Basic 3 Cheese Lasagna

Ingredients:

• 1 Jar Tomato Sauce
• Oven-Ready Lasagna Pasta
• Garlic
• Onion
• Cheddar Cheese
• Ricotta
• Marble Cheese
• Ground Pork
• Oregano
• Pepper
• Olive Oil

I'm sorry, I honestly didn't take measurements for this.

First, throw about a teaspoon of olive oil into a saucepan. Add a bunch of ground pork (or chicken or turkey, or beef or whatever kind of meat you like).

If you like a really meaty sauce... add a lot of meat, if not... then don't.

Cook until no longer pink.

Add the onions, mix it up with the meat until the onions are a slightly soft. 

Add the jar of sauce to the meat.

So here I started with a small pot. You shouldn't. Get a big pot to do this. I had to switch halfway through because my pot wasn't big enough.

And here's why:

You need to add some water to make your sauce rather quite watery. You need to do this because we're using oven ready pasta and the pasta will soak up a lot of the extra water (About 1 cup of water for every cup of meaty sauce).

 THEN, add oregano and pepper. As much as you feel like adding. Seriously, this isn't a recipe that needs specific measurements.

I decided I needed vegetables in my lasagna, so I chose spinach.

You can use a many different vegetables though..peppers... kale.. choose what you like, be creative.

Ok, so in your casserole dish, put in a layer of sauce, then some shredded cheese, then a layer of the oven-ready lasagna noodles (uncooked). After, put some of the ricotta on top of the noodles. It's easier to spread it this way (in my humble opinion).

So, do that again and again until you can't fit anymore into the dish. Then put extra cheese on top of the last layer so that it can go all crispy in the oven.

Bake at 200 degrees for roughly 40 minutes. I then put it on broil for the last minute to make the top crispy, but that's just me.

There you go, a basic lasagna. Lots of room to be creative.

No Bake Peanut Butter Oat bites

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Dry Oatmeal
• 1 cup Toasted unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup Dried cranberries**
• 1/2 cup Peanut butter
• 1/2 cup Ground flaxseed
• 1/3 cup Honey (Agave or some sort of sugary syrup type substitute for vegans..may need a little more though than honey)
• 1 tsp Vanilla

**You can substitute the cranberries for anything you like!

Some examples are:

-Chocolate Chips

-Peanut butter chips

-Almond pieces

-Pecan halves

-Sunflower seeds

-Dried apricots

-Dried blueberries

-Etc.

Based on a recipe posted by Ali on "Gimme Some Oven"

Mix together coconut, oats and flaxseed

Add your special ingredient (mine was cranberries)

Oh, oops! Looks like I added my flaxseed after the cranberries, not with the oats and coconut. Not that it matters, its all dry stuff.

Mix it up.

Add the peanut butter

And the honey

And the vanilla.

Mix it all really well (better than shown in this picture)

Then put the mixture in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Take it out of the fridge and roll it into about 24 balls.

OR you can flatten it out and cut it into bars. Either way works.

I took the balls and stuck them in my freezer after - I like them hard like that :)

Winter Fruit Soup

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup dried apricots (or peaches)
• 3/4 cup dried pitted prunes (quartered)
• 3 tbsp raisons
• 2 tbsp dried currents
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• Grated zest of 1 orange
• 2 tbsp quick cooking tapioca
• 4 cups apple juice (or cranberry juice, or water)
• 2 peeled and cut apples

Makes about 6 cups

Based on a recipe from 'The Joy of Cooking' by Rombauer, Becker and Becker.

Put the Apricots, prunes, raison, currents, cinnamon, and orange zest in a saucepan

Add the apple juice and tapioca.

Bring to a boil. Cook until the soup is thickened from the tapioca. This could take a while. Maybe 20 minutes.

Add the apples. Cook until the apples are tender (about 8 minutes)

Serve warm.

Quick Caprese Pizza Lunch

I don't personally like eating bread crusts. So here's my solution, used them for quick pizzas!

Ingredients

• Tomatoes
• Fresh Basil
• Pesto
• Olive oil
• Mozzarella Di Bufala (Buffalo Mozzarella)
• Cracked pepper
• Bread crusts

This works better if you use a rustic grainy bread crust that is gone a bit dry.

Spread some pesto on the bread crust.

Cut a slice of the mozzarella off and place it on the pesto.

Then add the basil and tomato (order doesn't matter, I did it both ways).

Try to pat some of the extra juice from the tomato though (so that it doesn't make the bread soggy).

If you feel so inclinded, put a small drop of olive oil on them.

Crack some pepper over top for seasoning.

Toast in an oven or toaster oven.

Done.

If you want to do it quicker and don't want to risk soggy bread (And you don't mind unmelted cheese), then toast the bread separately (maybe with some olive oil on it). The add the toppings afterwards.

Quick and Easy Pizza Sauce

Ingredients

• Tomato paste
• Water
• Garlic
• Italian seasoning

I'm not going to give you measurements.

This one is all about personal preference.

Put tomato paste in a bowl

Add garlic

Ass italian seasoning.

Water it down a bit so it'll spread nicely on the pizza.

Something like this consistency is good. But if you like your sauce thicker, then add less water.

Spread on pizza dough, pita bread etc. then top with your favourite toppings.

Cranberry Rum Sauce

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 4 tbsp rum extract (or better yet, rum.)
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

Servings depend on how much sauce you like to use!

Put cranberries, water and brown sugar in a saucepan. Simmer on low heat until the cranberries are rehydrated and the water is more of a thick cranberry syrup.

Next, add the rum extract and nutmeg.

Add more water if you need it - to get it to a consistency you like.

That's it, that's the whole recipe.

Put this over warm brie or pork tenderloin.

Bran Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup wheat bran (NOT a cereal)
• 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large egg, beaten with a fork
• 1/4 cup fancy molasses
• 1/4 cooking oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Makes 12 muffins

Based on a recipe from 'Mostly Muffins' by Jean Pare

If you don't have buttermilk, there are a couple ways to make it. 

You can get a bag of milk and shake it until it separate. The solid is butter, the liquid is buttermilk.

OR you can buy powdered buttermilk (and a bulk barn for example). 8 oz of water + 3 tbsp of powdered buttermilk = 1 cup buttermilk.

OR you can use sour milk.

So, take your buttermilk and pour it into medium bowl, then add the bran. Mix it up.

Add an egg and mix again.

In a separate bowl (sorry I don't have a picture for this):

Add the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix that up.

Make a well in the middle.

Stir molasses, cooking oil and vanilla extract into the bran mixture.

Add the wet ingredients to the well of the dry ingredients. Mix.

Fill a greased muffin tin.

Bake at 375 for roughly 20 minutes (do the toothpick test).

Voila!