Whole Story

Lasagna Roll ups. This is a great recipe for controlling your lasagna portion sizes. Get your lasagna noodles cooking on the stove. In the meantime, prepare your filling. For the filling, replace half of the normal amount of ricotta cheese with tofu. You'll never know the difference! Flavor with spices you have on hand: basil, rosemary, oregano, garlic. To whip up some sauce mix a small can of tomato sauce with a few spoons of tomato paste and throw in garlic, shallots, basil, rosemary, oregano, and crush red pepper. Let it stew while your pasta is cooking. Once your noodles are done, take them out of the water and set them on a chopping board to cool. If you want, you can spoon a ladle full of the pasta water into your sauce. Once cooled, spoon your ricotta mixture on each individual pasta shell and roll up. If desired, sprinkle a liberal amount of mozzarella cheese on the noodles. Put however many roll ups (2 per person is usually good) into a coated baking dish. Evenly coat the roll ups with the sauce and bake for approximately 10 minutes and enjoy! By replacing some of the ricotta cheese with tofu and by creating individual roll ups, you can control what exactly is going into your lasagna!

This bread is a traditional bread passed on by previous generations of “Catherine’s” from Ireland. It’s a coveted favorite at occasions. -Submitted by Catherine Dougherty (A fine Irish lass…) 3/13/2009 Irish Soda Bread 4 cups sifted flour (I personally just use Bread flour) ¼ cup granulated sugar 1 tsp salt 2 tbsp caraway seeds ¼ cup butter or margarine 2 cups raisins 1 1/3 cups buttermilk 1 egg, unbeaten 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder Start heating oven at 375. Grease 2-quart casserole. Into mixing bowl, mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder. Stir in caraway seeds. With pastry blender, or two butter knives, scissor-fashion, cut in butter till it is like coarse corn meal. Stir in raisins. Combine buttermilk, egg, soda. Stir into flour mixture until just moistened. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, and knead lightly till smooth. Shape into ball. Place in casserole. With sharp knife, make 4” cross, ¼ inch deep in center. Brush the top with a beaten egg yolk. Bake 1 hour 10 minutes or until done (knife inserted in center comes out clean) Cool in pan 10 minutes, remove. Note: This unleavened (no yeast) bread tends to become stiff very quickly. So, as soon as you can cover the loaf in heavy duty foil while it is still warm to retain a softer consistency, for ease of cutting. Use a serrated edged knife. Microwaving or heating in the toaster oven makes this bread a tasty addition to that cup of coffee. Special note: I’d like to use a sugar alternative, will Stevia work in baking? Also, I’m concerned about using the processed flour, h/e heavier denser flours make the bread all the more stiff.

My 9 year old son loves Brown Sugar Cinnamon Poptarts. He talks about how much he used to love eating them. Unfortunately he hasn't been able to indulge because he is allergic to gluten, casein, soy, and eggs. He has lost so many of his favorite old junk foods. I would love it if you could tell me how to make him a "poptart" that he could have when the urge hits. It would make him a very happy boy! Thank you, Kari Soto

blueberry coffee cake this recipe is very good, however its bad for your figure and unhealthy and an old woman named fran makes this so can you give me a healthy look on coffee cake blueberry coffee cake 2 tbs. butter 1 box white cake mix from betty crocker 3 eggs 1 cup sour cream crumb topping 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/3 cup finely chopped nuts 1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen for crumb topping: in a small bowl mix together brown sugar and nuts. for filling: put cake mix in a bowl, then reserve 3 tablespoons and put sour cream in a cake and 3 eggs and stir with a fork in a whole bowl with cake mix and add 1 cup of blueberries. preheat oven to 350. grease a 12 inch bundt pan. batter will look lumpy. pour 1/2 batter and sprinkle the brown sugar and nut mixture you already made. then pour the rest of batter. bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. enjoy makes 8 servings

You'll have most of these ingredients on hand! If you don't have any mushrooms, use any veggies you have laying around. One time I substituted the mushrooms with broccoli florets with great success! Vegan "Chicken" Marsala 3 tbs. olive oil 1 large onion 8 oz. assorted mushrooms (cremini, button, shitake, etc.) 1-8 oz. package seitan (or homemade) 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour (for dredging) 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. Pepper 1/2 cup marsala wine Handful of parsley Pour 1 tbs. olive oil into 10 in sautee pan over medium high, and heat until hot but not smoking. Add onions to pan and sautee until golden (about 5 minutes). Add mushrooms and cook until tender (about 4 minutes). Pour onion and mushroom mixture into a dish and set aside. Add salt and pepper to whole wheat flour in a dish. Dredge the seitan in the flour and dust off excess. Add remaining olive oil to sautee pan and heat over medium high. Add seitan to the pan and cook on both sides until golden. Once golden, add marsala to the pan and deglaze. Turn down heat and simmer until sauce has thickened (about 2 minutes). Return mushrooms to the pan and turn to combine. Turn off heat, and garnish with parsley. Serve!

I try to include natural recipes only on my blog and it is a challenge. One of the best blogs I've found for made-from-scratch recipes is Gina @ Home Joy's. She's a Mennonite mom who knows so much about living a little closer to the earth. Take a look and I think you'll agree. http://homejoys.blogspot.com

I am looking for you recipe for Cowboy Burgers, with Jalapenos