Homemade Bread Recipe

I can't tell you how much I adore Saturdays. They remind me of who I am and what I do. Since going back to work, I've taken to using my Saturday to really dig into the things that make me me.


This morning I went out to garage sales with Nathan. If you look in my etsy shop you'll see my great find. Nathan found a Garfield glass that he didn't have and a Pokemon Monopoly game for Nolan. A good way to spend an hour of our morning.


After our garage sale extravaganza, the boys set about playing Monopoly and Mike was getting ready to play a wedding so I went to pick up our CSA share for the week. I'm excited about our little carrots.


I wanted to supplement our CSA share and have had a hankering for BLT's and fresh corn on the cob. So after lunch I headed out to Eastern Market and picked up some beef bacon and corn and peaches. Then I had a need to bake bread. I miss the kitchen.


I'll share my bread recipe. It's from a Taste of Home magazine from many years ago. I modified it to make it whole wheat instead of white.

Homemade Bread

1 package active dry yeast

2 cups warm water

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs, beaten

7-8 cups bread flour ***

In a mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the sugar, butter, salt, eggs and 4 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch dough down. Turn onto a floured surface. Divide into thirds. Shape into loaves and place in three greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pans. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool. Yield:  3 loaves.

***I used 4 cups of white flour and the rest whole wheat.

The boys and Mike are at Mass while I am working on dinner. Corn on the cob and BLT's from Lancaster county! Yum.

Hope your meal is as delicious as mine.

Pesto...It's not beautiful

but it is tasty. I've never made pesto before for several reasons. The first reason is that I never really liked it. I always thought it tasted like a pine tree. Many people use pine nuts in their pesto. I think pine nuts are very overpowering and, like I said, make me feel like I'm eating a pine tree. Not a flavor I enjoy.

I then learned that you don't have to put in the pine nuts. No brainer, right? Well, sometimes I'm such a rule follower that I can't think outside the box (or the recipe as the case may be). The problem then became the fact that I didn't have a food processor. 

Saturday at Homefields it was pick as much basil as you want day. So I decided we would make pesto. Now, I have quite a bit of basil in my yard but probably not quite enough to make pesto without eliminating the entire plant. So, we cut A LOT of basil. You can see it in the above photo along with the other ingredients. I chose to use walnuts instead of pine nuts. Pesto is really a personal taste sort of food. Use what you will. I used parmesan and romano cheeses, walnuts, basil and olive oil.

Above is the pesto after Nolan and I food processed the heck out of it. As I said in my title, pesto isn't really beautiful. Nolan, who likes to ask important questions at dinner, asked what we thought was a kids least favorite food color. Green, of course. Followed by a close second of yellow (we had zucchini and yellow squash as our side).

Well, once I had my bowl of pesto, it occurred to me that I should freeze it. I then remembered that people freeze it in ice cube trays. Well, right now our extra ice cube tray is full of coffee. What to do? Hey....use muffin tins!

 Freeze over night, pop out and throw them in a plastic ziplock and you have pesto for the year! I'm hoping to use it in soups and on poultry throughout the year. Yum!

From the cupboard

I just love that word....cupboard. It sounds so old fashioned, so homey, so full of good things to eat. It's like comfort.


Ok...I digress before I even get started. Yesterday I rummaged around in my pantry cupboard to really see what was there. I'm always amazed at how we can say "there's nothing to eat" when the cupboard isn't nearly empty. So I decided to see just how many meals I could make with what was in that darn cupboard.


I discovered I had all the ingredients to make homemade granola, which I love. I received this recipe when Nolan was in his very first preschool class. He was three. He's now thirteen. I only used this recipe for the first time last year! Can you believe I held on to a recipe for ten years before trying it? Well, I must have known it was a good one. It is. I'm sharing it with you today while mine is baking in the oven (yummy smells are filling the air...).

This photo is from last summer. I do love eating out of this bowl, though.

Granola

5 cups old fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup wheat germ

1 1/2 cup coconut 

1/2 cup sesame seeds

1 1/2 cup pecans or walnuts

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup water

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup molasses

3/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup raisins 

Combine the oats, wheat germ, coconut, sesame seeds and nuts in large pan (I use a sheet pan). Heat the brown sugar, water, oil, honey, molasses, salt and cinnamon in a sauce pan just until the sugar dissolves. DO NOT BOIL. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry and mix well. Bake at 300 degrees F. for 45 minutes stirring often. Add the raisins (if you like...I don't) when cool. Store in an airtight container. This freezes well.

I like to eat this with plain yogurt. I also am very free with the ingredients. I happened to find 1/2 cup bags of pre-chopped pecans at our local Sharp Shopper months ago two for $1. I bought a bunch and froze them. I just saw pecans at our local farmers market for $12 a pound. Talk about savings! 

But, really, I add what I have. Sometimes I don't add nuts at all but add in sesame seeds or sunflower seeds. I've used oat bran instead of wheat germ as well. Really, it's hard to go wrong with granola. I have some dried cranberries that I may add to a bowl today. 

So here are some other meals I found "hovering" in my cupboard:  Lasagne, spaghetti alfredo, tacos, and hamburgers. Not the healthiest meals but meals none the less. I also have a bag of lentils that I need to ponder. I tend to use them when I'm making bean bag animals but I've also used them in soup. Who knows?

What's in YOUR pantry that you should use????

Asian Grilled Salmon

It's been busy around here. Nathan started back to public school today. He needed more socialization and to navigate environments that were not home. His first day seemed to be a good one. Nolan is still at home with me although he's taking a few classes so he's not just here at home. New opportunities are presenting themselves.

I've been trying to eat a bit healthier lately. Tonight I made one of Mike's favorite dishes: Asian Grilled Salmon. It is really easy and very delicious. The recipe is for the grill but I just pop it into a 400 degree oven for 30 or so minutes and it turns out just the same. Here's the recipe:


1 1/2 pounds salmon fillets
1/2 cup green onions or chives (I just realized I forgot to add these tonight!)
2 TBSP soy sauce
1 TBSP minced garlic
1 TBSP sesame oil (use olive oil if you don't have sesame.)
1 TBSP peeled and minced ginger root


Mix last four ingredients in a bowl. Put salmon into a foil packet, sprinkle the onions over the salmon and pour the sauce over it all. Seal up the packet and place on a medium hot grill until the fish flakes, about 20 minutes. Totally delicious.

For a really easy meal, put fresh asparagus coated with olive oil into another foil packet and set beside the salmon. They cook in about the same time. We like our asparagus crisp with a sprinkling of kosher salt.