books and FOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!

[rose_griffes]

Finished reading Brisingr last night. I had more trouble with the second book than this one, yet book three isn't any shorter. Maybe because there were a few more battle scenes? I did like getting more points of view. Oh, and Nasuada had plenty to do, so that helped. Hm. I was surprised and pleased to have more than one chapter with Saphira's viewpoint; it was well-done. Bring on book four of the Inheritance Cycle! Except that it hasn't been published yet and there's no planned publishing date. *sigh*

Time to go find The Thief next? Possibly so.

I baked tonight. I baked yummy, yummy things: a green chili casserole (with sour cream!) and banana-apple bread. SOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD!

Comments

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Recipes? I'm intrigued about that casserole. :-)

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Let's see... brown about a pound of ground beef. Mix in a cup of oatmeal (yeah, that's weird, but the recipe said to do it and I did), a 14 oz. can of tomato sauce (I used diced tomatoes instead), a tablespoon of garlic powder and a cup of diced black olives.

In a separate container, mix a cup of sour cream, a can of diced green chilis and some grated cheese of your choice. (You're actually supposed to use riccotta cheese instead of grated cheese, but I didn't have any.)

In a 2 quart oven dish (or larger, it wasn't really big enough), layer some crumbled tortilla chips. Put half of the beef mixture on top of that, layer half of the sour cream-green chili mix. Repeat the layers. Bake for 30 minutes or so. Voila! Not too tricky and quite tasty.

I love the taste of (non-hot) green chilis in casseroles. Sometimes I'll dump a can of green chilis in the bottom of a dish, throw on some grated cheese and pour on some scrambled raw eggs and bake it. YUM.

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Ah, it sounds good but I don't eat ground beef or turkey anymore. It tasted good but didn't do well with my body. :-(

Do you have the recipe for the banana-apple bread? Sounds so yummy and bananas and apples are always in season. :-)

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Ah, it sounds good but I don't eat ground beef or turkey anymore. It tasted good but didn't do well with my body. :-(

Do you eat eggs? Because the same idea works with eggs, and I fixed that this week as well. (I was in a green chili mood, and a green chili egg casserole is super-easy and can bake on low-ish temps while I go run errands. If you want more details on that, just let me know.)

Chicken also makes a tasty green chili casserole base.

Banana-apple bread, based off a Betty Crocker recipe for banana bread.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter (one stick)
2 mashed ripe bananas (about 3/4 cup)
1 apple, grated (also about 3/4 cup)
1 t. vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk (I did the milk + 1 T. vinegar thing)
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 cups white flour (I ended up using just a bit less than that)
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt (I used less because the butter was salted)

Turn oven on to 350. Mix wet ingredients. Gently stir in flour until everything is moist.

The original recipe says to put the batter in two greased bread pans and bake for about an hour. Instead I put part of the batter into cupcake/muffin tins and baked that part for about 20-25 minutes. This reduced the baking time for the two loaves, which were not as tall as planned, but since the original recipe tends to take forever to bake in the middle, I find this is easier.

Done when you can put a fork in the middle and it comes out clean.

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Yum! I'm totally makng this. Thanks for the hint about the milk and vinegar thing too!

Think these would be okay as muffins?

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Yes, they are great muffins! :D