Terre Pruitt's Blog

In the realm of health, wellness, fitness, and the like, or whatever inspires me.

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Posts Tagged ‘Cheese’

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Happy New Year – 2025!

Posted by terrepruitt on January 1, 2025

Happy New Year!

I am not sure that we have had cheese fondue every New Year’s Eve, but apparently we have had it enough that several people I know asked me if we were going to have it for this New Year’s Eve.  We had not planned on it.  We talked about it but on the night BEFORE New Year’s Eve, we didn’t have all the things we like and instead of rallying to get what we needed we decided not to do it.  But then, when it came time to cook dinner on New Year’s Eve I realized I didn’t know what to cook and figured I might as well make fondue.  We didn’t have EVERYTHING we normally like, but we had enough to make the fondue.  So we ended up having cheese fondue for New Year’s Eve in 2024.

I recently had a student contact me and say she was looking for a cheese fondue recipe and mine  came up (several results down, but still)!  That made me very happy.   As my post states, it is a recipe that my mom searched high and low for.  I don’t know where she ended up getting it for if she cobbled it together from other recipes, but it was the closest she could come to the cheese fondue she loved from The Bold Knight.

Do you have a traditional New Year’s Eve dinner?  Did you have a special New Year’s Eve dinner in 2024?

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Grits

Posted by terrepruitt on July 7, 2023

I posted this picture on Twitter last month but it is on my computer so I keep seeing a reminder of it.  Grits.  I used to eat them with butter, salt, and bacon crumbled in them.  But I haven’t had bacon in a long time.  The last time I bought it and cooked it, it just wasn’t good so I don’t bother any more.  But we usually have Canadian bacon or ham so we have been using that.  Fry it and chop it up.  And now I add cheese.  I don’t eat them often, but they are yummy when I do.  Sharing this for my Friday Photo and posing the question(s) – Do you eat grits?  If so, how do you eat them?

Posted in Food, Friday Photo | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Fries Or Fingers?

Posted by terrepruitt on May 1, 2023

I have a few things on here I call fries, but this is not one of them.

I spend a lot of time going through Instagram. I know they do it on purpose, just reel after reel and I have spent hours looking and absorbing nothing. I save so many things it is ridiculous. I save a lot of recipes. Well, last week I was looking for one and I came across another one that made more sense for dinner that night. I was looking for something to go with some leftovers. When I saved it I didn’t really read what it was saying it was. And I am still not sure . . . I think I may have seen a commercial. Anyway . . . I made them and they were pretty good. Mine looked NOTHING like Ketosnackz but they did the job.

I liked them so much I am going to make them often.

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Chicken Fingers

1 can (12 oz) of chicken
1 egg
1/2 cup of shredded cheese
a lot of garlic granules
salt

Mix all ingredients. Shape into “fingers”. Place on parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake at 400° F for 30 minutes.

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His recipe didn’t have any seasoning and he baked it for 20 minutes. I wanted more flavors and mine were not ready at 20 minutes. I served them with ranch dressing. Since I am thinking I will make them often I am going to serve them with different things: tomato sauce, chutney, hummus . . . who knows, the possibilities are endless! Oh, I was able to get 14 short little fingers.

What do you think – “fries” or “fingers”?

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Chicken IN Biscuits

Posted by terrepruitt on April 19, 2022

Here is another “IDEA Recipe” as I didn’t write down the measurements when I made it. It was pretty good. It was just biscuits split in half and rolled out a little bigger, then “stuffed” with chicken. More accurately the chicken was sandwiched between the two biscuit halves then sealed. Since I was just experimenting I was making it up as I went a long and didn’t make notes. And I started with just splitting the biscuits, but then realized I wouldn’t be able to put a lot of chicken in them so I split them then rolled each half to make it larger. I was able to put more chicken in the larger ones.

I used

Canned chicken
onions chopped
bell peppers chopped
corn
seasoning

a tube of biscuits

some cheese

It may surprise you as it surprised me, I didn’t put any cheese IN the mixture. I sprinkled a little on top.  I keep wondering what I was thinking.

I cooked them according to the biscuit directions (350° F for 20 minutes) maybe given them a little more time until they were browned. The chicken is cooked so that wasn’t the concern, I just didn’t want soggy biscuits.

As usual I started cooking late thinking it would be a quick throw together kind of thing and it was not so I didn’t even take any pictures when they were plated. It was yummy and was enough for a couple of meals. You know me I love when I cook and it makes more than one meal.  This was easy to make, but I had not planned on the time it took to roll out the biscuits (which wasn’t that long, but it added time to what I had planned).

This is just a twist on a few of the things I have done with those biscuits I love.

What do you do with biscuits?

 

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Dang! I Love Pumpkin For Dinner

Posted by terrepruitt on September 27, 2017

It is that season! YAY! Stuffed pumpkins for dinner!!!! YUM!  I posted this recipe in 2013 in my post Pumpkin For Dinner. But I was cleaning up my desktop a bit and I found these pictures from 2015 which are so much better than the ones from 2013. So I wanted to share them.

My poor friends on Facebook get oodles of stuffed pumpkins pictures during the season!

This is one of my favorite meals and this is the time of of year!  Now I am so hungry for a stuffed pumpkin!

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Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFit

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Have you tried it yet?

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , | 14 Comments »

Easy Peasy Chicken Enchiladas With Sour Cream Sauce

Posted by terrepruitt on September 20, 2014

My niece came to visit us recently over the weekend. I thought it would be nice to serve something for dinner that I don’t make often. Even though she doesn’t eat with us often, so something we eat all the time wouldn’t necessarily be something she eats all the time, I thought I would try something new. Well, I had done it before but I don’t remember the recipe I used before, so I was kinda making it up as I went along. Big surprise, huh? Well, I decided to make chicken enchiladas with sour cream sauce. I don’t really like red sauce and green sauce does not like me. I like sour cream sauce.

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Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex City of San Jose, San Jose Group Ex classesChicken Enchiladas With Sour Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter / 3
4 tablespoons flour / 3
3 cups chicken broth / 2
1 1/2 cup sour cream / 1
1/2  4 oz can diced green chillies
(this makes EXTRA sauce, the / number is the amount to us if you want less sauce)

3 cups shredded and cooked chicken (I actually used canned chicken)
3 cups shredded Mexican Mixture cheese
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 garlic salt
7 large soft flour tortillas

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Stir the flour into butter. Whisk it to get all the lumps out. Watch the heat making sure it does not get too hot. Whisk in the broth. Continue to cook the sauce until it’s thick and begins to bubble. Turn off the heat/burner.

Mix the chicken with the cumin and garlic salt. Put about three tablespoons of chicken in a tortilla, sprinkle in some cheese then roll up and put seam side down into a greased casserole dish. Continue filling and rolling the tortillas until they are all filled. Using about two cups of the cheese.

By now, the sauce should be cool enough so the sour cream will not curdle when added, but still warm enough to allow the sour cream to “melt” and blend well into the sauce. Add the sour cream to the sauce. Whisk until blended. Add the chilies to the sauce.

Pour the sauce over enchiladas. Filling in all the space. Use the remaining cup of cheese to sprinkle over the enchiladas. Save the remaining sauce for allowing individuals to add more sauce to their enchiladas.

Bake in oven for about 30 minutes.

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Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex City of San Jose, San Jose Group Ex classesSo my hubby likes extra sauce and leftover sauce, so I made extra. You can make less by using the number after the slash. You can also use more chilies. I brought the remainder to the table so that my hubby and niece could add more to their food.

I think next time I will add the chilies into the enchiladas. I will mark them so I know which ones have the chilies.

You can use any type of chicken you would like. I just wanted really easy so I used canned.

So this is easy and kind of quick. And I thought it was very yummy. I will be making it again. It made enough for leftovers. You know I love leftovers.

Do you like enchiladas? Are you a fan of sour cream sauce?  Does this sound like a recipe you would make?

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Pumpkin For Dinner

Posted by terrepruitt on November 12, 2013

I received a pumpkin in my organic produce box.  I didn’t know what to do with it.  I was looking at one of the blogs that I read on occasion and I saw a recipe for a stuffed pumpkin.  I saved the recipe so that I could make it.  I looked at the post a couple of times while I was thinking about it.  There was a woman who commented with a link to her version of the stuffed pumpkin.  When I posted the original (to me) posting on FB one of my friends commented, “I just made those.”  Which, when she posted the picture to my wall, I vaguely remembered having seen it when she originally posted it.  But it was before I had received a pumpkin so it didn’t really register.  When I went to make my grocery list off of JJ Begonia’s recipe, I realized it was literally like a stuffed pumpkin as in BREAD stuffing.  Like a turkey.  I didn’t want to just use bread.  Then I remembered my friend said she stuffed hers with sausage.  The first two recipes have bacon in them, but I don’t like to buy a pound of bacon for only a couple of pieces.  So I decided on sausage.  I took ideas from all three people and came up with the below stuffed pumpkin recipe.

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Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle YogaStuffed Sugar Pie Pumpkin

1 2 to 3 pound Sugar Pie Pumpkin
1-2 tbsp olive oil
salt
Six mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1/4 pound sausage
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 cup cheese (small chunks)
2 tbsp ricotta
1 tbsp sherry
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
handful of spinach
four slices bread – toasted and cubed

Cut the top off of the pumpkin making a little lid.  Scoop out the pumpkin guts.  Then put a little oil and salt in the pumpkin and place it on a piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet.  Bake at 350° F for 45 minutes (check it after 20 minutes to see that it is not getting too cooked – after the 45 minutes you want it to be almost cooked, but not cooked so much it can’t stand another HOUR in the oven).

Heat the olive oil in the pan with the 1/2 of the onions.  Once the onions are translucent put the mushrooms in the pan and cook them.  Sprinkle with salt.  As they are cooking mix in one clove of garlic.  Cook the sausage, either after the mushrooms are cooked or use a different pan.  If the sausage has a lot of grease drain it off once the sausage is cooked before you add the sausage to the rest of the ingredients.

Mix the mushrooms and the sausage in a bowl.  Add the rosemary and thyme.  Mix in the remaining two cloves of garlic and the onions.  Mix in the cheese.  Mix in the sherry and most of the cream (save a splash for the inside bottom of pumpkin).  Add the spinach and bread cubes last.  Mix it all carefully.

Pour the remaining splash of cream in the pumpkin.  Spoon the mixture into the pumpkin.  I used the spoon to press it down into the pumpkin.

Put the pumpkin in the oven for 60 minutes.  After about 20 minutes I put the “lid” on.  The pumpkin is done when you can gently pierce its side with a sharp object.  Check to verify the inside it cooked to your liking.  Since the mushrooms and the sausage are already cooked it is just a matter of it heating up and melting the cheese.

Slice and serve.

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Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia at the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Zumba, PiYo, Gentle YogaThis was good, BUT . . . . . I have some adjustments I would make for next time.  I was thinking it would be full of flavor so I hardly used any salt which left it almost flavorless except for the thyme.  Next time I will use LESS thyme and more salt and some pepper.  You will notice I didn’t put any pepper in this.  I don’t use pepper.  But I can when I think that a recipe needs it.  I will salt the inside of the pumpkin more prior to baking and prior to filling.

This was ALL that we had for dinner with a small salad and it was PLENTY!  We were full.  We each had a half.  We did not have a pumpkin each.  🙂

As you can see from just this post there are at least four recipes to make stuffed pumpkin.  I purposefully didn’t say what type of sausage, cheese, or bread I used because I want you to find your own flavor and texture.  So follow one of the recipes or do it your own way.  You have the basics . . . go play!  If you do not follow my recipe . . . . please, please, please, tell us what you did.  I would love to hear of more ways to make a pumpkin dinner!

Happy Fall!

I had not stuffed a pumpkin before.  Have you ever stuffed a pumpkin and baked it? 

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Baked, Split, and Broiled Eggplant

Posted by terrepruitt on May 5, 2012

The past two Thursdays have been pretty cold here and since I don’t teach Nia on Thursdays evenings I have been cooking soup.  One Thursday I had it planned so I actually did go to the store after my Nia class on Wednesday to buy the ingredients I needed, but yesterday it was cold so I just decided to use what I had, which was not much.  While I think that a bowl or two of soup can easily be a meal, I like to serve something else with it.  When I looked in my fridge I saw the eggplant I had bought.  Yay!  Perfect.  I saw a recipe on icancookstuff that sounded interesting.  While I do not eat spicy hot food I thought I could use the garlic and the cummin.  But it turns out I don’t have any cummin.  So I decided to use ginger and turmeric.  I have them in powdered form so I got the bottles out of the cupboard and set them on the counter.  Then I put the eggplant in the oven to bake it.Dance Exercies, Nia, Nia Campbell, Campbell Nia, Nia classes in Campbell, evening Nia, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia,

The recipe said to bake it at 200 degrees for 45 minutes.**  I didn’t think I had 45 minute so I put the temperature up to 300 and left it on for 30 minutes.  I didn’t feel that the eggplant was cooked enough so I turned the convection oven on and set the timer for 30 more minutes. I turned it four times because it was getting flat on the pan side.

In the meantime I was cooking my soup.  I only had one bunch of baby bok choy, a bunch of kale, and some broccoli.  I swore I wasn’t going to put broccoli in a soup again, but . . . I didn’t think the rest would make it.  So while I was trying to fake making soup I wasn’t really paying attention to the eggplant.  My soup finished before the eggplant.

By the time I finally thought the eggplant was cooked enough to split I split it.  I was thinking that I would make one half for me and one half for my husband.  I salted it, I put a bit of garlic on it, I put a little bit of parmesan cheese on it.  Then I looked over and I saw the onions I had chopped to put on it.  And the kale.  So I decided to put the onions and kale on one half and hubby and I would just get a half of each half making a whole half.

I put it back in the oven and let it bake for a bit more.  Half way through the end of baking portion I saw the ginger and turmeric on the counter.  Snap!  I forgot to put it on.  So I sprinkled a little turmeric on both halves.  I put the broiler on for about 10 minutes.

Here is the result.

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From the time I thought to cook the eggplant to the time I put it in the oven to finish baking I had thought of three different ways to flavor it.  I had originally thought to use garlic, turmeric, and ginger, then I thought of garlic, onions, and kale, then I thought of garlic, and cheese.  That really is not a big deal the big deal is that I forgot one each time I thought of the new one.  Geez!  What I ended up with was ok.  I think it needed a little bit more flavor.  I will work on that.  I don’t even think I tasted the turmeric.

I like cooking eggplant this way because it is much less time-consuming than turn the slices all the time.  But I think I like the roasted slices better.  But I will continue to experiment with this.  I might try slicing it into three pieces next time.  Although a baked eggplant is not easy to slice.

**It just dawned on me that the 200 degrees was probably Celsius and not Fahrenheit.  So it would actually be about 400 degrees F.  Ha!

I can’t wait to try this again!

What do you think of this way of cooking eggplant?  What would you put on the eggplant?

Posted in Food, Vegetables | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Don’t Touch the Cheese

Posted by terrepruitt on January 7, 2012

A while back I did a post about rules of the house.  Ha, as I was typing this I just thought of another one.  My hubby is not allowed to talk to me when I am doing my Nia bars.  If he sees me with my ear buds in and paper in front of me with lines on it he knows I am listening to my Nia music and not to talk to me.  Sometimes there are songs that are just not that easy for me to count and when he interrupts me I have to start over.  So we have reached an agreement there.  Anyway, back to my other post, in that I mentioned not touching the cheese.  One of my friends commented that she was going to come out here and she promised not to touch my cheese.  I was actually waiting for her to come out here to post this, but that scheduled trip got cancelled and I still feel the need to explain.  Her comment had me thinking that she thought I won’t SHARE my cheese.  But that is not it at all.  If I have a good cheese I will gladly share it with a fellow cheese lover because everything taste better when you share it.  I actually mean don’t TOUCH the cheese.

One reason I have been putting off writing this post is I like to post pictures with my posts.  So I was going to take pictures of what I am about to explain, but I really didn’t want to waste the cheese.  I could not — every time since then that I have had a hunk of cheese, I could not bring myself to touch it!  Cheese is made from curdled milk.  In some cases they use bacteria to make the cheese.  Cheese contains living organisms.  With all these facts that make up cheese most cheese tend to mold quite easily and quickly.

It is my experience that the mold begins to grow where the cheese is touched.  Go ahead, see for yourself.  As I said, I will not sacrifice my cheese to show you pictures of this type of experiment.  I know it to be true.  Even though you wash your hands before you touch the cheese, you still have bacteria and things on your hand that apparently help the mold grow.  Again, this is just what I have experienced.  I have found that if the cheese is touched that is where the mold grows.  I have found that if the BAG or wrapper in which the cheese is stored is touched and that area touches the cheese that is where the mold grows.

Of course, if cheese is old enough it starts to grow mold on its own, but wherever it is touched it grows faster.  Have you experienced this to be true?  I have, so that is why there is a “rule” in our house that the cheese cannot be touched.  That includes ALL cheese in all forms.  You cannot put your hand in a bag of shredded cheese.  You can pour a small amount into a bowl (or whatever) and handle it from there using what you want, but hopefully you will end up using all of it.  If not, it gets put in a separate bag or container it does not go back in the bag with the rest of the cheese.  Tubs of cheese . . . . same thing.  Even cream and ricotta, you can’t use a utensil then “double-dip” if the utensil has touched hands or mouth.  Mouth is probably even worse than hands touching the cheese.

So, that is the reason for the “Don’t Touch the Cheese” rule in our house.  It has nothing to do with sharing.  We will gladly share our cheese with you, just don’t HANDLE it!

Are you willing to experiment?  Use two pieces of cheese to see if the one you touch goes bad before the one you don’t touch?  Let us know?  Remember you have to have cheese around your house long enough for this to even happen.  Ha, ha!  (I know how some of you cheese lovers are!)

Posted in Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 20 Comments »

Veggie Topped Tortilla

Posted by terrepruitt on May 17, 2011

 

 

I love tortillas.  I love that they come in so many different flavors and ways.  Depending upon your nutritional needs and health goals you can pretty much get almost any kind of tortilla you want.  There are corn tortillas.  They can be white corn, yellow corn, or corn with flavors.  There are flour tortillas, wheat, whole wheat, multi grain, or white.  There are low carb tortillas, low fat tortillas, spinach tortillas, tomato tortillas, fortified tortillas, high fiber tortillas, gluten-free tortillas, low-sodium tortillas, and the list goes on I am sure.

There are probably as many tortillas as there are ways you can cook with them.  I think I have proclaimed my love for them before.  Here is one of my favorite ways (why yes, yes I do have MANY favorite ways to eat a tortilla.  And this is ONE!  🙂 )  This is a tortilla that I had warmed in the oven, then I put cheese, onions, and grape tomatoes on it.  Then I heated up until the cheese was melted.  Then I put the spinach on it.  Then I put the mushrooms on it that I had cooked.

This is actually what my husband ate.  Mine was not as colorful as I did not have the tomatoes or onions.  And I cooked my spinach a little so it was wilted and wilted spinach does not make as pretty of a picture was the non-wilted kind.

Love this.  Just looking at it I want to go have one.  To me this is an easy meal.  Put a bit of cheese and load a tortilla with veggies. Have more veggies on the side.  Yay.  Perfect!

Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

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