Whole Wheat Black Bean Burritos

Home made tortillas are not only very easy to make, but store bought ones just don't hold a candle. Like home baked bread, there is just no comparison when it comes to freshness. These burritos are very simple, healthy and almost no fat. And yummy! Can't forget that! If you want to have a little cheese, you can and not feel too guilty.
I prefer black beans over pinto beans, because they have more nutrients and anti-oxidants.








Whole wheat tortillas:
2 cups all natural whole wheat flour
 2 tsp. double acting baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Water

Mix the dry ingredients together, then drizzle in water very slowly, mixing just with your fingers until the dough holds together. Go ahead and knead it for a good couple of minutes, then let it rest for 10 minutes at least.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. You don't want it so hot that it smokes, but you want a good heat on it. Pinch off about an eighth of the dough (1/4 cup), and toss it into some flour to lightly coat it. Then roll it out onto a counter as thinly as you can. It will puff up a bit when you cook it, so when you have it as thin as you think you want it, roll it a little more. Roll your tortilla back onto your rolling pin the way you would a pie crust, and carefully put it into your hot pan. You should not need any oil if your pan is hot enough. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side. Usually by the time you have your next tortilla rolled out, it's time to flip. Mind your temperature and adjust your heat as you go so that you don't burn the tortillas. You should get about eight medium.

Beans:
2 tbs. oil
3 cups of cooked black beans (roughly two cans)
1/2 cup of liquid
1 small onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 grated carrot
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. salt
3 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. ground cumin
pepper

*I like to cook my beans in plain water a few hours in advance, but you can also use canned beans. Mind the sodium though, if you do buy canned beans that are cooked with salt, you may want to omit the salt in the recipe.

Heat oil in a large skillet. Toss in the onion and the garlic and saute until tender. Add in the liquid of your choice. You can use beef or chicken stock, the juice that the beans were cooked or canned in, or just plain water. Add in all of the spices and seasonings, mix well. Add in the beans and cook until heated through. When there is only a little bit of liquid left in the pan, take a potato masher and mash up the beans. Serve them on whole-wheat tortillas, top with lettuce, tomato and a little bit of plain nonfat yogurt.

Creamy Veggies and Pasta with Crab

This is one of my absolute favorite meals. Great for a lunch or for a dinner, this is a two person recipe and each half is 350 calories.










2 tbs. oil
1/2 large zucchini, cut into strips
1 medium carrot, sliced on a diagonal
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium tomato, cut into wedges, seeds and pulp removed
1/2 avocado, pitted and cubed
1 cup fresh broccoli florets
2 tbs. plain nonfat yogurt
1/2 cup cooked bow-tie pasta
1/2 cup imitation crab or canned or frozen crab meat
1 tbs. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
salt and pepper

In a large skillet, heat up the oil and saute first the onions and carrot until the onions are translucent and the carrot is tender. Add in the broccoli and zucchini and cook for two or three minutes until the broccoli turns bright green but is still crunchy Sprinkle on the seasonings, evenly. Remove from heat and stir in the yogurt for a bit of creaminess. Add in the tomato, avocado, crab meat and pasta and toss gently.

Whole Wheat Cheese Raviolis with Apricot Squash

These are positively delicious and well worth the effort to make them! I find making pasta by hand can be daunting, but wheat pasta is actually very easy to roll out by hand, I'm not sure I will ever go back to making pasta with white flour.








Pasta:
2 cups %100 percent whole wheat flour
1 tsp. salt
3 eggs
water

Filling:
Low Fat Ricotta Cheese (or Ricotta Cheese made with part skim milk)

Sauce:
1 acorn squash, halved, seeded and baked until tender
1 cup low fat plain yogurt
1 tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
water

To make the pasta, mix the salt and flour in a bowl. Hollow out the center of the flour and add in the eggs. There is no fat or oil in this pasta, I find it is completely unnecessary. Add an 1/8 cup of water, and begin whisking the eggs and water. Work your way out, incorporating flour bit by bit. Add water as needed, until the dough forms a very firm ball. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes or so.
Once the dough has rested, roll out a fourth at a time onto a lightly floured surface, to about a millimeter thick. Place a tbsp. of filling for each ravioli, every 2 inches. Roll out another piece of pasta, lay it on top and gently press it down. I used a cookie cutter to cut out rounds, but you can use a knife to cut out the pastas if you want. Add the raviolis to a pot of rapidly boiling water and cook for six minutes. When the pastas float, they are done.
The sauce is also very easy and also healthy. Peel your squash halves and pulp the meat of the squash with a potato masher, or use a hand mixer. Add in the yogurt and mix until well incorporated, then add water a little at a time until you reach the consistency you want, salt and pepper to taste.
I will admit, I was worried that the combination of the yogurt and squash would taste odd, but I was really surprised at how well it went especially with the pasta and the cheese. Like they were made to go together!

Drawstring Knapsack

 A drawstring knapsack  is ridiculously easy to make. I have made them out of chiffon, satin, cotton twill, and now "leather". There really are a lot of variations you can choose to make, from making them two-tone, giving them inner or outer pockets, sewing in loops to the lining to attach and hold a key ring or wallet that can't be removed, you name it! Not to mention all of the embellishments you can add to make your knapsack match any outfit. They are so easy and inexpensive to make, you can do like I do, and have a collection so that you have a knapsack for any outfit or any occasion.

To start, you will need your outside and inside fabrics. Just make sure you have 2 rectangles of each, and cut them to the same size, at least a foot wide and a foot and a half long. You're also going to want some sort of cord. Here, I'm using clothesline. The trim section of your fabric store has an endless collection of things you can choose.

 The first thing you will do is measure about an inch in from the bottom outside corners of your outer fabric only. Sew a couple of button holes there. If you don't like button holes, you can do rivets. Next, pin both pieces of your backpack together with right sides facing each other and sew them. It's important to remember to leave about an inch from the top unsewn only on the left side. Turn right side out.
Next, make your lining. I just wanted to make a very plain and basic knapsack, so I picked a cotton muslin and chose not to put any pockets, loops or pouches in it. I just sewed it at the sides and bottom, with right sides together. Make sure you insert your rope into the button holes before you sew in your lining. Just go in one and out the other.

 I inserted the lining into the backpack, tucked the edges in and pinned, then machine stitched about 2 millimeters from the edge.







Sew 8 button holes along the top hem, about an inch from the edge. Bring your rope up and weave them into the button holes. The side of the rope that comes from the right side (with the bottom button holes facing you), will go up and into the top hole on the right side, out, in, and out the far left hole. Pull the rope, so that when you have the knapsack open, the rope is slack but does not have excess, and trim it. You will then tuck the end into the gap that you left on that side when you sewed the two outer pieces together.




The rope that comes out of the left side, will go into the first hole on the left (into the same hole that the right side of the rope comes out of), and then flip the knapsack over. Weave that part of the rope in and out of the holes on that side. Pull and trim it to fit.


 You can take a pair of scissors and cut a slit into the lining, then tuck the end of the rope into it and sew it down.





That's it!

Heirloom Pillows

Every year at Christmas, I struggle with what to get my dad and step-mom. They are pretty well set, and my dad is super picky, so I try to get (make) them things of sentimental value that they couldn't buy in a store.
When I learned to embroider the long and short stitch, I got the idea for this portrait pillow.
The pillow on the left is my grandparents. I took a photo of them, which was already in black and white, and opened it in a graphics program. I gradually decreased the colors until there were only six colors left in the picture, including black and white. I then placed a piece of tracing paper over the screen (it needs to be a flat screen) and traced the blocks of color. It looked like a paint by number. I then transferred the drawing to fabric, and began filling in the blocks of color using the long and short stitch. I then appliqued the two portraits onto muslin, embroidered the family names on, and sewed it into a pillow with a brown leather backing.
My moms pillow was a tad bit more difficult to come up with. Her favorite thing is being a grandmother, and she dotes on all of her grandkids. Naturally, a pillow with their names on it would be the ticket, but some of the kids haven't even started making their own babies yet. I came up with the idea of the name-tag pillow. Each grandchild has their own name-tag, which is done in a different style and color pattern than any, and the name-tag then sewn on to the muslin pillow. The idea is that with every grand child that is born, I will make a new name-tag out of whatever scrap fabric I have on hand, and send it to her in the mail. She can then sew it on. The pillow matches the one I made for my dad, with leather backing, but to underline the "grandma-ishness" I added some handmade lace. They were really pleased, and I think these are gifts that will have a great longevity for them.

A Ballgown and a Birthday Cake

 With my little girls birthday being less than two week away from Christmas, it can be a small challenge to make her feel extra special. Especially with all of the parties and gifts being given all around. I started a tradition on her very first birthday, to make her as princessy as I could on her special day. Each year, I make her a very fancy dress. It usually costs less than twenty dollars, and it's designed to her liking. She picks the colors and the style, and often she'll pick out the fabric. Her daddy will buy her new shoes and accessories (for those who personally know this particular 4 year old, know that this is a big deal to her, for she is every cliche of a girly girl), and on her birthday we dress her up, take her to get her portraits done, and then take her to a restaurant of her choice. She gets so much attention in her get up, it would be impossible to make her feel anymore the center of attention! We will then come home and do cake and ice cream, the cake of course, is made to her order.

 I cannot assume credit for the design of this cake, I took elements that I've seen on pinterest or other websites, and put them all together in one cake. All I was told was that she wanted a "Rainbow Hello Kitty Cake".

I bought two boxes of white cake mix, and made them per instructions. I then divided the batter into six equal parts and mixed in gel food coloring and baked each round for 20 minutes.

 The frosting was done by taking a piping bag, and placing a line of gel food coloring for each color, halfway up the bag down to the tip. I then carefully added white butter cream frosting  into the bag and squeezed out little swirlies. The recipe for the frosting is: 4 sticks of butter, 1 bag of powdered sugar, 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk.

After each round was cooled, I stacked them in rainbow order from purple on the bottom, to red at the top with a thin layer of frosting in between. I frosted the outside of the cake in white, then drew on the Hello Kitty in black. I took straight gel food coloring and painted in the bow and the nose, then swirled on the colored rainbow curly-q's.








I know you can't really see the details in my dress design, but the whole thing started with a drawing of the dress. I did a mental breakdown of the dress, figuring out which pieces I would need to make. I wanted to make a diagonal pleated bodice, a sash, a side "scoop", and a shear multi-layered skirt with different types of shear and tulle.

 I decided I would need two pleated pieces for the front outside of the bodice, 1 large piece for the inside front, and two pieces each for the inside and outside of the back and side of the bodice. 1 long tubular piece for the sash, two long swags for the scoop, two long pieces for "sleeves", several layers of tulle and shear, and a zipper. I pieced it together mentally, and wrote out my plan in step by step increments. I also planned on using scraps to make a flower that would be sewn to the skirt, where it meets the sash. I measured my girl, then used those measurements to draw the pattern pieces onto tissue paper.




I took a long piece of fabric and began pleating it. This is not an accordion pleat, but a box pleat. After the initial fold, which is pressed with an iron, I measured an inch and made another fold in the same direction. The box pleat is made with two outside folds, followed by two inside folds, then repeated all the way across. You can use a piece of cardboard to get a straighter edge, if you like.

 I held my pattern pieces up to my girl, to check the size. When I was satisfied that they were the proper size and shape, I carefully laid my front outside bodice piece to my first pleated half, and gently cut it out. I then laid my cut piece over the second pleated half, lining up my folds so that the seams would match up precisely. I flipped over my bodice pattern, laid it in place, and carefully cut it out. Laying the right sides of the two front bodice pieces together and pinning them, I sewed up the middle of the bodice, using a half inch seam allowance.

 I placed my large inner front bodice piece over the now singular outer front piece, and sewed up the sides and front. If it weren't for the pleats, I would have sewn both inner and outer bodice pieces together first, before sewing them to each other. But I didn't want to mess up any of my folds, and it didn't matter to me if there were raw seams showing on the inside of the bodice.
I took the four identical side/back pieces, and sewed two together for each side, at the top and sides. I turned them right side out and pressed them flat, and then pinned them to the front bodice piece and sewed them in place. To clean it up as best I could, I did a zigzag stitch over the raw edge to keep the edges from fraying.

 I folded the long sash piece in half width-wise, with right sides together and sewed it. I then turned it right side out, and placing the seam in the middle of the back side so that it wouldn't show, I pinned the sash to the bodice and sewed it into place.
The two swag pieces were placed right sides together, pinned, sewn, turned right side out, and then sewn to the bottom of the sash. These two bottom pieces were sewn together in the back, with the zipper sewn onto the sides of the bodice piece.

I hung the bodice on a hanger, and suspended it in the middle of the room so I could attach the many layers of the skirt. I started with a black underskirt, in lining fabric, then black tulle, sparkly black shear, red tulle, sparkly red shear, all sewn to the inside of the bottom of the sash, underneath the scoop. I sewed by hand, to ensure the folds stayed just the way I wanted them.
I folded and pressed the top and bottom of the two sleeve pieces, and hemmed them down before sewing them into long tubes and stitching them to the sides of the bodice.

Oh MY! Pineapple Sundae

I am all into healthy desserts, and they don't get much healthier than this one. Seriously, non-dieting people will be jealous! Start with 1/2 cup nonfat vanilla flavored yogurt. Top it with 1/8 cup each of FRESH pineapple, granola (home made is preferred), shredded coconut, and semi-sweet chocolate chips.
The beauty of this recipe is that even at 270 calories, each ingredient has really strong health benefits. The yogurt keeps your pipes running clean, the pineapple is full of manganese and vitamin C, the granola contains whole grains and healthy nuts, the coconut has healthy fats and protien, and the chocolate chips (make sure they're semi-sweet) are loaded with anti-oxidants. You can eat this for breakfast for a great start to your day, and change up the fruit if you start to get bored. Thawed frozen berries also work well, and are full of anti-oxidants, and you can't beat bananas for potassium. I haven't tried peaches yet, but I'm sure it would be fantastic!

Spicy Red Beans and Rice

I absolutely LOVE Red Beans and Rice, when you mix in some beef smoked sausage, I am in heaven. But with the new year freshly born, I am currently going meatless, just to try it out. This was awesome last night and the family eating meatloaf in front of me had no impact at all!






1 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 carrots, diced small
1 bell pepper, diced small
2 cups fat free beef stock
2 cups water
2 cups uncooked brown rice
3 cups of cooked red beans
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp. paprika
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 tbs. red pepper flakes

In an extra large skillet, heat oil and saute vegetables until the onions are translucent. Add in beef stock, slowly, then the water and seasonings. Add in the rice and the beans and simmer covered, for 1 hour.  Your looking at about 220 calories for 1 and a half cups.

Happy Endofholidays!

Well that's over! I didn't forget my blog, I just got caught up in the making frenzy leading up to Christmas, and even wound up with some holiday hold over - that is, even after the ham was picked over and the tree packed away, I still was working on presents! But now that is done and I can finally blog about what had been keeping me busy the past few weeks. And I can get back to the little readers.

Most of my gifts were knitted and crocheted this year, I'm not very good at the yarn stuff at this point, so I'm not going to put up any tutorials or patterns. The breakdown is as follows:

4 hats, 4 scarves, 1 poncho, 1 pair of rainbow socks, 5 wash clothes, 1 knitted bath poof, 1 pair of knitted pants (size 5T), 2 heirloom pillows, 2 drawstring nap sacks, 2 homemade wallets, and 2 leather bound notebooks, 1  ball gown and a few batches of cookies. Phew!

Here are some pics of the things I knitted, more posts will follow for the rest.