Guacamole tuna salad

1 can tuna (drained)
2 oz. guacamole (roughly 2 Tbsp.)
1/2 tsp. mustard (more to taste)
1 tsp. sweet relish (more to taste)
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped

Combine in a bowl.

Comments:

Tasty! I shredded a couple of baby carrots because I didn’t have full-size carrots to chop. I didn’t use celery (didn’t have any on hand), but I always use extra relish because I like relish, so it worked out.

This was excellent with nachos or on a nice dense piece of whole grain bread.

Baked Oatmeal
9 servings

3 c. quick-cooking oats
1 c. packed brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1/2 c. butter, melted
additional milk

In a large bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, and butter. Stir into oat mixture until blended.

Spoon into a greased 9-in. square baking pan. Bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes or until set. Serve warm with milk.

Comments:

I didn’t eat it with milk and I may have cooked it a little long to make sure it was done (it ended up a bit crumbly, and I’m not sure it should have), but I thought it ended up quite tasty. :)

I used nutmeg instead of cinnamon because I’m a huge fan of nutmeg and it seemed like it would work. Also, since I don’t have a 9x9 pan (just 8x8 and I didn’t want to wait an hour for it to be done), I made it in a 9x11 pan, which worked fine.

Roasted Radishes
from Food.com

I tried two different radish chips recipes, and overall I’m in favor of the second.

Baked Radish Chips from about.com

[left photo] This recipe tells you to steam the radish slices before baking, so they came out rather limp. And I found the amount of chili powder to be too much for my taste. These were tasty enough (especially with a little bit of ranch dressing!), but not ideal.

Crispy Baked Radish Chips [right photo]
from Food.com

Oh So Minty, Oh So Chocolatey Creamy Dream Bars
p. 136-137 of Wilson, Dede. A Baker’s Field Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies. Boston, Mass: Harvard Common Press, 2004.
16 bars

3/4 c. plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
4 ozs. unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 c. plus 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. miniature semisweet morsels
Seven 1.4-ounce (2.5-inch diameter) chocolate-covered peppermint patties

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil so that it overhangs sides; you will be pulling the brownies out using this overhang. Coat foil with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Whisk flour and salt together in a small bowl.
3. Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a medium-size saucepan over low heat or in a bowl in a microwave. Stir until smooth, then set aside to cool slightly.
4. In a large bowl with an electric mixer medium-high speed, beat sugar, eggs, and vanilla together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Fold in cooled chocolate mixture, then fold in lour mixture and chocolate morsels.
5. Spread half of the batter into prepared pan. Place one round peppermint patty at each corner of the pan and one in the center. Cut the other two in half crosswise and place the halves in the remaining spaces. Spread remaining batter evenly on top.
6. Bake until top is puffed, dry, and beginning to crack and edges have begun to pull away from sides of pan, about 25 minutes. A toothpick inserted in center should come out with some wet batter clinging. That’s okay. Place pan on rack for 5 minutes to cool. Grasp the foil overhang and carefully pull brownies from pan. Place on rack to cool completely. I like the refrigerate these for several hours before cutting to firm them up (wrap them first in plastic wrap). Cut into 16 bars (4x4).

Comments:

This is a recipe I’ve been wanting to try since I saw this cookbook at the bookstore (which was years and years ago). I will need to do it again, as I had a few hiccups.

Rather than buy unsweetened chocolate, I used 3 Tbsp. cocoa and 1 Tbsp. oil to substitute for each ounce of unsweetened chocolate called for. I didn’t have miniature semisweet morsels so I used regular sized ones.

When doing the electric mixer part, I’m not sure the mixture was ever quite “fluffy” (it was raining outside so it was humid, which might have had something to do with it). Everything else seemed to go okay, though I ran into some trouble with the baking: the oven didn’t stay consistently at 400F during the baking time (it’s a gas oven and sometimes requires adjustment to stay at the proper temperature), so when I tried to take the brownies out of the pan after waiting for 5 minutes, they were still so raw in the middle that it nearly folded in half. So I put it in for longer (I forget now exactly how much more time I gave it), which made the edges quite overdone, the bottom slightly scorched and was long enough that some of the patties melted down (which is why there is no white stripe in the right-hand piece pictured). I still ate them, but I ended up tossing a lot of the edge bits after nibbling what I could off of them.

So I will have to try again, keeping a better eye on the oven temperature so they come out better. :)

Chicken Casserole with Broccoli
off the back of a Jiffy baking mix box
6-8 servings

1 c. Jiffy baking mix
1.5 c. pre-cooked chopped chicken or 2 cans (4.5 oz) chunk chicken, drained
3 eggs
1 c. milk
1.5 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1 pkg (10 oz.) frozen chopped broccoli (rinsed and drained)
1/4 tsp. seasoned salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Preheat oven to 400F, grease 2 quart casserole dish.
Place chicken, broccoli, and cheese in prepared casserole dish.
Blend baking mix, milk, eggs, salt and pepper in a separate mixing bowl until blended.
Pour into dish over chicken, broccoli, and cheese.
Bake for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Comments:

I used canned chunk chicken, which was maybe a little salty but worked fine otherwise. The salt I used was just regular salt rather than seasoned. I might not have drained the broccoli well enough because it seemed a little liquidy when I was first serving it. Also, I saved the cheese to put on the top because that seemed like a good idea and it looked nice that way, especially with a little extra sprinkled on to make a nice shell of cheese.

This came out very nicely! It was tasty and easy. :)

Avocado! :)

I used this page as a guide on how to cut and peel the avocado, though I cut it into quarters before scooping it out so I’d have slightly smaller cubes.

I was extremely proud of myself for picking out three lovely avocados without ever having done it before—I give the credit to this blog post: Never Buy a Rotten Avocado Again. :)

Hass Avocado and Red Potato Salad
from avocadocentral.com

Ingredients:
    2 lbs. red potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
    1 cup low-fat mayonnaise
    5 tsp. cider vinegar
    2 tsp. Dijon-style mustard
    3/4 tsp. ground black pepper
    3/4 tsp. salt
    4 green onions, sliced
    2 ripe, Fresh Hass Avocados, seeded, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces

Instructions:
    Place potatoes in a medium pan and cover with water. Bring water to a boil and cook potatoes for about 15 minutes or until just tender when pierced with a fork.
    Drain well and pour into bowl.
    Combine mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper.
    Add dressing and green onions to potatoes and gently toss. Stir in avocados.
    Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight to allow flavors to blend.

*Large avocados are recommended for this recipe. A large avocado averages about 8 ounces. If using smaller or larger size avocados adjust the quantity accordingly.

What I did:

I used 3 avocadoes because the ones I had were smaller than the recommended size. Also, I didn’t have green onions, so I added some diced green pepper instead so there would still be some crunch.

Comments:

I was hoping the vinegar in the recipe would keep the avocado from browning, but any avocado chunks at the top did get brown anyway. Ah, well. A little bit of lemon juice on the avocado cubes might help next time.

And I think the absence of the onion affected the taste—it was a little meh overall. Putting some of this salad onto a green pepper half and eating it that way was pretty good, though, as was adding a bit of mustard just before eating.

As my first foray into making things with avocado, this wasn’t a bad start. :)

Dump Soup
from recipe4living.com

Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff Stew
from pillsbury.com

• 1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 lb boneless beef tip steak, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 cans (18 oz each) Progresso® Vegetable Classics creamy mushroom soup
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 1/2 cups uncooked wide egg noodles (4 oz)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, if desired

1. In 3 1/2- to 4-quart slow cooker, layer onion, garlic and beef. Pour soup and water over beef.
2. Cover; cook on Low heat setting 5 to 7 hours.
3. Stir noodles into mixture. Increase heat setting to High. Cover; cook 20 to 30 minutes or until noodles are tender. Stir in sour cream. Garnish individual servings with parsley.

Comments:

I made this once before and made a note on my printout: “needs bacon”. ;) So I also threw in some crumbled bacon, but I think it could’ve used more (a pound might be a bit excessive, except that it’s BACON).

I also used tri-color rotini in the batch pictured, and I used 12 ounces (the whole box) because it seemed a little thin otherwise. If you look at my picture and then the original website, they look nothing alike, haha. But it tasted just fine. :)