Stuffed Eggplant in @EasyLunchboxes

This morning a friend gifted me three itty bitty eggplants. I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to prepare them so I asked some friends and Google and finally found a recipe on Tastebook that seemed like it would at least be a good starting point.
What I ended up with is absolutely delish and, luckily, enough to have some to take to work tonight!

Ingredients:
3 mini eggplants
1 1/4 lb ground beef
1/2 teaspoon All-Purpose seasoning

1 cup pasta sauce
1/8 cup shredded mozzarella
1 egg

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Wash the eggplants, remove the stems & halve each one lengthwise. Scoop out the insides leaving enough for a sturdy shell. Finely chop the pulp (or use food processor).
Saute the eggplant in a hot skillet. Add ground beef, sauce and seasoning. Remove 1 1/2 cup sauce mixture and mix it in a bowl with the sauce and egg. Fill each eggplant half and bake 25 minutes (or so).

I had a bunch of leftover meat/sauce/eggplant mixture that I stirred into some pasta. I used that as the base in my EasyLunchbox and have two stuffed eggplant halves on top. I also have a peach muffin and two clementines in the top compartments.

Hot Fuzz on Cheese Dog Pancakes

Night two of the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright love-fest!

In my Easy Lunchbox: cheddar-topped Cheese Dog Pancakes with little containers of ketchup & mustard for dipping, grapes & hard-cooked egg. It's going to be hard waiting until work to devour this! I'll wait, though, because I think it'll be more fun to eat it while watching the movie which is already on my iPad waiting for me.

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So. Wondering about the "Cheese Dog Pancakes," aren't you?

Another case of "hmmmm ... that might actually taste okay" being more than okay!

Mix together: 

2 Tbs melted margarine

1 cup Bisquick 

1 cup milk

1 egg

Stir in:

3 very thinly sliced hot dogs

2 tsp mustard

1 Tbs ketchup
1/2 ounce finely shredded cheddar cheese

Scoop onto griddle & cook like you would normal pancakes. 

Using an 1/8 cup scoop I got 14 pancakes.

John had the first test of them for dinner last night and definitely approved!

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Gluten-Free Tomato Pancake Cheese Rolls

A few days ago I had the idea of making savory pancakes and tonight I finally did! While I was mixing them up I thought it might be extra-awesome to wrap them around mozzarella ... and it was!

It went together quite easily:

1 cup Gluten-Free Bisquick
6 ounces milk
1 egg
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
2 ounces pasta sauce

Combine all ingredients. Pour into heated pan. (I use an 1/8th cup scoop per pancake.) Flip like you would a normal pancake.

Unwrap and cut in half 6 mozzarella sticks/string cheese. Before pancakes cool (I did this step after every 3 made) wrap one pancake around one cheese stick half and secure with a toothpick (I found it best to sit them seam-side down while I made more).

I ended up with 12 total and put 3 in an Easy Lunchbox with the rest of my food for tonight!

3 Tomato Pancake Cheese Rolls with pasta sauce for dipping, Snapea Crips with french onion dip, Kinnikritters mixed with dried pineapple chunks and dried cranberries.



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Compost Lunch for an Earth Day Blog Hop!

I get asked quite often what I do with the scraps from John's lunches since his sandwiches and cheeses and whatnots are almost always cut into shapes rather than being left whole. In honor of Earth Day and the Bento Bloggers & Friends Hop I thought I would share with you how I "reduce, reuse & recycle" lunch scraps with what I call a "Compost Lunch!"

All of the scraps from John's Monday & Tuesday lunches I gathered into plastic bags. The bread is currently off-limits for me with Phase 1 of South Beach so it's going into the freezer for future use in meatloaf or as breadcrumbs.

The ham, turkey and cheese I dumped onto a plate and chopped it up a bit. Not all of the cheese is truly Phase 1 Friendly because it's not reduced fat, but there's such a small amount of it that I don't think it'll be too detrimental.

About half of it turned into toppings for a salad. I left two hams slivers unchopped because to me they looked a little like worms and we all know worms are good for compost ;)

The rest of it got mixed into the recipe I use for Flaxseed Bread/Muffins.

Ingredients: 3 Tbs flax seed meal, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 packet Splenda, 1 tsp Mrs Dash Table Blend, 1 large egg, 1 tsp canola oil

Directions: Put the dry ingredients into a bowl. Stir. Add the egg and oil and mix well.

At this point I put the flax mixture in a large coffee mug and stirred in the remaining bits of ham, turkey and cheese. Microwave on high for 1 minute 15 seconds. Take out, invert onto plate.

All together and ready to go with some added tomato slices in the dish with the "Compost Muffin":

Now go check out the next stop on our Earth Day Blog Hop and see what wonderfulness BentOnBetterLunches has come up with!

Super Simple Cupcake Recipe -- For The MICROWAVE?!?

A few days ago I stumbled upon a recipe for single-serve microwave cupcakes and proceeded to put it on Pinterest thinking it might be something good for John and his lunches. This afternoon I mixed it up and to my amazement they were actually really good ... even though I don't seem to be able to follow directions and did my own tweaking to make three cupcakes instead of one. After we devoured those and John went to bed and Tom to work, I decided to make another batch as a test run for Friday's lunch .... and this time I took my camera phone with me!

Mix 45 grams (about 5 Tablespoons) cake mix, 1 Tablespoon yogurt (the first time I used Yoplait Splitz Rainbow Sherbet -- this time Dannon Toasted Vanilla Coconut) and 3 Tablespoons soda (the original called for soda water ... I found a bottle of Sprite that was purchased accidentally and used that).

I scooped about 1/3 of the batter out of the bowl and added some red coloring to it.

 

I started layering them in the cupcake papers in my silicone (and badly stained) muffin pan. First white, then red, then white. Instead of the three I got the first time I only got two this time. Shrugged that off, microwaved on high for 90 seconds, let them cool a couple of minutes before popping the microwave open and realized why I only got two .... and here's why:

 DO NOT FILL THE CUP!!!! The bottom one was filled just over half full ... the top? Obviously too much (about 3/4 full, probably). Once I removed it from the pan and got it frosted, though, you would never know what a mess it was.

And once John unwraps his at school Friday he'll see the fun stripes (just like the Cat's hat ... more or less)!

(Sorry about the whacky coloring differences!)

This is definitely going to be a regular recipe in our house now.

Can't wait to try it out with different flavor combinations of soda/yogurt/cake!

Linked up to Momtrends

Mardi Gras Breakfast! (with a recipe! kind of...)

Today, of course, is Mardi Gras!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

I've been looking at tons of recipes for King Cakes, pinning them on Pinterest, looking some more ... but none of them really screamed "MAKE ME" to me. I came up with this idea at work, though, and couldn't wait to get home to make them!

First, I preheated the oven to 400 and popped open a can of buttermilk biscuits.

I added yellow, green and purple coloring to some cream cheese and placed about half a teaspoon in the center of each biscuit then rolled them into balls, making sure they were well-sealed.

I sprinkled some yellow, purple and green sprinkles into a small dish and plopped each ball in before placing them into a round pan.

After baking for about 10 minutes and letting cool for a few, it was time to see if they were edible! They were wonderful AND fun after finding the cream cheese inside. In fact, John ate three in hopes that he would end up with all three colors and he did! He also says they're "cool" and "super deeeeeelicious" :)

I know these should have a cute name but we haven't come up with one yet ... so if you have one, let me know. They can be made any time for any occasion, which is also pretty cool. Just change the colors around !

Apple Bangers & Mash

When John sat down for lunch with his ELB today I said that I was a little hungry, too, so he suggested I grab my ELB that I had all set for work tonight. So I did and it was absolutely delicious .... but left me with nothing for my lunch bag.

Last week or somewhere around there I added a couple of recipes to one of my Pinterest boards for different variations on good ol' Bangers & Mash. One of them was from Martha Stewart and was just for the Mash ... with apples! That immediately reminded me that I grabbed some Al Fresco Apple Maple Chicken Sausage last time we were at the store and my mouth has been watering every time I've thought about it since.

So I made a quick and easy version of Apple Bangers & Mash:
Chopped and cooked 3/4 cup peewee potatoes and mashed them with 1/2 Tbsp Country Crock, 1 Tbsp milk and 2 Tbsp applesauce. Cooked up two of the chicken sausages, chopped them and tossed them on top.

I licked the fork I used to move the mash into my Fit & Fresh dish and ooooooooh baby is that good stuff! I was pretty tempted to stand there in the kitchen and eat the whole thing ... but then I would have to come up with another lunch for work ... again!


(WW PP Total: 6)

Mini Pumpkin Muffin Bites

They're small in size but big in taste!

I found a great looking cupcake base at cupcakerecipes.net and knew I wanted to use some of the pumpkin pudding I had left over from last season so went to the advice given at LIVESTRONG and here we go!

Ingredients (in order of use):
110gm (1 stick) butter
110gm sugar
2 eggs
110gm self-raising flour
1 3.4 oz box Pumpkin Spice Jell-O Instant Pudding Mix
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375.
Beat the butter and sugar together with a spoon until creamy.
Add 2 eggs, one at a time, stirring to combine after each one.
Sift flour directly into bowl and fold into mixture.
Add in pudding mix, milk and egg. Stir well.
Scoop into silicone mini-muffin pans.
Bake 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted toward the center comes out clean

Makes 36 cute little pumpkin bites!