Friday, July 18, 2008

Nourishing Frugal Food Carnival




This week the carnival includes nourishing and frugal sides, salads and desserts. Here are my contributions:

Side:

BAKED SPINACH

½ cup butter (I usually use less than 1/2 cup)
8 oz 1/3 less cream cheese
2 10-oz pkgs frozen chopped spinach (you do not want to thaw this)
1 pkg Lipton onion soup mix (often I use half a package so that it's not so salty)

Melt butter in a large frying pan. Add spinach. Break up and stir. Add cream cheese and onion soup mix. Stir well. Place in a casserole and bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes.

Makes 6 servings. 6.8 carbs per serving.


Dessert:

PEACH COBBLER

1 stick of butter
3/4 cup of sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour (freshly ground if you do that)
1 cup sugar (I use sucanat with honey)
1 cup milk
2 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
2 1/2 cups peaches (if fresh or frozen, mix peaches with ½ cup of sugar and refrigerate overnight)

Melt butter in baking dish. In separate bowl, mix sugar, flour, milk, baking
powder & salt. Pour batter over melted butter. Pour peaches on top, DO NOT
MIX. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 min. or until golden brown.

Head on over to The Keeper of the Home for more nourishing, frugal recipes!

UPDATED:
** Instead of using packaged soup mix, you could play around with your own spices/ingredients...maybe some finely chopped onion, salt, pepper, garlic ***

ANOTHER UPDATE:

*** Michelle asked about the seasoning packet. It's probably about 1/2 cup, but it's only for seasoning, not for thickening. I think the cream cheese helps thicken it more than anything, and then baking it. Since I've always used the packet, I'm not sure how much in the way of the other ingredients to use...it would probably be a "taste and see" thing. Hope that helps!

For Stephanie - I don't like cooked spinach either, but I love this dish. My kids and husband like cooked spinach and like this dish, too. :o)

Sarah - the Zucchini Parmesan down below was very good! It's a great way to use some of the bigger zucchini. My favorite way this summer to cook the zucchini was to grill it. I cut up large bites of zucchini, yellow squash, mushroom and onion. Lightly coat with olive oil and put in grill basket. Grill at a high temp stirring frequently for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with garlic salt. Yum!***

4 comments:

Michele @ Frugal Granola said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

So, what could I use instead of the soup mix to make it more nourishing? I don't buy packaged items, and I'm a bit leary of what might be in a soup mix (soy? msg?).

Baked Spinach with cream cheese sounds wonderful, though. I would use real cream cheese and butter though. The fats are a wonderful way to absorb the fat soluble vitamins in from greens.

Blessings,
Michele :)

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, the baked spinach sounds interesting. There have been several cooked spinach sides, and my family is not terribly into cooked spinach (actually, neither am I), but I'm becomming inspired to try some more creative ways to cook it to see if I can change all of our minds! :)

Peach cobbler sounds so yummy- it's almost peach season here!

Thanks for joining the carnival!

Michele @ Frugal Granola said...

Thanks for the update! :) So, how much is in a mix? (I'm not quite sure what quantity is needed here.) :) Is it just for seasoning, or is for thickening/other purpose?

Thanks!
Michele :)

Sarah said...

Great recipes! And that zucchini parmesan recipe a bit further down your blog looks fantastic too!

Best,
Sarah

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