Mmmm pancakes...

Chocolate chip ones at that. I read Joy the Baker and adore her. I finally gave some recipes a whirl recently and am in heaen. This was the 1st one and while I don't normally like pancakes I loved these. (Click!) I made mine much bigger than hers but I think next time I'll try and aim for smaller.

We've also done her raspberry lemonade (click!) but used blueberries. Pure heaven. That is all. Add in her pizza crust (click!) and you have an awesome meal. I've now made the pizza crust twice (and froze half of one) and I'm in love. I do not normally like homemade crusts. They just aren't the same as commerical, greastastic Pizza Hut type crusts. I like those. This? This one rocks. Enough so the two times I've made it have been in about 1.5 weeks. :)

Cinnamon rolls

I made enough to freeze some (though not many). They turned out so tasty! We topped ours with some orange vanilla frosting. Delish!

To freeze:
Once cut (regardless of recipe used), place on cookie sheet as if you were going to let them rise. Stick in the freezer! Once frozen bag them. Good to go. To use just take them out (however many you want) before you head to bed the night before. When you wake up theyll be nice and risen and ready to go. I've seen differing views on this. Some said stick them in a warm place and some said the fridge. Me? I stuck them on a plate in my oven. If you go the fridge route you may want to take them out earlier to ensure they have enough time to defrost.

Orange vanilla frosting:
3 tablespoons butter- softened
1 tablespoons orange rind
2 tablespoons orange juice
a splash of vanilla (I just dumped mine in all nilly-willy)
enough powdered sugar for the desired thickness

Mix it all up and enjoy!

White Kidney Bean Soup

This is a perfect soup for when you 1.)don't have a lot of time or 2.) need to use up pantry items. Both were the case tonight.

Vegetable broth/base (I did 4 cups)
1 can of white kidney beans
.5 cup minute rice (I prefer minute rice in my soup for timing reasons)
.5-1 cup frozen corn
5.-1 cup frozen peas

Add water and/or broth to pan (I used 4 cups water and 2 large bullion cubes. You could use premade broth). Bring to a boil. Add all other ingredients and cover. Let simmer until frozen items are cooked through and rice is soft (about 15 minutes). For deeper flavors simmer another 15-20 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Tasty, light, and warming (it's cold here today). Flavor could/would be deeper with a chicken broth. Garlic would be a good addition as well. I went for simple tonight and paired it with some saltines.

Fresh tortillas

I tried my hand at homemade tortillas today. They turned out awesome! I halved the recipe (just did a quickie google search for flour tortilla recipe and picked one) and still got 14 out of it. It took a couple to get the hang of rolling them out to the right size and thinness but once I did I flew through the rest. I did use EVOO instead of lard in the dough for a couple reasons (mostly being I don't use lard). I don't think there was much difference in taste from the store bought or even fresh ones in a food joint (though there is a difference). I had called my sister to ask about the substitution and she mentioned they may taste different so I was worried they would.

A few dried out in between making them and making dinner but nothing too bad. I could have warmed them up and loosened them up a bit. :) These weren't quite big enough to roll but that's ok. Those two are the first two I made so they were a bit thicker. Dinner rocked!

Yeast beast

I accidentally used too much yeast (well for my original recipe. I fixed that quick.). It was awesome.

1 cup water. From the 150 line on up is yeast. 3 minutes in.
5 minutes in. About 30 seconds later yeast foam flopped out onto my counter.

Done kneading and put into the bowl. Picture was taken at 7:54.

7:59. 5 minutes later.

8:20. I punched it down at this point for its 2nd rise. Reached the same size in 5 minutes. The end loaf was HUGE.

Fun in the kitchen

I found a blog the other night that had some awesome recipes. The whole blog itself is rather inspiring but the food. Oh man the food. One such recipe was for butter so I gave it a whirl. This was before I added some oomph to it. Just heavy whipping cream in a jar shook to high hell.
This is after the spice (Mediterranean mix) had been added and the butter shaped. The flavor is ok. I have another container of the cream so I'm going to try the flavoring that was in the recipe (salt, honey, and rosemary). I did make a loaf of bread intended for this but it got gobbled up with a different topping. I have used this in my pans when I make eggs and it works really well (not sure why I thought it wouldn't). You can smell the spice but the actual flavor is really light. Overall I like it. Going to tweak it a bit though.

The new house has red currant bushes (3 of them!) so I set the kiddos to work the other day. Between 2 bushes that have been uncared for we managed to get 2.5 cups worth!
To say they are a pain in the butt to pick is an understatement. After about the first cup I gave up and was pulling off the bunches. I ended up having to pick out lots of twigs but it was worth it.

This was my first jelly! I don't know anything about jelly making really so I'm not sure how good this is but it's tasty. Super sweet and the red currant flavor is light. I was hoping for a stronger one but that's ok. For my first time it's not bad. I only got the one bottle out of it and half of it is gone (ate it on the bread) already.

Not shown is some crackers I made. They were ok. Need to work on getting them thinner. Oh and the bread. I got a new pan not too long ago (a German made one) and it make a 12 inch loaf! The thing was massive. It contained a braided one so well. I expected it to stick to the sides and be moist (in the bad way) on the bottom but it fell right out and was cooked perfectly. Next time I'll have to get a picture. Other than that I don't really have anything. We've moved twice in the last few months so I haven't been too motivated to be in the kitchen and to document it. :)

**Back. I do have a picture of the bread!

Sunday Supper

(Somewhere between picture and uploading it went hazy. Le sigh. One day I'll have a rockin' camera....)

Quron Cranberry and Goat Cheese Chik'n Cutlet (see here) with a salad (baby spinach, spring greens, and another leaf with cucumbers, avocado, tomatos, and cheese) topped with a cherry balsalmic with rosemary. The dressing is SUPER tasty. A new brand we picked up at the store yesterday (New Seasons if you are curious).

Even though I had planned on a soup things but my house was incredibly uncooperative so I went for quick and easy. Surprisingly wonderful in flavor and filling. We love Quorn brand. Only downfall of the chik'n cutlets is the shape on one side. There is a hump on it which, in my mind, makes cooking uneven. Irritating but I imagine only for the perfectionist. :)

So far....

well I'd like to say so good but I'll be honest. I have not been doing as well as I had hoped. Baby steps though right? While I haven't stopped the outside sugar I have reduced it a ton and that's big.

We are currently in Oregon and it's making me hungry. Sounds goofy I know but there is something about sunlight that makes food appealing. :) One of the employees we have is apparently fond of one of my soups. Fond may not be a strong enough term actually. On a recent trip I sent the spouse with 6.5 QUARTS of said soup. Please take the time and reread that sentence. 6.5 QUARTS. Said employee actually called on behalf of herself and some other employees to request I send some. How's that for an ego boost? The spouse? He got maybe 2 or 3 of them. The said employee? She inhaled the rest. By herself. Generally in one sitting. I met her just recently as her and the spouse needed to go do bank stuff. She asked him to ask me (because as she said, she was too embarassed to ask me herself) if I would personally make her a personal batch. We aren't sure if she is sharing with her boyfriend as the way she talks about it makes it sound like she isn't.

I'm making a fresh batch tonight (though not due to her...it was meal planned in (: ) so I will get pictures and the recipe written down and share it. It started with a google search one day and has just been tailored to fit our likes. Nothing special (or so I thought).

What's your poison?

Mine is apparently sugar. I had mentioned to a friend the other day that I really needed to cut back on my sugar intake (junk versions such as drinks and "treats"). She asked what I thought I consumed a day so I did a quickie count on just the couple drinks I had had that day. I LOVE teas (two in particular) so I figured it would be high. It was. Or so I thought. For some reason I didn't think to look at the serving size on the bottle label. One bottle/package is NOT one serving for most things. A label caught my eye as I was making dinner tonight that made me realize my counting error. Turns out what I thought I was consuming wasn't even the tip of the iceburg. Far from it. In fact the measly amount I originally counted up would be the equivalent of the part of the iceburg you find floating beneath the surface (no, I won't tell you the real amount). To say I'm disgusted with it all would be an understatement. What kills me is I've watched all the food documentaries and read the studies and books that SHOW how bad excessive sugar consumption is for you. My body is walking proof of it right now. While I'm by no means in bad shape outwardly I know this is not my normal nor healthy.

According to one study I found tonight, the average American consumes 7% of their daily calories in soft drinks alone. That's 140 calories on average a day (about 3 tablespoons). In liquid sugar. Makes my teeth hurt thinking about it and yet I'm not even batting an eye as I drink tea after tea and soda after soda. There for a bit I was doing so good! I used to drink Pepsi by the truck load and had managed to stop and was drinking only water (something I've never been good at). My skin was looking awesome (and I was attributing that to something else), I had normal sleep patterns, I had energy etc. Can I attribute all the issues I've been having to something else? I'm sure I could BUT (there's always a but) the times I've been low/no sugar everything has not been there. Coincidence? I think not.

I'm going back to no sugar. I'm not going to go militant and nix it from foods (especially since I bake our bread which requires sugar to feed/activate my yeast) but I am going to stop the "outside" amounts...no more soda or teas or quickie treats. I'd like to say I could do it cold turkey but I can't. You see, I've had headaches for over a decade (oh lord I'm old enough to say that) now that can be exacerbated and/or lessened by what I eat. Caffeine is a lessener. I'm going to wean myself so that when March rolls around I'm sugar free. I'll start my sugar free count beginning March first. That means I have 10 days to get my act together. I know it'll be hard if I think about it (don't think, just do) but in the end I'll be much happier. I suppose I should start being active again as well. ;)

Happy Valentine's Day

Fresh from the oven! Just waiting on them to cool down so they can be frosted. I wanted cinnamon rolls AND something festive for the kiddos so I shaped these into hearts. Oh so clever huh? ;)

Recipe here.

Mmmm kefir!

Looks tasty huh? Those are my purtty little kefir grains (milk...you can get water ones too). A friend sent them to me recently. We had been talking about supplements (she's for them, I'm generally not) and she mentioned she had some she could send me. I said okie dokie since I know kefir is supposed to be good for you and I know the girls will drink it. I've done two batches so far. The first one was small and was half milk and half heavy cream. Holy cow was that some sweet smelling fermentation! The second batch was larger and just milk. The girls didn't like that one as much (go figure). I ended up using most of it in a loaf of banana bread. These things are pretty cool and as soon as they grow a bit I'm sending some to the older sister. My neice is on the Feingold diet right now and kefir is something she can tolerate. It's not cheap though! I'm hoping they grow here soon. For the curious here are some links:

Kefir and some quickie info
Recipes using kefir (I used the banana bread recipe found there...not sure I like it but hey, it's a free cookbook!)
More good info...lots of interesting facts on this one!