In the Kitchen - S'mores on a Saturday Night

What to do on a Saturday night?  Well it is cold and snowy.. a perfect time for a fire in the fireplace and hunkering down inside with family.  Yes we have a television in the family room but we only occasionally sit down and watch tv.  What I would rather do than that is to create something in the kitchen with Journey.  It is a great mother/daughter bonding time, it teaches her things and the outcome can be SO YUMMY.

So last Saturday night as we started the fire going, Journey announced she was hungry for S'mores.  HMMM... marshmallows have not been in my cupboard for a very long time.. they are full of corn syrup and who knows what else...  commercial chocolate is just crap full of soy oil, soy lecithin and chemical preservatives... and graham crackers?  Well I did have a very old leftover box of graham crackers in the cupboard but shudder to actually eat them.  (one would advise that I should throw them away but since I very seldom throw anything away, they sit in the cupboard for "emergencies")

So it is just a good thing I have a well stocked pantry full of the raw ingredients that are most common in recipes like organic turbinado sugar, organic cane sugar, honey, sprouted wheat berries, homemade vanilla, milk, etc.  We decided to try a new experiment together and see if we could make our own Smores ingredients from scratch.  2 1/2 hours later and a decimated kitchen full of clean up work, we had our first S'more.

While it was really messy and a bit time consuming, I have to tell you I would not trade that 2 1/2 hours working with Journey in the kitchen for a fast, commercially adulterated S'more and it was TONS tastier!  This was the first time I had tried a fresh homemade marshmallow and I will never go back.  In fact, I plan to make another batch this week and surprise my sister and family with chocolate dipped fresh marshmallows at her birthday party... but that is tomorrow's project.

While I doubted if I could produce a real graham cracker myself, they were also delicious and enough like store-bought graham crackers to be great with S'mores.

The chocolate bars were probably the least like store-bought chocolate but flavorful and rich, just the same.  In fact, every day this week, Journey has taken a small piece of chocolate, a marshmallow, and a graham cracker in her lunch for a special treat.  She says the kids try to trade their food for hers and she won't let them.  But we have had the opportunity to share a bit with some non-family members and the marshmallows, especially, are getting rave reviews!

How to's and recipes will follow in subsequent blog posts today so stay tuned and bookmark the marshmallow blog for sure!  You will want to try this one yourself... and include your little ones in the making.. it was so much fun and who knew you could make them yourself?

Graham Crackers

I looked all over the grocery store and Whole Foods for it.  What is it?  It is called graham flour.  Maybe this is something you are familiar with but I sure wasn't.. other than it must be in graham crackers, right?  That must be where they get their name and flavor.  At least that is what I always thought.  Well let me tell you, I couldn't find it but since then I have researched it and guess what?  It is a type of whole wheat flour where they use the whole wheat grain to grind it in a special fashion but it remains just whole wheat flour.

So I got busy with my dehydrated wheat berries, grinding them as I normally do to make wheat flour and being grateful someone did not sell me special expensive "graham flour"....

Graham crackers


2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (or if you want to search high and low and find Graham flour, be my guest - these can also be made with other flour combinations)
½ cup turbinado, sucanat or brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon (more or less to taste)
½ tsp salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
¼ cup honey
¼ cup milk (I actually used the leftover "milk" from making the butter last week)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (try making you own with organic vanilla beans and vodka)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  I put Journey to work cutting up the cold butter into little pieces and since the KitchenAid was busy making me marshmallows, I chose the food processor and dough attachment for this recipe.  I was very happy with the results I got too!

In the food processor I mixed the dry ingredients then added Journey's butter pieces and pulsed until they were well incorporated into the mix.

We added the honey, milk, and vanilla and continued to process until a ball of dough was evident.

 

Cut this ball in half and work with 1/2 at a time.  If it is too soft or sticky you can refrigerate it for awhile.






Now comes the fun rolling part.  Do this between 2 pieces of parchment paper and try to roll your dough pretty thin (mine was a bit fat).  Roll it about 1/8 inch thick in a rectangle the size that will fit on your cookie sheet.

You can slide the parchment paper with the rolled dough rectangle right onto the cookie sheet (but take the top parchment paper off before baking).  Using a pizza cutter, I scored the dough into the size of crackers I wanted and popped them in the oven.  Journey had a good time making the little fork holes in the top - sort of like on store-bought graham crackers.

Bake 18 - 22 minutes. Watch the edges.. they may turn brown (but they are still tasty).  When you take them from the oven, cut them again on the lines you made.  Cool for just a few minutes before transferring them to a place to cool completely and separate the crackers.

I had to put some of my thicker crackers back in the oven (turned off but still warm) for about 10 - 15 minutes longer just to crisp them up so they would be good and dry before storing.  Remember they need to be completely cooled and dry before placing them in an airtight container.

These were so good!  We are still eating them ... for our S'mores that night, dipped in milk for a snack, in lunches, etc.  These are great crackers!

Homemade Chocolate

During our homemade S'more night on Saturday night we needed chocolate bars for our treat.  I had discovered before that chocolate can be made with sweetener, solid oil, and cocoa... it is that simple... really.  And so much better for you.  Cocoa is actually healthy and full of anti-oxidants.  Oils are not all bad either, in moderation (even though there are some bad ones out there).

Journey and I decided to create our own chocolate bars while the marshmallows were setting up.

In a double boiler on the stovetop combine:

1 cup melted fat (we used butter, cocoa butter, and some palm shortening to equal a cup)
1 cup cocoa
1/2 cup honey (or other sweetener)
1 tsp vanilla (or other flavor - imagine it with peppermint!)

Make sure all the fats are liquid before adding the rest of the ingredients!  Then make sure and thoroughly mix your concoction!  The cocoa butter added a different sort of cocoa taste to this so next time I may use a combination of coconut oil and butter without the cocoa butter... it will then have a milder flavor.

Be careful about letting water get into or drip into your pan because it will make the chocolate all grainy and not too smooth.

Then pour your cooling mixture onto waxed paper, into molds, or into a lightly creased shallow pan.  Or just dip some homemade marshmallows or strawberries into your "fondue".  Yummy... simple!

Our pan of chocolate bars was put in the refrigerator to set up fast and it did.  I did have a challenge getting it back out of the pan BUT was able to run some hot water on the outside and bottom of the pan the next day to cause it to loosen it's grip on the pan (even though I greased the pan).

My bars did not cut as straight as I wanted but homemade food doesn't have to look like it came from a machine (in fact it should not look that way).  I had misshapen chunks of thin chocolate bars.

Next time I may add coconut and almonds (Journey's idea to replicate almond joys) or coat cookies or crackers with it ... or add almonds or other nuts to make sweet candy treats.

Now on to make graham crackers!!

Homemade Marshmallows

When Journey, my 11 year old, and I decided to make homemade S'mores, we decided it had to be from scratch.  The marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers that are commercially prepared have lots of unappealing and even unhealthy stuff in them like soy ingredients, flavorings, fillers, preservatives, corn syrup, etc.  None of that is allowed in our house or in our bodies whenever I have a choice in the matter.

So we searched high and low on the internet to find a recipe for homemade marshmallows and eventually found some that did not ask us to put corn syrup in them.  Here is our adventure with marshmallows... we had never made them before so we took pictures to chronicle our adventures.

There were many "sticking points" (sorry about that bad pun) along the way but our end result was a batch of marshmallows that are out of this world good!!

To start your adventure, find a square baking pan and dust the heck out of it with powdered sugar (yes, I had some leftover around but if you want to make powdered sugar yourself, just put grainy sugar in a food processor or blender and beat it really long and it will powder itself).  If you don't dust the pan liberally, you will never get the marshmallow out.. just a warning.

I actually might use more next time or even mix it with a bit of organic cornstarch

Next step is to combine 2 packets of unflavored Knox gelatin in 1/2 cup cold water and let it sit to th side for awhile.

On the stove in a saucepan combine 1/2 cup water with (gulp) 2 cups of granulated sugar (this was a tough one to swallow but I thought I better follow directions the first time I made them - next time I may substitute some honey for some of the sugar).  We used organic low processed cane sugar but stand warned - these are a sugary sweet.  No need to boil..just thoroughly dissolve all that sugar in the water.  Then add your gelatin/water mix and bring that to a boil.

Remove from heat once it is to a boil and pour it into a large mixing bowl and let it cool for a bit.  (really, that is what the directions said... "a bit"... so how long is that?  Well I let it cool for only a few minutes cause we wanted to eat S'mores before bedtime)

We decided to use the KitchenAid.  I chose the wire whisk but next time may try the beater attachment, as the marshmallow got so sticky that it was kind of hard to get out of the inside of that wire whisk.

Add 1/4 tsp salt and 2 tsp vanilla extract.  Now Beat!!  The instructions I used said beat until double in volume.  I beat for about 10 minutes at medium and then decided it was done.  By the time I finished beating I thought it was probably double in volume but by then it was REALLY STICKY.

Now try to get it out of the bowl.  Really... give it a try.  Try to pour it in your prepared pan.  Easier said than done.  It took both of us to coax that gooey mess out of the bowl and a bunch of it stuck to the beater, to the sides of the bowl and to the spatula.  And of course, that brought Journey to start placing her claim on the bowl, the beater, and all things gooey.

And of course it's Saturday night... so go ahead and try to lick that bowl honey... good luck!

I wonder if that goo would not have stuck so bad if I had tried to lightly "grease" that bowl before I started?  I don't know.. just food for thought.

So once we had it poured in the pan, we just left it on the counter to set up while we made the chocolate bars and graham crackers.

When it is "set up" you will know because you will touch it and it won't stick so much to your fingers.  We found it really took about a day to set up to the perfect consistency (not in the refrgerator - just on the counter)... but we cut it Saturday night anyway.   To cut this pan of goo, make sure you have a sharp knife and it is also coated with a light powdery substance.. ok we used more powdered sugar.  I coated the top of this pan with a dusting of sugar and tried to keep my knife sugared as well.  Cut it into squares and then Journey got to roll the squares in more sugar.. don't worry.. it barely sticks but does make the marshmallows more manageable and able to be stored in a baggy on the counter without sticking together.

Journey says they roast in the fireplace "weird".  They brown quickly but don't catch fire as easily.  They are wonderful by themselves or eaten all melty in S'mores.  The next day, the consistency was the best!  Here is what is left of our marshmallows.

I thought I might try to roll them in some fine coconut next time for an extra flavor boost and a little less sugar.

Carrot Fries-Thanks Tracy!

So I am spending time on facebook while watching the potato chips baking.  Journey ate all the chips (ok, we helped) and I have to make more for her lunch tomorrow (that is, unless, school gets called off due to snow.. but I doubt it).

My friend Tracy sent me a facebook message - you know the type.. "I thought of you when I saw this".  It was a Pinterest post about Carrot Fries.  What could be better than that?  So I told her I would try them and if I liked them I would write a blog for you to try it too.

Carrot fries = carrots, olive oil, salt, and an oven at 350 degrees.  And all that = YUMMY!

I was baking a batch of potato chips anyway so the oven was fired up and the salt and olive oil was out so I grabbed a carrot real quick and cut it thinly lengthwise.  Then I coated it in olive oil and salted it good and put it on the stoneware pan for about 15 minutes in the oven.

Can you see the little carrot pieces in amongst the potato chips?

Here is the verdict:  Delicious!!

Shout out to Tracy for thinking of me and sending me that link and for giving me yet another wonderful way to snack healthy and eat my vegetables!! 

Orange Slice Candy

I don't know about you but I LOVE that sweet orange slice candy.  The ones that are all chewy with a bunch of sugar coating them.  We have a new Fannie Farmer candy store in town and I stopped in (to torture myself I think)... to see what there was.  I saw those wonderful beckoning orange slice candies and really craved them but then I read the ingredients and high fructose corn syrup was the first one.  Of course.  Just because it looks like a fruit does not make it remotely healthy.

So I got to work investigating and I have to share my newest recipe with you!  It is wonderful real orange "candy".  Tastes almost like those sweet chewy orange slices to me!

I had to work for about a week to save up enough orange peel for this.  Make sure and get organic oranges or you will be eating orange-peel-pesticide strips.  So after I bought 1/2 a dozen oranges I got to saving the skins in the refrigerator in a baggy.  Every orange we ate, I saved the skin.  Even the ones I sent in Journey's lunch, I made her bring the peels home.  I am quite sure the poor kid gets all kinds of looks as she brings her "trash" back home in her lunch bag.  But it worked and soon enough I had enough orange peels to start my candy.

Take those refrigerated chunks of trash peel and cut them into 1/4 inch strips.  It is ok to leave on the white part for this step.. you can remove some of that easier later on.

Throw all your strips of orange peel into cold water (just enough to cover them)  and bring it to a boil.  Once it is boiling, drain it and start over.  Do this boiling process 3 times.  That will cut some of the bitterness in the orange peels.  After the third boil, dunk them in ice water to stop the cooking process.  After the boiling, they are soft and if you want to trim off a bit of that white layer inside of them, it is easy to do at that point but a little time consuming.  (I just this minute did a little taste test, eating one that I had trimmed carefully versus one with the white layer intact - the trimmed peel tasted a little better but the untrimmed one was almost as good - so not a critical step here)

In the same pot, add 1 cup of Agave syrup (or another sweetener - I was out of Agave so I put in about 1/2 cup honey, 1/4 cup of rice syrup, and some stevia).  Then add about 3 cups of water to that and bring it to a boil.  Throw your cold orange peels back in and bring it back to a boil.  Simmer in that sweetened water for about an hour (I did not watch my pan well enough and all the water actually simmered away but my oranges didn't burn).

After an hour, put the lid on the pot and leave it on the stove overnight.  In the morning, if there is still liquid in the pan with your orange peels, drain it off and lay your sweetened orange peels out on a rack for 24 to 48 hours to dry.  While they were still wet, I sprinkled some organic cane sugar over them and added some stevia as well.. just to sweeten them a bit more.

When they are dry, they are really good little bites of sweet orange taste.. very similar to those orange candies at the store.  WARNING here:  Stevia has a bit of a different taste to it and while it sweetens the food, you might have to adjust to the little bit of aftertaste from the stevia... but heck, if you can drink diet stuff with chemical poison aspartame in it, you can develop a taste for Stevia and save yourself a lot of grief in the long run.  

I can't wait to save all my lemon, lime, and grapefruit peels too!  What do you know.. healthy candy!!

Potato Chips

Is there such a thing as healthy potato chips?  After all, aren't potato chips junk food?  Yes, and Yes!  Any of those packaged snack foods you buy on the shelf of the supermarket are questionable with a list of ingredients that cannot be pronounced and manufactured to last a lifetime in a paper bag.  That makes me pretty suspicious right there!

But let's face it... we all crave a little something sometimes.  For poor Journey (who gets very little junk food), it was potato chips this weekend.  She asked me to make some.  I could not turn her down. While potatoes aren't exactly a green leafy vegetable, they are not the spawn of the devil either.  Potatoes are not twinkies... they are a root vegetable with nourishment in them, especially right under the skin.  I think they are ok in smaller quantities.

That brings us to fat... deep fried food kind of grosses me out anymore.  It didn't used to but I just know too much now and have come so far that I really don't want to eat anything that has to be deep fried.  But even saying that, I believe that a bit of fat in the diet is healthy and, in fact, imperative.  Fats are a natural part of every cell in our body and necessary in order for us to absorb and utilize many of the vitamins we need, like A, D, E, and Vitamin K.  I have blogged before about healthy fats. Coconut oil and olive oil being 2 of my favorites!

So back to the potato chips.  That is what you wanted to know, right?  Well this is the second time I tried them and they were actually really good this time so let me tell you the secrets.

Wash your potatoes.  I washed about 6 of them.  Really scrub them clean so you don't have to peel them.  Most of the nutrition is in the skin!

Then find a way to slice them thin.  I mean thin.  My new food processor with an adjustable slicer did a great job of slicing them on the thinnest setting..  LOVE it.  Last time I tried, I did not get them cut thin enough and so they were a bit of a flop.

Now take your slices in a bowl and pour in some olive oil.. mix that around so that most of your slices are mostly coated a bit with oil.  Then pour some olive oil on a flat baking sheet and spread it around to coat the sheet good.. this is critical or your potatoes will stick!

Did I mention to preheat the oven to about 350?  Do that as you are slicing the potatoes.

Spread the potatoes on the greased baking sheet in a single layer.  Add salt.  Don't be afraid to salt them quite a bit.  Mine overlapped some but not much and I ended up using 3 baking sheets.  2 were metal cookie sheets and one was a pampered chef stoneware sheet.  The stoneware sheet gave me much better results and the poatoes did not stick as much to that one.

Pop your potatoes in the oven for about 15 minutes.  Watch them and when they are turning brown, take them out and stir and turn them.. some will stick. I used a rigid metal spatula to kind of scrape them off the pan and turn them and popped them back in the oven for 10 - 15 more minutes.  I might have done this one more time for a few minutes before I decided that some of them were brown enough.

At this point I pulled the brown crispy ones off of the pans and put them in a bowl (adding more salt) but popped back in the ones that were still a bit undercooked.  This went on a few more minutes .. I kept cooking them until they were all browned to my liking. 

Now as with almost everything I make from scratch, it never LOOKS like store-bought.  I consider that a good sign actually.  My potato chips were brown but crunchy and tasty, tasty, tasty.  We couldn't keep out of them!  Most of my family visited today and they got to taste the fresh chips and everyone loved them.  So I made some dip.

Dip... yummm...  what is chips without dip?  I haven't had chips and dip in my house for a long time!  So tonight before Journey got home I made her dip to go with her chips.  I had leftover plain yogurt and 1/2 a brick of cream cheese in the refrigerator so I softened and combined them and threw in a generous helping of garlic powder and onion powder...  DELICIOUS!  Journey loved the dip even when she found out I put yogurt in it... she is a picky kid so when it passes her taste test, it is good!

Here is what is left of our chips.  I wanted to show you a picture of how they look ( these are not burned.. just crisp).  The 6 potatoes almost filled this plastic container when they were first done but several of us were into this container of chips before the picture got taken.

Butter .. the best you will ever eat!

I know I have posted about butter before but today I made about a pound of fresh butter and had it on toast with lunch and it was the freshest and best butter ever.  I thought I might share the pictures with you in case you are curious about making fresh butter yourself.

First of all, start with the best ingredients!  Fresh cream.. organic if possible.  I found a good price on 2 pints of Friendly Farms Whipping Cream (that brand uses no artificial growth hormones - sold at Aldi's).

Pour the cream in a big bowl.  I love using the KitchenAid because I am lazy enough to just love to watch it do all the work for me.  Even with the KitchenAid doing all the work, this process took about 1/2 an hour so prepare for a little time in the kitchen monitoring the progress of your butter.

I chose the bigger beater and not the wire whisk just due to the fact that I thought the butter, when formed would be harder to clean from inside the whisk.

Turn the beaters on slowly at first, increasing the speed as you can.  If you start off too quickly, you will splash whipped cream all over your kitchen (ask me, I know this).  So start slowly and get to whipping that cream.  It will soon become thicker and turn into whipped cream (as it thickens, you can increase the speed of the mixer).

 It continues to thicken and turn into whipped cream.  Keep beating... turning up the speed as you can so that you can finish the process... getting to the butter part is pretty exciting!

Here is the exciting part... about 15 minutes into the poor KitchenAid's workout...  I noticed the beater working harder and look what I found in that bowl:

That, my friends, is the BEST glob of butter you will ever taste!!  Right down there in the bottom of that bowl, floating in BUTTERMILK!!  It is almost done!

Drain the buttermilk into a jar and save it to bake with... yummy!

 Drain off the buttermilk to cook with and store it in the refrigerator.  I want to add a caveat here that although this milky delicious butter-by-product is called buttermilk, it is NOT cultured buttermilk.  You cannot use this liquid to make more buttermilk and it is a different consistency and taste than the cultured buttermilk you buy in the store.  It is thin and milky and not tangy and fermented.

So what to do with that glob of butter that you rescue from the milky buttermilk?  Put the solid in a bowl and kind of smash salt into it. Salted butter is the norm and probably what you are used to tasting on your toast.  Butter does not need to be salted but it will taste bland without it.. so I salted the butter with about 1 tsp of salt and mixed it into the solid butter really thoroughly by smashing it over and over against the side of the bowl with a spatula... kind of... until the spatula broke pretty early on in the process.

I am SO hard on kitchen utensils.

So how do I smash the butter?  It was pretty hard.. I used a metal spoon and bent it... so then I had this bright idea.  I have an antique butter paddle in my collection of antiques.  After much soul searching, I got that wooden paddle off of the shelf  and washed it, figuring it had survived for 200 years and probably spent it's first 100 years actually "paddling" butter so it was probably ok to use a 200 year old wooden paddle on my clean modern butter.

That paddle worked wonders!  No wonder they used wooden butter paddles!  They are very durable and I pressed and pressed my butter, mixing the salt into it good and draining a little more of the buttermilk off of it as I pressed and pressed.

When I felt like it had enough paddling, I transferred it to a glass bowl and quickly made some toast from the homemade sprouted wheat sourdough bread I baked last night to eat with my farm fresh eggs and organic cheese along with a few slices of uncured bacon.  I was in HEAVEN!!! 

Seriously now... do this with your children.  They will love watching cream turn to butter.  I thank my lucky stars that I have an opportunity to teach Journey these things and that I don't have to do it all like they did 200 years ago... I am in LOVE with my KitchenAid.  No hand churning for me!  But I am sad that after my 22 year old tasted the butter on her toast at lunch she asked me "If I buy the ingredients for you to make me some butter, will you?"  I answered "of course I will OR I will teach you to make it" and she replied "what do I need to buy?".  When I answered "just cream", she responded with "really?"  Such a sad statement to my mothering of her and to our modern world where children do not know how to make food nor even know what real food is.

Molasses Cookies

I can't wait to share this recipe with you... it is a favorite at our house and I just discovered that the addition of a secret ingredient will result in even more fantastic results.  So Shannon, this one is for you.  I hope you love these molasses cookies!!

Another secret of the kitchen that I have found is PARCHMENT PAPER.  Never used it before recently but I use a sheet of parchment paper on the cookie sheet for almost every cookie I make and they do not burn, are easier to get off, and faster to bake.  Love parchment paper and I reuse it several times in a row... waste not want not!  (it also means I don't have to wash the cookie sheet)

Molasses Cookies

2 cups flour (I use freshly ground sprouted wheat flour but you could substitute other types of flours as well)
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsps ground cloves
2 tsps ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup sugar (traditionalists may want to use brown sugar lightly packed but I use Organic Whole    Cane sugar unrefined and unbleached)
1/4 cup oil  (this can be any oil but healthy options include grapeseed or coconut oil)
1/3 cup molasses
1 egg, at room temperature

1/3 cup BUTTERMILK  (secret ingredient)

1/2 cup Raisins (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In my trusty kitchenAid I add the sugar, oil, egg and molasses and beat until mixed up.  Then I add on top of that the flour, baking soda, and spices and beat some more.  Now it was at this point that I believed my dough to be a little thick (don't want to overwork the kitchenAid - LOL) and I added the 1/3 cup of buttermik.  

I added about 1/2 cup of raisins to the cookie dough before dropping it onto the parchment paper lined cookie sheets.

WOW~~  What a difference the buttermilk made in those cookies.  I will never make another cookie without buttermilk, even if it means I have to add a little more flour to a recipe to make up for the added moisture.  This batch of cookies was puffier and softer.. chewy in a good way.  Usually this recipe turns out kind of crunchy and flattened out cookies but not this time.. plump cookies!

Scoop the dough with 2 spoons onto the baking sheets making sure to leave some room as they will expand during baking. I did not have to flatten them but just put them in the oven all mishappen and puffy

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the sheets for 2-3 minutes before transfering them to wire racks to cool.

Now try to keep out of them!!  But if you give in to temptation, have a big glass of milk ready!

Sourdough Bread Starter

So we have the wheat bread mastered in this house.  I finally figured out that my oven temp was off and got that fixed.  Then tried countless recipes to get a good one and figured out to use dough enhancers when using fresh wheat flour to get a good rise (sometimes too good).  And added Vital Wheat Gluten as well to get a good loaf of bread.

But a regular loaf of wheat bread day in and day out gets a little boring, right?  I really craved sourdough bread.  Love the slight tang and different texture of sourdough bread.   LOVE it in bread bowls with homemade soup.  But alas, the sourdough starters just never took off for me.

In the old days, grandma used to use a sourdough starter and keep it around to make her sourdough bread.  Where did she get it?  Probably from a neighbor or her mother... but those days are gone and even at Whole Foods, they do not sell sourdough starter.  I had to rely on the internet to help me create a sourdough starter from scratch.

So apparently the theory is if you mix water, flour, and some sweetener in a jar and leave it on the counter, it will "attract" little yeast organisms and "take off" on it's own.  Mine didn't.  I could not figure out what I did wrong.  I tried a sourdough starter recipe using water and another recipe using pineapple juice and attempted each one a couple of times.  No luck.  My sourdough starter did not rise and did not produce appetizing results (not that I should mislead you into thinking sourdough starter is appetizing.. it is not really).

So I cheated.  Yup.. desperate city girl in action.  I don't know why I didn't think of this before but if the goal is to trap wild yeast from the air and that didn't work, then how about just adding some of that store bought yeast to flour and water and creating the "sour" in it myself.  So that is just what I did and here is how I did it.

Use a big glass jar.  I used a 1/2 gallon Ball jar with the screw on lid because if you do this right, your sourdough will grow (it might just flow over the top).  For the cover, use a screw band of a canning jar and a piece of cheesecloth to allow it to breath.

To the jar add:

1 packet of yeast
1/2 cups of warm water
       Mix this up to dissolve the yeast.
Add:

1 1/2 cups flour (sprouted freshly ground whole wheat if you please)
1 1/2 more cups warm water
1 TBSP sugar or honey

Now mix that up really good in your jar and leave the jar covered with the cheesecloth on the kitchen counter for 5 - 10 days.  It likes to be warm so keep it away from drafts.  Mix it 2 - 3 times a day.  It will be icky looking and like batter consistency when you mix it but when it sits for a while it will separate and you will have a layer of watery stuff on top (that tells you you need to stir it good).

In a few days it will begin to smell funny...  like beer.  It is fermenting.  Fermented food is VERY GOOD FOR YOU.  It is full of helpful organisms and leads to good gut health... learn to like fermented stuff.

When it has fermented, just move it to the refrigerator but continue to stir it every day.  Keep it covered with the cheesecloth but do not seal it shut.


You are now ready to bake sourdough bread!  Most recipes call for 2/3 cup of sourdough starter per loaf.  Whenever you use from your jar, make sure and feed it with 1/2 cup warm water, 1/2 cup flour, and another teaspoon of sweetener.  Let the starter sit out for a day to ferment again after feeding and before returning it to the refrigerator.  You also need to bring it to room temp before using it in your sourdough bread.

If you want to make 2 loaves at one time and use 1 1/3 cup of starter, make sure and feed it double and allow plenty of time between uses for the process to replicate itself.  Your sourdough starter is living and if you take care of it and feed it, it will maintain for a long time!  If 10 days goes by and you have not used your sourdough starter, feed it another TBSP of sweetener so it will stay alive.

I made our first loaf of sourdough bread this week with my potato soup and it was a huge hit.  Sourdough bread is crustier and the recipe I used does not call of any oil.  It is chewy and wonderful bread!

Now that I wrote this, it reminds me to stir my starter in the refrigerator!!  I need a sign in the kitchen that says "feed your starter".... 

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

Just in time for super bowl Sunday.. a recipe that is healthy and good.  Wholesome and great with a veggie tray to snack and keep the weight off while nourishing your body with vitamins!

I don't usually crave salads in the winter.  I usually eat warm vegetables all winter and save the cool entrees for the hot summer months but since finding this recipe for buttermilk ranch dressing, I have been going through fresh spinach and mixed greens like a fiend!

Here is the recipe and it is so easy to make:

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

1/3 cup plain yogurt (I prefer my own homemade greek-style yogurt)
1/3 cup buttermilk (did you know you can make buttermilk yourself?)
3 TBSP mayonnaise (you can leave the mayo out or use your own homemade mayo)
1 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp Dijon mustard (I didn't have Dijon on hand so used some regular mustard)
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 TBSP finely chopped fresh chives
1/4 tsp salt

Whisk all of the ingredients in a bowl until well combined.

Dressings will keep in the refrigerator for a few days and seem to get tastier on day 2 - 5 as the flavors mix well.

I bought a little cruet at the thrift store with a lid and actually just mix and shake all the ingredients in that.  You can get creative with ingredients too!  One time I did not have buttermilk and just made it with whole milk.  This time I added dried dill to the mixture.

I was thrilled to find this easy recipe that did not include any canola, soy, preservatives, or other chemicals that are so hard to avoid in commercial salad dressings! 

Crackers/Flatbread

If I had known how easy it was to make my own crackers I would have done it a long time ago!  We picked up some cheddar made from goat's milk and some really good smoked cheddar at a good price at Whole Foods a few days ago and I was dying for a good cracker to enjoy with a slice of my cheese.

The commercial crackers and baked goods really bother me (go figure).  They come in a box and never mold or get bad (that is a CLUE).  The ingredient list usually includes processed flour and soy or canola oil and some other questionable long words I can't pronounce that probably serve as preservatives of some sort.  I just knew we could do better!

So tonight I found a recipe for Rosemary Flatbread that sounds so delicious I had to try it!  Journey helped me roll them out and mix the dough and I was happy to have her help and company in the kitchen and to show her how easy, once again, cooking can be.  So we baked these up:

The first challenge we found was that we did not have any dried rosemary in stock.  I have one little plant in the greenhouse that is pretty little and I had used the last of my dried rosemary a few days ago.  Then I remembered my antique herb dryer on the wall of the dining room that has some sprigs of dried herbs on them for show.  I believe my mother grew and dried these herbs herself so I trusted the source pretty well.  I took a little taste first and discovered the flavor of that ancient dried rosemary was really good and potent.  SCORE!

Funny story about this:  Mike watched me pull them down and said "what are you doing?"  I thought he was worried about the potential age or source of the dried herbs going into his cooking so I said "I am going to use it in the flatbread... it is ok.. I tasted it".  His response was "I am not worried about that... I am just tired of hitting that dried stuff every time I walk by it".   So funny...  I only had to harvest a few sprigs of it for the crackers so he will still have to avoid hitting it hanging against the wall... but only until I make a few more batches of these delicious crackers!  You can believe that if I have an edible decoration, I will eventually eat it!  Haha.

So with rosemary abundant I freshly ground up a cup and three quarters of sprouted wheat berries and laid out the ingredients for these crackers and Journey and I whipped them up in a jiffy.  Here is the recipe:

Rosemary Flatbread

1 3/4 cups flour
1 TBSP chopped rosemary plus a little to put on top
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt plus some more for the topping
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup olive oil plus some more to brush the tops before baking.

Preheat the oven and a baking sheet to 450 degrees.

Stir the first 4 dry ingredients together in a bowl.  Make a well in the center and add the water and oil.  Stir into a dough and turn out to knead 4 or 5 times.

Divide the dough into 3 pieces and roll each piece out thinly on parchment paper.  This is the part that Journey so expertly did!

Brush the tops with olive oil, throw a little extra salt and rosemary on top and bake 8 - 10 minutes.  I baked one at a time and just slid the finished cracker right off the baking sheet still on the parchment paper and slid the next one on to bake.  It was very simple to cut them up with a pizza cutter while they were still warm.

The instructions say to cool completely before storing in an airtight container on the counter-top.  As has been my experience with most other fresh baked goods, they last the best when refrigerated, as they have no preservatives (Praise the Lord!)

I cheated on this recipe and added some garlic powder and a little pepper to the dough with the rosemary and they are delicious.  I may experiment more with this recipe, as it was super easy and produced wonderful results!  We now have a cracker to park our cheese atop!

Taco Seasoning

As I try to stay away from commercially prepared processed foods, there are many things I miss and search for a substitute.  Taco seasoning is one of them.  We LOVE tacos at our house but gone are the days where I cook a pound of ground beef and open one of those envelopes of taco seasoning mix that I am now suspicious of.  I like to know there is as much purity in every food we consume so I really like to be in control of the ingredients I use in the kitchen.

Speaking of ground beef, what is the deal with the prices of ground beef lately.  Oh my goodness... we actually found some roast beef cheaper per pound than the local ground beef and bought several of them.  This week, when I was hungry for tacos and had no ground beef in the freezer I used the roast and cooked it up in the crockpot.  I have begun to cook my roast in leftover whey, as I usually have plenty of that around and feel it adds some additional nutrition to my meal over using water.  The roast cooks up very tender and flavorful in the whey in the crockpot and is very easy to do.  Once the roast beef was done, I had half a roast plus over a pound of chopped up roast beef to cook up into taco meat.

But back to taco seasoning.  I found a couple of wonderful recipes online and did my own configuring to make a batch of wonderful taco seasoning.  Even better than making some up for my family to use, I gave a jar to each of the girls in the family for Christmas presents so they could also enjoy it.  Making your own means being in control of the ingredients and ultimate flavor of the finished product and this was some GOOD stuff!!

Taco Seasoning:

1 TBSP chili powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 - 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 - 1 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 to 1 tsp salt 
1 tsp black pepper
Cayenne pepper would be optional (might add 1/4 tsp)


Mix all ingredients and store in an airtight container with your other spices. 

2 to 3 tablespoons of this seasoning plus 1/2 to 3/4 cup of water is enough for one pound of cooked meat. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until most of the liquid is gone.

We used the seasoned taco beef wrapped in homemade tortillas (recipe here: http://thenewsuburbanpioneer.blogspot.com/2012/10/in-kitchen-homemade-whole-wheat.html) with some cheese, black beans, salsa, lettuce, black olives and sour cream and it was WONDERFUL.

My daughters use this taco seasoning in their Chicken Tortilla soup recipe and love it in there.

Spaghetti Squash

Magical spaghetti squash..  ... Since discovering this magnificent vegetable a few months ago, I have learned to love it for the nutrition (yellow vegetable) and for the taste.  Not only does it provide improved nutrition for my family, it is a way to get Journey to eat vegetables and replaces those pasta cravings that we occasionally have.

Pasta bought from the store, processed and made with white bleached flour is so so bad for you.  It raises blood sugars, provides NO nutritional benefit, and absolutely makes you fat!  But I have to admit that I love pasta dishes... delicious sauces over noodles.  But in reality, the noodle is just a vehicle for the sauce or you would be eating soup.

Spaghetti squash provides the perfect vehicle for sauces and is not only guilt-free but actually nutritious.  I can't wait to grow some in the garden next year!

Being a winter squash, it can be stored for a few weeks or even months in the right conditions and baking it could not be easier.  Just cut it in half and put olive oil on the cut sides after removing the seeds (dry those seeds in a window sill and save in the refrigerator until planting time in the spring and you have your own home-grown squash to last all winter).  Place the cut sides down in a shallow baking dish and put in a 350 degree oven for an hour or more.  Once cooled enough to handle, you can simply pull the stringy squash out... it looks just like spaghetti!

I froze a few bags of squash after baking my last one a month or so ago so today I thought we would try a new spaghetti squash recipe.  All I had to do was thaw out that squash and prepare it like this:

In a large fry pan, melt a bunch of butter (the more the merrier).. I used about 1/2 a stick.  Add to that some fresh garlic (you can never have enough garlic.. I probably used 2 tsp).  Into the garlic and butter I added some dried parsley and basil and a touch of oregano.  Then I added the thawed spaghetti squash and sauteed it all for a few minutes to mix up the flavors.  Salt and pepper to taste followed by a generous portion of Parmesan Cheese on top and we had a delicious side dish!

We all loved the finish result!  Delicious with any meal since garlic and butter can never be beat.  We had it with roast beef.  You should try it yourself... easy, fast, and lots of things could be tailored for an even better taste treat.  Maybe next time I will add some cauliflower or an additional vegetable to it!

Calzones & Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

It has been over a month since I updated the blog.  It has been pretty busy in the house with the Christmas holiday, traveling out of state to see family, and most recently, caring for my father while he had a knee replacement.

I missed the kitchen and we had some challenges eating as healthy as I would have liked.  We survived on fresh fruit and most of my free time was absorbed with baking bread or putting together a quick homemade casserole to live on.  I really missed the kitchen.. especially when my only Christmas gift was a beautiful KitchenAid food processor.  It is a big one and takes quite a bit of counter space but it is so worth it.  I can chop onions for recipes, slice potatoes for scalloped potatoes and ham, and blend Citrusy Mashed Squash easily.

So this week I made homemade "hot pockets" or Calzones.  I used a chicken mixture and baked them inside of a whole wheat pizza crust.  They were so good that they passed the WHOLE FAMILY challenge.  Journey LOVES them (because there are no vegetables in them), Mike loves them because they are easy to heat up and grab, and my parents even loved them when I took a couple over to help mom feed dad during his recuperation at home.   So in a nutshell, you know they are GOOD!

The outsides are a snap to make.


Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
5 cups whole wheat flour (you can substitute store bought flour but sprouted and ground fresh is definitely best!)
1 tsp salt  (sea salt or mineral salts are best!)
4 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (I buy in bulk but that is equal to 2 pouches if you have those around)
2 cups warm water (Ideally should be between 100 and 120 degrees but I now just test it to touch)
Mix all ingredients together (love the KitchenAid Mixer for this job!), knead for 3-4 minutes, then let the dough to “rest” for about 10 minutes.  This recipe will make 2 pizzas or about 10 Calzones depending on the size you make them.

The Insides
Here is the fun part.  While the Mixer is mixing, kneading, and letting the dough "rest", you can make the filling.  Get creative!  We made chicken and cream cheese calzones but you could use any filling!  We are planning to try some "taco calzones" and some pizza calzones in the future!

Recipe for cream cheese chicken filling:
2 TBSP olive oil
2 chicken breasts
1/2 cup onion (minced)
2 cloves garlic (minced or pressed)
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1 TBSP butter
4 ounces of cream cheese (1/2 a brick)
1/4 tsp garlic salt or seasoned salt
2 TBSP milk

In a large pan, cook the onions, garlic and chicken in the olive oil on medium heat.

In another bowl, beat the cream cheese and melted butter.  Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix well.  Now you have the filling for the calzones.  This is the time you can get creative!  Add vegetables, change the seasonings, change the meat, add cheese... whatever you like!  I was tempted to add little baby peas or spinach to this filling but opted for simplicity so others in my family would really enjoy them.. so I added a little shredded cheddar cheese to my finished product!

To fill and finish the calzone
Divide the pizza dough into many equal small balls.  Roll or press each dough ball out on waxed paper or silicone cutting board surface so you can work well with it.  I pressed them as thin as I could and still hold in the stuffing.

Fill each one with the fillings and fold in half, sealing the sides.  Place on a cookie sheet or in a baking dish.  I brushed each of them with more butter and garlic before baking so they would be good and yummy and then sprinkled a little parsley on top of them.

Bake at 375 for about 20 - 25 minutes or until golden brown.

You can store these in the refrigerator when cool and heat them up in the microwave (I prefer oven or toaster oven - it only takes about 10 minutes in the oven right from the refrigerator).

You can also freeze these.  Either before or after baking them.... and have bags of handy healthy meals to eat on the go.  If freezing them unbaked, you can bake them later from this frozen state in a 375 degree oven for 25 - 35 minutes.

Try these yourself and let me know what fillings you used and how your family likes them!  I once lived in Omaha and we had a restaurant there called Runza Hut.  They served the best little meat filled sandwiches like these but theirs had ground beef, seasoning, cheese, and cabbage... I MUST try some of those soon.

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

All I can say is "WOW"....  where have I been all these 52 years that I have never thought about stuffing a baked sweet potato until I ran across this recipe and tried it.  I am hooked!  All the ingredients are high in nutritional value and it was delicious and very filling.  I ate 1/2 my sweet potato for a meal and was quite satisfied.

If you don't like any particular ingredient in this recipe, it is adaptable and you can get creative with mixing flavors until you have created something out of this world.  Here is how I did it.

Baked Twice Stuffed Sweet Potatoes


Preheat the oven and stab each potato to allow a little steam to escape.  (Of course wash the outside of the potato thoroughly before you begin).  Rub the outside of the potato with olive oil or coconut oil and salt it.  Place them in a glass baking dish and bake for about an hour until tender.

After they have baked and are cool enough to handle, cut the tops off of them like this and carefully scoop out the majority of the soft sweet potato.

 Place all the scooped out sweet potato into a bowl and add the following ingredients:  (These measurements are for 5 sweet potatoes so if making fewer, adjust accordingly)
1 Tablespoon olive oil or coconut oil
1 cup Chopped broccoli
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup dried Cranberries (I used dried cherries)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder (I substituted chopped onion for the powder)
Salt and pepper to taste

 Now stuff all that mixture back into your potato shells and cover loosely to bake for about 15 minutes to heat them through.

I added a little cheat to mine.  Before filling them up with the filling I put butter and a drizzle of honey inside each shell at the bottom with some salt to make the skin good enough to eat!  If I would have had some Feta cheese on hand I would have thrown a little of that in too. This made a fantastic meal and very nutritious!!  My body thanked me for the good fuel that day.

Orange Chicken

I believe people may have the wrong idea about how we eat at my house.. we are not on a "diet".  We eat all kinds of real foods.. in fact I would say we eat a "real food" diet, not a calorie restricted one or low on fat or even low on sugar.  When I cook, it is with the freshest and simplest ingredients I can afford to buy and then I combine them myself as opposed to getting them out of a can.

This really makes grocery shopping much simpler for us.  I shop the periphery of the store and always keep milk, eggs, wheat berries, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, and meats put away for use later.  For instance today was shopping day.  Fareway had a sale on spices so I got 3 for $2.00 and I stocked up.  Bananas were .29 a pound and I got a couple of bunches of those.  Pineapples were 1.99 so I bought 2 of them and chicken breasts were 1.99 per pound. ..  Looking at food differently than ever before, I left the store with under $40 and had enough food to feed us for most of the week.

Now this real food diet is not a boring diet... it is quite delicious and fun to make.  Today, for instance, Mike came home after lunch and I served him a gourmet-type lunch (our main meal of the day).  He was greeted with Orange Chicken on a bed of rice pilaf with a side salad of fresh baby spinach and pineapple chunks with homemade Orange and pineapple vinaigrette dressing.

This was not a hard meal to prepare at all.  And I always make enough to have leftovers so we have food for a couple of days time or I can choose to freeze some for another later meal.

When you keep the staples around, you have a world of opportunity in front of you as far as food creations!  If I see a recipe that looks good, I can make it!  So here is the recipe I used for the orange chicken.  When I don't have one ingredient I substitute but I have most raw ingredients at hand now.

Baked Orange Chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken breasts
• salt and pepper
• 1/2-3/4  cup orange marmalade
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp mustard
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• a little bit of garlic powder
• 1 tsp curry powder

Prep:

Use a good quality oil to spray or coat the baking dish.

Wash, trim, and cut the chicken breasts into serving-sized pieces.

In a separate bowl, combine the marmalade, lemon juice, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and curry powder and mix well.

Arrange the chicken breasts in the baking dish and pour the marmalade mixture over the top.  You can marinate the chicken first if you would like but I did not do that and it was wonderful. Cover the pan with foil or a lid.

Bake the chicken, covered, in the oven at 375 for about an hour or a little longer.  Baste the chicken in the juices ever once in a while during baking and baste again right before serving.

This recipe was perfect after today's shopping.  Last week I had about 6 pounds of oranges that I turned into orange marmalade so I had plenty to use today.  The pineapple worked well mixed with fresh baby spinach and the Orange Vinaigrette dressing delicious!  Making your own dressing is really SO easy!  I bought a couple of dressing servers at Goodwill a while back and use the heck out of them.  Here is that recipe:

Orange Vinaigrette Dressing

2 T orange juice ( I used the orange marmalade and some pineapple juice)

2 T red wine vinegar

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 t dijon mustard  (I used a dash of regular mustard)

½ t salt

fresh ground pepper

Mix well.   

So.. I am always on the lookout for more tasty "real food" recipes...  if you have any great menu ideas, shoot me a message or if you try one of these recipes and find a new secret ingredient, let me know!  I would love more ideas...  and I love being able to say to my family "the menu today includes orange chicken on a bed of rice pilaf with a side salad of baby spinach and fresh pineapples with an orange vinaigrette dressing". 

This is just like going to a fancy restaurant at a fraction of the price and I am assured of the best ingredients...  wow.. should have been cooking for us a long time ago.   This beat Totino's pizzas HANDS DOWN!!

Ricotta Cheese

A few weeks ago I tried to make ricotta cheese... you may have read that it was a dismal failure... but I learned from it.  I kind of like having a few failures in the kitchen because whenever I fail, I learn a little bit about what NOT to do!

So for ricotta...  what I love about it is that it can be made from leftover whey after making other things.  This week I made cottage cheese from a gallon of milk and that gave me a little less than a gallon of beautiful yellow whey.  Then I made some cheddar cheese curds from a little over a gallon of milk and ended up with another gallon of whey.

What is a girl to do with 2 gallons of whey?  Go figure... I made ricotta cheese.  See I have been hungry for homemade lasagna for a few weeks and I just stay hungry for it.  When I say homemade, I mean make every part of it myself except for butchering the cow (yuck - count me out for the animal slaughter part of farming).  So I needed to make the red sauce (have canned tomatoes from the garden), make the ricotta, make the mozzarella, make the noodles (just found a homemade noodle recipe) and put it all together from whole and fresh ingredients.  mmmm......  some people call this too much work... I call it heavenly eating and well worth it!

The first step in making ricotta is to leave the whey out on the counter for 12 - 24 hours.  That idea repulsed me a bit but I did it anyway.  Haven't we all been trained not to eat things left at room temp for a long time?  Then to put the whey (2 gallons of it) into a big pot with a thick bottom and heat it to 203 degrees.  Once it reached 203 degrees I took it off the heat and left it covered until it cooled again to room temp.  This took a few hours for 2 gallons of whey.
But here is what it looked like when cooled:

BINGO!  I was so excited to see that white curdy stuff in my pan!  I made the usual exclamation to Mike when I have success with something "Mike, I am actually making ricotta cheese"...  He hears a lot of those kind of exclamations during my cooking expeditions, as well as the ones where I am mumbling or cursing quietly because something has gone awry.  You see, Mike works from home as an independent contractor and I stay home doing what I do, so we have a lot of together time.  This is really helpful some days and I thank the Good Lord that he is a supportive man and I get to have him around.

As I watched the curds form in the whey, I realized some of what I did wrong the last time I tried to make ricotta.  I tried to strain that mess through a cheesecloth and colander but the small bits of ricotta are really SO FINE that I basically drained it all away.

This time I was prepared with a tea towel and colander.  The tea towel provides a tight weave.  Several weeks ago I bought a chunk of muslin, washed it, cut it into several towel sized pieces and serged the sides so that I could use them for things like this.  It provides the perfect weave for fine filtration!

It took quite a while to drain the whey from the ricotta through this tea towel.  The fine ricotta kind of gummed up the drainage but I persisted and drained and squeezed all the whey out until I found this in my cloth:

HOMEMADE RICOTTA CHEESE!  Yippppeeeeee.. first successful step towards the lasagna!

But what was I to do with the leftover 1 1/2 gallons of whey?  Why, I fed the compost bin, of course!  Might as well give all that nutrition to the vegetables and fruits we are going to grow next year!

Homemade Noodles

Who knew that making noodles was so easy?  It never looked easy to me... I remember years ago I bought a fancy pasta machine that extruded noodles in any shape.  It looked like a Play-Doh toy and I never really used it.  Back then I did not understand the value of good fresh food to my body.  I don't know where I missed that lesson in nursing school 30 years ago, but I appeared to have done so.  Perhaps it was a lecture during one of the extended lunch breaks I took at the local brew pub... or one of the classes I slept through.  I remember a nutrition class where they taught us that vitamins A, D, E, and K were fat soluble vitamins and you could overdose on them but that is about all the nutrition information I took from formal training so long ago.

It was a few years later, which was also many years ago, that I sold that pasta machine or gave it away, hardly ever touching it.  Oh, what I could do with it now!

Earlier this week I was hungry for beef stroganoff.  Not the kind from a package... the kind that starts with fresh meat, homemade cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, and seasonings... and over a bed of noodles.  Noodles sure seemed intimidating but I considered the stroganoff noodles a trial run for the lasagna noodles I knew I wanted to make soon.

So I googled a recipe for noodles.  Oh my goodness... all that is in them is flour, eggs, and a little salt!  After grinding a few cups of white wheat berries, I turned on the KitchenAid and asked it to produce some noodle dough for me.  And it did.

I really did not like the way it was mixing up so I added a little milk to it.  Perfect and it felt SO CLEAN!!  Like real food should.  Simple and delicious.

I soon realized why noodles were so intimidating.  I had to roll them skinny so I could cut them.  Now that was a workout!!  I was exhausted when I got that first batch of noodles rolled out.. and they were not thin either!  My hands gave out early on and I was leaning my forearms on the rolling pin pushing with my upper body weight.  It seemed as soon as I rolled the dough one way, it sprung back when pressure was let off.

Nevertheless, we ended up with some long fat noodles that night!  The instructions called for boiling them for 15 minutes.  Mine were so fat that I boiled them for about 25 minutes before they were tender.

Just like all the food I have been making from scratch, the beef stroganoff over whole wheat noodles was FANTASTIC!  Nothing can compare to the flavor derived from using fresh ingredients, real butter, whole milk, and whole wheat.

Here is the ingredients to make a batch of noodles:

3 cups flour
4 - 5 eggs
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 - 5 Tablespoons water (or milk)

mix it up, roll it out, cut it up, and boil for 15 minutes.