Recipes

We’re in Spring Break mode around here and it’s so nice to not have to dress young children and take them to preschool… but yesterday at about 4 pm I came to a screeching halt as my world and children spun around me at rapid speeds. As I tried to prepare our house for Bible study they fought, whined, and made giant messes. Needless to say, I’m thankful for a new day and new beginnings… and no school again!

I’ve been watching the blogosphere make bread for several months now and I was finally tempted to jump onto the bandwagon. I have a friend who has a mill and grinds her own wheat, bakes her own bread and the whole nine yards and when she graciously offered me fresh ground wheat flour I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make something really good out of it! Justin’s always been a fan of oatmeal bread so my friend and I went in search for a good oatmeal bread recipe. We found this one and after reading the reviews I made several changes to it and came up with Whole Wheat Honey Oatmeal Bread {recipe below}.

I wish you could smell it and I really wish you could taste it. It’s fabulous for sandwiches and toasted. And it’s so soft and moist! My friend also graciously loaned me her loaf pans… do you see that they are adjustable? They are fabulous in EVERY way. They’re only 4″ wide so the slices of bread aren’t enormous and I compensated for the narrow width by making the loaves a little longer {10″}. Well I’ve scoured the internet to no avail for expandable loaf pans. She found them in Germany. If anyone over the pond has access to these let me know… or if you know how to search “expandable loaf pan” in German that might help too!

I was so thankful to have 2 helpers who couldn’t resist getting in on the action.

And last but not least, this picture has a story. Sometimes, ok, a lot of times I wear really absurd things. Justin will occasionally threaten to take a picture of me and then tell me he’s going to hijack the blog and post pictures of me. I’ll take care of that for him… here is what I wore all day Sunday after church.

I, personally, see nothing wrong with ivory knee socks and black capri yoga pants, especially when you’re baking bread.

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As for the bread, the recipe online didn’t call for near enough flour {almost 2 cups short}, nor did it call for whole wheat flour. It also called for adding the oatmeal to the top after it had baked… so here’s my revised PDF version of Whole Wheat Honey Oatmeal Bread.

Or if you’d rather copy & paste…

Whole Wheat Honey Oatmeal Bread

yields 2 loaves

Ingredients:

2 cups boiling water

1 cup rolled oats

½ cup honey

2 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons salt

1 (.24 oz) package of active dry yeast

½ cup warm water (110 degrees F)

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

3 ½ to 4 cups bread flour

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons honey

handful of rolled oats

1. In large mixing bowl (stand mixer bowl if you have one), combine boiling water to oats, honey, butter and salt. Let stand 1 hour.
2. In small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
3. Pour the yeast mixture into the oats mixture. Combine wheat flour and bread flour in separate bowl. Add 2 cups of flour mixture to oats mixture and combine well. Continue adding flour mixture to mixing bowl by ½ cup increments until dough pulls together. This will happen when between 5 ½ & 6 cups of flour has been added. You may not need the last ½ cup of flour.
4. When the dough has pulled together, turn it onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Or add your bread hook to your mixer and knead for a few minutes.
5. Lightly oil a large bowl, place dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hr. (I preheat the oven for about 5 minutes then turn it off, make sure it’s warm but not hot and put the bowl in there to rise, this seemed to work best because for this recipe is there is much more flour than yeast).
6. Deflate the dough and turn it onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into two equal pieces and form into loaves. Place in 9 x 5 greased loaf pans and cover with damp cloth & let rise again until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. (I return the pans to the oven for this step too.)
7. Preheat oven to 375. While oven is preheating mix milk and honey together in mug and microwave for about 20 seconds. Brush warm milk mixture over loaves and generously sprinkle with rolled oats.
8. Bake loaves at 375 for 25-30 minutes or until top is golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Let cool before removing from pans.

Dear Friends…
This is a post about 2 fabulous little, fluffy, white things that have pleasantly surprised me this week. But first, I will share that it’s been a rough end of the week.

The Rover has croup. My kids don’t get ear infections but they get croup and they get it at least a couple times a year. And in case you didn’t know, croup can nearly scare the poop out of you. It comes like a thief in the night and almost strangles the air out of a precious sleeping child. It comes with no warning whatsoever. Which means… I’ve been sleeping with Rover… or actually, he’s been sleeping with us. And I listen to his raspy breaths and pray for his little body throughout the night. Last night we had to take him outside for some chilly cold air which really is the best elixir to a sore swollen airway. During the day, if you didn’t hear him cough, you’d think he was fine, as he carries on business as usual. Kids never cease to amaze me with their resiliency.

Yesterday, to help alleviate stress and lack of sleep I thought I’d mix up some lovely, heavenly, soft, melt-in-your-mouth, pillow-y, sweet, snow-like, dusted-in-sugar homemade marshmallows…

And if it didn’t cured me of my motherly exhaustion, it may have added to it, but at this point I’m so delirious it’s hard to say!

I must admit, I’ve always been intimidated by the idea, but honestly, it was so easy and the rewards far outweigh the work & stickiness!

Being the selfless mother that I am, I decided I better taste-test the marshies to make sure no one would get sick on them. The only person who would could get sick on them is me, because I could eat all of them.

This morning I turned them out on a confection sugar/cornstarch dusted cutting board and started with hearts.

… but realized quickly that too much of the good stuff would be wasted. And it’s too good to be wasted in scraps.

So I resorted to large, melt in your mouth, cubes.

In addition to large white marshmallows, we were also pleasantly surprised this morning by fluffy, white, large snowflakes falling on our very southern soil!!

The little rovers were thrilled…

And I feel certain, this little lizard that I saw in my house yesterday is glad to still be inside {nestled in my ferns} and not out in the wintry mix!!

Stay warm, Rovers! The rain is falling now and it’s supposed to turn back to snow this afternoon… we’re watching at the windows with bated breath!!

MARSHMALLOW RECIPE SOURCE:: Homemade Marshmallows by Alton Brown { my favorite food network celebrity! }

PS- I have a white, IKEA fillsta pendant lighton Ebay if anyone is looking for one! It’s the largest one they made— 30″ in diameter. Here’s the LINK to the auction!

A Friday night with friends is worth a Saturday morning in the kitchen.

Our night with friends was wonderful and worth every minute I stood over the sink this morning cleaning up. Especially since there was a young man close by to attend to my every need with such joy.

He’s such a funny little Rover and all I ever want to do is hold him and kiss him. Although, last week he did happen to draw back his little hand and hit me smack in my face {and it wasn’t an accident}. I’m hoping it’s been made clear to him that such behavior is not becoming of a little man. Thankfully he’s yet to try that again.

I didn’t take too many pictures last night of our actual meal. I did snap a few while I prepped. My sweet friends provided the appetizers: prosciutto wrapped asparagus, steamed won-tons, and edamame. We had Rum Slushes as our festive beverage and for dinner: marinated and grilled flank steak, Jasmine rice, baked peaches, a Chinese salad, & whole grain bread. And for dessert, a chocolate sheet cake with vanilla ice cream & whipped cream! All of the recipes are from my mother, who is a wonderful cook! Her easy peaches are a regular around here. The kids love them and we do too!

The baked peaches helped balance out the salty soy flavors from the flank steak and the salad dressing. The recipe is so easy: open a can of halved peaches, place in baking dish, add little syrup from the can, sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 until warm.

The salad is made from Napa {Chinese cabbage} and Bok Choy {another Chinese cabbage that is more like celery but not like celery 🙂 }.

And green onions too.

The best part about the salad is the dressing and yummy crunchy topping which consists of butter, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, slivered almonds, and crushed ramen noodles {without the flavor packet}

The only other picture that I took was of the sheet cake smothered in heavenly chocolate frosting…. mmmm!

The food was good but the fellowship was even better! I’ll include the recipes below. 

::Rum Slush::
Usually this is made with bourbon/whiskey but we used rum instead. And I didn’t follow these instructions below to a t… but this is the recipe I went by! Some variations call for pineapple juice & Sprite.
7 cups water
3 cups rum
12 oz frozen lemonade
6 oz frozen orange juice
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups strong tea {I used decaf and instead of adding the sugar I just lightly sweetened my tea while it was still hot}
Mix all ingredients a day ahead and place in freezer. When ready to serve, take out of freezer and put desired amount in blender for a second or put in a bowl and mix until it is semi-liquified. Serve in old-fashioned glasses.

::Flank Steak Marinade::
1/3 C soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp garlic powder
2 tbs brown sugar
3 tbs honey
2 tbs olive oil
Combine ingredients in small sauce pan and stir until it comes to a boil then remove from heat. Let cool completely before marinating. This recipe will marinate 2 flank steaks, I doubled it for 4 and marinated for about 12 hours in the refrigerator in ziploc bags.

I’m funny about grilling. I’m very much over gas grills. They don’t distribute the heat evenly and only last a couple years before having to replace burners… charcoal is so easy, and if you want consistent heat, it’s the way to go, just make sure all the coals are very white and all the “lighter fluid” is burned off before you put your meat on! We grilled the flank steak for about 6 minutes on each side… some, because of thickness, were medium rare and others medium well.

::Chinese Salad::
1 head of Napa cleaned and chopped
1 stalk of Bok Choy cleaned and chopped {I cut off the very top like I would celery}
1 bunch of green onions cleaned and chopped

::Salad Dressing::
2 tbs soy sauce
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C white wine vinegar
1 C oil {I used extra virgin olive oil}
Add these ingredients to the blender except the oil and blend. While it blends add 1 C of oil. The dressing will likely still separate before serving. Just give it a good shake.

::Crunchies::
1 tbs butter
1/4 C sesame seeds
1/4 C sunflower seeds
1/4 C slivered almonds
1 package of ramen noodles crushed {w/o flavor packet}
Melt butter in large skillet add all ingredients to it until well toasted about 5 or so minutes. Place on parchment or wax paper to cool and keep in airtight container for up to a week. {It will not seem “toasted” until it cools down.}

The Texas Sheet Cake came from my Cook’s Country Cookbook {which I LOVE, thank you Daddy Boy!} but here is the online version, and it unfortunately looks like you have to create a free account to get it. I would copy and paste the recipe here but I’d hate to be hauled off to jail for doing so. Does anyone watch them on PBS on Saturday mornings? It’s a really fun show you should tune in sometime, the girls love to watch it too… and their test kitchen… makes me very happy and I’d like to spend some time there!!

 Ok, see you Rovers soon!

**Diane, I still love my lemons and I think of and pray for you often!