Gift in a jar: M & M brownie mix

It honestly went straight from summer to winter weather here, and now it's COLD. I've been packing away the bathing suits and sun hats and digging out all the coats and mittens and hats. I've also been thinking about... Christmas!

We mostly keep Christmas for the kids in our family- our daughters and nieces. But for the few adults- teachers and neighbors and family friends we stick to mix gifts in a jar. Last year we gave fajita mix and marshmallow hot chocolate mix, and the year before salsa mix and chai tea mix. This year I wanted to do something different so...

M & M Brownie Mix

Using a 2 cup (500 ml) mason jar, fill the jar with either 2 cups of my regular brownie mix or my gluten free brownie mix. If you want to make an individual jar, put in:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

I like to layer my ingredients in the jar to make them pretty.



On the outside of the jar, tie a small bag of M & M 's with a ribbon. If you are using bulk candies, tie 1/2 cup of M & M's into a baggie. Attach a tag or sticky label with the directions:

What else you'll need

1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend wet ingredients and stir in mix. Pour batter into a greased square baking dish. You can top with batter with M & M's before baking if you want them melted into the brownies, or halfway through if you want them more intact.



Bake at 350 for about 20-30 min (until brownies start to harden). Cool before cutting!

Easy, inexpensive and impersonal. The perfect gift for anyone you sort of know.

Tandoori Seasoning Mix

Our thirteen year old car is due for an emissions test in January and there is no way it's going to pass. In the meantime we're frantically saving our money for the new car we're going to have to buy when the time comes. This means... no more take out!!

One of the most tempting and expensive forms of take out I crave is Indian food. We can easily blow $40 on just one meal for the two of us and right now that's not an option. So if I want Indian I have to make it myself. And yesterday I really, really wanted it...

Tandoori Seasoning Mix (single use)

1 1/2 tablespoons paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons coriander powder
3/4 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon tumeric
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
pinch cardamom powder




What else you'll need

1 cup plain yogurt
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken cut into cubes

You can use this as a dry rub too, but it tastes more authentic if you marinade the chicken in yogurt first. Combine the mix and yogurt and stir well, then mix in the chicken. Marinade in the fridge for 8 hours.



String marinaded chicken pieces onto skewers and lay them on the grill to cook.



Grill until chicken is cooked through and marinade darkens in color.





I served the chicken skewers with basmati rice and cauliflower curry (seasoning mix found here).



Not only did this make a large and authentic meal inexpensively for my husband and I, it also made 2 small meals for the children and best of all?

2 big containers of leftovers for lunch today! Because everybody knows that Indian tastes even better the next day!

Copycat Chicken Enchilada Helper

The weather this month has been incredible and we've been outside soaking it all up, instead of inside cooking or cleaning or mixing it up for the blog. Who wants to do house work when you could be at the park or picking apples or on a long walk or boating on the lake?

I did manage to force myself inside one day last week and try something new. This meal was perfect for us because we generally eat chicken instead of beef and rice instead of pasta with my husbands gluten free diet.

Copycat Chicken Enchilada Helper

1 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon dried red bell pepper
pinch cayenne



What else you'll need

1 pound diced cooked chicken breast
3 cups (or more) cooked rice
1 cup milk
1/2 can tomato paste
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

I've started making my 'helper' mixes in a new way. I no longer use powdered milk and water because let's face it- most people, especially parents have at least some form of milk in their fridge, but very few have powdered milk in their cupboards. I also cook the meat, rice/pasta first and then whip up the sauce and add it all together instead of cooking everything in the sauce. This stops everything from sticking to the bottom of the pot while it's cooking and also allows you to add as much rice or pasta as you want to stretch out the meal. I find 'helper' recipes tend to be way too heavy on the meat, and they just don't feed enough people!

Combine mix with milk and stir well, adding in tomato paste and stirring until it dissolves. Cook on medium heat in a large pot, adding in chicken and rice and stirring until sauce thickens. Add cheese and stir until it melts.





I added some steamed broccoli on top to balance out the meal. Delicious and almost worth dragging myself away from the sunshine for!

58 meals using chicken breasts

(Honey Sesame Chicken)

I'm sorry for not posting anything last week but I broke my baby toe! It's been pretty impossible chasing a 1 year old and 4 year old around on one foot! One of the hardest parts of being injured has been getting a nutritious dinner on the table every night, because it's something that has to be done regardless. We have a lot of chicken in our freezer, so I've been relying on many old favorites using chicken breasts. Every morning I get out a frozen portion of chicken to defrost and decide what to make it into. Some of these recipes use raw chicken breasts, others are salads and side dishes that cooked chicken can be added to later. A few are also used on other cuts of chicken or fish, but work just as well on chicken breasts.

58 Meals using boneless skinless chicken breasts

Restaurant style grilled chicken
Blackened seasoning
Montreal chicken seasoning
Chili garlic stir fry sauce
Sweet onion teriyaki sub sauce
Mediterranean chicken and fish seasoning
Cajun pulled chicken
Honey sesame chicken stir fry sauce
Chicken chow mein
Chicken chop suey
Italian seasoning
Parmesan herb panko crust
Chicken noodle soup mix
Jamaican jerk seasoning
Jumbalaya
Schezuan sauce
Creamy bacon carbonara
Chicken and rice casserole
Chicken parmesan
Creamy garlic Raffaello
Creamy vegetable primavera
Fettuccine alfredo
Caesar salad
Creamy sun dried tomato and basil penne
Fattoush salad
BBQ chicken rub
Chicken shake and bake
Chicken pot pie
Lemon chicken sauce
Creamy chicken fusilli
Spanish rice
Chicken and dumplings
Teriyaki rice and noodles
Honey mustard sauce
Fried chicken coating
Honey garlic sauce
Sweet chili rub
Stir fry seasoning
Chicken fried rice
Poultry seasoning
Hunan seasoning
Satay sauce
Greek salad
Pulled 'pork' (made with chicken)
Pad Thai
Chicken souvlaki
Creamy curry casserole sauce
Lemon pepper chicken rub
Chicken teriyaki
Gumbo
Southern spice chicken rub
General Tso's chicken
Sweet and sour chicken
Burritos
Fajitas
Buffalo chicken
Butter chicken
Chicken Shawarma

(Chicken chow mein)

(Fattoush salad)

(Chicken souvlaki)

(Stir fry)

I've posted pictures of some of my favorites. Chicken breasts can be made into so many things, we never get tired of them!

Country Mushroom Rice Mix (Sidekicks Copycat Recipe)

I had some leftover dried mushrooms from my oven drying spree so I decided to try out a new side dish. I decided to do a Lipton's Sidekicks copycat and came up with...

Country Mushroom Rice Mix

2 tablespoons powered milk
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon dried mushrooms (more if you like)
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
pinch pepper



What else you'll need

2 1/4 cups water
1 cup uncooked rice
2 tablespoons butter

Combine mix with cold water and add in rice and butter.



Simmer in a saucepan on medium heat until rice is tender.



I served this with honey garlic salmon and steamed broccoli and it was very good! The rice was creamy and full of flavor.

Fattoush Salad Dressing Mix

In recent months I became addicted to the miracle that is fattoush salad. Fattoush is a delicious Lebanese salad topped with crunchy pita chips and the chicken that goes into a Shawarma. It's so sour and crunchy and healthy to boot! But it's expensive. At $12 a pop the Lebanese take out place on the corner was seeing WAY too much of my money. Eventually I sweet talked a couple of the workers into the secrets of their dressing and was able to nail a replica in the Mix It Up Kitchen.

Fattoush salad dressing mix

2 teaspoons ground sumac
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon mint
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper



Sumac is a dark red powder that gives it the sour taste and is absolutely essential. It can be found at any middle eastern grocery store, and recently Bulk Barn started carrying it as well.

What else you'll need

1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil



Combine mix with juice and oil and shake well. You'll need to chill it in the fridge for a while because at first all of the dry ingredients will float to the top until they are well soaked.

A good fattoush salad is made with romaine, cucumbers, tomato, onions, peppers and various other vegetables. Toss the salad in the dressing and mix it well.



This salad is famous for the crunchy pita chips inside it and the perfect way to use up stale pitas. Pita bread seems to go stale about an hour after you buy it. Simply dry it out in the oven and then crumble and toss with olive oil.



The salad makes a great side dish, but it's even better as a complete meal topped with grilled chicken marinaded in my shawarma mix or my regular grilled chicken marinade.



This dressing was an exact match to the take out place on the corner! Which means I'm going to be saving a lot of money in the future.

Lulu's sweet zinger salmon rub

These days the rage is all about getting more omega 3 in your diet. They put it in nearly everything- butter, eggs, breads, crackers, pizzas, chips, wraps... The problem is that the cheapest way for companies to do this is using flax, and somewhere along the way I developed a flax allergy.

Lucky for me I can still eat the food with the highest levels of omega 3- fish! Salmon especially has more omega 3 than any other food out there and it's delicious as well. I usually make a maple garlic salmon but I recently ran out of pure maple syrup and wanted to try something new with what we had. So...

Lulu's sweet zinger salmon rub

2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried garlic flakes
1/4 (or more) teaspoon hot pepper flakes (1/4 for mild, as much as you want for hot!)
1/4 teaspoon salt



Mix the spices well, breaking up any brown sugar clumps.



Sprinkle or rub the mix onto the salmon portions before cooking.



Bake at 350 until fish flakes easily with a fork. I served ours with an assortment of local vegetables roasted in olive oil and the meal was incredible!