Frichik - Vegetable Soup

This soup recipe is perfect for when it gets cold outside.  It is very easy to make. And you can throw in whatever vegetables you like or have available. Enjoy!

Ingredients

1 cup chopped onion

3 cloves crushed garlic

3 chopped celery stalks

1 chopped carrot

1 medium size red bell pepper, chopped

1 red Chili, chopped

1 tablespoon finely grated ginger

1 can canneline beans

1 can original frichik (red), diced

2 cups hot water

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoon olive oil

Direction

Saute onion and garlic for 3 minutes. Add carrots, celery, bell pepper, and red chili; cooked for another 8 minutes. Add canneline beans, frichik, ginger, salt, and hot water; bring to a boil then reduce the heat to low. Check the vegetables for doneness. Serve.

Sweet Potato Bread with Cream Cheese Filling

For people that love sweet breads, you should give this a try. This is a good snack bread recipe.


Ingredients

Bread

1/2 cup mashed sweet potato

3/4 cup flour (plus extract flour)

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon grated orange rind

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

butter (for greasing the loaf pan)

Filling

2 ounces softened cream cheese

1 tablespoon Xylitol or granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon orange rind

Direction

1. Filling. Combine cream cheese, vanilla extract, xylitol or granulated sugar, and orange rind together and mix until smooth. 

2. Bread. Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients together in separate mixing bowls. Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients and whisk until just blended. Using a TABLESPOON, scoop out bread mixture into a heavily floured surface and shape it into ball. Flatten the ball and spoon out 1/2 teaspoon filling into each flatten dough. Bring the edges together to seal up the dough. Place each filled dough in small muffin tins lined with muffin cups; sealed-side facing down. 

Brush the top of each bread with butter; bake in a 350F degrees preheated oven for 20 minutes. Makes 10.

Spicy-Crunchy Onion Rings

Two days ago, a good friend, Jim Morvac, gave me a set of cookbooks and a  personal compilation of recipes which he inherited from his mother. This fried onion rings recipe is one of his mother's treasured recipes. I did make some modifications to it though.

Ingredients

2 large onions

3/4 cup All-purpose flour

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 egg

1 teaspoon Lawry's salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 cube vegetable bouillon

1 cup panko bread crumbs

oil for frying

Direction

1. Mix together milk and vinegar. Let it stand for 5 minutes.

2. Peel onion and slice onions in 1/2-inch thick; separate them into rings.

3. In a deep dish, combine bread crumbs, nutritional yeast flakes, and cayenne pepper together. 

4. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, milk mixture, and vegetable bouillon; mix until smooth.

5. Heat 1 inch of oil to 375F. Dip onion rings in batter; let excess batter drip off. Dredge the rings in bread crumbs mixture, then drop several rings at a time into hot oil and fry until golden.

Variation

Zucchini would be good too.

No MSG - Ranch Mix for Dressing or Dip

I used to not care about the ingredients of the processed foods that I buy until I learned about MSG, sugar, etc;  and how they affect the body. This is how my hunt for ranch dressing from scratch started.


I came across this recipe at Food.com, it's a really good one. I did make a few changes  to the recipe to make it my own. 

Ingredients

1/4 cup granulated powder

1/4 cup granulated onion

2 tablespoons Xylitol or granulated sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

2 teaspoons Lawry's seasoned salt

1/2 teaspoon citric acid

1 tablespoon parsley, finely crushed

1 teaspoon white pepper

Direction

1. Mix all the ingredients and place in airtight container.

2. If you want to use this for salad dressing, combine 1 teaspoon of ranch dipping mix into 8 ounces of sour cream at a time, to taste. Add buttermilk into sour cream mixture until desired thickness is achieved.

3. You may use very little amount of buttermilk or may omit it for dip.

Mango-Refrigerator Cake in Tortilla Cup

Just another dessert you can make with tortilla cups. Once, again I don't make very sweet desserts so you might want to adjust the sweetness to your taste.


Ingredients

Tortilla Cups

4 whole wheat soft tacos

3 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoon xylitol or granulated sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Filling
3 sweet ripe mangoes, thinly sliced
pint of heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon stevia or any sweetener of your choice (adjust the sweetness to your taste) 
Graham crackers

Direction

1. Filling

• Peel and slice the mango lengthwise, about in 1/4-inch thick. Lay the slices on the plate.
• Using an electric mixer, whip the cream, vanilla and stevia until stiff peaks form.
• In a 9x13 rectangular dish, layer graham crackers on the bottom of the dish; spread some whipped cream over the crackers, then arrange some mango slices over the cream. Repeat the process, ending with whipped cream. Top with finely crushed graham crackers; cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 6-8 hours or even better if chilled overnight.. 

2. Tortilla cups

• Combine xylitol or granulated sugar together on a plate. Cut out the tortillas using a 5 1/4-inch round cookie cutter. Brush both sides with butter and coat with the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Place each cut out tortillas in ramekins and bake for 10-13 minutes in a 350F degrees preheated oven. Let the tortilla cups cool completely in the ramekins.

Spicy Garbanzo beans

I came across this recipe at a Weight Watcher cookbook.  I was impressed. Not only did it sound delicious but it was a quick recipe and I have all the ingredients available in the pantry. I made small changes to the amount of ingredients and left out ground black pepper. Also, this is suppose to be spicy garbanzo beans, but not all in the family can handle heat so I didn't make this spicy. 

Ingredients

2 cans garbanzo beans

1 1/2 cans (15 oz) crushed tomatoes

1 medium green bell pepper, diced

1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp salt (add more if necessary)

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 
2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (adjust to your taste)

ground black pepper (optional)

Direction

Saute onions in olive oil for 4 minutes, stir in diced green bell peppers and cook for another 5 minutes. Add salt, black pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper; stir until everything is well incorporated. Add the garbanzo beans and tomatoes, cover, cook for 10 minutes. Serve.

Chickpeas

Mango-Refrigerated Cake

This luscious, creamy dessert is a five ingredient recipe and is very simple to make. One thing though, make sure you use the perfectly ripe yellow mango, since you want  its delicate sweet and sour flavor and its buttery texture in the cake. 

Ingredients

3 sweet ripe (ataulfo) mangoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick

pint of heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon stevia or any sweetener of your choice

Graham crackers

Direction

1. Peel and slice the mango lengthwise, about 1/4-inch thick. Lay the slices on the plate. 

2. Using an electric mixer, whip the cream, vanilla and stevia until stiff peaks form.

3. In a 9x13 rectangular dish, layer graham crackers on the bottom of the dish; spread some whipped cream over the crackers, then arrange some mango slices over the cream. Repeat the process, ending with whipped cream. Top with finely crushed graham crackers; cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for 6-8 hours or even better if chilled overnight.