Slow Cooker Vegetarian Refried Beans (No Soak, Easy Method)

These are delicious and creamy refried vegetarian beans, using a 5-quart (or larger) Crock Pot and a few simple ingredients. No pre-soaking the beans is necessary.  The cooking time remains the same, soak or not. You can make them vegan if you substitute non-dairy butter at the end.

It takes approximately 6 hours to cook, once everything is in the slow cooker. You can freeze the extra in portion-sized freezer containers and they can last safely between 3-6 months.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb.  Dried pinto beans
• 1 large onion (yellow preferred)
• 4 bouillon cubes (I use Better than Bouillion paste in place of chicken bouillion cubes)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 bay leaf (optional)
• 6 cups water (I use 4 cups of vegetable stock in a carton and add 2 cups water to equal 6 cups total)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, this gets added at the end

Instructions:

1. This recipe does not require soaking the beans. You can soak the beans if you want, but it’s not necessary. Set up your slow cooker and set it to high.  (If you cook on low, cooking time is 10 hours.)

2. Slice the onion into large cross-section slices and sauté in a large skillet on medium-high heat with 2 TBL cooking oil until they are brown and caramelized on both sides.

3. Rinse and sort the dried beans, throwing away any rocks or clumps of dirt.  Put the beans in the slow cooker.  When the onions are brown, add them and their oil on top of the beans in the cooker. 

4. Add the bouillon/stock, garlic, and bay leaf. Stir and cover.

5. Set a timer for 6 hours. Stir every couple of hours and check on the beans.  They will take between 5-6 hours to completely cook. (If you cook them on low, set your timer for 10 hours.)

6. When the cooking time is done and the beans feel thoroughly cooked, ladle off at least half or most of the liquid - but save it separately to add back to your beans’ desired consistency at the end.

At this point, don’t forget to take out the bay leaf, if you added one.

7. Add the stick of butter into the cooked beans. Use an immersion blender and blend the beans in the pot until smooth. If you don’t have a stick blender, you can use a manual potato masher.

8. If your beans feel too thick and pasty, add a little of the reserved cooked bean liquid back, a tablespoon at a time, until it has the consistency you want.

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Eat with burritos, as a dip, with rice, eggs, tacos, roll ups, tostadas, etc.

Shortbread Lasso Biscuits

This shortbread recipe is loosely based on the “official” Lasso shortbread. It’s not too sweet, but it’s very buttery and tasty!

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup confectioners (powdered) sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 300 F.

2. Sift flour and salt into large bowl.

3. In separate bowl, butter should be soft - the consistency of mayonnaise, but not melted into a liquid.

4. Mix the vanilla into the butter.

5. Sift the sugar into the butter and mix thoroughly.

6. Mix the sifted flour into the butter/sugar mixture and combine evenly.  It will be crumbly.

7. Use a square pan, either covered with parchment paper or coated in butter. Pour the mixture into the pan and evenly spread out and press down to about 1/2” thick. Use a piece of parchment as a barrier sheet under your hand to flatten in the pan.

8. (Optional) You can cut into squares in advance before baking to make the cuts smooth later.

9. Bake until golden and firm, approximately 45-60 minutes.

10. Cool and re-slice, if necessary.

The Best Homemade Waffle Recipe Ever

My son and I have perfected a waffle batter recipe. You’ll need a waffle iron.  It will get messy and drippy, so maybe put a piece of parchment paper underneath your machine while you use it to catch the drips. It’s totally worth the mess, though.

Also, you can put the cooked waffles in a freezer bag, freeze them, and save them for later. These are better than store bought waffles!

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• A dash of cinnamon
• Nonstick cooking spray
• (Optional) Toppings for your cooked waffles, such as butter, syrup, powdered sugar, jam, peanut butter, Nutella, etc.

Directions

1. Preheat your waffle iron according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

2. In a large bowl, whisk just the eggs until they are thoroughly blended and smooth.

3. Add the flour, milk, and vegetable oil. Mix until blended.

4. Whisk in the sugar, and then everything else - the baking powder, baking soda, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon just until smooth, Be careful not to overmix.

5. Spray the waffle iron with non stick cooking spray. Pour some batter onto the hot waffle iron and cook until golden brown.  I use a soup ladle, which seems to be the perfect amount (about 4 oz)  to fill both sides of our smallish waffle maker. Use whatever works for your machine.

For our waffle iron and this recipe, 4 minutes seems to be the perfect amount of time to cook the waffles to a perfect level of golden brown crispness.  But it could take anywhere from about 3-5 minutes for other waffle makers.

Enjoy your amazing waffles!

Magic Mojo Easy Spaghetti Sauce for Picky Children

My sensitive kid is currently finicky about textures in his food.  He likes sauces that are "smooth with no chunks" and no pieces of unidentifiable herbs or vegetables.  While we are working on helping him broaden his horizons to include more variety and chunky things in sauces, in the mean time he helped me create this great recipe for spaghetti/pizza sauce.  It is simple enough for a kid to assemble, extremely inexpensive, and so tasty!  The credit for the inspiration for this goes to a wonderful and gracious lady/blogger mom, a.k.a. 4hatsandfrugal.com , who also has finicky kids.  We started with her fabulous make-ahead pizza sauce recipe and adapted it to our tastes to be a quick spaghetti sauce.

Ingredients:
1 small can (6 ounces) of tomato paste
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 to 1 tablespoon ground oregano (should be like a powder, not leaves)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

How to make it:
In a medium sauce pan, combine the ingredients (my son measures and combines in the pan for this part).
Turn the heat on to just under medium and continually stir as the sauce heats up.  Make sure it's smooth.  We like to use a whisk; It works great.  It takes just a few minutes before the sauce starts bubbling. Then, turn it way down to simmer while your noodles (or whatever protein/vegetables) are cooking.

We like to put it on Italian Bucatini, which is a large, tubular spaghetti type pasta, and then chop up a baked, crunchy vegetarian "chicken" patty to put on top.  Then we top it all with some Parmesan cheese.

If you are the type that mixes sauce into pasta and mixing before serving, this recipe makes enough sauce to cover an entire 16 ounce package of Italian Bucatini noodles.

SO EASY. SO TASTY. SO YUMMY.

JZ's Vegetarian Spinach Muenster Quiche

Everything below will be divided into 2 pies.
You will need:
2 standard pie shells (16 oz. each)
16 oz. grated Muenster cheese
2 packages frozen, chopped spinach
A big onion, chopped finely
1 tablespoon (+/-) chopped garlic
Olive oil for saute
5 eggs
A pinch of salt, to your taste

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Defrost and squeeze the liquid from the spinach and move to giant mixing bowl.
3. Saute the onion and garlic in a pan, over medium heat until soft and transparent. Let cool.**
4. Mix grated cheese into spinach.
5. When onions are cool, fold into spinach/cheese mix.
6. Beat eggs and gently add to the mix.
7. Pour the mix into equal parts into the pie shells.
8. Bake for about an hour, or until each pie firms up.  It may need longer, depending on your oven.

*Because these quiches are so thick, we bake them at a pretty low temp for a long time, to avoid overcooking on the outside and undercooking on the inside.  Depending on your oven, you might need to adjust the cooking time.

*Could you add an herb or spice?  Oh my, yes.  I tend to add a dash of nutmeg to spinach dishes.  But any kind of herb would probably be delicious...maybe a hint of curry?  Or oregano?  Or basil?  Yarp.

**Remember that part I mentioned about letting the sauteed onion mix cool off before adding it to the spinach/cheese mix?  I mean it. 
Hear me now and believe me later:  One thing you don't want is having hot onions melting super soft cheese prematurely and turning the whole deal into a globby, melted cheese disaster in a bowl before you pour it into the pie shells.  Not pretty.

Everyone in our house loves this kickass quiche...even our finicky toddler.
You could sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top, also, btw.

ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING:
After you take the quiche out of the oven, let it sit and rest for about ten minutes.  The eggs will continue to cook.  Also, Jay says, "The cheese needs to calm down." What he means is that the cheese is too hot, angry, and melty, straight from the oven when it's nuclear hot.  Just like pizza, you can't cut a clean slice until the dish sits untouched for a bit.

Peanut Butter Spirals

If you love peanut butter (as I do), this is a tasty, unusual recipe.  So good and so easy.  You can serve it with a drizzle of hot chili oil, if you are a lover of spicy things.

• 12 oz. uncooked spiral pasta
• 2/3 cup natural peanut butter
• 3/4 cup water
• 3-4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons mild vinegar
• 1 scallion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon honey or rice syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon (or more) ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 1/2 cup frozen peas

1. Cook pasta.  Set aside.

2. Combine all ingredients except peas and blend until smooth.

3. Add peas and sauce to pasta and gently mix together.  The sauce will thicken on its own.

Tommie Lu's Spinach Casserole

I love spinach!  What's great about this simple recipe is that you taste the delicious spinach - you don't taste a bunch of other things overpowering and covering up the taste of the main ingredient.

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon granulated garlic
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp poultry seasoning or dried thyme
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 4 pieces diced bread (we use keto bread and lightly toast it before dicing)
• 1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1. Stir everything together in a large bowl.
2. Grease a 9x13" casserole dish with olive oil and pour the spinach mixture into it.
3. Bake 45-60 minutes at 350 degrees F.
4. Top with more parmesan cheese.