#18 Dish 4/101

I baked apples for the first time. I've always wanted to, but never have. I even bought an apple corer a year and a half ago, just so I could make them. Let's just say it sat in its drawer for a L-O-N-G time. It had seen use before this, but was the first time it was used for what I originally purchased it for. I made them for dessert the night my friend Becca brought the Mexican Pizza (see below) for dinner. It's rather sad, but I did use a recipe. I wasn't exactly sure how to do it. Now that I do, the ideas are running rampant! I don't think I'll ever use a recipe for these again. I may even experiment with pears.

Baked Apples from Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

4 Apples, cored
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/2 c raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/3 c apple juice

In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg. Place cored apples in baking dish, fill with mixture; pour juice in dish around apples and bake at 350* for 45 minutes.

I halved the recipe since it was just the two of us. I'm going to improvise next time though and who knows what I'll come up with. I was just happy I finally made them and they were SO good. And healthy too!

#13 and #18 - Vegetarian meals and 101 dishes

I got a recipe from a friend for a Mexican Pizza, that also happens to be vegetarian! It was YUMMY! She brought it over for dinner one night while the man was deployed and I just HAD to make it. Let me just say, he loved it even more than I did. We had a lot of fun eating it for our in-home lunch date and we each came up with different ways to change it. We will definitely be having this again. So, I'm going to count this for both 13 and 18. I really need to get to work harder on the 101 dishes though. I'm sure I will get a lot of them done around holidays or parties we have. I like to experiment on my friends.

Loaded Mexican Pizza by Mary Barker of Knoxville, TN
(from Light & Tasty, Feb/March 2008) given to me by Becca

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 med red onion, chopped
1 small sweet yellow pepper, chopped
3 tsp chili powder
3/4 tsp ground cumin
3 med tomatoes, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 10 oz. prebaked thin italian bread shell crust
2 c chopped fresh spinach
2 Tbsp minced fresh cilantro
Hot pepper to taste
1/2 c shredded reduce-fat cheddar cheese
1/2 c pepper jack cheese

In a small bowl, mash black beans; stir in the onion, yellow pepper, chili powder and cumin. In another bowl, combine the tomatoes, jalapeño and garlic.

Place the crust on an ungreased 12 in pizza pan; spread with bean mixture. Top with tomato mixture and spinach. Sprinkle with cilantro, hot pepper sauce and cheeses.

Bake at 400* for 12-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

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How I adapted it:

Instead of mashing the black beans with a fork, I pureed them slightly with my immersion blender. I used a medium yellow onion that I had leftover from my produce co-op. I used a red pepper since the yellow pepper was $5 for ONE (yikes). I also didn't have quite the right amount of tomatoes (less) but we couldn't tell and we don't know how it could have held much more on the crust. I hate cilantro, so I used a little parsley instead. We also used the Boboli premade crust, and that isn't thin, but I prefer thick crust.

Other options we came up with:

Refried beans instead of black beans
Saute the onions, so they aren't quite so potent.
Use pearl onions, sliced into rings.
Use 2 jalapeños.
Change up the cheeses.
If we don't want vegetarian, top it with fajita style chicken or steak.

#68 Recycling Center in Garage

We finally set this up last weekend. We went to Walmart and got three large Rubbermaid storage boxes and have them set up right below the entry into the garage. Paper, plastic and aluminum/tin. I would have done two more, to separate aluminum and tin and one for "other" items (i.e. batteries, electronics) but decided that 1. the recycling center has employees to separate these and I've seen them out there doing it and they seem to enjoy it, so I'll let them separate my aluminum and tin (won't make them do everything b/c I get an odd satisfaction out of it too - strange, I know), and 2. when we have other items I will just take them when I have something to take down. We won't have too many batteries to take down since we now use rechargeable ones.

With the containers we chose, we can easily slide them into the back of the car to take down and place in their respective bins. YAY! Oh, and my cardboard boxes (in good shape and large enough) will go to my produce co-op for distributing food.

We have started working on #98 too and the man mentioned just the other day that he is shocked by how little he has to run the garbage down now. Instead of going through a garbage bag every day or two, we are going through one every 3-4 days, sometimes longer.