Pumpkin Muffins

Made these delicious pumpkins muffins. The recipe is adapted from this one on Dr. Oz's website.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour, white or whole wheat will do
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 c sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 c chocolate chips- optional

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and set aside. Whisk the sweetener, oil, eggs, and pumpkin puree. Add in the dry ingredients and fold with a spatula until the flour has been absorbed. Place in muffin tins and bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes.  

Our New Snack Favorite

Frozen oranges! We found these triangular wedges are the easiest and most fun way to eat these gems when frozen. We just cut them up, bag them, and toss them in the freezer. Easy to access and eat. So delicious and healthy! Our awesome, adopted Grandma Cheryl (our dear neighbor) first clued us in on this nifty frozen delight.

Fried Zucchini

One of our favorite ways to eat it, especially when served up with some fresh, homemade ranch.

 

Slice your zucchini in strips (this is one medium-large squash)

 

Mix up flour dredge-this one is about 2 c of flour with a couple T of seasoned salt

 

Heat your oil to 350-375 degrees. Dredge your zucchini in the flour mixture, then in milk, then back in the flour. Then fry until golden and crispy.

Applesauce!

My mom has a couple apple trees in her backyard, and this year we decided to use those apples for applesauce-lots and lots of delicious spiced applesauce.

 I peel, core, and slice the apples (with help, as you can see), then put them in my slow cooker. I add a quart of water, 1 t cinnamon, 1 t ginger, and 1/2 t cardamom then let it cook until the apples are perfectly soft. I then put them through a food mill ($1 garage sale purchase-awesome), add 1/2 c sugar and 1/4 c lemon juice, heat to a boil, then can it.

My favorite yellow summer squash recipe

 

Take a couple summer squash (yes, you could use zucchini or patty pan, too)

 

Slice the necks thin and open them up

 

Scoop out the seeds

 

Quarter the halves

 

Slice them up; slice up half an onion; mince a couple cloves of garlic; grab a couple tablespoons of butter

 

Heat up your pan, melt your butter, add your veggies

 

Remember you have snow peas that need some love; throw them in, too; saute until tender; add salt and pepper.

Devour :)

I added this to our lunch meal of buttered/herbed pasta the next day, too, which was delicious. Simple and yummy.

Delicious Problem

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day Dough + hot oil + (cocoa powder + powdered sugar + milk) = DONUTS!

Middle Eastern food night

This was dessert last week, baklava made using Pioneer Woman's recipe. It was delicious, and we had plenty so I was able to freeze some for last minute dessert later. Like usual, though, I can't leave the recipe as is, so I used a combination of walnuts, pecans and sesame seeds and added 1 t of almond extract instead of the 2 t of vanilla. So, so delicious but terribly rich.

This is the za'atar pizza or flatbread. It was pretty much the best loved part of the meal, and will become a staple in our house as it is also super easy. We used a za'atar blend from a local Middle Eastern grocery, and mixed it with olive oil, sesame seeds and salt. Smear all that on flattened pieces of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day basic boule and bake at 450 for about 10 minutes. Fast and super delicious!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Makin'

We made some cookies last week while the Reids were over. Originally, we were going to make a recipe I had found for cheetah cookies to go along with our unit we were working on, but decided they didn't sound nearly as yummy as good old peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. We used this recipe, that I was completely happy with, from the Tasty Kitchen site.

Easy Peasy French Bread

I have used Artisan Bread in 5's recipes a lot the last year or so, but the consistency of the loaves sometimes leaves something to be desired. Depending on my mood, this is an awesome option when I'm feeling like I need something different. This french bread only takes about two hours, start to finish, and is any easy bread to start with at home baking. There isn't a lot of kneading, and it proofs very well. It remains one of my favorite breads.

Easy Peasy French Bread
2 t active dry yeast
1 1/2 c warm water (just lukewarm-should feel about the same temp as your skin)
1 T sugar or honey
2 t salt
1 T melted butter, coconut oil or olive oil
4 c all-purpose flour

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl, and cover with a clean dish towel. Stick it in a relatively draft-free, warm (70 degrees or so) place to rest about an hour, or until doubled in size. Once it is doubled, work the dough into your desired shapes and place on a greased, floured cookie sheet or in loaf pans, and cover again. Let rest and rise about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Bake until lightly browned, 20-30 minutes. Remove, cook and eat.

Homemade Tortillas

Homemade tortillas are so easy. I had been rolling them out by hand for sometime, but about a month ago went ahead and ordered a tortilla press. Holy goodness, did that ever speed up the process. And round tortillas were now a cinch. We use Rick Bayless' recipe and good home rendered lard from our local pork source, Crooked Gap Farm. These are so good. They don't necessarily last as long as the ones you get from the store, and need to be refirgerated after you make them to keep them a little longer, but they are so easy to make and taste so good we rarely have any left to store. They will freeze well, so you could make up large batches and just thaw them when you wanted to use them. The press works for corn tortillas, as well, or if you wanted to have little pie tarts, you could use this to press them out rather than rolling out all the little circles. Crazy awesome and yummy! This post is also being listed at Spain In Iowa's Simple Lives Thursday blog hop. Check it out!

The dough rested and cut into portions

Lining the press with a cut open plastic bag helps dough that might be fragile peel off the press for the griddle. You simply fold the bag over the ball so that no part of the dough is touching the press. Makes clean-up a snap, too!

Make sure your griddle is nice and hot. It shouldn't take but seconds for them to cook. Do not overcook, either, or they'll be too crisp to fold around your food.