Freezer Friendly: Homemade Oatmeal Pucks

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I love oatmeal in the winter and I've posted about my homemade oatmeal before. However I don't always have time to make homemade oatmeal so I occasionally get the instant stuff.

We were walking through Costco a few weeks ago and I ran across frozen oatmeal pucks in the freezer section. A light bulb went off in my head. I can do that!!

Salmon Black Bean Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

But R, it's winter. Why are you blogging a summer dish in winter? Several reasons:

1. This is what I was craving for lunch
2. It was in the 70's in SC
3. Lastly, most of the ingredients were canned or put up in summer!

Buttery Smashed Tiny Potatoes

Don't these potatoes look delicious?

They are so simple to make and are so yummy! You should make them tonight. Go ahead, write in on your to do list, I'll wait....

Sweet Potato Hash Egg Bake

Sunday mornings are by far my favorite morning of the week. We spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon in our PJ's. We read and play online and just relax. Almost every Sunday morning I'm also treated to a fabulous brunch made by The Other Williams. Yes, I'm totally spoiled. Sometimes it's bacon and eggs; sometimes its homemade sausage gravy with biscuits but whatever it is it beats the pants off my weekday breakfast of oatmeal or egg white omelet.

This past Sunday we enjoyed a delicious Sweet Potato Hash Egg Bake that The Other Williams just made up on the spot. Isn't she awesome? This is a delicious, healthy breakfast or brunch recipe that is both filling and not too shabby on the calories.

We love a good runny yolk, but you could easily just cook the eggs a little longer. The yolk creates a delicious "sauce" to mix around with the sweet potatoes. Speaking of sweet potatoes, it's really the star of this dish. If you like sweet and savory together definitely give this one a try!

Canning: Turkey Veggie Soup

Turkeys are going on sale every where right now and not being one to miss a good deal we picked up one at the local supermarket last week. We don't normally cook turkey on Thanksgiving because we go over to my in-laws to eat but we like to grab at least one turkey during this time of year to throw in the freezer or to can.

We try to make several meals out of one turkey or chicken for the two of us. This recipe will make convenient grab and go lunches or a super fast dinner.

We paid around $8 for our turkey and here's what we did with it. The Other Williams cooked the turkey in the oven first. We got:

• 2 turkey breast to slice for several sandwiches
• 3 turkey and gravy dinners for 2. One we ate the other 2 went in the freezer
• 4 quarts of turkey veggie soup with turkey broth
• 2 quarts of yummy turkey broth (click here to see how we make chicken/turkey broth)

Haricot Verts & Edamame with Shallot-Soy Vinaigrette

This tasty little side dish really could not be any easier. A while back I blogged about some of our favorite homemade dressings. One of our favorites of the favorites was this Shallot-Soy Vinaigrette. For this dish we just took some frozen hericot verts (or green beans) and some frozen edamame, tossed them with the dressing and tah-dah!

The vinaigrette is delicious as a sauce over chicken or fish also. It's thick and creamy and coats very well. You could add a protein of your choice (like chicken or tofu) to this meal and call it lunch or dinner also. Give it a shot and let us know how it turned out!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

These are my current obsession! Finally a healthy, delicious, sweet snack! The bars are chewy and very peanut butter-y. You can really play around with what other things you'd like to add to it. For this one I added dried apricots, cashews, and chocolate chips!

The great things about granola bars are many. You can use them as a snack. They are great on the go and kids love them. You can carry them hiking or on a walk or just to the office. You can crumble them over yogurt. And these also make great gifts during the holidays or anytime!

These really knock out hunger. There is protein in the nuts and peanut butter and fiber in the brown rice cereal and wheat germ. The recipe is so adaptable so play with it and let me know your favorite add-in's!

Tortellini Skewers with Pesto Dipping Sauce

Here is a really delicious and fast appetizer that you can make way before your guests arrive! I found this idea online and put my own spin on it but you can throw whatever you have on hand on these skewers.

If you're using them for an appetizer before a main course I would stick to 2 skewers per person. You can also use these on a buffet table, in which case I would allow more than 2 per person. These would be great for a kid's birthday, holiday party, or pot luck.

The skewers were so good and the combination of the tortellini, tomato, and pesto made it like a fun pasta salad on a stick. The only thing I would add is a spoon to the dip. That way people can spoon the pesto over the skewers instead of double dipping.

Creamy Garlic Pasta Salad

After spending the afternoon baking the Hummingbird cake with my good friend, RC. I then had to make dinner because The Other Williams was out of town for the weekend. I'm not normally the cook but this recipe was really so easy that even I could pull it off.

This pasta salad would be great for a picnic or camping trip also. It's good warm, room temp, or cold. I added what I had on hand so the veggies are totally interchangeable with whatever you prefer. We use the Creamy Garlic Dressing that I posted about previously and it gives the pasta great flavor and a light creamy sauce.

Pastrami Pesto Picnic Sammich

As I mentioned in the previous post, we tried to keep our costs down during our recent Colorado trip by fixing our own food. But we couldn't just fix cereal and ham and cheese, it needed to be something yummy! Our Egg & Avocado on Toast was perfect for breakfast and this delicious sammie was perfect for our on-the-go picnics.

On Sat, we explored Bear Creek Lake Park in Lakewood, CO. It was breath-taking to say the least. Bear Creek Lake Park has so much to offer any outdoors person. They have several lakes for kayaking and boating, a campground, tons of hiking trails, and a huge bike path. We saw more cyclist here than we've ever seen before. Literally, like, a hundred cyclist, probably.

The park also offer some pretty awesome picnic locations all throughout the park. Each picnic table was covered, which I was very happy to see. A little known fact about Colorado to those of us who don't live there is that the sun is fierce! So covered picnic tables were an awesome sight for this lily-white girl! 

We even spotted a coyote on our way out!

Above is what our lunch looked like. We grabbed a fruit platter from the store and ate on that for breakfast, lunch, and some snacking. We also grabbed some Boulder Canyon Chips. OMG! We LOVE Boulder Canyon Chips! We grabbed some of these two years ago when we were visiting Boulder, CO and have been craving them ever since.

The view from where we sat at one of the picnic shelters was beautiful. While we were eating lunch in roughly 75 degree weather, there were these light fluffy seeds that were seemingly floating around everywhere we went. It made it look like it was snowing! Very beautiful, but unfortunately I wasn't able to really capture it with my camera.

This sandwich was partially inspired by the Italian Compressed Sandwich we did a couple of months ago. This one however is a simpler version that is quick to make and just as delicious to eat! Give it a shot for lunch tomorrow or on your next picnic!

Eggs & Avocado on Toast

We're back from our trip to the amazing state of Colorado! We had such a great time exploring the mountains of the Denver/Boulder area and the weather was great.

Most of our time was spent in the mountains but we did make it to Longmont for a brewery stop! You can't go to Colorado and not do a brewery stop, at least we can't. We ate and drank at Oskar Blue's Home Made Liquids and Solids. We got a beer flight and some killer BBQ off of their smoker, named Midnight Toker! However this was one of the only meals we ate out for.

I made sure to book us a hotel with a kitchen so we started our day with this amazingly healthy and delicious breakfast! I got the idea from a photo I saw in a magazine, then just made it ours. It's looks complicated but it's sooooo not!

The fresh egg can either be fried or poached (as shown) we did it both ways and we preferred it fried. The trick is to not over cook the egg. The yoke makes this amazing sauce over the toast and it's really delicious. This is also a great way to start the day, you're getting protein from the egg, healthy fats from the avocado, and fiber and carbs from the whole wheat toast! Plus it takes 10-15 min to make!

Homemade Dressings - Part 1

Recently we've really been getting into making our own homemade dressings. The store bought stuff is just loaded with so much crap and homemade dressings are super easy to make. Plus they are a fraction of the price of store-bought dressings.
We normally will make 1 or 2 dressing on a Sunday afternoon and keep them in the fridge to use on salads, pastas, fish, anything really, throughout the week.

This is part 1 because as we add more dressings to our recipe binder, we'll update here with our favorite ones! Today we have three dressings: 5-Herb Vinaigrette, Shallot-Soy Vinaigrette, and Greek Dressing. What's your favorite go-to dressing?

Greek Tortellini Picnic Salad

Picnic season is finally in full swing so you'll be seeing a lot of our picnic menu's and recipes.This one is a twist on an old classic. Ever since our cleanse we've been adding more veg to everything. So we took our classic Tortellini Salad and put it over a bed of lovely crunchy spring lettuce mix.

We love a good picnic. Again, it combines our two favorite things: food and the great outdoors. Most of the time we prefer to picnic on the ground with our trusty picnic blanket. Eating on the ground, for me, helps make a picnic feel more special, however we're no strangers to camp chairs when the situation calls for it, such as a wet ground. A blanket invites you to lean back and relax while you eat. It also invites you to take a nap or read a book afterward!

Here in Greenville, SC we're very fortunate to have so many excuses to picnic. We have the beautiful Fall's Park right in downtown but we also have several events that encourage you to bring a blanket or chair and picnic. There is Moonlight Movies, Outdoor Concerts, and Shakespeare in the park!

We enjoy and participate in these event's regularly but we're also a little more creative than that. We picnic on the sides of roads, off the Blue Ridge Parkway, trail-side while hiking, lakeside while kayaking, even in the back of our hatchback. There is no where that a picnic can not be pulled off, well...except for private property (although certain times of the year they will invite you out!)

This is our go-to picnic salad and we love the addition of the greens. Always bring a long a little extra dressing because the pasta will absorb a lot of it. We hope you'll be inspired by our picnic recipes and experiences this year to get out into the great outdoors and still eat good!

Picnic Menu - Italian Compressed Sandwich

For The Other Williams' birthday she requested a trip to Atlanta to visit the High Museum of Art's current exhibit "Picaso to Warhol". The weather couldn't have been more lovely for a picnic so I decided to surprise her with one. We were traveling a bit to get there so I needed something pretty sturdy and this menu did the trick!

I love fun food on picnic's and anything on a stick is fun! I skewered organic grapes onto a bamboo skewer. I also did a caprese salad on a stick by layering small mozzarella balls, grape tomatoes, and basil leaves onto a skewer. I brought along a small container of balsamic vinegar for our dipping pleasure.

The Italian compressed sandwich was amazing and burst with flavor from the pesto, meats, and smoky cheese! This sandwich should be made a day a head but 6-8 hours ahead would be fine also.

The picnic was a hit and the weather was gorgeous as we relaxed in Centennial Park while people watching. We hit the art museum will tummies filled with love! The exhibit was awesome and we made plans to return before summer's heat turned Atlanta into Hotlanta!

Picnic in a Jar - Arugula & Cherry Tomato Salad with Balsamic Drizzle

While picnicking for our anniversary we also had a small jar salad. It was the perfect accompaniment for the Spring Veggie Orzo Salad we also made. This recipe is a take on the classic caprese salad. It's a spring version, if you will, and really delicious!

There isn't a fancy dressing for this one it's just a simple balsamic vinegar drizzled over it. I can't really emphasize enough how important good balsamic vinegar is for this application.

The salad travels beautifully in the jar but make sure you put the balsamic in a separate container and drizzle before serving. This simple salad is both beautiful and portable! Enjoy!

Picnic in a Jar - Spring Veggie Orzo Salad

Recently The Other Williams and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. We got all dressed up for a lovely dinner at our favorite restaurant but we spend the actual day of our anniversary picnicking.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know how much we love combining our two favorite things (outdoors and food). Not to ruin the surprise for newbies but it's a lot! We tried out this new recipe and absolutely love it! We tinkered with the original recipe to make it more our own. We added lots more veggies and lowered the amount of orzo.

Orzo is such a fun little food. It looks like rice but it's really pasta. It's great in hot or cold salads. The Other Williams is a huge orzo fan so when I found this recipe for our picnic there was no doubt it was going to be made.

The lemon-y dressing on this salad is just outstanding. We might even keep this around just to throw on regular salads or other pasta salads. This salad is packed with veggies! You can also play around with what veggies you have on hand or change it up depending on what's in season at your market.

Fall Picnic - BBLT

 For our fall trip recently I packed a delicious Italian Sausage Soup and this fabulous BBLT panini! What's BBLT?

Brie, Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato!

I used a ciabatta roll for the bread and my trusty grill pan to press the sandwich before we left. I wrapped it in some wax paper and it was good to go by the time we had our picnic!

The combination of this panini is just delicious. All my favorites are in play! Really smooth-earthy brie cheese, smoky bacon, peppery arugula, spicy Dijon, and sweet tomato. Yea, it's going to blow your socks off!

Homemade Oatmeal - Maple Brown Sugar

My favorite season is making it's debut here in the south and the Williams Kitchen is hopping with fall recipes! My favorite Fall breakfast is warm oatmeal. For a long time I just bought the Quaker Instant stuff but this is so much better.

The flavor and texture is just awesome and there is nothing more nourishing than a warm bowl of oatmeal. There are so many good-for-you things in this bowl. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Some tips:

• This recipe is so versatile add whatever you have on hand or love.
• If you need a quick breakfast make a big batch and throw it in the fridge. Then just take out a serving at a time, add some milk to loosen it up and microwave it.
• If the oatmeal is too thick add more milk
• If sweet isn't your thing, omit the maple syrup or cut the brown sugar in half

Garbage Stir Fry

This recipe is created out of necessity and the notion of not throwing anything away. We've joined a CSA this year and each week we get a bag of goodies, er, fruits & veggies.

There is only two of us but it's a small share. Still, sometimes it's hard for us to get through everything. We try to freeze, pickle, or can the leftovers but we'd much rather eat them fresh. In comes the garbage stir-fry.

We've done this twice now and each time it's been a little different. Here's the concept:

Clean out the fridge!

Seriously, toss everything you can think of into this stir-fry. The stir fry is such an easy throw-together meal and it's so versatile.

Here's what went into our last one: zucchini, cucumber, green pepper, grape and pear tomatoes, green onion, and even some lettuce at the end. We marinaded some beef in soy sauce or teriyaki and threw that in also. Put it all over a bed of rice and you're done!

For a sauce you could use a store bought Asia-style sauce, teriyaki sauce, or make your own by throwing some stuff together. Feel free to use and adapt our Chicken Broccoli Stir-Fry recipe for this purpose!

So clean out that fridge and don't waste an ounce of your bountiful harvest!