Jam Surprise Muffins

I adapted this recipe from this site.

(Makes 12 muffins)

1 egg
3/4 c milk
1/2 c butter or coconut oil, melted
2 c ww flour
1/3 c sucanat
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Juice sweetened preserves for filling

Preheat oven to 400F and grease muffin pans. Combine flour, sucanat, baking powder and salt.
In a separate bowl beat egg slightly and add milk and melted butter/oil.  Add to dry ingredients. Stir until just moist (do NOT overmix).

Spoon batter into muffin pan, filling each cup about 1/2 full. Add a spoonful of preserves to each muffin, then top with additional muffin mix.

Bake until golden, about 15-20 min.

Picnic Pocket Roll

This is adapted from this recipe.

1 lb pizza or bread dough (I used the pizza dough recipe posted on this site)

1 Tbs olive oil

4-5 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1/2 T each oregano, rosemary & basil, minced (I used fresh, and didn't measure)

1 lb (approx) reconstituted TVP

1 tsp salt (to taste)

3/4 c tomato sauce

1/2 lb grated mozzarella

Brown TVP with olive oil, garlic, onion, salt & herbs. Stir in tomato sauce. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. On cookie sheet greased with olive oil roll out dough into rectangle. spread cheese and meat mixture over dough. starting with long side of dough facing you, roll dough, crimping edges. Bake 10 min. reduce heat to 350 and continue baking 25 min or tilll golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool 15 min on rack before slicing. Serve immediately OR slice and store in airtight container to serve later at room temp. Or freeze for later use.

Corndog Muffins

I saw this recipe on Heavenly Homemakers's site awhile ago, but just recently got around to trying it. It was a hit with the whole family! It's quick and easy to make AND they freeze well so I can make a big batch and freeze the extras for "grab and go" meals another day.

We're vegetarian so I use vegetarian hotdogs and hubby doesn't like anything at all sweet so I adapted the cornbread recipe to eliminate the honey. Here's how we make it:

1 c cornmeal

1 c whole wheat flour

1 t baking powder

1 t salt

2 eggs

1/4 c melted butter (generous because the honey added some moisture & I skipped it)

1 c buttermilk or milk (generous, see above)

hotdogs (4-6)

Preheat oven to 400. Grease or add paper liners to 12 muffin pans. Stir together dry ingredients. Add wet. Stir till blended. Fill each muffin pan almost full (these don't rise alot). Cut hotdogs in half or thirds so that a piece will lay in each muffin (depends on the size of your muffin pans and the size of your hotdogs). You can just lay the hotdog pieces on top of the batter in each muffin cup, which is what I did. Or, if you want the hotdog to be "hidden" inside the muffin, push it down or partially fill each muffin cup, add hotdogs, then finish filling the muffin cups. Bake about 20 min, till golden.

Scrambled French Toast

I found this in an emergency preparedness book, Just In Case. It's a great way to use up ends of loaves of bread, and the girls love it.

2-3 eggs
1/2 c milk
nutmeg
cinnamon
bread, torn into small pieces/crumbled

Beat eggs in lg bowl. Add milk and generous sprinkles of nutmeg and cinnamon. Stir in pieces of torn bread, crumbled biscuits, etc until liquid is all absorbed. Fry on a hot, greased skillet.

We eat it with maple syrup, YUM!! Last time we had some leftover Challah bread and that was especially delicious!

Five Minute Bread

There are various versions of this floating around right now (and I have my name on the waiting list for the book at the library) but this one came through one a yahoo group I'm on & it seemed easiest and worth a try. I made a half recipe, baked one yesterday and the other today, and each day the girls & I polished off the whole loaf warm from the oven, YUM! When I asked hte girls if I was supposed to make more they gave a resounding YES!!!

3 c lukewarm water
1 1/2 Tbsp yeast
1 1/2 Tbsp salt
6 1/2 c flour (I used whole wheat, it was pretty dense bread, good flavor though, and worked fine since we were eating it all fresh, but for sandwiches or to keep longer, might do better w/ at least a blend, or adding gluten flour or something . . . )
Cornmeal (to sprinkle on baking stone)

Stir all but cornmeal together in a large bowl. Cover w/ plastic wrap (I used a towel instead) and let rise at room temperature for 2-5 hrs.

At this point you can bake some/all of it or put it in the fridge to use later (most recipes say to put it in a plastic bowl w/ a lid, this one didn't specify, I'm not a fan of plastic for food storage, so I put it in a glass bowl & set a plate over top as a lid).

When you want to bake some, take one grapefruit size bundle of dough and form into a ball, using extra flour if needed. Place on a baking stone sprinkled with cornmeal. Allow to rise about 45 min (mine didn't rise much, but our house is pretty cool right now, and I would guess using at least some white flour would mean it would rise more? Or maybe I should've let it sit longer?). Form an X slash on the top of the loaf. Bake for 20 min at 450 degrees.

This recipe makes 4 (1 lb) loaves (so rather than trying to figure out how big a grapefruit is, I'd just divide the dough in 4ths LOL)

Sourdough Blackberry Muffins

I got this recipe from the Nourishing Gourmet.

2 c sourdough starter (I had a "scant" 2 cups once I took on cup out to feed for future use)
3 c whole wheat flour
1 c water

Combine these the night before, cover & leave on counter overnight.

In the morning, preheat oven to 400 F. Add the following to your flour mixture:

1 t salt
1/2 c melted coconut oil
1/2 c maple syrup
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 to 1/2 t (I used a 1/2 t measure but didn't fill it full) ground nutmeg
1 t baking soda

Stir till thoroughly combined. Fold in 1 1/2 c fresh or frozen blackberries (I had a pint jar in the freezer, I used the whole thing, didn't bother to measure it). Fill greased muffin tins (I use stoneware) about 2/3 full. Bake 25 min, until slightly browned & toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pan 5 min, then remove.

I got 12 regular muffins (pampered chef stoneware muffin pan) & I think 6 slightly smaller (I have an enamel covered heart shaped muffin pan that I used for the "overflow") muffins out of this. Girls ate 3 each, I'm congested so not tasting very well, but they seemed good. I would guess this recipe could be used with pretty much any fruit :)

Sourdough!!!!!

I'm so excited, I currently have 4 loaves of sourdough baking in my oven, fingers crossed that they come out ok, I'm hopeful, they raised like they were supposed to & LOOK like bread should look . . . And so, while they bake, I will post how I did this (and if they come out of the oven & are a flop I shall never publish this post LOL).

I kind of used a combination of information from this site & Laura's blog. I love the concept of catching wild yeast from the air (and suspect there's some great old strains floating around in my old, old house), but I just wasn't confident that it would work in my rather cold house, I might try Laura's method of starting the starter next summer just to see how it turns out . . . but for now, I "cheated" and used yeast to start my starter:

Starting the Starter:

In a half gallon mason jar (or a glass bowl, but don't use metal or plastic!) combine 2 c flour (I used white, partially because I was out of whole wheat at the moment & partially because some stuff I've read in the past (don't remember where) has indicated that it's easier to start starer w/ white flour), 2 t sucanet (or sugar), 2 1/4 t active dry yeast, 2 c warm water. Cover with a dish towel & let sit in a warm, draft-free place. This was where I had a dilemma, we keep our heat set around 64, there's not really any "warm" spot in this house. I finally opted to set the jar on the counter right next to the stove. There's a wall that protects it from drafts when the door is opened & I figured that way at least when we use the stove or oven it'll get a little extra warmth, but I don't know how warm it really got/stayed.

• Stir once per day
• Let sit 2-5 days, it's ready when it has a sour smell & loks bubbly (if it turns pnk/orange, throw it out!) I think mine took the full 5 days, which I was kind of expecting because of the cool temperatures in the house.
  
• Once it's done, stir, cover loosely w/ platic wrap & refrigerate.

After it had been in the fridge a day or so (I don't know if this is vital or not, it worked well for me because I declared it "done" on Friday and since Saturday is our Sabbath (day of rest) I wasn't going to be making bread on Sabbath anyway).

Two nights before I made bread, I took the starter out of the fridge & set it on the counter overnight, the next morning I fed it w/ 1 c flour (whole wheat this time, since that's what was handy), and 1 c water. I then went ahead & let it sit a full 24 hours (next time I use it I plan to try feeding straight from the fridge, then let sit overnight, then proceed as usual (so cut a day out of the process), I hadn't read through Laura's whole recipe until mid day yesterday & by that time starting to make the bread would've likely had it ready to bake about 3am LOL.

Making the bread:

This morning I stirred up my starter, put 1 cup in a clean quart jar, added 1 c flour & 1 c water to that & stirred it, and put it in the fridge for future use. I poured the rest (which was probably between 1 & 2 cups) into a glass bowl, added 2 t salt and 1 1/2 c water & stirred it all up. Then I began adding flour 2 cups at a time until it was the right consistency to knead. I added 6 cups flour & then probably another cup a little at a time once it was dough but still pretty sticky. The amount of flour will depend on how runny (& how much) your starter is, and the humidity in the air & who knows what else. Knead bread for 8-10 minutes (pausing a few times to check on kids playing outside which gives your arms a nice little break). Form dough into a ball. At this point Laura says to cut it w/ a knife into 3 sections BUT she has different bread pans than I do. I have relatively small (pyrex) glass bread pans, she also says that making balls of dough works better than one loaf. So . . . I started out by cutting my big ball of dough into 4 smaller balls, figuring 2 per bread pan. Then I got the pans out, looked at them, considered that the dough is to double in size prior to baking & then presumably will rise more while baking & promptly cut each of those 4 balls in half. So, I ended up w/ enough for 4 loaves of bread, each loaf consisting of 2 small balls of dough. Laura doesn't say to grease her pans, but she uses stoneware, since I was using glass, I greased my pans w/ coconut oil just in case. Put the dough in the pans put the pans in the oven w/ the light on but the oven off (and it hadn't been used this morning so it was cool) covered the loaves w/ a dishtowel & left them to rise. I think it only took 4 hours or so for them to rise, I was expecting longer, but the warmer temp of the oven, even with just the light on, may have sped things up (we also DID use the stove at lunch time which may have added some extra heat to the oven). And now I'm baking for 1 hr at 350, or until they sound hollow when thumped.

And the bread is done! It didn't rise as much as I thought it would while baking, so not the greatest for sandwiches, but the consistency & flavor is good (I just need to start with bigger balls of dough &/or let it rise more in the pans before baking), very mild on the sourdough flavor, but I've found that's generally true of whole wheat sourdough. The girls even ate a slice w/ butter & declared it good (though L has decided, over the last few months while I've been lazy about making bread, that storebought (white) bread is better than homemade). I will probably add abit more salt next time as well.

Chocolate Cranberry Muffins

This is adapted from here (but I've learned the hard way to actually WRITE OUT recipes I find online because blogs get deleted or set to members only w/o warning and suddenly I can't access my favorite recipes, so I'm also re-typing here).

6 T unsalted butter
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (couldn't find bittersweet, got unsweetened, will use a mix of unsweetened & semi-sweet next time (unless I can find bittersweet).
1/2 c dried cranberries
2 c whole wheat flour
2/3 c sucanet
1/2 c cocoa powder
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 c plus 2 T (divided) buttermilk (or mix plain yogurt & milk)
1 lg egg
1 tsp vanilla

12-24 hours ahead combine flour in mixing bowl w/ 1 1/4 c buttermilk. Mix well, form into a ball, cover w/ plastic wrap, leave on counter for 12-24 hrs.

When ready to bake, make sure oven rack is in center, preheat oven to 375, grease muffin pan.

Melt butter & 2 oz chocolate in microwave or double boiler, set aside.
Place cranberries in bowl & cover w/ hot water, set aside to soak.
To bowl with soaked flour add dry ingredients, stir to combine (I found this too dry to combine to any real degree). In separate bowl or measuring cup combine 2 Tbsp buttermilk, egg & vanilla. Add to dry ingredients, along w/ melted butter & chocolate. Stir to blend. Stir in remaining chopped chocolate & drained cranberries. do not overmix. Spoon into muffin pan. Bake 20 min. Let cool 5 min before removing from pan.

These are very rich/dark chocolate (especially w/ unsweetened chocolate)! I rarely drink milk (just not a fan of drinking it) but definitely wanted milk with this LOL. Next time, assuming I still can't find bittersweet chocolate, I'm thinking I'll use chocolate chips for the final stir-in (& the unsweetened for the melted). The girls each ate 3 of these, so obviously they liked them LOL.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Last week we wanted to make a pumpkin recipe for school. I found this recipe & thought it sounded better than most (I'm not a fan of most fruit/vegetable breads or even cakes, but chocolate makes everything better LOL). Anyway, while L wouldn't even help us make it (it stinks, per her), both girls were more than happy to EAT it, and I ate my share too.

Here's the recipe with my modifications:

3 c whole wheat flour
2 t ground cinnamon
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
4 eggs
2 c Sucanet
2 c cooked or canned pumpkin
1 1/4 c coconut oil
1 1/2 c chocolate chips

In large bowl, combine all dry ingredients. In separate bowl combine all wet ingredients, stir into dry ingredients and mix until just moistened. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into 2 greased loaf pans or lined muffin tins.

Bake at350 for 50-60 min (less for muffins) or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Egg in a Basket

A couple weeks ago I was making a meal where I'd normally have included grilled cheese sandwiches but we were low on cheese, but had plenty of eggs. So I thought of one of my favorite meals from Cracker Barrel. It's very simple, just take a piece of bread, use a cookie cutter to cut a round (or we use heart shaped ones, the girls think it's special & it was the first cookie cutters I happened upon in the cupboard that were the right size LOL) hole in the middle. Butter both sides of the bread, put it in the frying pan & break an egg into the hole. Fry on both sides until the bread is grilled & the egg is fried. That's all there is to it. It's become one of our favorite quick lunches (especially with soup of some sort).

Biscuits

I've been working on clearing out the freezer (or at least using up stuff that's been in there for eons) and the other night I found a bag with a few frozen biscuits left in it, so I threw them in the oven for supper. L fell in love (& they'd been in the freezer too long, they weren't awesome biscuits by any means). So, today for lunch I figured I'd whip up a batch of biscuits. I adapted a recipe from hillbillyhousewife.com

Quick Biscuits

2 c flour (I used half ww, will probably add a little more ww next time, since they weren't too "wheaty" at 50/50)
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 c oil
a generous 3/4 c milk (or buttermilk, or yogurt)

Mix everything together into a stick dough, drop by spoonfuls onto a baking stone (recipe says greased baking sheet for those who don't use baking stones) Bake 10-15 min at 425. If you want non-drop biscuits you can use the original recipe I chose the drop biscuits for a number of reasons. 1) I'm lazy & dropping is easier than rolling & cutting (though the kids would've enjoyed the rolling & cutting) 2) the original recipe calls for shortening instead of oil and I don't have any, nor do I like to use it. I've substituted coconut oil (solid @ room temp) for shortening in other recipes with good results but I'm running low on it at the moment and order it online so trying tomake it last till my next order. 3) the board game we were playing took longer than anticipated and I didn't want to push lunch back longer while we let the dough rise. I think L's eaten 4 or 5 of these and A's had at least 3 . . . so they're a hit! In fact, when L asked for "another one" for the umpteenth time, A's worry was "we need to save some for breakfast!" I assured her we can make more for breakfast LOL. I've been trying various muffin recipes for breakfast use, especially on Sabbath morning when a "grab & go" breakfast would be much easier, but haven't managed to make any that the girls like, so perhaps biscuits is what I need to be doing instead, dh will like that idea better anyway LOL.

Make Ahead Monkey Bread

I wanted something special for Christmas breakfast that didn't require much, if any, time/effort on Christmas morning, so when frozen bread rolls were on sale last week, I decided on monkey bread. Here's the recipe I ended up using (from recipesource):

1/2 c sugar
1 T cinnamon
24 frozen bread rolls
1 stick butter, melted
1 T cinnamon
1/2 c sugar

At least 8 hrs before serving, or the night before, combine first 2 ingredients. Wet dough balls slightly & roll in cinnamon sugar. Place in greased bundt pan. Melt butter & add to additional cinnamon sugar. Pour over dough. Cover with a towel & let rise 8 hrs or overnight.

Bake at 350 for about 30 min. Invert onto a plate.

Whole Wheat Bread - Bread Machine

I've been using a bread machine recipe for ww bread (for those days when I'm just lazy & in a hurry, when we have time to "play" the girls enjoy making ww rolls from scratch using a recipe from the Waldorf Kindergarten Snack Book) and while the bread tastes fine, I've been annoyed by the fact that the top always looks funny (bumpy) and it makes a small loaf, but when I tried doubling it, it overflowed my bread machine pan. So, then I noticed there was an all whole wheat, simple (not alot of ingredients) recipe on www.hillbillyhousewife.com so I tried it last week. The bread tasted good, but there was a huge air bubble in the top half of the loaf that collapsed at the end, so it looked really funny (caved in) and the top half of the loaf wasn't useable for sandwiches and such (I meant to toast them to use as bread crumbs and such, but forgot to do it before they got moldy). So, I tried the recipe again today, figuring the air bubble was a fluke. And it made a BEAUTIFUL load that completely filled my bread machine pan (so about twice the size of the loaves I was getting with the old recipe!) The girls each ate 2-3 slices for breakfast, so it has their stamp of approval, apparently. Here's the recipe:

1 2/3 c warm water
2 Tbsp oil (I used olive oil)
1/3 c sugar (I used honey, and it was a scant 1/3 c)
2 tsp salt
4 2/3 c whole wheat flour
2 tsp active dry yeast

Put in bread machine in the order listed for your machine. Bake using the whole wheat cycle. This makes a 2lb loaf.

Flour Tortillas

From www.hillbillyhousewife.com

4 c flour (last time I used 3 c ww, 1 c white, next time I may try all ww)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 c coconut oil (recipe calls for shortening)
1 to 1 1/4 c water

In lg bowl combine dry ingredients. Cut in coconut oil w/ a fork. Add water a little at a time until dough forms a cohesive ball. Knead about 20 times. Let rest in bowl about 10 min. From into 10-12 equal balls. roll ball in flour, then on a clean well floured surface, roll into a 6-7" circle (mine are never round, but close enough). Try to get it as thin as you can. Fry, 1 at a time in a dry, hot skilllet (since we use cast iron, "dry" is a relative term, but I don't add oil to it when I make these). Cook 30-45 seconds until under side is dry w/ a few brown spots. Flip & cook on the other side. Repeat with remaining tortillas.

DH was very skeptical about these, but after trying them, he conceded that they are better than store bought ones LOL.

Skillet Corn Bread

I got this recipe off a TLC show (I don't remember which one). In our house, we start this recipe by making butter, so that we have butter to put on the cornbread & buttermilk to use in the recipe.

2 c buttermilk
1 c cornmeal
1 c flour (ideally whole wheat)
1 T baking powder
2 eggs
2 T butter

Melt butter in cast iron skillet (or other oven safe skillet). Mix all ingredients together. Pour into skillet. Bake 1/2 hr at 425.