Gingerbread Pudding

Another new crockpot dessert recipe! We had all the ingredients for this except the molasses, so I had Ryan pick up some molasses at the store so we could try this recipe. It's pretty good! I don't know why it's called 'pudding' though because it was more like a cake. Oh well. It's still really tasty! I think it would taste really good with a little vanilla ice cream and some caramel syrup drizzled on top. :)



Ingredients:
1/2 C. molasses
1 C. water
1/4 C. butter, softened
1/4 C. sugar
1 egg, well-beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 C. all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 C. brown sugar
3/4 C. hot water
2/3 C. butter, melted

Directions:
Combine molasses and 1 C. water. In separate bowl, cream butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla; add to molasses mixture. Line a 6-quart oval slow-cooker with waxed paper; pour batter into slow-cooker. Mix brown sugar, hot water, and melted butter; pour over batter but do not stir. Cook on high 2 to 2 1/2 hours or until pudding is set.

Instead of using waxed paper, we just used a crockpot liner (which is pretty much the same thing, right?). I have no idea why it wasn't really 'pudding' for us, but it was still good! I recommend this dessert for anyone who loves gingerbread cookies! Tastes just the same, except in the form of a cake/pudding (we did have a tiny bit of pudding stuff on the very bottom, but it was mostly just cake).

This recipe can be found in the Slow-Cooker recipe book below!

Pot of Gold

I got this recipe from my parents. I thought it would taste weird after seeing the list of ingredients, but then I made it and it was actually pretty good! This is a good recipe to use if you have the canned ingredients and noodles in your food storage. It's pretty cheap to make and really easy, too!


Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onion (or dried minced onion)
1 can cream style corn
1 cup mild cheese (grated)
1 can tomato soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
6 oz. noodles (I used half of a 12 oz. bag of noodles, but you could use more or less...whatever you want)

Directions
Brown meat and onion, cook noodles. Put meat and onion in casserole dish. Add noodles and remaining ingredients. Bake at 350 degrees 1 hour.


The second time we made this, we put a little extra cheese on top right after it came out of the oven. Yum!

Gingerbread Waffles

This is why I love to cook--so I can eat yummy food like this! I got this recipe from a friend, Katie.


Ingredients:
4 eggs
1/3 c. sugar
1 c. molasses
1 c. buttermilk
3 c. flour
2 tsp. ginger
1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. butter--melted

Directions:
Beat the eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar, molasses, and buttermilk and mix til blended. Sift together flour, spices, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until smooth. Stir in the butter. Refrigerate overnight or cook immediately in a waffle iron. Makes 14 waffles.


I think we ended up making 16 waffles. Ryan and I ate the first two so we could try them, and that's why there are only 14 waffles in the first picture. They are delicious! These would be a great after-Thanksgiving breakfast so that you can use any whipped cream left over from pies. They also taste good with maple syrup, and I'm sure they'd be delicious with fruit! This would make a wonderful breakfast for Christmas morning...or any morning! I think I'll be making these again soon! :)

Crock Pot Tamale Pie

I came across this Fit Marriage website a couple of weeks ago and noticed the nutrition tab, so I clicked on it to see what recipes they had posted. One recipe that caught my eye was this crock pot tamale pie. And guess what? The crock pot that is shown in the video is exactly like the one we have! Haha! We had all of the ingredients except the cornmeal, so I had Ryan pick some up so we could try this the next Sunday. We also didn't have any fire roasted diced tomatoes with chilies, so we just used a can of diced tomatoes without chilies.


Filling ingredients:
1 lb. cooked ground beef (I just used 1/2 a lb.)
1 15 oz. can black beans drained & rinsed
1 15 oz. can fire roasted diced tomatoes with chilies
1 15 oz. can corn drained
1 Tbsp. chili powder or taco seasoning
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 cup diced onions
1 cup cheddar cheese

Cornbread topping ingredients:
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/4 cup flour or gluten-free baking mix
1 tsp. baking powder – omit if using gluten-free mix that has baking powder
1 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg

Directions:
Spray stoneware with cooking spray.

Combine all filling ingredients from above in crock pot. Stir ingredients together until thoroughly mixed as you will not be able to mix again. (I combined all ingredients in a bowl, stirred them together, and then put the mixture in the crock pot.)

In a large bowl, mix all topping ingredients from above. Stir to a smooth texture, then pour topping onto filling in crock pot.

Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours.


I think the recipe originally said 6-8 hours, and that's what the lady says in the video. Funny thing is, since the crock pot is exactly like ours, when I read/heard the 6-8 hours, I said out loud to Ryan "I bet it will be done in about 5 hours!" And then watching the video, they said it was done in 4 1/2 hours. Ha ha! I knew it! Every crock pot recipe I have ever tried has always been done a lot sooner than what the time on the recipe says. It is a good crock pot! :)

This recipe was perfect to make on Sunday--with 3 hours of church and then about an hour of choir practice, that's 4 hours. I set the timer for 4 1/2 hours and started it about 15 minutes before we left to go to church, so it only had about 15 minutes left by the time we got home! Right as we walked in the door, we immediately smelled the tamale pie and it smelled sooooo good!

I remember when I was younger, my mom occasionally bought canned tamales from the store. I used to eat them. Then I got sick of them after a while. When I tasted this crock pot tamale pie, it reminded me of when I used to eat canned tamales...only it was a LOT better!

So healthy! So delicious! So easy! You should try this! :)

One suggestion, though... even if you use a crock pot liner, you might still want to spray it with cooking spray. We didn't and the topping got stuck to it. Oops!

Raisin Pudding!

This is a recipe that came from my Grandma Higginson. My dad said that he had it a lot when he was a child, and my family made it quite often when I was growing up. It is so good! My parents made it and brought it with them when Ryan and I had most of my family over to our place on Halloween, so I was able to get a picture of it. I don't have a cool 'raisin pudding pan' like the one that my parents have. I don't really have any pan that would be good to make it in, so I haven't ever made it at my house. I'll have to get a cool pan sometime! :)


Ingredients:
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup raisins
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt

Mix ingredients and place in the center of a pan.

Mix in a pot on the stove:
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
Stick of butter or margarine
4 cups boiling water

Pour over or around dough. Bake at 375 degrees for about 50 minutes.


It is pretty sweet, so we like to eat it either with evaporated milk or regular milk poured on top. Enjoy!!

Fresh Tomato Soup

When Ryan and I had a bunch of tomatoes from our garden, we thought that maybe we could try making some homemade tomato soup! It was a good way to use up a lot of the tomatoes we had before they went bad. After looking at the ingredients on canned tomato soup (yuck!), I thought homemade tomato soup would be a good idea. :) I searched the internet and found the recipe below (found here).


Ingredients:
3 medium tomatoes, peeled and quartered
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
1/2 cup chopped celery (1 stalk)
1/2 6 ounce can (1/3 cup) tomato paste
2 tablespoons snipped fresh cilantro or basil
2 teaspoons instant chicken bouillon granules
1 teaspoon sugar
Few dashes bottled hot pepper sauce
Snipped fresh cilantro or basil (optional)

Directions:
If desired, seed the tomatoes. In a large saucepan combine tomatoes, water, onion, celery, tomato paste, the 2 tablespoons cilantro, bouillon granules, sugar, and hot pepper sauce. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, about 20 minutes or until celery and onion are very tender. Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes.

Place half of the tomato mixture in a blender or food processor. Cover and blend or process until smooth. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Return all to the saucepan; heat through. If desired, garnish with additional cilantro.

Makes 4 servings (4 cups)


The nutrition facts on the website says that one serving (1 cup) of the soup is 53 calories. Just for fun, I looked to see how many calories canned tomato soup has -- 90 calories for 1/2 cup, which would be 180 for 1 cup. Crazy, the difference in calories between this homemade tomato soup and canned tomato soup! I made this soup twice and tripled or quadrupled it each time so that I could use more tomatoes. (I think I quadrupled it so I could use 2 full cans of tomato paste--since the single recipe calls for 1/2 a can.) The first time I made it, we didn't have celery. It was ok. The second time I made it, I added celery to it and it was a lot better! So I recommend the celery. Also, I didn't put as much hot pepper sauce in it the second time. It was a little too spicy the first time I made it, so just a couple of dashes of the hot sauce is plenty (when quadrupling it).

Chicken Chowder

I got this recipe from Ryan's sister, Julene, a couple of years ago but never made it until now. It's delicious! I love a nice hot bowl of soup on cold days, so since winter is right around the corner, I thought I'd post this recipe. :)


Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts cooked and chopped into bite size pieces (or about 8 chicken tenderloins)
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
2 cups chopped potatoes
1 carrot chopped

Simmer vegetables in 4 cups chicken broth for 15-20 minutes.

Make white sauce while vegetables are simmering (combine the following ingredients in a large pot):
3/4 cup margarine (I used butter)
2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 quart milk

Add vegetables with broth to white sauce, stir in chicken. Simmer 20-30 min. Thickens as it cools.


The directions weren't very specific, so I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing since it was my first time making it. Haha! I used chicken granules with water for the chicken broth, but you could use canned chicken broth. I boiled the broth first, then added the vegetables and turned it down to medium heat. Putting the white sauce together took a little while, so I think I actually had the vegetables simmering for 30-40 minutes. It still turned out great, though. One more thing... since the chicken granules have a lot of sodium, I omitted the salt from the white sauce. It's a delicious, creamy soup! I love it!

Pineapple Salsa Chicken

Guess where this recipe came from? If you guessed Mel's Kitchen Cafe, you are right! I LOVE that site! I've made five recipes so far from the site and none of them have disappointed me (us)! Ryan and I are still trying to eat healthy but also cheap now that we're starting to pay back his school loans. This is a great recipe that only uses four ingredients! The most expensive thing is the chicken, but it makes enough for three or four meals for the two of us, so it ends up being cheap! Hooray!


Ingredients:
6 fresh or frozen chicken breasts
1 (20-ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups mild or medium salsa

Directions:
Place the chicken in the crock pot and add the rest of the ingredients. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Using tongs, remove the chicken to a cutting board and shred into bite-size pieces. Mix the chicken back in with the rest of the ingredients. The mixture will be fairly soupy – I like to drain off some of the excess liquid before serving, especially if we are eating it in tortillas, so it doesn’t make everything soggy. Serve with tortilla chips and garnishes, like tomatoes, cheese, avocado, sour cream, etc.


I didn't have crushed pineapple, so I used what we had which was pineapple tidbits. It worked out just fine. I also just cooked mine for 5 hours. Our crockpot cooks things really fast, so I checked it after 5 hours and it was done. We had ours on top of quinoa, and it was delicious! You could also put it on top of brown rice. We didn't add any of the listed garnishes on top, like tomatoes and cheese, but I'm sure it would taste even better with those things! I used two cans of black beans instead of one can of black beans and one can of great northern beans (that's what Mel used), but you can make yours however you want to. Next time, I'd probably add some herbs and spices to it, but other than that, it was great!

Squash Bars

I got this recipe from a friend, Kami. She has been doing the GAPS diet with her kids, and these squash bars were one of the things that they ate. Ryan and I are not on any type of diet, but I have been trying to eat healthier and these sounded pretty good. I decided to try them with a butternut squash we got from our garden. I'll be honest and say that I really did not like these at first. They tasted like cardboard (not that I know what cardboard tastes like). BUT, I found a solution and now I LOVE these! I actually prefer these as a dessert or snack over other things because they are just so healthy!--and only four ingredients! As Kami mentioned in her post, these do smell like pumpkin pie as they are baking. Yum!


Ingredients:
8 eggs
2 cups pureed winter squash
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter or ghee

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Separate egg yolks and whites into different bowls. Whip egg whites until light and fluffy. Combine egg yolks, winter squash, cinnamon and butter. Mix well. Fold in egg whites. Pour into a 9x13 pan buttered and lined with parchment paper. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Let cool, then slice into small squares and optionally top with butter. Enjoy!


Ok, my solution to make these taste better... a little bit of maple syrup along with strawberries or raspberries (or any other kind of berry or fruit would probably taste good with it too). The strawberries shown in the picture below are strawberries from our garden. It was heavenly and so tasty! :) They are also good just with maple syrup (without fruit).


One more thing--we didn't have any parchment paper, so we just used cooking spray on an 8x8 pan (I had to cut the recipe in half because the butternut squash we had was little and I only got 1 cup of pureed squash from it). It turned out ok with the cooking spray, but the first couple of bars fell apart when I tried to get them out of the pan. Oh well. I still recommend these for anyone wanting to eat healthier (and still wanting some kind of dessert!) :)

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas

This recipe is a keeper! Here's another awesome recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe! You can find it here. These are different from the traditional enchildadas with meat (chicken or beef) and beans, but they are really good!


Ingredients:
6 tablespoons honey
5 tablespoons lime juice (1 large lime)
1 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 pound chicken, cooked and shredded
8-10 flour tortillas
1 pound monterey jack cheese, shredded
16 ounces green enchilada sauce
1 cup sour cream (or heavy cream)

Directions:
Mix the first four ingredients and toss with shredded chicken. Let it marinate for at least 1/2 hour. Pour about 1/2 cup enchilada sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan. Fill flour tortillas with chicken and shredded cheese, saving about 1 cup of cheese to sprinkle on top of enchiladas. Mix the remaining enchilada sauce with the cream and leftover marinade. Pour sauce on top of the enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until brown and crispy on top.


We used lime juice in a bottle, not from an actual lime. We also used a mixture of cheddar and monterey jack cheese, since that's the cheese we get all the time. It was delicious!

If you want to try other recipes from Mel's Kitchen Cafe, so far I've tried the White Bean and Tuna Salad, Oatmeal Pancakes, and Baked Oatmeal. They are ALL good!

White Bean and Tuna Salad

This salad is so yummy! It's also healthy and cheap, so if you're looking for something to make that's yummy, healthy, AND cheap, this recipe is great! It's another recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. I love that site!


Ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped red onions
The zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 (5 or 6-ounce each) cans of tuna
2 (15-ounce each) cans of Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
A few splashes of Tabasco sauce or other hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt and olive oil to taste

Directions:
In a small bowl, sprinkle some of the lemon juice over the chopped onions while you prepare the other ingredients. This will take some of the oniony edge off the onions.

Drain the tuna and put it into a large bowl. Add the beans to the tuna and gently stir to combine. Add the onions, parsley, black pepper, lemon zest and lemon juice and mix to combine. Add Tabasco or hot sauce to taste. If the salad needs more acid, add a little more lemon juice. If the salad seems a little dry, add a little bit of olive oil. Add salt to taste.

Serve chilled or at room temperature. The salad develops great flavor if tightly covered and refrigerated for a couple hours, or up to a day, before serving. Serve with crackers, lightly toasted bread, lettuce cups/leaves, fresh vegetables, etc.


Here's the thing--I had to modify the recipe just a bit. We didn't have any Tabasco or hot sauce, so we didn't use any of that. I'm sure it would taste better with it though. We had all the other ingredients which is why I decided to try it, but of course some of the ingredients were of a different form. We used minced onion instead of fresh onion. It would probably taste a lot better with fresh onion! Also, 1/2 a cup of parsley seems like a lot! I just used 1/4 cup. We didn't have fresh parsley, just a little jar of freeze-dried parsley which says it's as close to fresh as you can get. :) So I used 1/4 cup of that and it still seemed like a lot. I also just used lemon juice from a bottle instead of the zest and juice of a lemon. It's all that we had. So that's how I made mine! It was still really good, and I agree that it does taste better after it sits for a while. :) It's delicious with bread, and I'm sure it would taste really good with lettuce!

And here is a commercial on tuna, for your entertainment:

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

Since we have wheat that we've been grinding to make homemade bread (and pancakes), I decided to find a recipe for whole wheat pizza crust. I found a good one here. It was definitely different than the other recipe that we always used for pizza crust, but it was good. :)


Ingredients:
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:
In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top, and let stand for about 10 minutes, until foamy.
Stir the olive oil and salt into the yeast mixture, then mix in the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the all-purpose flour until dough starts to come together. Tip dough out onto a surface floured with the remaining all-purpose flour, and knead until all of the flour has been absorbed, and the ball of dough becomes smooth, about 10 minutes. Place dough in an oiled bowl, and turn to coat the surface. Cover loosely with a towel, and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
When the dough is doubled, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and divide into 2 pieces for 2 thin crust, or leave whole to make one thick crust. Form into a tight ball. Let rise for about 45 minutes, until doubled.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Roll a ball of dough with a rolling pin until it will not stretch any further. Then, drape it over both of your fists, and gently pull the edges outward, while rotating the crust. When the circle has reached the desired size, place on a well oiled pizza pan. Top pizza with your favorite toppings, such as sauce, cheese, meats, or vegetables.
Bake for 16 to 20 minutes (depending on thickness) in the preheated oven, until the crust is crisp and golden at the edges, and cheese is melted on the top.


We did not let it rise the second time because we were too hungry and wanted to eat it! So after letting it rise for an hour, we went ahead and rolled it out and made our pizza. It turned out great!


More for seconds! This single recipe made one pizza for us (the crust wasn't too thick). I told Ryan that we should go into a pizza making business because our homemade pizzas are always so good! We'll definitely be using this recipe again. :)

Oatmeal Pancakes

Another good recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe! You can find the recipe here.


I love pancakes! I posted this recipe for pancakes about three years ago. It's a good recipe, but these oatmeal pancakes are healthier, especially if you use all whole wheat flour. :)

Believe it or not, in the picture below, that is a bowl of oats!--oats that have been put in the blender and turned into a flour. I've never blended oats to make flour before, so it was fun!


Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups rolled (quick) oats
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour (OR 5 cups total whole wheat flour)
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup vegetable or canola oil

Directions:
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a mixer with a paddle (or by hand). If desired, grind the oats in a blender or food processor before adding to the other dry ingredients for a smoother mix. With mixer on slow speed (or gently by hand), drizzle the vegetable oil into the bowl slowly while the mixer is running. When all the oil has been added, stop the mixer and squeeze a clump of mix in your hand. If it stays together, it is just right. If it is still crumbly, add another tablespoon of oil at a time until the consistency is correct (I’ve never had to add additional oil). Store in an airtight container for up to two weeks at room temperature or indefinitely in the refrigerator or freezer.

Below is a picture of the finished pancake mix. I love that you can make a bunch of it and keep it in the fridge, then pull it out and use some to quickly make a batch of pancakes. It's so quick and easy!


To make the pancakes: whisk together 1 cup of mix, 1 cup buttermilk (a combination of half plain yogurt and half milk will also work), and 1 egg. The mixture may seem thin at first but the oats will soak up the milk as it stands while the griddle preheats. Heat a griddle and drop the batter onto it. When the edges look dry and bubbles come to the surface and don’t break, turn the pancake over to finish cooking on the second side. As a sidenote, buttermilk can be frozen indefinitely for future batches of pancakes, so it’s worth keeping it around!

I actually used a little more than 1 cup of the mix since the directions said it would be thin. I love thicker pancakes (but not too thick), so adding a little more than 1 cup of mix was perfect! (Maybe about 1 1/3 or 1 1/2 cups of the mix.) Also, if you don't have buttermilk, the solution is simple! ... that's if you happen to have vinegar or lemon juice on hand. To make a substitute for buttermilk, put 1 Tbsp. of either vinegar or lemon juice in a cup, then fill the cup up with regular milk. Mix it together and let it sit for 5 minutes. I didn't have vinegar, but I did have lemon juice! It worked perfectly! My favorite way to eat these pancakes is with maple syrup and fresh strawberries on top. It's delicious!

ENJOY!

Baked Oatmeal

This. was. SO. good! Seriously! I love baked oatmeal! Never again will I buy those packets of instant oatmeal. This was so much better! I found melskitchencafe.com when I was browsing something about homemade bread, so then I looked around and found some recipes to try. The first thing that I wanted to try was this baked oatmeal. I LOVE breakfast foods and this recipe seemed easy enough. I actually used the recipe that someone posted in a comment (comment #24 by Kristy) since the recipe in the post calls for oil. I didn't want to add oil to it, so that's why I tried the other recipe. :) I love what Mel said in the beginning of the post: "More like an oatmeal “cake,” this breakfast dish is wholesome (yes, I consider large amounts of brown sugar wholesome)..." Haha! She mentioned that her favorite way to eat it is with fresh strawberries and milk. I would have to agree!


Ingredients:
2 cups oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg
1/2 cup applesauce
2 Tbsp. butter

Directions:
Combine ingredients and bake in an 8×8 pan at 350 for 20 minutes.

Here are the rest of the directions that were posted in the comment: I’ve also had great success substituting the applesauce for the same amount of mashed banana. It just gives variety to the flavor. I usually sprinkle a little cinnamon on top, too.


As you can see from the pictures, I put cinnamon on top. I also doubled the recipe and baked it in a 9x13 casserole dish. Just add milk and strawberries and you have a delicious breakfast! And just as Mel said in her post, "You can add fruit to the batter before baking or lay it on after, you can douse your portion of baked oatmeal in milk and slurp it up with a spoon, or you can skip the milk and eat it with a fork. Any way you try it, it is sure to please." :)

I highly recommend it!

Whole Wheat Bread

Ryan and I recently got a hand grinder and some wheat so that we can grind our own wheat flour and make homemade bread with it (hand grinders are cheaper than electric, so we thought we'd get a hand grinder now and save up to get an electric grinder later). Then my parents decided to let us borrow an extra electric grinder that they weren't using. They've had the grinder for a long time, but it still works which is the only thing that matters. :) I tried one recipe for bread, but never could get it to work out. I don't know what went wrong. Then I decided to ask a friend, Katie, for the recipe she uses for her homemade bread. She sent me two recipes which are posted below. The first is her grandma's recipe and the 2nd is her dad's recipe. I've tried them both and they are both good! I really like the taste of the 2nd recipe though--with the butter and powdered milk and the mixture of honey and brown sugar. It's delicious! Thanks Katie!


Ingredients:
3 c. hot water
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. yeast
2 c. flour
2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. oil
1 Tbsp. gluten (optional)
1 Tbsp. lecithin (optional)
5-8 c. flour

Directions:
Mix water, sugar, and yeast. Add the 2 c. flour, salt, oil, gluten, and lecithin. Then add remaining flour until dough pulls away from sides of bowl (it should still be slightly sticky). Knead until smooth. Let rise about an hour. Form into 2 loaves and put in buttered pans. Let rise until loaves fill pans. Bake at 375 for 30 min.


For the recipe above, I added all ingredients except the lecithin because I didn't have any. I used a hand mixer and did it all by hand since I don't have a bread machine or any other type of mixer. You can use all whole wheat, half whole wheat and half white, or mostly whole wheat with a little white. Whatever you prefer. :)


Ingredients:
2 c. + 1/4 c. hot water
2 Tbsp. honey
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
4 tsp. yeast
4 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. dry milk
3 tsp. salt
3 c. bread flour
3 c. whole wheat flour

Directions:
Mix water, honey, sugar, and yeast. Add butter, dry milk, salt, and bread flour. Add whole wheat flour until dough pulls away from bowl (should still be slightly sticky). Knead until smooth. Let rise an hour. Form into 2 loaves and place in buttered pan. Let rise. Bake at 350 for 30 min.


Again, I only let it rise once in the pans. It seems to turn out better when I do that. Also, I don't have bread flour, but I found this website that explains how to make bread flour with all-purpose flour. Just add 1 Tbsp. wheat gluten for every cup of flour.


If you have a bread recipe you'd like to share, please do! I've been experimenting with making bread by hand. Eventually I'll be a pro at it. :)

If you are new to making your own bread and you want to experiment with homemade white bread first, go HERE for a good and easy recipe.

Zucchini Bread

Have you had enough zucchini recipes yet? No? Ok... then here's another one! :)

This has been one of my favorites for a long time! My family made zucchini bread a lot in the past. It is always so good! I thought I'd grate zucchini for zucchini bread while I grated some for zucchini pie. Take care of two recipes at once!


Combine:
3 well-beaten eggs
3/4 cup oil
1 3/4 cups sugar

Mix well:
3 cups raw grated zucchini
3 tsp. vanilla

Add:
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup nuts, optional

Grease and flour 2 large loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.


Mmmmm....just posting the recipe and looking at the pictures makes me want to make more! We made this a few weeks ago, so we haven't had any for a while. I did make one change to the recipe though. I had some extra whole wheat flour that I ground to make homemade bread, so I decided to use that for zucchini bread instead of all-purpose flour. It turned out really good!

Harvest Spaghetti and Chicken

Over on the side, there's a link and a button for a recipe blog from some of my cousins. They call it The Recipe Society. Of all the new recipes I've been making lately, not one of them came from The Recipe Society. So, I decided to look on the blog and find a recipe to try. We've been getting quite a few zucchini out of our garden (hence all the zucchini recipes lately), so of course I had to make another recipe that uses zucchini! I decided to try the Harvest Spaghetti and Chicken recipe. It was delicious! Thanks to John (my cousin) for the recipe! Or was it from Tawnie? It says 'Posted by John' so I wasn't sure. :)


Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts, cut in small pieces
3 Tbsp. cooking oil
2 cups zucchini, thinly sliced
3 med. carrots, sliced thin (or baby carrots, cut up)
2 garlic cloves, minced.
1 Tbsp. flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. basil
8 oz. spaghetti, cooked

Directions:
Stir fry the chicken pieces in oil until tender and add vegetables and cook until just tender. Sprinkle and stir flour into the mixture and add milk, all at once, and cook until slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Add cheese, salt and basil and fold into the cooked spaghetti and serve. Serves about 8.


The less I have to touch uncooked chicken, the better. :) I didn't want to cut up uncooked chicken, so I actually poached some chicken tenderloins first. Then I set them aside while I heated the oil in a pan and cooked the veggies. While the veggies were cooking, I tore the cooked chicken into bite sized pieces and put them in with the veggies. Then I followed the rest of the directions after that. This dish was amazing! We used whole grain spaghetti noodles, so it was filling yet so refreshing with the veggies! I'll definitely make this again. :)

Cooked Zucchini

We had my sisters and their husbands over on Sunday for dinner and games. It was a fun evening! I wanted to fry some zucchini, but my brother-in-law, John, can't eat a lot of protein. My parents always fried zucchini dipped in an egg mixture. So, the quest was on to find another way to cook/fry zucchini without using eggs. I came across this website with a video that shows how to cook zucchini.



Ingredients:
Zucchini, cut into slices about 1/4 inch thick
Olive Oil
Salt
Black pepper
Other seasonings and herbs (optional)

Directions:
Heat oil in a pan. Add zucchini and sprinkle with salt and pepper and any other seasonings or herbs that you want. (Ryan was the one who cooked them, and he added rosemary.) Saute for about 5 minutes. Put on plate with paper towel to absorb any excess oil. Enjoy!

Sorry, I don't have a picture of these, but I do have the video above that you can watch. :) They were really tasty!

Stuffed Green Peppers

Ryan said his Grandma Adams used to make really good stuffed peppers, so I asked her if she could send me the recipe since we've been getting peppers from our garden. I have never had stuffed peppers before, so I really wanted to try them! This is a great recipe! :)


Ingredients:
6 large green peppers
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion (or minced onion)
16 oz. can tomatoes, not drained (or fresh tomatoes, cut up and peeled)
1/2 cup rice, uncooked
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 cup cheese, grated
black pepper

Directions:
Cut off tops of peppers. Chop enough tops for 1/4 cup and set aside. Cook green peppers in boiling water for at least 5 minutes. If needed, cook a little longer. Drain. Sprinkle inside lightly with salt.
In skillet cook ground beef, onion and 1/4 cup green pepper until browned & vegetables tender. Drain fat. Add tomatoes (canned or fresh), uncooked rice, water, salt, Worcestershire sauce, and pepper. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover & simmer 15-18 minutes, or until rice is tender. Stir in cheese. Stuff peppers with meat mixture. Place in baking dish. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.


This recipe didn't specify what type of rice to use. We just had some brown rice that takes 40-50 minutes to cook, so that's what we used. I'm guessing that since it says to simmer for 15-18 minutes that it's supposed to be instant rice. Oops! We just let our mixture sit and simmer for about 40 or 45 minutes and the rice was fine.

We used fresh tomatoes, but we did not peel them. In the pictures you will notice the skin of the tomatoes in the filling. It was still good without peeling the tomatoes if you want to save a little time and just cut them up. If you want to peel them, the easiest way is to put them in a pan on hot water for a few minutes. The skin should peel off easily.

Also, we ended up having more than 1/4 cup of chopped green peppers after cutting the tops off, so we doubled all the rest of the ingredients (except the beef) and we had enough filling to stuff some zucchini too! They were both really good--the peppers and zucchini! :)

Now for the zucchini, you'll need to boil them after cleaning out the middle so that they are soft. Then bake the same as the stuffed peppers.


When Ryan's grandma sent the recipe to me, she said "Hope you enjoy because Grpa sure did." Ryan was really close to his Grandpa Adams growing up. He passed away in January 2007, so I was able to get to know him for a couple of years. After Ryan's grandma said that his grandpa enjoyed them, it made this recipe even that much more special.

I really do hope that anyone who tries this recipe enjoys them! :)

Cucumber & Tomato Salad

We have been getting lots of cucumbers and tomatoes from our garden, so I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. I decided to try it since we had all the ingredients (just four ingredients plus salt and pepper). It's delicious and so refreshing!


Ingredients:
1 large cucumber, peeled and sliced
2 ripe fresh tomatoes, chopped
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Place cucumber and tomatoes in a bowl. Pour in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Toss gently to coat. Refrigerate until ready to serve.