What to do with fresh bread

I've been doing a much better job of making bread lately.  Which I don't know why I ever get lazy and stop.  It's totally whole wheat and tastes great.  And since I use my bread machine my part takes all of about 10 minutes.  Thats if I don't already have the wheat ground.  So really I don't have much of an excuse to not make it more!

Pretty much every time I make a loaf after not having it for a while it is devoured in about 2 hours.  Usually everyone has at least one large slice while its warm.  And then we all keep munching away on it until its gone.

Well I wanted to try something different because I would normally just make some honey butter.  I remembered I had pinned some recipes for some orange butter and I thought that sounded really good so off I went to my pinned items.  And for whatever reason I kept finding different recipes for cinnamon honey butter and decided that I should make that instead.  So I did.  I found this recipe at   eatcakefordinner   I mean really how can anything bad come a site like that??

Well this one is such a winner with my family, that we just kind of have it around all the time now.  Unfortunately that means that the bread tends to go even a little faster.

So are you ready for totally easy?

Here you go.

1/2 C. butter
1/4 C. honey
1/4 C. powder sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Whip butter for 30 seconds.  Add powdered sugar, honey and cinnamon and beat until smooth. (Okay I'm not going to lie I just threw everything in together and just mixed it all until it was smooth and it worked just fine too.)

Yep that's it!
Also just so you know several of the other recipes I saw called for much more honey / powder sugar to the amount of butter.  But this is sweet enough I can't imagine adding more sweet to this.

Of course the first time I had this I think I only had about 3 slices in one sitting.  I've tried very hard to slow that down but really I should just go to the gym instead so I can keep eating it!

What is coming out of your ears???

Okay so if you have a garden, what are you answers to this question?
Tomatoes, Corn, Cucumbers, Zucchini... or all of the above?

Well today I have a yummy recipe for some of the excess hopefully you have some of it lying around waiting to be used.  How about some Chocolate Chip Orange Zucchini Bread?? Are you up for it?

I love the smell in the house after making bread so I've been making this more than I should and therefore eating more than I should also!  But its worth it!

 Here's what you'll need
3 eggs
2 C white sugar (or 1 white 1 brown)
1 C Vegetable Oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 C grated zucchini
1 C semi sweet chocolate chips
1 TBS Orange Zest
3 C flour (I add 1/2 C more)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1tsp nutmeg

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.  I didn't have ground nutmeg but I did have whole cloves of nutmeg (why I'm not sure!) but it worked great.  Can you see it in the mix?

Anyone else ready for egg nog?

In a large bowl, beat eggs until light & fluffy.  Add sugar & continue beating until well blended.  Stir in Oil (I actually used 1/2 Olive oil and 1/2 applesauce and no problems), vanilla, zucchini, chocolate chips & orange zest.

Okay side note here.  In the past I've used 2 Tbs of dried orange zest.  It was okay but once you use the fresh zest you will not want to have the dried in there anymore.  So just trust me here make sure you have the orange! Ok continuing with the recipe...

Blend in sifted ingredients and pour into 2 greased pans.

So in my greased pan (because there can never be too much sugar right?) I sprinkle a sugar cinnamon mixture before I pour the batter in.  And then I actually sprinkle just a little over the top too.

Bake on 350 for 50 Min - I find that I need to cook mine closer to 60 min.  So just make sure the tooth pick is clean.

 Now go and enjoy and use up some of that garden goodness!

Banana Muffins WIUW

With school getting ready to start soon… (agghhh I know bite your tongue right!) Wow has summer flown by as much for everyone else like it has for us? Really I’m not sure where it’s gone!  We have one week until school starts.  I can’t believe it.  So I’ve been talking with my kids about what they want to take for lunches this year.  They get so bored with PB&J so we are going to try and mix it up more this year and they came up with some great ideas.

I decided that I’d work on getting some new breakfast items to try out for school this year too so this is today’s WIUW Banana oatmeal muffins.

Banana Oatmeal Muffins

And would you believe I found it on Pinterest? here is the link.  Also it helped that we had breakfast for dinner so it went well with our dinner. 

And yep of course it was easy.  I’ve never made batter in the blender but wow I’m totally sold.  Pour everything in the blender mix until smooth and pour into the muffin pan.  My favorite was just pouring no scooping out the batter so quick and clean!  Yep that’s my style!

Here you go!

2 ½ C Old fashioned oats (not quick)

1 single serving cup of plain low fat greek yogurt

2 eggs

¾ C sugar – or sweetener of choice – (could use 2Tbs stevia)

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

2 bananas

* Makes 12 Muffins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Do not use paper liners.  Either spray the pan or use silicone or foil liners (or – now is the time to look into a silicone pan. Yep I’ll be looking into that soon)

Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until oats are smooth.

Pour into muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

And test on your would be consumers!

Mine totally passed!  Yahoo!  Here’s to one new breakfast for school days.  Throw in a side of fruit, some juice, maybe some yogurt. Yay not cold cereal everyday!  (as a total side note I NEVER get a fun pic of all of my kids! yes one is still missing-she was in the high chair out of the pic but still messy hair end of day this is one of my new favorite pics)

So when do you start school?  I know some have already.

Summer Salad WIUW

Well if you like summer salads you have to try this week's WIUW.  Its fresh, its light, its perfect for summer its one you have to try.

See look at these ingredients doesn't is just scream to you?? Really can you imagine mixing up avocados, mangoes, green onion, tomatoes (I totally didn't get them in the pic oops) and cilantro mix this with one of my new favorite foods - Quinoa - Really have you had quinoa before? Oh you have to try it!  Oh and don't forget the yummy lime dressing...

Well shall we begin?!

Okay first see doesn't this scream yummy fresh summer?

Black Quinoa Salad w/Mango, Avocado & Tomatoes
 (I'm always looking for fresh quinoa salads so I was so excited to have this one it is for sure a fav!)
Here's the ingredient list
1 C. uncooked black quinoa (I used Red, but white is also great too)
2 C water
Pinch of salt

1 large mango diced
2 large tomatoes diced
3 green onions sliced
1/2 C chopped cilantro
2 medium avocados, diced
1/4 C fresh lime juice
1 TBS olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Rinse the quinoa then add water, quinoa and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil over meduim heat.  Boil for 5 min.  Turn heat to low and simmer for about 15 minutes or until water is absorbed.  Remove from heat fluff with fork and let cool to room temperature.

In a large bowl combine quinoa, mango, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, avocados.

In a small bowl mix lime juice, olive oil and cumin.  Pour dressing over salad and stir until combined.  Season with salt and pepper.

Oh how I love this one!  I made this for a fun Olympic party with neighbors and there wasn't any left and I only got a small amount but I can eat this as the meal so guess what I made twice this last weekend.  Yep it's that good!

Are you enjoying all of the olympics?  My favorite so far has been to watch it with my little girl she is so happy to sit and soak it all in with me!

Enjoy!

Bread Sticks YUM!!!

Are you ready to Whip it up with us? Here's this week's whip it up Wednesday.

This week I found a recipe here of course it was from Pinterest that just made me giddy.  I was so excited to try it!  For many of the Utahans you’ll know what I’m talking about.  This recipe is for breadsticks like you get at Salt Lake Pizza Factory.  You know the twisty ones on a stick that are the real reason you go there (oh wait it’s the real reason I go there).

They really are like melt in your mouth fantastic breadsticks and how fun that they are twisted around a stick.

So once I found the recipe I had to try it.  I was really excited. And really they are easy so we know that’s a plus in my book.

Here what you need

1 Tbs yeast

2 Tbs Sugar

1 ½ C Warm water

1 Tbs Oil (Olive oil worked great)

1tsp Salt

3 ½ C Flour

¾ C Melted butter, divided

3/8 tsp garlic salt

½ tsp dried rosemary

1 Tbs Parmesan cheese

8-  ¼” wooden dowels, cut to 18” lengths (or 8 – 12” skewers – I used these but I won’t next time.  You need the longer length.)

First combine the yeast, sugar and warm water.  Let that sit for a few minutes to active the yeast.  I’m too lazy to measure the temp. of the water and my mom told me a great trick for the temp.  Just use water that is the temp. of what you would use in a bath.  So that’s what I do and it works every time!

Once the yeast is activated mix in the oil, salt and flour and knead for 5 minutes.  I put my dough in my kitchenaid mixer with the dough hook, but it wasn’t mixing well.  Maybe if I would have let it mix longer it would have eventually mixed in all the flour but I wasn’t very patient so I just started kneading it by hand. But it kind of seemed like maybe there wasn't enough dough to mix well.

Pull your dough out and spray / oil your bowl then put dough back in and bowl and turn once to coat with oil.  Then cover and let rise until double in size.  I then went for a nice Sunday drive with the hubby and I think that the dough actually ended up rising too much. (oops the Sunday drive may have not been the best idea I didn't get too many pictures)

Next split the dough into 8 sections.  And then grab the kids.  Let them help roll the dough into snakes about 16-18” long – This is where the longer sticks would be nice.  I had almost too much dough to fit on the 12” skewers.  Plus you don’t have handle for your bread stick if you use the skewers.

As you can see some of our "snakes" were struggling to become snakes.  Then you just need to roll them onto the skewers and use a little water at the ends to help the dough stay.  Again because I used the 12" skewers I had to squish the dough to get it all on the stick.  Which I think also resulted in the "falling" that happened during the next rise.  So you place the sticks over the edges of a pan and then let rise until double again.

Before baking use 1/4 C of melted butter and brush on bread sticks.

Bake on 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

While baking mix up the other 1/2 C melted butter with the garlic salt, rosemary and parmesan cheese.  use this mix to immediately spread over bread sticks when they come out of the oven!  YUMMMM!

Okay so these totally did not last very long at my house! They were downed pretty much before anything else made it to the plates.  But I need to tweak it just a little.  I used wheat flour instead of white so that kind of changed the taste.  Also I think the fact that I let the dough rise too long the first time and not having long enough sticks to wrap the dough, really contributed to the fact that my dough was really sagging.

It's a little embarrassing to show you this next pic but remember I told you I am NOT the cook right?

Ok see what I mean look at the 2nd one back it was sagging so much it was touching the pan.  But hey no worries it still tastes great!!

So next time you need a bread stick give these a try.  I promise you will like them!!

Thanks for stopping by
--Naoni

WIUW Fruit Delight!

Now I have to tell you that the original name of this dessert was "Cherry Delight" But I love to mess with/alter recipes and found that this recipe works great with many different types of fruit in fact our family's favorite is Peach! 

OK so the original recipe called for

 1 can of cherry pie filling

1 white or yellow cake mix

1 cube of butter

But as you can see in the picture above I like to keep lots of different variations on hand: cherry, strawberry, peach and lemon...I have NOT tried blueberry but I bet it would be good too!! The reasons I love this dessert, besides the fact that it tastes yummy, is it is very easy and fast to make plus great for the summer because it doesn't heat up your kitchen on a hot day!

Alright lets get started! First take one can of pie filling of your choice and dump it into your crock pot. We used peach.

Now melt one cube of butter, and add your cake mix to it, mix the 2 together well.

After you've mixed your butter and cake mix well spoon drop the cake mixture over the top of your pie filling in the crock pot.

Cook on low 3 to 4 hours or on high 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Spoon into serving dishes, and serve with whipped topping or ice cream, if desired. This is pretty close to a fruit cobbler without all the work! I hope you'll try this recipe out and let me know what your favorite fruit is. I've also been thinking about trying this recipe out with a chocolate cake mix and cherry pie filling or lemon pie filling and a chocolate cake mix....as strange as that may sound at least it used to sound strange to me until my sister-in-law introduced me to chocolate cake with lemon and boy is that good!!! If I get a chance to try one of these options I'll post my my family's reactions! 

Also if you haven't noticed there seems to be a trend going on here, I really go for those quick n easy recipes! And if I can find a way to make a recipe easier and it still tastes good I do it.....does this mean I'm lazy? 

Enjoy! Chelle

Hawaiian Haystacks with a Twist

Whip it up Wednesday...
A couple of weeks ago my husband was whipping up dinner and really it was just more of a throw it all together type of meal but it was such a hit with all of us that we couldn't wait to make it again.  It has for sure become one of our family favorites.  In fact my son declared this is what he wants for his birthday meal. Ok I'm good with that!  So what we ultimately had was Hawaiian Haystacks with a twist.

My family has been working on eating more of a plant based diet so we've had to get creative especially to keep kids happy at the dinner table.


This meal is really so easy!  Rice - Veggies - Beans - and what ever toppings you want


First get your rice cooking - we like brown rice
While that is cooking start your chopping and if you have helpers get them going too!

Get all of your favorite vegetables or toppings ready

This time we had cheese, tomatoes, green onions, pineapple, celery, carrots, yellow and orange peppers


The sauce 

Heat up the beans with juice - don't drain (we used Great Northern).  While they are warming, add 1 to 1 1/2 Tbs Bragg Liquid Aminos and 1 Tbs chicken bullion.  Just mix and heat until warm. If you don't have liquid aminos you can use soy sauce they taste similar.

 Now you're ready to assemble however you like!!!

See easy, yum, filling oh and don't forget totally healthy!
Okay total side note after I took this picture and sat down to eat it I was so sad when I realized that I totally forgot the avocado...I mean who does that?  I should have just hurried and cut one but I didn't.  Don't worry the next night when this was leftovers I totally made the full effort and cut the avocado.


Here's the full recipe kind of not much too it


Enough cooked rice for your family
Veggies, cheese and whatever other toppings chopped how you like
Mix and heat next three ingredients
2 cans Great Northern beans
1Tbs chicken bullion
1 - 1 1/2 Tbs liquid aminos


Layer / assemble to your desire.


I hope you try this it really is great! If you do let me know how it goes.


Thanks --Naoni

Whip it up Wednesday ...Blackberry Cobbler

Okay here's our 2nd WIUW.  Blackberry Cobbler - YUM!

This was first inspired by something I found here on Pinterest.  So have you ever ordered from Bountiful Baskets?  It is a favorite for us!  And often I get add ons.  So a couple of weeks ago I ordered 2 blackberries as add ons knowing I would freeze a lot of them for smoothies.  Well once I saw the Blackberry cobbler I knew that I wanted to try this with some instead of freezing them all.  And yep it was a good choice.  Now I can't wait for my own berries to come on but that isn't until Sept. so this will have to do.

Funny enough I wasn't sure if I really wanted to try a new recipe so instead I went to a Betty Crocker fav(Fresh Peach Cobbler).  I had to tweak it some to make it with blackberries.

So anyone else ready for some?  Lets get started... Heat oven to 400

Here's your berry mixture

1 1/4 C Sugar

3 T cornstarch

1/4 tsp almond extract

4 C blackberries (I used closer to 4 1/2 C)

Mix sugar, cornstarch, in a sauce pan.  Stir in blackberries and almond extract.  Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils.  Boil and stir 1 minute.  Pour into ungreased 2-quart casserole dish; keep blackberry mixture hot in oven.

Okay now this is yum!!  Heck you could use it as a syrup over pancakes, ice cream whatever but just stay with me here.  Lets move to the cobbler part.

3 T shortening
1 C flour
1T sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C milk

Mix the 1st 5 ingredients by cutting the shortening into the dry ingredients.  You can use a pastry blender or by crisscrossing 2 knives.  You want the mixture to be fine crumbs.  Then stir in milk.

Drop this onto the berry mixture

Now just bake for 25-30 minutes until topping is golden brown.    And serve with your favorite topping!  My choice is ALWAYS ice cream!!!  But I'm sure whipped cream would be great too but the truth ice cream is pretty much always in stock in my home and whipped cream isn't always!

So go ahead and enjoy!

Oh but don't forget to come back next week.  I was still on a blackberry kick so I have something else next week and let me tell you my kids devoured it!

Thanks! --Naoni

Whip It Up Wednesday Presents:

                              Peanut Butter Sandwhich Cookies

Ok really there is no BIG secret to this recipe so if you have a favorite peanut butter recipe you can substitute yours for mine! However mine is from my mom....So it has been totally approved by a lot of us...(Did we ever mention that we grew up in family with 10 kids!?!)

OK (the sandwhich part) or the cookie ingredients:

1 C Butter softened to room temp

1 C Peanut Butter

1 C white sugar

1 C brown Sugar

I add these 4 ingredients listed above and mix well then add:

2 eggs

1 tsp. Vanilla

In a seperate bowl I mix the dry ingredients before adding to the mixture above

2 1/2 c flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

mix these 3 dry ingredients

                               Now slowly add the dry mixture to your batter and mix till smooth

Now if your batter seems too sticky....DO NOT add more flour..instead stick batter in the fridge for an hour or so....then take out you may have to let it warm up to room temp but then it should be perfect and your cookies will turn out soft and chewy!

When making sandwhich cookies I prefer to make smaller cookies so roll out small amout of dough and then roll in sugar (this part is totally optional)

Place on cookie sheet and bake in 350 degree preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. I like to just bake my cookies till they are starting to get golden around the edges then I

 take them out of the oven and let them sit on the hot cookiesheet a few more minutes where they will continue to bake.

Now for the yummy peanut buttery filling:

1/2 C butter

1/2 C peanut butter

I throw these in the microwave for a quick 30 seconds then stir together well

next add:

1 tsp. vanilla

pinch of salt

3 table spoons milk

mix all ingredients well then add powder sugar untill you have your desired constitency:

I prefer it to be a little on the thicker side, if its too thin when you put your cookies together the filling will just squish out! I use a generous amount of filling on one cookie

Then finish by placing a second cookie on top and viola! Peanut Butter Sandwhich Cookies!

I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as me, my family and usually any other peanut butter loving person has when I've made them!!
                        -------Chelle