Amy's pumpkin pie recipe

I use a combination of this:

and the recipe from here:

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2008/10/vegan-pumpkin-pie-worthy-of.html

The linked recipe uses coconut milk instead of evaporated milk. So, that's what I do for a dairy-free pie. I use any type of GF flour I have on hand for the flour in the recipe. And I use real eggs, not the suggested egg replacement. I never, ever use nutmeg. :) I add the suggested baking powder & xanthan gum.

Just so you know, coconut milk tends to make the pie have more of a custard consistency. It's not as firm as it is with evaporated milk.

June's Quinoa Salad

(This is my best to quantify the little of this, little of that salad recipe!)
 
2 cups prepared Quinoa (cook 1 cup Quinoa with 2 cups boiling water. Add in 1T powdered bouillon for flavor when you add the quinoa to the water.)

Add:
3/4 c. chopped artichoke hearts
1/3 c. sliced olives
1 can beans such as garbanzo or Aduki red beans
1/4 c. diced scallions
1 c. spinach or romaine, sliced into threads
Fresh herbs of choice: cilantro, thyme, etc.

Top with oil and vinegar-based dressing of choice. You may also want to consider sprinkling sunflower seeds on top.

Becky's Chicken Tortilla Soup

Single recipe makes 8 servings.

Ingredients 

 1 onion, chopped

 3 cloves garlic, minced

 1 tablespoon olive oil

 2 teaspoons chili powder (or more)

 2 teaspoons cumin (or more)

 1 teaspoon dried oregano

 Salt and pepper

 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes

 2 (10.5 ounce) cans condensed chicken broth

 1 cup whole corn kernels, cooked

 1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers

 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained

 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

 2 boneless chicken breast halves, cooked and shredded

 

Yummy toppers

shredded Monterey Jack cheese

sour cream

chopped green onions

crushed tortilla chips

sliced avocado

Directions

In a small frying pan, heat oil over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic in oil until soft. Stir in chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper.

Combine onion and garlic with tomatoes, broth, corn, chiles, beans, cilantro and chicken in crockpot. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or low for 6-8 hours.

Ladle soup into individual serving bowls, and top with cheese, sour cream, crushed tortilla chips, avocado slices and/or chopped green onion.

Southwest Crockpot Breakfast

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. butter 

1 1/2 lb. bulk breakfast sausage, cooked and drained

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 green bell pepper, chopped

4-oz. can chopped green chilies (or jalapeno peppers), drained (or fresh)

2-1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack, cheddar or Pepper Jack cheese (or a combo)

18 eggs

2 teaspoons chili powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Grease inside of 5-quart crockpot with butter. Starting with sausage, layer meat, onions, peppers, chilies and cheese, repeating the layering process until all ingredients are used.

In large mixer bowl, beat eggs with wire whisk or eggbeater until combined, then pour over mixture in the crockpot. Cover and cook on low 5-7 hours. Serve with sour cream or fresh salsa.

The eggs should reach 165 degrees F.

Becky's Stuffed Zucchini

Stuffed Zucchini

 

Ingredients

6 medium zucchini

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, diced

1/2 cup mushrooms

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

2 tomatoes, diced 

1 cup of parmesan cheese 

1 cup of cheddar or mozzarella cheese 

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons pepper

1-2 pound of lean ground turkey 

Directions

1. Cut zucchini in half lengthwise. Scoop out insides, leaving shells about 1/4 inch thick. Reserve about half of the insides. Lightly salt the inside of the shells.

2. Hear 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat. Saute onion and garlic until soft and golden color. Add mushrooms and reserved zucchini insides. Saute another 2 min. Remove from skillet and set aside.

3. Heat a Tbsp of olive oil on medium high heat. Add the ground turkey. Lightly brown the brown turkey, stirring only occasionally. Drain any excess fat. Stir in the onion and mushroom mixture. Add the vinegar. Stir in tomato, and cook 1 min. longer. Remove mixture from heat and set aside.

4. When mixture has cooled, add the cheese, egg, salt and pepper. Fill zucchini shells with mixture. Fill a baking pan with 1/4 inch of water. Place filled zucchini halves in pan and bake at 375 degrees for 30 min., until lightly brown. Remove zucchini from pan and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Makes 12 half pieces or 24 quarter pieces.

August 2015: Animal Vegetable Miracle

Cass has picked "Animal Vegetable Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver because "it's about food."

ABOUT THE BOOK
Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland, and grew up in rural Kentucky. She counts among her most important early influences: the Bookmobile, a large family vegetable garden, the surrounding fields and woods, and parents who were tolerant of nature study but intolerant of TV.
Beginning around the age of nine, Barbara kept a journal, wrote poems and stories, and entered every essay contest she ever heard about. Her first published work, "Why We Need a New Elementary School," included an account of how the school's ceiling fell and injured her teacher. The essay was printed in the local newspaper prior to a school-bond election; the school bond passed. For her efforts Barbara won a $25 savings bond, on which she expected to live comfortably in adulthood.

After high school graduation she left Kentucky to enter DePauw University on a piano scholarship. She transferred from the music school to the college of liberal arts because of her desire to study practically everything, and graduated with a degree in biology. She spent the late 1970's in Greece, France and England seeking her fortune, but had not found it by the time her work visa expired in 1979. She then moved to Tucson, Arizona, out of curiosity to see the American southwest, and eventually pursued graduate studies in evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. After graduate school she worked as a scientific writer for the University of Arizona before becoming a freelance journalist.

Kingsolver's short fiction and poetry began to be published during the mid-1980's, along with the articles she wrote regularly for regional and national periodicals. She wrote her first novel, The Bean Trees, entirely at night, in the abundant free time made available by chronic insomnia during pregnancy. Completed just before the birth of her first child, in March 1987, the novel was published by HarperCollins the following year with a modest first printing. Widespread critical acclaim and word-of-mouth support have kept the book continuously in print since then. The Bean Trees has now been adopted into the core curriculum of high school and college literature classes across the U.S., and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

She has written eleven more books since then, including the novels Animal Dreams , Pigs in Heaven, The Poisonwood Bible, and Prodigal Summer ; a collection of short stories (Homeland ); poetry (Another America ); an oral history (Holding the Line ); two essay collections (High Tide in Tucson, Small Wonder ); a prose-poetry text accompanying the photography of Annie Griffiths Belt (Last Stand ); and most recently, her first full-length narrative non-fiction, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She has contributed to dozens of literary anthologies, and her reviews and articles have appeared in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines. Her books have earned major literary awards at home and abroad, and in 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal, our nation's highest honor for service through the arts.

In 1997 Barbara established the Bellwether Prize, awarded in even-numbered years to a first novel that exemplifies outstanding literary quality and a commitment to literature as a tool for social change.

Barbara is the mother of two daughters, Camille and Lily, and is married to Steven Hopp, a professor of environmental sciences. In 2004, after more than 25 years in Tucson, Arizona, Barbara left the southwest to return to her native terrain. She now lives with her family on a farm in southwestern Virginia where they raise free-range chickens, turkeys, Icelandic sheep, and an enormous vegetable garden. 

July 2015 book: One Plus One

Becky has picked "One Plus One" by Jojo Moyes as a summer beach book for us to read. Her mom recommended it!

ABOUT THE BOOK
One single mom. One chaotic family. One quirky stranger. One irresistible love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You

American audiences have fallen in love with Jojo Moyes. Ever since she debuted Stateside she has captivated readers and reviewers alike, and hit the New York Times bestseller list with the word-of-mouth sensation Me Before You. Now, with One Plus One, she’s written another contemporary opposites-attract love story.

Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied, and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight in shining armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages . . . maybe ever.

One Plus One is Jojo Moyes at her astounding best. You’ll laugh, you’ll weep, and when you flip the last page, you’ll want to start all over again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jojo Moyes was born in 1969 and grew up in London. After a varied career including stints as a minicab controller, typer of braille statements for blind people for NatWest, and brochure writer for Club 18-30, she did a degree at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London University. In 1992, she won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to attend the postgraduate newspaper journalism course at City University.

Jojo worked as a journalist for ten years, including a year at South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, and nine at The Independent where she worked variously as News Reporter, Assistant News Editor and Arts and Media Correspondent.

Jojo has been a full time novelist since 2002, when her first book, Sheltering Rain was published. Since then she has written a further eleven novels, all of which have been widely critically acclaimed.
Jojo has won the Romantic Novelist’s Award twice, and Me Before You has been nominated for Book of the Year at the UK Galaxy Book Awards. Me Before You has since gone on to sell over 3 million copies worldwide.

For more information about all of Jojo’s novels, please visit the books page here.
Jojo lives (and writes!) on a farm in Essex, England with her husband, journalist Charles Arthur, and their three children.