Asian Salad

Food Category: PG, Bum Lovin', High-5
Difficulty: Easy

Here's my first official repeat with Asian Salad with Tuna

This time the salads were made with:

• red tipped lettuce
• Napa cabbage
• sugar snap peas
• shredded carrots
• chopped red onion
• sliced cucumbers
• pineapple chunks
• Sweet & Spicy Starkist Tuna
• rice noodles
• a drizzle of teriyaki garlic sauce
• Newman's Own Low Fat Sesame Ginger Dressing

And, we had smoothies for dessert:

• frozen chunks of bananas & pineapple
• frozen whole strawberries
• mixed with just enough orange juice & skim milk to blend

I made Chex Party Mix in the crockpot yesterday & it turned out great - so great that it's all gone today. There are lots of great recipes at the Chex Website if you need inspiration.

For this mix, I used wheat, rice & corn Chex, oyster crackers and broken stick pretzels, packet of Ranch seasoning mix, several generous shakes of parmesean cheese, a bit of seasoning salt & just enough butter & olive oil to coat the mix, probably about 1/4 cup total.


Melt the butter in the microwave, mix in the oil & seasoning, then pour over the cereal mix (already in the crockpot). Stir to evenly distribute the butter & cook on high for 15-20 minutes or until the cereal starts to warm up. Switch to low for about 2 hours, keep uncovered. Stir occasionally & sample often.

Have the kids make some for your next get-together. It's really, really good served warm right out of the crockpot.

Fillet of Fish

Food Category: G-Rated, High-5, Bum Lovin'
Difficulty: Easy

Fish

Totally out of the box Gorton's:

• Garlic & Herb Crunchy Breaded Fillets
• Garlic Butter Grilled Fillets

Tartar Sauce

• Light Miracle Whip and/or Light Mayo
• dill pickle relish
• lemon juice
• finely grated onion
• pepper & lemon herb seasoning

Oven Fried Potato Wedges

• sliced unpeeled potatoes into skinny wedges
• toss with evoo & season with salt, pepper, garlic & onion powder, seasoned salt or pommes frites seasoning
• bake at 400F for 20-30 mins, turning frequently until desired crispness

Broccoli & Carrots (both fresh & steamed in microwave)

I don't measure anything when making the Tartar Sauce. Just throw ingredients together until it looks/tastes good. However you mix it up, it will taste mucho better than the kind in the jar.

To speed up the baking time for the potatoes, place unseasoned potato wedges in a microwave safe bowl & cover with plastic wrap. Microwave on high for a few minutes. This little bit of precooking will pull a lot of the water out of the potatoes. Don't overcook potatoes in the microwave - you want the potatoes to still be "hard" to the touch - just with less water. Drain water, pat potatoes dry with papertowels. Then add olive oil and seasoning & bake in the oven. These potatoes are really good sprinkled with parmesean cheese right before serving.

For a healthy dessert:

Orange-Pineapple-Banana Smoothies

• frozen bananas (peel and freeze in chunks)
• frozen pineapple (freeze either fresh or canned - reserve the juice)
• 1 orange, zest first, then peel & remove seeds

Blend orange zest & whole orange with just enough skim milk, orange juice or pineapple juice to get the blender going & pulverize the orange. Add frozen fruits & more liquid. Again, just enough liquid to keep the blender going. You may have to stop frequently and spoon the frozen masses down to the blades & add small amounts of juice or milk.

You want the smoothies so thick that you have to spoon them out of the blender & eat with a spoon (not straw!).

Hello, my name is HausFrau and I am hell on blenders, but I make awesome smoothies.

The fruits & veggies & grilled fish are all totally bum lovin'. If you are dieting, just be careful with the breaded fish, the potatoes & tartar sauce.

Leftover potential: Tartar sauce will keep in the fridge for a few days. Straight-up leftovers are an option. Potatoes can be added to omlettes. Veggies can be frozen for soups later. Fish can be used to make fish sandwiches for lunch. Leftover smoothies are yuck -- so bottoms up!

Breakfast

Category: PG, Southern Comfort

Difficulty: Easy

Breakfast for Dinner or Brinner

reduced fat Jimmy Dean sausage

Pillsbury frozen Southern Style biscuits

scrambled/pan fried eggs

Kartoffelpuffer

fresh fruit: pineapple, apples, green/purple grapes, oranges, banana

If you are fortunate enough to live in Germany (or close enough to shop there on occasion) you are in luck with the Kartoffelpuffer. You should be able to find them in the freezer section at any old grocery store. They can be cooked by pan frying or heated in the oven. Traditionally, they are served with apple sauce or a garlic sauce that is a cross between Ranch dressing & a creamy garlic sour cream-ish dip.

Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus (Potato Pancakes with apple sauce)

I'm close enough to Germany, that I have the frozen kind ready to rock-n-roll in the oven. I do need to figure out how to make these from scratch for when I can't just buy them at the source. I've seen a few Omas make them at fests & have a pretty good idea what needs to be done. I promise I'll experiment soon & post a recipe/technique.

Kartoffelpuffer at a fest. Just one more reason to live in Germany.

If Kartoffelpuffer are out of the question because you live in Texas, hash browns make a decent substitution.

If (& I mean IF) you can limit yourself to one biscuit, 2 sausage patties, one egg & one kartoffelpuffer, you won't be doing excessive damage to the thighs. Fill up on the fresh fruit, not the sausage.

Leftover potential: biscuits, sausage & kartoffelpuffer can be reheated for tomorrow's breakfast. Extra fruit can be frozen and eventually make a reappearance in fruit smoothies.