Eating the Alphabet Challenge: Tony's Breakfast Couscous

It's time once again for the Eating the Alphabet Challenge hosted by Brenda at Meal Planning Magic.  Each month we are given a set of letters and are challenged to make a dish using a fruit, vegetable, grain, or legume that begins with one of the letters.  This month's letters were C and D.  Last year I made this Roasted Cauliflower Risotto.  I thought that I'd try for "D" this year but then I found this couscous recipe that looked good, so I ended up making it instead.  The original recipe called for nonfat dry milk but provided substitutions so you could use fat-free milk instead.  Unfortunately, I cannot have dairy in the morning on an empty stomach.  I wouldn't call myself lactose intolerant, but feel the symptoms only if I have dairy in the morning on an empty stomach.  So I used soymilk in this recipe.  I also eliminated the walnuts that the original recipe called for.  I'm not a huge nut fan and walnuts are probably one of my least favorites.  I think pecans might be tasty in this though.  I made this over the weekend and it ended up being more like brunch for me by the time I got up and made it!  I was pleasantly surprised when my son, who is a pretty picky eater, tried this and liked it!  Normally he doesn't eat couscous when I make it.  But the cinnamon, brown sugar, cranberries, and raisins sweetened this up, and he likes sweet! He ended up having this for lunch with a cheese stick and a yogurt!  This was super easy to prepare and can be adapted to any ingredients that you want to add/take out.  This was a breakfast dish that I can see myself making again.  If you're interested in joining the Eating the Alphabet Challenge click here!

Tony's Breakfast Couscous
recipe adapted from Cooking Light, May 2006

Ingredients:
1/4 cup water
1 cup vanilla soy milk
1/2 cup uncooked couscous
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup raisins
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Bring water and milk to a boil in a small saucepan; stir in remaining ingredients. Remove from heat. Cover; let stand 10 minutes. (Mixture will thicken as it cools.)

Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up.

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

My family was invited to a barbecue hosted by the family of one of my daughter's classmates.  When I asked what to bring, I was of course told, nothing.  So, my daughter and I ended up baking a box of the Betty Crocker Funda-Middles cupcake mix that I had in the pantry for the kids.  Then I found this recipe in my dessert recipes folder and figured that even if there was already dessert you can't have too many cookies.  I'm not a huge oatmeal cookie eater.  Given a plate of cookies with Oatmeal Chocolate Chip or Oatmeal Raisin, they would probably be my last choice!  However, since I had almost all the ingredients I thought I'd give these a try.  It made enough that I ended up saving half of the batch to serve with dessert at our Father's Day dinner.  At the barbecue, an almost-two year old boy was sneaking these cookies non-stop (and this was before dessert since we couldn't stay)!  Both my parents and in-laws ended up really liking these cookies.  My kids ate them but weren't the biggest fans of them.  I thought that they were okay.  Definitely not my favorite cookie that I've ever made, but I don't think that I've yet to have a home made cookie that was really awful! 

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies
from the Ocean Spray website

Ingredients:
2/3 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 5-ounce package Ocean Spray® Craisins® Original Dried Cranberries
2/3 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375ºF.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate mixing bowl. Add to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries and white chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

Makes approximately 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up.

Turkey-Cranberry Strudel

I've been saving this recipe for awhile.  Since I had the phyllo dough (and finally had the time!) I decided to give it a try.  Again, my fault, a recipe that I didn't read the entire way through before I decided to make.  So, we ended up eating later than we normally do the night I made this!  This took some time and effort to make.  Don't think that I'd recommend this for a busy weeknight meal.  However, I thought the cranberry and turkey complimented each other well and had good flavor.  We all enjoyed this one.

Turkey-Cranberry Strudel
Every Day With Rachael Ray, November 2008

Ingredients:
7 tablespoons butter, 5 tablespoons melted
2 yellow onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted, plus more for sprinkling
1/2 pound ground turkey
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon bread crumbs
6 sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed

Directions:
1.In a large skillet, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until softened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the cranberries, thyme and 1/2 cup almonds and cook for 2 minutes; transfer to a bowl.

2.In the same skillet, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat. Add the turkey, season with salt and pepper and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to the onion m mixture. Stir in the breadcrumbs; let cool.

3.On a work surface, lay out a sheet of phyllo and brush with melted butter. Place another sheet on top and brush with m ore butter. Repeat with the remaining phyllo and more melted butter.

4.Mound the turkey mixture lengthwise onto the center of the phyllo. Fold the short ends over the filling and brush with butter. Fold a long end over the filling, then loosely roll up the strudel to enclose. Transfer, seam side down, to a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Brush with more butter and sprinkle with almonds. Bake until golden, about 30 minutes.
 
Family Rating: 1 1/2 thumbs up.

Libby's Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

This year I definitely didn't cook with pumpkin as much as I would have liked to.  I saw this recipe, which was originally for a bread and decided to make muffins instead.  I halved the recipe, only making 12 muffins.  I prefer to make muffins because I can freeze some and they make for a quick, easy breakfast on a busy morning.  I also used dried cranberries instead of fresh.  Next time, I would definitely try to use fresh cranberries.  The dried cranberries that I used had an overly sweet taste.