Green Beans and Spaetzle

Growing up, one thing we always had at holiday dinners was Birds Eye brand green beans and spaetzle.It may have been my favorite part of the meal, there never seemed to be enough. Sadly, they don't make it anymore so I had to find another way to have it this year for Christmas dinner. I decided to try and make it myself. It turned out pretty good so I thought I would share what I did.

I found dried spaetzle in the store so I just boiled that like pasta. In the last few minutes of boiling, I added the green beans. I think I even threw in a little bit of chopped garlic that I had left over on the cutting board. Once they were done, I mixed in butter, salt and bacon bits. I used the real bacon that comes in a pouch, not the crunchy bacon bits that go on salads. As I was thinking it through, I thought I would need to put in more of something but it turned out quite yummy. This may need to become a staple.

Pumpkin Delights

When there's a chill in the air, I have a strong desire to make pumpkin recipes. This year I wanted to break away from my usual pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread. My search yielded muffins and shakes.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a 12-count muffin tin.
2. Put the dry ingredients, from flour to salt, in a bowl and whisk together. Set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs. Add sugar and oil, mixing until combined. Then mix in the pumpkin and water. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients; beat just until moistened. Mix in the chocolate chips.
4. Fill the muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test.


A typical can of pumpkin holds about one and a half cups of pumpkin puree. So I found a recipe that uses up the rest of the can of pumpkin. However, it only makes about 2 cups. That was not enough for the whole family. So you can either make this after the kids go to bed, or double the recipe to share with everyone. Of course, it's so yummy that you can double the recipe, pour it in a graham cracker crust, and chill in the freezer for a frozen pumpkin pie. Mmm . . . frozen pumpkin pie.


Pumpkin Pie Shake
1 cup vanilla ice cream
1/2 cup milk, non-dairy creamer or water
~1/2 cup (or the rest of the can) pureed pumpkin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp vanilla
cool whip for garnish (optional)

1. Put all the ingredients in the blender. Blend. Add an extra 1/4 cup of milk if needed. Pour into your cup(s) and top with cool whip, if desired.

3C bread

I wanted to send this recipe to a friend, so I figured I might as well post it here. We usually make it around the holidays, since it looks so festive with the cherries. I especially love the flavor from the mace, but you can use nutmeg instead if you don't have it.

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp mace
3 beaten eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cub sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 cups shredded carrots
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup maraschino cherries, drained and chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. Mix remaining ingredients in a separate bowl, then add all together. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake for 1 hour. However I usually like to use 3 mini loaf pans instead and cook it 45-50 minutes. Make sure you don't over bake! If you wait until a knife inserted comes out clean, you cooked it too long. You want there to a be a few crumbs on the knife, but not doughy.

Peppermint Bark

Okay, so this is less of a recipe and more of a funny story. I was at Costco the other day and they had all their yummy Christmas food out. It was hard to keep from drooling on everything. They had some peppermint bark and I thought, "I have got to make some of that." It's Halloween though, so I wanted to make it look seasonal. I put some green food coloring in the white chocolate and called it Monster Mash-up. We had it last night for FHE. Maggie says, "This is so yummy, Mom. We should have it again." Aaron says, "Yeah, with a more seasonally appropriate name." I'm thinking, "Sure, peppermint bark." And then Hannah comes in with "Elf Disaster." I laughed so hard. I'm still laughing just thinking about it. Maybe we should pass it out as our neighbor gifts this year.

Here is what I did in case you need to make some Monster Mash-up or Elf Disaster--just for giggles. I melted 1 cup milk chocolate chips and spread them on a parchment lined cookie sheet and put it in the freezer to cool. Then I melted 1 cup white chocolate chips and added 1/2 tsp mint extract, green food coloring and 1/4 c (ish) crushed peppermint candy. I spread it on the milk chocolate and sprinkled more crushed peppermint candy over the top. I put it in the freezer again to cool and broke it up into pieces to serve. It was pretty good, but I think Emily's is better.

Saint Patrick's Day dinner

Did anyone else have fun with their Saint Patrick's Day dinner? I know that the traditional meal is corned beef and cabbage, but I made that one year and wasn't too impressed. So I like to have fun with green food coloring instead. Yesterday I made green chicken nuggets (recipe to follow), green mashed potatoes (simply added the food coloring at the end) and green peas. I didn't know how green the chicken nuggets would end up, and they turned out very green. The kids loved it!

Chicken Nuggets

vegetable oil (enough to barely cover pan, adding as necessary)

boneless skinless chicken breasts (I defrosted 4 large ones for my family, and there was more than enough)

corn starch or flour

2 beaten eggs (optional: add a few drops of food coloring)

Italian bread crumbs

Heat thin layer of oil in large skillet over medium heat. Pound chicken until uniformly thin. Cut into nugget-sized pieces. Dip in corn starch or flour, then dip in egg, then coat with bread crumbs. Fry in batches, turning over when golden brown. They will cook quickly if you have pounded them thin enough. Drain on paper towels. Serve with dipping options: BBQ sauce, ketchup, honey mustard, and hot sauce (my family's favorite). These are a huge hit with adults and kids alike.

Green Bean Casserole

Green bean casserole is one of those things that remind people of their childhood holidays. It's usually something their mom always made and as such they have a very distinct idea of what it should be like. Similar to potato salad, everyone makes it just a little bit differently and thinks theirs is the best. I did not grow up with this (we had green beans with spetzle for holiday meals) so I can be objective in these recipes. I found one on Allrecipes.com that did not involve cream of mushroom soup and I liked it a lot. Naturally I made a few changes which are reflected here.

2 T butter

2 T flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp white sugar

diced onion

1 c sour cream

one big bag frozen french cut green beans (it called for three cans, steamed fresh beans would also be good)

2 c grated cheese (calls for cheddar, I used leedermeyer because it was what I had)

1/2 c crushed Ritz crachers

Preheat oven to 350. Melt butter and saute onion. Mix in flour and cook for one minute. (This was a bit odd, it would probably have been good to cook the onion, set it aside then melt the butter and add the flour.) Stir in salt, sugar and sour cream. Add green beans and stir to coat. Mix in about half of the cheese.

Transfer to a casserole dish. Spread the remaining cheese on top with the crushed crackers. Bake for 30 minutes or until top is golden and cheese is bubbly.