Stroganoni

As promised, here is a recipe using the FD Ground Beef that is on sale. I've been wanting to experiment with making Beef Stroganoff from THRIVE foods for some time now. I had an Open House at my home a few weeks back and did a cooking demo, and it was a complete experiment I whipped up on the spot. Thankfully, my husband and my guests agreed that it was good enough to put on the blog, so now you get the recipe!

It doesn't taste quite as stroganoff-y as I would like. A little more beef flavor, perhaps some Worcestershire sauce... I think those would enhance the flavor. But it was still pretty darn tasty, and oh so easy. I started cooking it when the guests came in, and when I handed them the bowl to sample, they couldn't believe it was already ready.

In a large pot, cook your choice of pasta. I used some THRIVE Macaroni, because it's what I had open. And because then I could call this recipe Stroganoni instead of just plain Stroganoff. But Thrive Egg Noodles would be great with this as well. How much to cook depends on your preference of sauce - noodles. I always cook extra because my hubby will eat plain noodles with butter and salt any day. I'm guessing you'll want appx 3 cups cooked noodles. 

While your noodles cook, in a separate saucepan, combine the following:

1/2 cup THRIVE FD Cooked Ground Beef

1/2 cup THRIVE FD Mushroom Pieces

2 Tbsp THRIVE FD Celery

2 1/2 cups water

Bring to a boil, cover and let boil for 5-10 minutes or until beef is tender. There should be about 1 cup of liquid remaining. 

In a separate bowl, combine:

1/2 cup magic mix (See the link for recipe)

3 Tbsp THRIVE Sour Cream Powder

2 tsp THRIVE Beef Bouillon

When Beef and veggies are done cooking, dump in your powdered ingredients all at once and stir. Reduce heat and stir for 1-2 minutes, or until sauce is fully thickened. You may want to add more water to thin sauce out if its too thick for your taste. 

It makes for a tasty meal, and the whole thing is done as soon as your noodles are. No thawing, no chopping, just measuring and dumping. What could be easier? So if it's 5:00 and you don't know what's for dinner, now you do. If you don't have a home store built up with these ingredients, talk to me and I will get you set up on a monthly budget so you can build up a home store of healthy meats, fruits, and vegetables that won't spoil in your fridge or take up space in your freezer, and that will help you be sitting around the dinner table as a family in 20 minutes or less. 

Product Review: Freeze Dried Mushrooms

The 5 day sale is officially over. Congrats to everyone who got their orders in on time to take advantage of those great savings. There are still plenty of other deals going on right now, and all the current prices are found in the Fall Price list, which link is available on the right hand side of this blog under "Links to help you thrive".

One of the great deals right now, especially for Platinum Q Club members, are the Freeze-dried Mushrooms. They are this month's Q-pon, and for Q members, they are only $15.37. For everyone else who places a one time order through me, they are only $18.49. (To learn more about joining the Q club, just send me an e-mail or leave a comment on this post).

Now, let me preface this by saying that personally, I hate mushrooms. So this review is not on the food itself, because in my opinion, mushrooms, whether fresh or freeze-dried, are still a fungus and I don't care for them at all. Now, that being said, some people, such as my sweet hubby, LOVE mushrooms. But poor fungus-lovin' guy never gets to eat them, because I never buy them. Sure, I could buy a pack and only put some in half the recipe, but then the rest of the pack would go bad before we got to use it. Not to mention, I would have to wash and cut the mushrooms, and given the whole fungus thing, that's never gonna happen.

I saw THRIVE had some freeze dried Mushroom Pieces, however, and sympathetically ordered a big can for my hubby. They come pre-washed and cut, and since they will last 18 months in an OPENED can, I can use as little an amount as I want without worrying the rest will go bad and I'll have wasted my money.

Now my hubby gets to enjoy his mushrooms, and I get to enjoy putting a smile on my hubby's face without having to do much at all. Here's just how little I had to do the other night.

Get a microwave-safe dish and fill it with water. Stick it in the microwave for 2 minutes. Scoop out desired amount of mushrooms from the can, stir them into the hot water, put the lid on, let rest for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, drain off the water and here's what you get. He could have eaten them plain like this, but during those 5 minutes, I had been caramelizing some onions, so I pulled out half of the onions for me and threw these mushrooms in with his half to saute and pick up a bit of that caramelized flavor.

Then I threw them on his burger with some Swiss cheese and A1 sauce. Just look at that picture. You can bet it made him happy. So thank you THRIVE, yet again, for bringing smiles to my home.

Mini Quiche

So I decided to make some mini quiches the other day. My pie crust mini-muffin shells had gone over so well at the previous party, and I was having some breakfast parties coming up, so mini quiches seemed to be the perfect project. I wanted to let people try a variety of things in the party, so I decided to make two different kinds. One with cheddar, ham, bell peppers and onions, and the other with spinach, mushrooms and mozzarella. So the first step was to rehydrated everything. I just put a scoop of the Ham TVP, and all the veggies in their own separate tupperwares, added hot water, and put the lids on. I didn't really measure anything, just eyeballed it.

The cheese was a different story. I've tried letting it soak in cold water before, and it rehydrates well, but doesn't keep its individual shreds separate as well as I've heard the spray bottle method does. So I tried the spray bottle method. I laid a paper towel down on a cookie sheet, put a thin layer of each cheese on it, and generously squirted water on the individual strands of cheese. After a few minutes I went back to check and it wasn't fully rehydrated. I squirted it some more, and repeated this process probably 4-5 times. I don't know how long it will take normally. I went about my day and each time I passed by, I checked it and squirted it again. It did a great job of keeping the shreds separate, but it was a little more work. So I probably will stick to soaking in cold water for any recipe that is just going to melt the cheese anyway.

Meanwhile, I made my pie crust and put it in the mini muffin tin. Sorry the picture is sideways, I couldn't get it to load right.

Once the cheese was hydrated, I mixed up two bowls, each with 3 Tbsp of Egg powder and 6 Tbsp of water. Then I eyeballed the amounts of cheese, TVP or veggies I put in each. It only took a small spoonful to fill each pie crust. I baked them at about 350-375 for 15-20 minutes. And here's the results. They were so YUMMY!