Cottage Cheese Stuffed Avocado with Two Options

Perfect for eating on the deck with some pretty flowers nearby.

It's getting hot around here, and I don't mean in the good way.  I mean in the frizzy hair, damp underarms, I'm cranky and have lost my appetite kind of way.

Generally I don't eat a heavy lunch anyway because I get home from work late.  So I eat a light lunch around 1:30 and then eat supper around 5:30.  Most of my lunches are some form of leftover from the previous night.  However sometimes there aren't leftovers, or now that it's hot, I don't feel like messing with heating anything up.  On those days I make myself a salad, a pimento cheese sandwich, or my latest obsession - an avocado stuffed with cottage cheese.

Strawberry Balsamic Jam

My parents and a couple of their friends had a huge garden back when I was a kid.  They all canned, froze, or pickled what they could from the garden, and even though then I didn't enjoy some of my jobs related to preserving the food, I miss them now.

One thing my mother didn't make was jam or jelly, though.  She did try a small batch of grape jelly once.  It took her all day, and she was displeased with how it came out in the end.  I think the term "wallpaper paste" was used more than once.

No Bake Mini Key Lime Cheesecakes

We go through a lot of cream cheese in our house.  Seriously, a lot.  If I can't get the 9 year old to eat anything else, he will at least eat a whole wheat tortilla with cream cheese or refried beans on it.  Plus I also cook with cream cheese.  So every week I pick up a brick of it.  If cream cheese is on sale, I pick up two or three.

Gluten Free Butterscotch Scones

Another recipe I found on the Tea Time website in my search for gluten free scones was one for chive and goat cheese scones.  I made them with feta and ate the whole batch by myself in a week.  Oh my goodness, they were so good!  Feta is one of my favorite cheeses.  It added such a nice saltiness to the scone.  One night for supper we even had Nana's Sausage Gravy.  While the boys had their gravy over store bought biscuits, I poured my gravy over one of those scones.  Divine!

Roasted Root Vegetables with Brussels Sprouts

My husband declared in late October that he felt he needed to lose a little weight and try to eat healthier.  According to the USDA, he was, in fact considered obese.  And I have to say that in 6 months, he's lost 30 pounds just by changing his diet alone.

Baked Brown Rice

In addition to both me and the 9 year old ending up with 6 weeks of bronchitis the end of October through November, one of the reasons why I took a blogging break was because my husband decided he needed to lose some weight and eat healthier.  Even though I try to cook healthy for supper, and we don't eat that much by way of processed foods, he wasn't eating healthy through the day.

Easy Pizza Sauce

Before I went gluten free, we used to have homemade pizza a couple times a month.  To help us eat as healthy as we can and to save money, I decided I should start making my own pizza sauce.  After all, I'm making my own marinara, pizza sauce couldn't be difficult either.  And it isn't.

I found a good sauce we liked from Kitchen Treaty.  This recipe had everything we wanted in a pizza sauce.  Full of tomato flavor? Check. Just a hint of heat? Check.  Super simple? Check.  Easy to adapt? Check.  Freezes well? Check.  I adapted this sauce slightly to accommodate our tastes and my cooking style.

Gluten Free Orange and Cream Cheese Scones

Two of my closest girlfriends from college are both big tea drinkers.  One of them even throws beautiful tea parties for her friends.  I was honored enough to be invited to one back in November for our other friend's birthday.  The table was set with heirloom china, crystal, and silver.  She had a savory course and a sweet course, four different blends of tea, and was even kind enough to make sure I had some apple cinnamon gluten free scones perfect for fall so I could enjoy my tea to the fullest.

Gluten Free Flour Blend and Book Review

I was not compensated for this post other than given permission to share America's Test Kitchen's copyrighted recipe.  All opinions are my own.

Several weeks ago a package showed up on my doorstep unannounced.  My dad saw a cookbook online he thought I'd like and had it sent to me.  My dad is cool like that.

The book is America's Test Kitchen's latest The How Can it Be Gluten Free Cookbook.  Let me tell you, I wish this book had come out a year ago.  The first chapter in the book is all about the chemistry of gluten and baking.  America's Test Kitchen talks about what needs to be replaced in a recipe if wheat gluten is removed - elasticity, fat, starch.  Another thing they talked about was weighing flour and other dry ingredients instead of measuring them by the cup.  That technique has made a great difference in my baking.

Beef Stew with Mushrooms

Last winter I found stew beef on managers special several times, so we ended up eating a lot of beef stew, vegetable beef soup, and beef tips with gravy over mashed potatoes.  Not that anyone really complained.  Even the 9 year old will eat the beef and the potatoes from beef stew.

Creamy Beef and Penne with Vegetables

Eons ago when I thought I was a good cook, and my husband did too, but in reality what I did was fake it with processed foods and shortcuts that may or may not have worked, I made a pasta dish I'd found in a magazine.  It had stew beef, mostaccioli pasta, and lots of vegetables.  I remember it being good, but for some reason I never made it again.

Foil Pack Fish Filets

My husband and I love fish (the 8 year old, not so much).  We especially love to put fish on the grill.  Usually we buy salmon, but occasionally I'll find a good sale or managers special on something else that we'll try instead.

Yellow Rice

I realized the other night when I made this fantastic dish by Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom that I had never shared my yellow rice recipe with you.  It's such a simple recipe, it's easy to overlook, but it's such a versatile side dish and good starter for more substantial recipes.  The best part about this is, it's cheaper and healthier than those boxes or bags of yellow rice mix in the grocery store.  I know exactly what I'm eating when I make it myself and it takes only an extra minute to or two.

Corn Tortilla Dogs

One day this summer I was standing in the middle of a 7-11 waiting for the 8 year old to finish up his "pit stop."  The hot dog roller caught my eye and as I watched hot dogs, taquitos, corn dogs, and batter covered round foods slowly turning on the heated rollers, I thought to myself "I bet I could make something like that at home."  Thus the corn tortilla dog was born.

Kettle Corn

You know that sweet popcorn that smells so good when you go to a fair or street carnival?  Here our city holds a street festival in conjunction with our Christmas tree lighting, and there is always a kettle corn vendor.

Ham and Cheese Corn Muffins

The 8 year old has decided that he's tired of sandwiches.  Since he takes his lunch to school, this is a bit of a problem.  So I set out trying to find something that would be filling, have protein, be reasonably healthy, and would be packable for his lunch.

Chicken Fried Rice

I said last week that the cast iron skillet nachos were the last of my little camping series, however, as I started working on this post I thought I'd add it in too to show the diversity of meals you can make while (car) camping.

Cast Iron Skillet Nachos

The final post of my little two week camping series is for these super yummy and easy cast iron skillet nachos.  You don't really cook the nachos in the skillet.  It's more for getting everything warm once its assembled and for serving.  So if you don't have a cast iron skillet, don't panic.  You can still make these nachos easily using a heavy duty pan or even a disposable aluminum pan.

S'mores Trail Mix

Here's a quick, easy one for a day time hike or an overnight car camping trip.  We like to mix up a big batch of this before all of our camping trips so we can snack on it in the car or while we're waiting for supper at the camp site.  I like it because, while it's admittedly not the healthiest snack mix out there, it's fun and versatile.

Bread and Butter Freezer Pickles

As I'm working on this post, I'm also chatting on Facebook with one of my parents' long-time friends, Marian, whom I haven't seen in more years than I can count.  When I was little, for a few years my parents, Marion and her husband, and another family all shared a large neighborhood garden.  It was quite large with lots of space for experiments - I remember the year they tried to grow peanuts! - and standbys.  Zucchini, anyone?