Welcome!

Hi and thank you for visiting my blog. My name is Tina, I am 42 years old and married to a wonderful man named Robert. I live in the Cleveland, Ohio area with my husband and our two pugs, Koko and Lucy and a special kitty, named Trixie.

I am of Italian decent and love to cook not just for my family but for everyone! I have a lot of weeknight dinner guest and try to keep it casual but delicious! My Mom passed away a few years ago and was my great teacher.

In 2012 I have changed the way I eat. A real lifestyle change to be healthier, eat a nutrient dense diet and remove all processed foods, refined flours and sugars from our diet. I do cook a lot healthier than my Mom did and do a lot more vegetarian meals, poultry and fish. I'm trying to find a way to keep the traditions of family, friends and good food in my house always.

I plan to post my weekly menus, update with new recipes, health information and articles and how to eat mostly organic in an economical way. I will also periodically post personal updates of my journey to regain health and hope.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Cornbread Burger Bake

I don't recall where I picked up this recipe card, but the source states "Ohio State University Extension, Cuyahoga County, Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program". This looked like something Robert would love as he loves cornbread and burgers and it was made with turkey..which was a great bonus. I made a few changes to the recipe, but here is the original recipe, I will explain my changes and suggestions below.

Cornbread Burger Bake
1 Cup of Flour
1 egg beaten
1 Tbsp. Baking Powder
1 Cup 1% milk
1 Cup Cornmeal
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 can cream style corn
1 lb. ground turkey
1/4 green bell pepper chopped
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 cup low fat cheese


Instructions
1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees, grease or use cooking spray to coat a 9 x9 casserole dish.
2. Combine first seven ingredients and set aside.
3. Brown the ground turkey, dran excess fat and add onion, green pepper and chili powder.
4. Pour half of the cornbread mixture in the casserole, cover with turkey mixture and the cheese; pour the remainder of the cornbread batter over the top.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes.


Changes
I made the following changes. It was good, but still needed something more. I used skim milk, instead of 1%. I used two ears of corn instead of a can of cream of corn...I am trying to eat only whole foods and I think I should have added something else for this substitute, maybe a Tbsp. of honey as creamed corn is sweet usually.
I also added a whole onion and bell pepper and I added the onion and green pepper to the turkey while browning it. I use very lean ground turkey and had to add olive oil to get it to brown. Next time, I'll add a little more chili powder too.
In the corn bread mixture I added a fresh jalepeno, chopped fine, for a little flavor and color. That was a great addition.
Overall, this was good...not great. I think tweaking the recipe a little more will make this a wonderful hearty dish to add to my repitore. Served with salad..but this is really a pretty complete meal in one. For time saving, you could use any corbread pre-mix that you like. I think Trader Joe's Cornbread mix is pretty darn good.
This is another one of those healthy, economical dishes. I would estimate it was less than $10 to make and you can get 6 nice sized servings.

Monday, July 20, 2009

I'm Back!!

Well, after a year of not blogging I've decided it something I miss and want to do again. I think the pressure of daily updates was too much and I realized I cook a lot of the same meals which is boring for my loyal blog readers. So, while I am not promising daily blog updates, I do plan to update it much more frequently than once a year!