So, I experimented with a new recipe the other night. It’s called Mugoyo, pronounced like moo-GOY-yo. It’s a recipe from Uganda that I found in one of my favorite cookbooks, Extending The Table.

Basically, it’s cooked sweet potatoes and beans mushed up and formed into a loaf. Here’s a little excerpt from the book,

Since sweet potatoes and beans are inexpensive and store well, Mugoyo is usually prepared during winter months when food is not being harvested and is less available. When Ugandans travel, they often pack food for their journey. Mugoyo is one of their traveling foods.

With only two ingredients, it definitely isn’t gourmet. But what I loved about this recipe is that it’s cheap, simple, nutritious, and something that you could survive off of in times of little food.

And so we had it for dinner.

It’s very simple. Cook 1 lb. of dried white beans like normal with a little salt, until tender. Peel and cube 1 lb. of sweet potatoes, and steam in a little water until tender. Drain both well, then mash together and form into a loaf pan. Slice and serve.

I must have messed up somewhere along the line though… maybe I didn’t drain the beans well enough, ’cause my “loaf” was more the consistency of mashed potatoes. Definitely not sliceable.

Mmmm… Mugoyo.

So, I stuck it in the oven and baked it at 350* for 30 min. What the heck, right? But after I pulled it out of the oven, even though the top was nice and firm, it was still mushy in the middle.

Oh well. Dinner time!

I got a few funny looks from the family as I plopped the orange mush onto each plate. Everyone was polite enough to try it, but only one in the bunch enjoyed his meal…

Who, me?

The taste wasn’t bad, per se, it was just very bland. And a weird texture. A loaf would have been much better I think.

Eggs for dinner it is then.

At least it made good baby food.

My husband asked me if I was trying to make him more grateful for meat, since I’ve been experimenting with meatless dishes a lot lately.

Just trying to stay within the measly grocery budget! Poor guy. *grin*

We had chicken for dinner tonight. I think everyone appreciated it a little more than usual.

This is my new favorite way to cook veggies. Roasted. I make them at least once a week.

I love that all of the main ingredients are something that could come out of your own backyard. Think about how cheap this dish would be if you grew all of the vegetables and the rosemary yourself! Yes. That’s my goal.

I got the idea from a BHG magazine. They actually add chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans), but I don’t normally buy them, so for the sake of saving a buck I do without. Although, they do make a tasty addition, if you’re so inclined.

Roasted Garden Vegetables

• 1 lb. carrots, peeled and cut into 2 in. pieces
• 1 lb. sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite sized chunks
• 1 large red (or sweet yellow) onion, peeled, halved and cut into 1 in. wedges
• 1 lb. red or russet potatoes, cut into bite sized cubes (leave skin on)
• 6 cloves minced garlic (fresh is best, but dry works)
• 3 Tbsp olive oil (or your fav.)
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp packed brown sugar or granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 425*.

Put the veggies and garlic into a large shallow roasting pan. In a bowl, combine the oil, rosemary, sugar, salt and pepper. Drizzle mixture over veggies, and toss to coat.

Cook, uncovered, for about 45 min, stirring half-way through. Veggies should be slightly browned and tender.

*On a side note- I’ve made these ahead of time to be cooked the next day, but the onion flavor really took over after being refrigerated overnight. If you want to make them ahead, leave the onions out and add them just before cooking.

Enjoy!

Made this for dinner last night, and thought you might like the recipe! It might look like a lot of work, but really it doesn’t take that long to prepare. A delicious, hearty, cool weather meal!

Enjoy!

Chicken and Dumplings

• 1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
• 2 ribs of celery, sliced (I had some frozen that I tossed in)
• 4 carrots, peeled and sliced (I just threw in a can of carrots toward the end of the cooking time, since I didn’t have fresh)
• 1 med. onion, diced
• 1 (14 1/2 oz) can chicken broth (I used homemade broth I’d canned up)
• 2 Tbsp dried parsley
• 2 tsp chicken bouillon granules (I used chicken base, w/out MSG)
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• water

Dumplings

• 2 cups flour ( I used all purpose, white. Haven’t tried whole wheat yet)
• 4 tsp baking powder (I used 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 3 tsp cream of tartar as a substitute to avoid the aluminum in baking powder)
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 c. milk
• 4 Tbsp oil

In a dutch oven, combine the chicken pieces, celery, carrots, onion, broth, parsley, bouillon, salt and pepper, and add enough water to cover.

Bring to a boil, then reduce to low heat, and cover to simmer for about 2 hours, or until the chicken is cooked through.

Remove the chicken pieces; allow them to cool. Then, remove any skin and bones, and shred the chicken up. Return the chicken to the pot.

Add more salt and pepper, to taste. (Jerry thought it needed even more salt.)

Return the soup to a simmer.

In a mixing bowl, combine the dumpling ingredients, and mix well to form a stiff dough. (It’ll be very thick and stiff.)

Drop by Tablespoonfuls into simmering soup. Cover and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes more. Best if served immediately.

Oh my goodness.

Seriously, I’ve eaten a dozen of these things in the last four hours. No joke.

They’re the perfect chewy cookie. Not too hard, not too soft. Just right with a glass of milk.

People, I’m telling you right now. You MUST make these cookies for Thanksgiving. You just have to. Everyone will love you for them.

Please note that I am using freshly ground whole wheat (hard red, though I think hard white or soft white would be just as good). I’m sure the taste will vary a bit depending on which type of flour you use, but I think even all-purpose flour may work okay with this recipe. Maybe. If you try it… please let me know how it turns out!

**UPDATE: I have discovered that the key to making these the perfect texture is to use freshly ground whole wheat. This ultra sifted flour will give you the best combination of chewy, with just a tad bit of crunch.

Apple Pie Spice Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies

Makes approx. 35 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder; OR 1/2 tsp baking soda plus 1 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 c. shortening
• 1/4 c. butter, softened to room temp
• 2 Tbsp milk
• 1 tsp apple pie spice**
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 2 cups whole wheat flour

Topping

• 2 tsp white sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

**Apple Pie Spice

• 1/4 c cinnamon
• 2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp ground ginger

Mix together and store in an airtight container.

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except the flour (not including the topping). Mix together very well.

Stir in the flour until thoroughly combined.

Shape the dough into walnut sized balls, and place them about 2 in. apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Use a fork to slightly flatten each cookie.

Combine the sugar and cinnamon for the topping, and sprinkle over each cookie.

Bake at 375* for 8-10 minutes. They might look slightly undercooked, but they’ll be perfect once they cool. Transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.

I beg you. Make these. After his first cookie tonight, my husband said to me, “Please don’t tell me you’re making these to take to somebody else!” Nope, not this time. But I can’t guarantee they’ll make it through the night!

For the past year and a half, the only salad dressing I’ve made has been Italian Dressing- which I love. But the other night, I felt like something creamy. I didn’t have the ingredients I would need to make a ranch dressing, but I did have just the right stuff for this Creamy Italian Dressing. I found the recipe in my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, and we all have really enjoyed it.

Creamy Italian Dressing

Makes 1 cup

• 3/4 c. mayonnaise (I use homemade)
• 1/4 c. sour cream
• 2 tsp white vinegar
• 1/4 tsp dry mustard
• 1/4 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder
• 1-2 Tbsp milk (optional)

Mix all ingredients together, adding milk to desired consistency, if desired. Cover and store in a glass container for up to two weeks.

Super easy. Enjoy!

For the past few days, we have been celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles (or Sukkot) with other believers. Over the weekend, we camped and enjoyed good food and fellowship. You can see a picture of our tent above.

Here’s the view from our tent entrance. This was the main eating/gathering area. To our right and left are more tents. There were five other families besides us. With a lot of kids.

This was our first year celebrating Sukkot. We didn’t really know anyone except for the family who invited us, but we were quickly received with a warm welcome. The children all took to each other as if they’d been friends for years. (Here they are playing Ring Around The Rosie in our tent.) And the men had our tent up in 2 minutes flat.

Every evening we had somewhat of a potluck. I planned on taking full advantage of the open fire, and came prepared with my cast iron dutch ovens and skillet. I’ve been wanting to practice cooking over hot coals, and this was the perfect opportunity.

The first night I made dessert, a peach cobbler. I was SO afraid I’d burn it, or it wouldn’t cook all the way through, or something would go wrong and my contribution to the meal would be an embarrassment.

I was relieved when I uncovered my dish to find a delicious, fully cooked, unburnt cobbler. Perfection.

My grandpa shared with me this recipe from his old Boy Scout days, though it must be a very popular one ’cause I found it in the Lodge Camp Dutch Oven cookbook as well!

Campfire Peach Cobbler

• 2 (29 oz) cans sliced peaches, in syrup
• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1/2 stick butter
• Cinnamon (to taste)

Place your dutch oven over a 2″ deep bed of hot coals (or about 15 hot charcoal briquettes), a couple of feet away from the fire itself.

Spray the dutch oven inside, and on the lid, with a non-stick spray.

Pour the peaches in first, then dump the cake mix on top of them; just dump it right out of the box onto the peaches. I promise, it’ll be okay.

Cut the butter into slivers, and place them evenly on top of the cake mix. Then sprinkle it all with cinnamon.

Put the lid on the dutch oven, and put several hot coals on top of the lid, spacing them evenly.

Rotate the entire dutch oven about a 1/4 of a turn every 15 minutes or so, for even cooking. Turn the lid as well, in the opposite direction from the way you turned the oven. In about 45 minutes it should be ready to enjoy!

I learned that first night the importance of having two very handy tools for dutch oven cooking: a lid lifter (which I did have) and a fireplace shovel (which I did not have).

Let me tell you, it’s tricky trying to collect hot coals to put on the lid of your dutch oven if you don’t have a shovel. I ended up raking them into an empty peaches can with a stick, and then quickly dumping them onto the lid. Can you say HOT?! Keep this in mind the next time you go camping, and be sure to bring along a small shovel from your fireplace tools!

The next night was a Chili cook-off. Since we already had plenty of chili to go around, I made cornbread in the skillet. I just followed the recipe on the back of the bag of cornmeal, doubled…

Campfire Cornbread

• 2 large eggs
• 2 2/3 cups milk
• 1/2 c. vegetable oil
• 4 cups self-rising corn meal mix

Spray a 12″ cast iron skillet with a non-stick spray; do the same with a fitted lid.

Make a ring of rocks a foot or two away from the direct flame, to place your skillet on. Fill the center of the rocks with a couple of inches of hot coals. You want to rest the skillet on the rocks, over the coals, and not directly on the coals.

Let the prepared skillet preheat over the coals while you mix all of the ingredients together.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs. Stir in milk, oil, and corn meal mix until smooth. Pour into heated skillet and cover.

*Side note: doubling the original recipe ended up being a little too much for my 12″ skillet, so I removed about 1 cup of the batter to avoid spilling over.

Place several coals around the top of the lid. Rotate the skillet about 1/4 of a turn every 5-10 minutes or so. It took about 25-30 minutes to cook through.

Once again, I breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out well!! Yes! Open-fire cooking success.

Oh yeah, see that black handle cover on my skillet in the picture above? Definitely a good thing to have.

Okay, so back to celebrating Sukkot…

We really enjoyed camping. Having a baby along was a little challenging at times, especially at night. It got cold, and I just couldn’t bare the thought of Elias getting chilly, so I laid him on my chest in the sleeping bag with me. Of course, I couldn’t sleep a wink with him there… but he stayed snuggled and warm, so that’s what mattered!

Jada and some of her new friends made a fort to play in (or maybe it was a Sukkah!).

Titus enjoyed playing with spiders. And no, it’s not on his face   He also had fun playing soccer with his daddy, riding a bike, and eating, eating, eating.

One of the more experienced campers brought a kids’ table and coloring supplies. Genius. Xia was in scribbling heaven.

All of the kids helped decorate a Sukkah, and then they put on a cute little play for the parents to enjoy.

Evenings were great. It was such a blessing to sit around a campfire after all of the kids were asleep in the tents, and read Scripture and share what has been on our hearts lately.

We wished we could stay longer, but Jerry had work the first of the week (a blessing for sure!), so we came back home and set up camp in our front yard.

Yesterday, I did a little more campfire cooking here at home. Jerry found some rocks and made a fire pit for us to enjoy. I made something Jerry calls a Hobo Dinner. My grandpa also shared this recipe with me, though I’m not sure I did it right…

You take ground beef, and form it into hamburger patties. Then you put sliced onions and potatoes on either side of the meat. Wrap it in foil, creating a pocket for them to cook in.

Place your foil packets over hot coals, flipping them halfway through cooking time. I cooked mine for an hour, and they were kinda burnt, so keep an eye on them.

When they are done it’ll look something like this. A yummy pocket of delicious flame kissed meat and ‘taters. Next time, I’ll spray the foil with non-stick spray, and not cut the potatoes so thin.

So, there you have it! Some open fire cooking tips, and a glimpse into our first Sukkot.

If you celebrated Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) this year, or if you have experience cooking over an open flame, I’d love to hear your thoughts!!

Of course, all comments are welcome