Polish Sausage Kraut Skillet

from http://www.yummly.com/recipe/external/Polish-Sausage-Kraut-Skillet-AllRecipes

2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup water
2 potatoes, sliced
1 cup sliced carrots
2 tablespoons beef bouillon granules (I used vegetarian chicken bouillon)
1 teaspoon white sugar (omitted)
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 (14.5 ounce) can sauerkraut, drained
1 pound kielbasa sausage vegetarian sausage I used Tofurkey italian sausage
 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1 cup sour cream
salt and black pepper to taste

Heat the butter in a large skillet with a lid over medium heat; cook and stir the onion and garlic until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the water, potatoes, carrots, beef bouillon granules, sugar, and caraway seeds; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until the potatoes and carrots are tender, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

Place the sauerkraut on top of the vegetables in a layer, and place the sausages onto the sauerkraut. Cover, and cook until the sausages are heated through, about 15 minutes. Whisk the flour into the sour cream in a bowl, and stir into the sauerkraut mixture. Bring to a simmer to thicken the sour cream, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve hot.

Peach frozen yogurt-y stuff

I made this by accident while trying to make a peach milkshake with frozen peaches.

Blend in cuisinart til almost pulverized:1 cup (ish) of frozen peaches
Add a few scoops of low fat yogurt and sugar to taste. AND a splash of almond extract. That's what makes it really nice. I'm not usually a big fan of frozen yogurt or fruit ice creams, but this was pretty good. Maybe not the best choice for December, though.

Beets

This is not a recipes I've used, it is a challenge to myself.
I'm scared of beets. (Also brussels sprouts, but that's a different animal.)
I asked some folks for suggestions, and here's what I got. Someday, I will try these things:

-raw beets shredded into a salad
-"shred beets, then saute in olive oil with garlic and onion. Add mustard, red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper at the end. Delicious! Brussels sprouts are good sliced thin and roasted on a tray or sauteed with a little nutmeg and lemon juice. They get a nice flavor when they caramelize."
-"boil them, and separately boil potatoes and carrots, chop everything up with a pickle and some scallions, and dress with vinegar, oil, black pepper, salt, and sugar. This is called "surprise salad" since you don't know what you're getting in every bite- everything is colored by the beets."

simple vegetarian chili

1 (14oz) can fire-roasted tomatoes (Trader Joe's)
1/2 an onion, chopped
2 cans of beans (1 black, 1 garbanzo), rinsed
oregano
cumin
chili powder

Run the tomatoes through the blender to pulverize. This seems to help the consistency and flavor of the chili--it spreads the tomato taste through the chili better than individual chunks do. Saute onions in oil until browned on the edges. Add tomatoes. Cook a little. Add beans and spices to taste. Add a little water if needed. Cook on medium for a while, until you get bored. This tastes better with more cooking/the second day, and tastes oddly good with broccoli.

UPDATE: I often double this recipe and use a finely chopped green bell pepper (sauteed with the onion - generally added after it has sauteed a bit already) . Also I add a few cloves of garlic. Sometimes paprika. It's pretty good and pretty easy.

bok choy/tofu stir-fry

This isn't super special but I like how it came out, so...notes!

Trader Joe's High Protein Tofu--super dense, doesn't need to have the water pressed out

Cube tofu, make a marinade of 2 cloves of garlic (put in garlic press), healthy splashes of soy sauce, lemon pepper, coriander, a little celery salt (I dunno, it was there) and a splash of sriracha. (This was a new ingredient to me, particularly.) Also add a few chopped mushrooms
Stir it around, let it sit while you cut up:

1 head of bok choy.

Heat up a wok, very hot. Splash some oil in the bottom. Add the tofu and any marinade that's left, cook for a while. I think my mushrooms would have burned before the tofu got especially brown. When I started to get worried it'd burn, I added the bok choy stalks and stirred, lowered the heat a little, covered it for a bit, and basically just tried to soften the stalks a tad. Then I dumped in the leaves/green part and threw the cover on for a bit to just wilt them--maybe a minute. Then I took the cover off, stirred, and ate it.

Main takeaways from this:
-TJ's high protein tofu = awesome
-Sriracha sauce in stir fry = interesting, good, (it's definitely kind of hot though, even with the bok choy cutting it)
-letting bok choy stalks stay crunchy in stir fry = nice.

cherry cornmeal muffins

I made this recipe:
http://abbyashton.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/cherry-cornmeal-muffins/
but with all sugar instead of honey and an additional TBS of milk to make up for the lack of moisture provided by the honey. They were decent and more or less worked even though there's a strangely small amount of flour and my butter-sugar-milk mixture seemed a little clumpy (my melted brown butter re-solidified when it hit cold milk.) I also ended up using almond extract instead of vanilla. I'm not sure that was a good choice--not bad, but vanilla might have been better.

Banana Bread

Used this recipe:
http://joyofbaking.com/breakfast/BananaBread.html
1 cup (115 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (optional)

1 3/4 cups (230 grams) all-purpose flour 1 cup white, 3/4 cup white whole wheat

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar half brown, half white

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

dash nutmeg

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

3 ripe large bananas (approximately 1 pound or 454 grams), mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease & flour a 9x5x3 loaf pan OR 9x9 cake pan.
Place the nuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly toasted. Let cool and then chop coarsely. 
In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nuts. (Dry ingredients.)
In a medium-sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. (The important thing is not to over mix the batter. You do not want it smooth. Over mixing the batter will yield tough, rubbery bread.) Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake until bread is golden brown and a  toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 to 60 minutes for loaf pan or 25-30 for cake pan. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from the pan.

Changes from original recipe:
1) used 3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
2) used about half brown sugar (what I had)
3) added maybe 1/4+tsp cardamom and a bit of nutmeg in addition to cinnamon
4) maybe added some extra sugar?
5) baked in a 9x9 pan for 25-30 minutes
6) omitted the nuts
7) did the following in lieu of mashing: bananas in food processor, blended. added other wet ingredients and pulsed to blend. I'm not sure if this might have made things tougher. I doubt it since it was just the bananas and not bananas+dry ingredients at all, but who knows.

I think it was pretty good.