DIY Recipe – Homemade Refried Beans

Jan 11 | Recipes

This recipe could come in very handy for me!  One of my husband’s favourite snacks is “Bean Dip”.  A layer each of cream cheese, salsa, refried beans and shredded cheddar cheese.

Now that I came across this recipe for Homemade Refried Beans on The Finer Things in Life, I can cross buying cans off my grocery list!

Easy Ham Recipe: Sunshine Ham (or Chicken)

Dec 2 | Recipes

Easy Ham Recipe

Sunshine ham.  A great easy ham recipe to use for holiday dinners, or any special occasion!  The sauce is also great with chicken!

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Sunshine Ham (or Chicken)
Ingredients
  • 1 Ham
  • 1/3 can 5 Alive Citrus or orange juice, mix with 1/4 cup water
  • 2 Tbsp cornstarch
  • 1/8 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/8 tsp all spice
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 270 degrees. Place ham in an oven safe dish.
  2. Combine juice, water, corn starch and spices in a measuring cup. pour over ham.
  3. Bake ham for 3.5 hours.
  4. The ham can also be done in a slow cooker on high for 3.5 hours.
  5. If you're doing chicken instead, mix 1/4 cup flour with the spices, then dredge the chicken pieces in that mixture to coat.
  6. Place in slow cooker.
  7. Pour the juice and water mixture over top.
  8. Cook on high for 2.5 hours or until done.

Homemade Caramel Sauce

Oct 5 | Recipes

Now that it’s Fall, I’ve had a hankering for some apple slices covered in homemade caramel sauce.  So yesterday, I finally made some!  Now, I’m not making any claims about this being a healthy recipe, but definitely a treat! 🙂

Homemade Caramel Sauce:

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Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup light corn syrup I've used dark with success
  • 1 can 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon optional
Instructions
  1. In a medium saucepan, melt butter on low heat.
  2. Add brown sugar, corn syrup, and milk, stirring to combine. Increase heat to medium (or maybe a little below medium).
  3. Stir constantly until mixture comes to a boil. Make sure to use a heat resistant spoon.
  4. Remove from heat and whisk in the vanilla and (optional) cinnamon.
  5. Serve warm or cold over apple slices, ice cream or whatever you fancy!

I think what makes this recipe almost fool proof is the corn syrup. Makes it hard to burn since you don’t have to keep such a close eye on it like traditional caramel (butter, cream and brown sugar only).

image from here.

Easy Recipe – Pizza Dough

Sep 27 | Recipes

I’ve had a request for the pizza dough recipe I use for making the Sloppy Joe Calzones we enjoy.  So here it is!  I actually throw all the ingredients into my bread maker and set it to the “dough” feature, but I’ve written out the instructions to show you how to make it by hand.

Easy Pizza Dough

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Easy Pizza Dough
Ingredients
  • 1 Tbsp active dry yeast
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
Instructions
  1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together.
  2. Dump the dough onto a floured surface and knead into a smooth dough. (about 5 minutes or so)
  3. Roll out the dough and press down onto a greased pizza pan. Add your pizza toppings of choice.
  4. Bake at 450 degrees for 12-15 minutes, until crispy and lightly browned.

**For the Calzones, I simply rip small pieces of the dough and shape them fairly thin by hand.

Easy Recipe – Tasty Tzatziki Dip

Aug 15 | Recipes

Delicious tzatziki dip

Here’s a fabulous recipe for Tzatziki dip that my Mom gave me!  We love to dip pita bread in it.

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Tasty Tzatziki Dip
Ingredients
  • 2/3 cup Sour Cream
  • 1/3 cup Yogurt Greek
  • Garlic powder or very finely chopped amount to taste
  • Dill dried or fresh
  • Cucumber very finely sliced and diced, or shredded
  • Lemon to taste
  • Salt optional
Instructions
  1. Mix it all together and let sit in refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.
Recipe Notes

Apart from using the ratio of Sour Cream to Yogurt, no specific amounts were given and you will need to add ingredients according to your taste.

Image from here.

Easy Lunch Recipe – Egg Salad Sandwiches

Aug 2 | Recipes

Let me start off by saying that I don’t like eggs.  🙂  At least, I don’t like eggs on their own. (scrambled, over easy…etc)  But I know they’re good for me so I’ve been trying over the last year or so, to eat more.  One way that I have actually been enjoying eating more eggs is by making egg salad sandwiches, or in my case, I prefer bunwiches!

Here’s my super simple three ingredient recipe:

Serves 1

  • 1 hard boiled egg (good instructions on how to boil an egg can be found here)
  • Mayonnaise (I use quite a bit because I want to disguise the taste of the egg 🙂 about 2 Tbsp?)
  • a squirt of mustard (optional)

Once the egg is boiled, I smash it with a fork, then add the mayonnaise and mustard.  Stir until it’s all well incorporated.

Serve on a bun or sandwich bread if you prefer!  Serve with pickles. (Pickles made everything better, in my opinion!)  One day, I might get adventurous and add some dill or something!

How do you like to eat your eggs?  Do you have a food that you dislike, but you try to eat at least a little bit?