More Super Salads! (Croutons)

We're having more salad tonight (It's a spring thing for me. I *want* it.) I bought fresh spinach to add to last night's salads and we're transforming my last homemade baguette into homemade seasoned croutons.

We heated the oven to three hundred.

We sliced the bread, put it in a bowl, drizzled some extra virgin olive oil on it, and sprayed it down with cooking spray. My daughter mixed them all up and we poured generous amounts of the following in there:

• garlic powder
• pizza and pasta seasoning
  
• parmesan cheese
• parsley
• four color organic peppercorn
• garlic pepper

And bake as long as it takes, turning every 15 minutes of so. They smell scrumptious.

Another batch of chili

So... It's raining. I'm making a batch of chili.

I started with one idea and due to my mistakes ended up with quite another.

I started with a partial teaspoon of olive oil, some garlic powder and some diced tomatoes. I added four color pepper, Italian seasoning, a pinch of cumin, a teaspoon of chili powder, and I meant to add a pinch of Indian chili seasoning but I ended up with closer to a teaspoon. Oops!

So I added almost two teaspoons of cocoa powder and another can of diced tomatoes, this one Italian style, and more garlic. Then I added a 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple. I boiled it for about 15 minutes, then simmered it for an hour and added two cans of no salt added dark red kidney beans, one can light kidney beans, and one can black beans.

I made the cornbread dumplings to go with the chili, and I didn't have enough milk, so I reduced the amount of milk, added some water (do-it-yourself skim milk) and a little extra canola oil.

VERDICT: The chili wasn't spicy and because I cooked the pineapple and tomatoes together for a couple hours, everything more or less melted into one flavor. And the flavor was very rich and despite the lack of spice still had taste.

Now the dumplings took over the pot, but they were yummy, even if it was hard to find the chili underneath.

Perhaps my best batch of chili ever.

Said to my husband, I probably won't be able to replicate it, but then he said I probably wouldn't try...

This is the link to only the three recipes I usually blend to make my chili:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2008/12/five-alarm-chili.html

All my chili-related recipes:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/search/label/chili

Eggplant Parmesan

I unexpectedly worked late tonight, so I briefed the husband on how to make eggplant parmesan with some frozen eggplant cutlets we bought at the warehouse club. For lunch today, I made my daughter a scrambled egg with the last of the blueberry bread pudding. And leftover broccoli sicilian for breakfast. Yes, we splurged and got a sicilian last night.

So, the eggplant cutlet come breaded. My husband added layers of sauce, garlic pepper, Italian seasoning, grated parmesan and shredded cheddar, with some diced broccoli for good measure. It's yummy.

French Bread Pizza

I took a loaf of my multigrain French bread, sliced it and piled it high with tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, seasoned with four-color pepper, pasta and pizza seasoning, and fresh garlic. I toasted it in the oven. Then I added fresh broccoli and more sauce, cooked it some more, then added some grated pepper jack and lots of cheddar.