Almond Chicken Stir Fry

Ingredients

16oz Chicken Breast, skinned, cooked and sliced

8 cup mixed Vegetables, precooked (i.e. Water Chestnuts, Onions, Mushrooms, Broccoli, Carrots, Celery, or ?)

4 teaspoon oil

1 teaspoon Almond Extract (or amount to your preference)

4 TBLspoon Soy Sauce (or amount to your preference)

Directions

Mix together all ingredients except Almond extract and Soy Sauce.   Stir fry in a hot wok or frying pan, adding extract and Soy Sauce when done. Measure into 4 servings.

Serves 4.

Abstinent Measuring

Each serving = 1 protein and 2 vegetables

Note

For a change, try with 16 oz Shrimp or other Seafood instead of Chicken

*contribution from Area II Cookbook 2004

Chili and Beans

Ingredients
1 lb ground beef (2 oz per serving)

2 med cans chunk tomato (no sugar added)

2 med cans kidney beans (2 oz per serving)

1 small can diced chilies (optional)

1 onion, diced

1 cup bell pepper, diced

garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper amount to your preference – see Note below.

Directions

Brown and crumble meat in a nonstick pan.  Add all the rest of the ingredients to the meat (or transfer to a larger pan).  Add water to thin.  Bring to a simmer and cook over a low flame for an hour, stirring occasionally.  Measure into 7 servings and enjoy.

Serves 7

Abstinent Measuring

1 serving =  1 protein and 1 vegetable.

Note

Spices – there are many premixed prepared chili spices at the grocery stores.  Look in the spice section AND in the canned chili or ethnic foods.  My fav is Carroll Shelby’s Original Texas Chili Kit, but are many more choices.  Watch for sugar content.

Make-It-A-Meal

• For lunch serve with a salad
• For dinner serve with another vegetable and a salad.

*contribution from Area II Cookbook 2004

Easy Vegan Sushi

Ingredients

½ cup cooked short-grain Sticky Brown Rice

Sushi Nori (dried sea weed wrapper)

½ Pickled Ume Plum, finely diced

Vegetable strings - Cucumber, Carrot, Radish, etc. - less than one ounce per roll

Directions

While Rice is still warm, mix Rice with Ume Plum.

Place Nori on wax paper and spread Rice evenly over entire piece of Nori, leaving about ¼ inch of nod around edges. Nori will become soft. With the wide end positioned horizontally to you, place Veggie strings on the Rice about ½ inch from the edge of the Rice on the side of the Nori closest to you. Veggie strings should be placed in a row along the entire length of the Nori (horizontally to you).

Starting with the Veggie end, gently roll the Nori "pin-wheel" style away from you, keeping Veggie strings in the middle. Dampen edge of the Nori to allow it to stick to itself when done rolling.

Cut off excess Nori from rolled ends and slice roll into 1 inch pieces with clean sharp knife..

Makes I serving

Abstinent Measuring

1 serving = 1 grain

Note

Refer to Sushi instructional books for more information and different rolling techniques. Bamboo rolling assist devices are available at Asian Markets and Whole Foods

I make several of these at once - when rolled, can be wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen prior to cutting. To defrost, take one roll out the night before and put it in the fridge, it's usually ready by dinner the next night - just slice as instructed above when defrosted.

Where to find it?

Sticky Brown Rice: also called sweet brown Rice - found at Whole Foods in bulk bin area

Pickled Ume Plum: found at Whole Foods and in Asian groceries

Serving Suggestions

Serve with Soy Sauce, Wasabi and Pickled Ginger

Make-it-A-Meal

Great with 8 oz. adzuki beans on the side with 2 cups of stir-fry Veggies for dinner

*contribution from Area II Cookbook 2004

Sue’s Pickled Beets

My Grandmothers, both of them, made the best pickled beets.  The whole ritual of going down into the musty basement and over to the shelves of canned food, selecting just the right jar(s) for supper, cracking the seal once back up in the kitchen and spilling the contents into a waiting dish or pan. It brings back so many sweet memories of summer-time at their elbows, watching and learning.  Helping them prepare the fruits and vegetables for canning may take some effort and time to prepare, but the results are delicious.  Pickled Beets in particular are my favorite and a welcome tart-sweet counterpoint to any meal.  My recipe adds a little southern spice to their mid-west wholesomeness.  

Ingredients

25 lbs of medium Red Beet (one box), trim root tip and tops.

6 large Yellow Onion, sliced thin

6 cups Apple Cider Vinegar

3 cups Water

24 packets of Stevia (or other Sugar substitute) (or more to taste)

12 – 2 ½ “ Cinnamon Stick

12 medium Bay Leaf  (combine 2 small to equal 1 medium)

48 whole Cloves

6 teaspoon Orange Peel

12 Jalapeno Peppers, quarter lengthwise, remove seeds

12 Cayenne Peppers, whole (optional)

Directions

The Beets

Boil Red Beets like you would potatoes.  They are “done” when a fork pierces the flesh easily.  Dump in sink to cool.  Put on rubber or latex glove unless you want red skin. When the Beets are cool enough to handle, peel the Beets.  This is easily done.  When cooked and still a little warm, the skin of the beet will literally rub off.  Trim any rough spots left.  Dice or slice beets into large-ish pieces.  For ease in the next step, put all prepared beets in large container before assembly in next step.

The Juice

Mix Apple Cider Vinegar and Water into large pitcher.  You can do this in smaller batches if your pitcher wont hold the 9 cups.  Just mix in 2 parts Vinegar 1 part Water ratio.

Per quart Jar

See Note below about Canning

Add 2 packets of Stevia, 1 Cinnamon Stick, 1 Bay Leaf, 2 whole Cloves, ½ teaspoon Orange Peel, 1 quartered Jalapeno Pepper, 1 Cayenne Peppers.  Add ½ - ¾ cup Juice (Vinegar/Water) to the Jar and swish around until it’s mixed.  Imagine enough sliced Onion to equal ½ of the original Onion, this is the amount per Quart Jar.  Alternately add Beets and Onion, gently pressing and packing them into the jar until they reach the “bottom of the neck of the jar.”  Fill jar with Juice, to cover the beets.  Add the Juice SLOWLY, jiggling and shaking the jar to encourage any trapped air bubble to rise to the top.  Put on your lid and screw the ring on very tightly.

Process the Jars

Quart Jars should process in boiling water for 35 minutes. See Note below.  Remove and let cool completely.  Label jars with contents and date. 

Serving

Place Jar in refrigerator, chilling completely before serving. 

Abstinent Measuring

1 cup Beets = 1 vegetable

Note

1.        This recipes aims at 12 quarts of pickled beets. 

If you want few quarts, prepare the quantity of beet desired, then follow the “per quart jar” directions for spices.  Process quart jar for 35 minutes.  If you want pint jars, half the “per quart jar” directions.  Process pints jars in boiling water for 30 minutes.

2.       Canning is becoming a lost art.  Please spend a few minutes on the internet and look up general canning advice, tools and processing times. 

a.        Generally you want very very clean jars and lids.  One trick is to run them thru the dish washer just before use. 

b.       You want the water boiling in the huge, multi gallon processing pan before you add the filled jars.  And then you don’t start the “processing time” until the water starts to boil again.  Processing time for pints is 30 minutes and for quarts is 35 minutes.  Don’t cut the time short. Remember that you are sterilizing and killing microbes and you are using heat to do it.