Monthly Archive for September, 2008

Despite How It May Seem…

Published on September 25, 2008 in Home Life. 3 Comments

I’m still alive. Just busy as bees around these parts. I have taken lots of pictures the past couple of weeks of various things I’ve been up to in the kitchen to include canning. Lots and lots of canning. It’s nice to know that skill, and it is really pretty simple, just a lot of sweaty work. We also bought some wheat from a farmer friend at our church, and I had been busy grinding some wheat into flour with a borrowed grain mill. David did a lot of the work. He had the day off from work to get some school stuff done, but he ended up helping me an awful lot in the kitchen, even shredding some cheese (one of my least favorite things to do) for lunch later on. He should take days off more often! Anyway, I will, Lord willing, be posting pictures of my adventures here in the next few days. I have taken so many that it will probably take me awhile to load them all on here. But I am really excited to share them.

For now, since it’s getting late and I still have some housework to do, I will refer you to a really great blog I found the other day. The lady’s name is Laura and her blog, called Heavenly Homemakers, is not only enjoyable to read, but she has some great recipes and lots of other helpful information as well. She also has some e-books you can purchase I used her pizza crust recipe tonight for dinner. I was really intrigued because it only had four ingredients, and not all of them were your standard pizza crust ingredients either; just flour, salt, yogurt, and butter. But wow! It was SO good! The kids really liked it too. I will admit, I was a bit surprised that it called for a cup of butter, but my friend, Cara, gave it rave reviews so I decided to give it a try. I was able to use my freshly ground flour! The dough ended up being soft and very easy to handle. I have trouble sometimes with whole wheat dough because it’s usually harder to work with. This dough, on the other hand, was great! One thing I will do next time is bake it a little before I put all the toppings on as it was kind of difficult to tell when the pizza was done. The crust ended up being a softer, moister crust, maybe from the butter. It really was great. One thing about it is that it is very filling as well, probably because of all the fiber and the higher fat content.

I should have taken pictures BEFORE we ate but maybe taking an after picture will just show you how much we liked it because of how little is left. The pizza below was made with a homemade pizza sauce, hamburger, onions, jalapenos, and cheese of course. It was really good as you can see.

hamburger, onion, jalapeno, and cheese pizza

This next pizza was made with leftover, cut up steak from some burritos the other day, jalapenos, mushrooms, and onions. The sauce was actually Alfredo sauce, just to boost the fat content a little in case we weren’t getting enough :) We still have quite a bit left over. I could have gotten away with just fixing one pizza, but then we wouldn’t be enjoying it tomorrow.

steak, onion, mushroom, jalapeno, and cheese pizza with alfredo sauce

I’ll leave you with that, to tempt your tastebuds a bit. Goodnight!

Harvest Time and Chipotle Burritos

Published on September 2, 2008 in Home Life. 3 Comments Tags: .

Last week was a busy week. I got oodles (since Firefox didn’t underline that word with a little red squiggly, I’m totally using it) of peaches! We have a neighbor across the street who very kindly let us pick some off her tree. On top of that, a dear man from church gave us peaches from his trees as well. Last Saturday, I was on my feet nearly all day. It was fun/exhausting. My friend, Cara, posted pictures of her baking spree. She makes her own crusts. I don’t. I’ve accepted my flaw. :) I didn’t take any pictures, and all the things I’ve made are now nice and cold in my deep freezer. But! I was able to get some apples today because right next door to the peach tree was an apple tree and some more kind neighbors! I am not sure what I’ll make but a pie or two sounds yummy, maybe some apple butter. The things I made last Saturday are peach muffins (used peach puree that I made in the food processor), applesauce muffins (from homemade applesauce), and peach crisps. I also made fruit leather (think fruit roll-ups) and dried peaches. The only problem was that I let them dehydrate for too long and the driedpeaches are more like peach chips and the fruit leather was a bit chewy. Lesson learned. I’m thinking of trying my hand at canning too. I love this time of year. Tomorrow the high temperature is only supposed to be in the 60s. Sounds like a soup day!

Here is the recipe for the applesauce muffins and peach muffins I made. I used the same recipe for both but substituted the peach puree for the applesauce when I made the peach muffins. I also inadvertently made the applesauce muffins fat free. I put the margarine in the microwave to melt…and forgot it. David came into the kitchen and made the comment that it smelled like popcorn. I thought that was weird. Until he opened the microwave. By that point, my muffin batter was already nicely poured into the muffin tins, awaiting their time in the oven. Whoops. They still worked though.

Easy Applesauce Muffins

  • 6 tablespoons butter
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups chunky applesauce

Directions

  1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with bake cups and set aside.
  2. In a small microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter on high for about 30 to 60 seconds; set aside to cool slightly.
  3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into a large mixing bowl. When mixing dry and wet ingredients for muffins, gently stir just until the flour disappears. This will produce muffins with a nice crumbly texture.
  4. In another large bowl, whisk together the eggs and brown sugar. Stir in the applesauce and melted butter until the mixture is smooth. For mess-free muffins, use an ice-cream scoop to spoon the batter into the bake cups.
  5. Pour the apple mixture over the flour mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon until combined (it’s ready when you can’t see any traces of flour).
  6. Fill the bake cups about two-thirds full with batter. Bake for 20 minutes or until light brown.

On a side note, our dinner challenge is going great! We have less than 5 weeks left and have really tried to stick to our guns. On Monday, before my adventures in baking, some friends of ours bought us some Chipotle. For those of you who don’t know, Chipotle is THE BEST. Seriously, you need to find one. Now. Go. It’s too good to pass up. *waits patiently while you go get your burrito* See what I mean! I knew you’d thank me! We hadn’t been able to have Chipotle in quite awhile because of our dinner challenge so we were really looking forward to it. And it was good, my friends. Really good. So good that I ate all of it and wished I hadn’t. It was obvious I haven’t had a burrito from Chipotle in a long time.

I better wrap this one up. Until we meet again, adieu.