the real issue with liver is that it is so rich in iron it becomes very hard to eat, the vinegar will help dull that down.

Phase 2 Setting Up The Dredge Station.

Take a bowl and add lots of flour into it and set it aside.

Phase 3 Get Saucy!

In another bowl add the following, some Ginger and Garlic Paste, Sweet Thai Chili Sauce, Apple Cyder Vinegar and mix it up really good.

Phase 4 Onions.

Cut up some onions small, but chunky.

Phase 5 Cook Them Up!

This is important, drain and rinse the liver at least 3 times, its important to get this nice and cleaned up, now put the liver into the sauce and mix it all up.

Now we start to cook, lets start cooking the onions till they are getting nice and soft.

Start to dredge the liver into the flour and then into the frying pan and cook it all up until its done!

We hope you tried this, and we hope you liked it, I turned my wife who absolutely hates liver into a believer.

Chickpea Scrambled Egg Breakfast

Anyone with any health issues should respect Chickpeas as they are some of the most amazing things you can eat, they help you a lot, they helped me get my A1C perfect the last few quarters, so they are really good for you. Chickpeas are good for you to the fact they will fill you up and not leave you feeling hungry, while offering a lot of nutrients and are truly one of natures miracle foods.

Waking up to this in the morning is an amazing thing to wake up to try it! Believe me this doesnt take very long.

Phase 1 Ingredients.

  1. 4 Eggs
  2. Garlic Powder.
  3. Cheese.
  4. Lime Juice.
  5. Black Pepper.
  6. Stir Fry Sauce.
  7. Smoked Paprika.
  8. Bamboo Shoots.
  9. Apple Cyder Vinigar.
  10. Tomato Paste.
  11. Ginger and Garlic Paste.
  12. Green Beans.
  13. Water Chestnuts.
  14. Onions.
  15. Canned chickpeas.

Phase 2 Cooking.

Oil a frying pan and add your veggies, keeping in mind you want to constantly stir as you add.

Add lots of black pepper.

Add some apple cyder vinegar.

Add some lime juice.

Add your spices.

Add in your drained chickpeas.

Add in some of your stir fry sauce (Not important brand or type, just something you like.)

Let this simmer for a bit, then add your eggs and scramble them in going even through out the dish.

Add cheese to it.

Finally add some tomato paste, and mix well and get this simmering, and your ready to serve into some bowls!

This is a super easy and fun dish to make, and trust me it is filling and your body will thank you for it!

Sausage Party

The sausage party is a great treat in the summer, instead of having a crappy hotdog, lets make a sausage, made just right, easy simple, but yet tastes amazing!

Phase 1 Boil The Sausages

Choose your sausages, you can get many different flavors at your local grocery store, but choose the ones that look good and think will taste good, start by taking a pot and boil some water, when the water is boiling start to boil your sauces until they are cooked.

Phase 2 Chop some veggies

I like Onions Red Peppers and Mushrooms, give them all a good rough chop, simple as that.

Phase 3 BBQ Sauce

We could use a simple store bought bbq sauce and it would be easy and done with, and please feel free to if you want, but we like to make things a bit more complicated as it tastes better and youll have a better reward at the end.

In a bowl mix in.

  1. Chinese BBQ Sauce.
  2. American BBQ Sauce.
  3. Dijon Mustard (You can use yellow if thats all you have.)
  4. Rice Wine Vinigar.
  5. Apple Cyder Vinigar.

Mix this well and set aside!

Phase 4 Cook the Veggies.

Cook your veggies down so they are soft but not caramalized.

Phase 5 Re Cook The Sausages

Take the sausages out and slice them up then mix them in with the BBQ sauce, and then fry them up till they are done, nothing to complicated here, you want them to be grilled good.

Phase 6 Fill The Bun

Take a larger hotdog bun, and put your sausages inside it, and then fill with some veggies, you shouldn’t need condiments on this as the BBQ sauce should still be dripping over the sausages that it should do the job fine, and your done!

This was short and sweet and simple, it doesn’t take a whole lot to do this and it tastes amazing, you can serve this with corn on the cob and some fries! You can add cheese on top if you like as well!

Burrito Bowl

Burrito Bowls are great, they are an amazing thing to sit down and share on a cold day, one of my favorite Mexican dishes and I believe everyone can enjoy this, yes, it does take time but not something you need to have a lot of skill to make, just time!

Phase 1 Chicken

Chunk up some boneless chicken breasts, you can use chicken thighs if you’d prefer.

Mix in 2 spoons of minced garlic, some liquid smoke (You don’t need a lot, or it will taste like a shoe.)

Lots of black pepper, some Lime juice, some honey, Paprika, onion powder, and some ground cumin.

Lets this marinate covered for at least 2 hours, for best results, 24 hours.

We used the slow cooker to cook this over 6 hours on low with a bit of wine, and apple cyder vinegar and some water.

Phase 2 Mexican Rice

Take a strainer and put in 2 cups of rice and rinse until the water is clean, this will clean the starch off of your rice and then make it, we used a slow cooker.

We then used a wok to cook the rice mix.

1 Onion and Jalopino put through the food processor and then added to the rice

We used 2 cans of drained corn into the rice.

And some lime juice and then a can of crushed tomatoes.

Mix this well and cook well.

Phase 3 Black Bean Mix

We put 2 onions in a food processor, and then to the frying pan we added 2 cans of black beans, and no we did not drain them we want the liquid, and added some paprika, pepper, cumin and garlic and cooked this till the beans were nice and hot.

Phase 4 Chipolete Mayo

In a food processor we added 3 cans of chipotle peppers in adobe sauce

In a bowl with your now pureed chipolete we added some lime juice, mayo (no miracle whip guys, please.) some sour cream, apple cyder vinegar mix well.

Phase 5 Plate

I would take a huge plate, and a very small bowl, in the small bowl put your mayo in and set in the center of your large plate, and then add every piece of the meal and display well

This is a great meal, you can make guacamole and add lots of different things to it, make it your own, burrito bowls are an amazing treat, and yes they do take some time to make, but its worth every moment, I know my wife loves it!

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie is a great seasonal desert, something everyone loves, and honestly a simple easy and can be diabetic friendly!

You can even make a good treat out of the seeds, there is a lot of possibilities!

Phase 1 Clean that Pumpkin out!

So cut the pumpkin into pieces, (You may need 2 depending on the size.)

clean the guts and seeds out and disregard, like I said you can bake the seeds separately!

Put the sliced pumpkin on a baking tray, and bake at 350d for an hour and a half!

Phase 2 Clean the skin off!

You want to wait until the pumpkin has cooled off so you don’t burn yourself, but once it has cooled enough you can take a big spoon and just peel the skin off and put the rest into a blender.

Add the following into the blender.

  1. 2 Eggs
  2. Nutmeg
  3. Cloves
  4. Cinnamon

Now run this through the blender and puree it.

Phase 3 Pie!

Now you can make your own pie crust, or you can buy it, personally sometimes its cheaper to buy it, but can be fun to make your own, but what ever you choose to do, put a pie crust on a baking tray and pour the puree inside it, you want to bake this in a pre heated oven set at 450d for 15 minutes.

Thats it when its done let it cool off before serving!

I’m not sure about everyone else’s family but Thanksgiving and Christmas everyone wants pumpkin pie, and what a better way to send your love to make one or 2 or 3 yourself!

We hope you enjoy!

Apple Butter BBQ Sauce

Apple Butter BBQ Sauce is a great sauce to use on ribs steak, fish and anything, also good to use on toast, all around tastes amazing, and its not even hard to make, just takes time to do, and honestly, I would encourage you to try this!

Phase 1 Prep and Add

  1. Cut up 10 apples cubed and not peeled.
  2. 1 Onion.
  3. 1 Can of crushed tomatoes.
  4. 1 Orange.
  5. 1 to 2 Jalopino.
  6. Lots of black pepper.
  7. Salt.
  8. Lemon (Can use lemon juice, or squeeze a fresh lemon.)
  9. Garlic and ginger paste.
  10. Paprika.
  11. Cinnimon.
  12. Honey (You can use sugar, but honey is better and healthier.)
  13. Mustard.
  14. Cloves.
  15. Liquid smoke (Only use a small amount this will taste like a shoe if you use to much.)
  16. Apple Cyder vinegar.
  17. All Spice.

Add everything, apples being the last into a slow cooker, mix things every so often apples last, make sure its all mixed in the end, then you want it on low for 10 hours.

In the end you may need to use an emersion blender, or scoop into a blender to get it smooth if needed, I usually don’t but some times you will. Let it cool before putting in the fridge and you are good to go!

This is a great condiment, and honestly its not so common, but it is something that everyone will love.

What do you think, are you going to use this on your burger tonight? Perhaps on some chicken strips? We hope you enjoy!