Category Archives: In my kitchen

recipes, tips,and knowledge gleaned over years of preparing thousands of meals

Easiest and most versatile whole wheat bread dough recipe

Posted on 06/14/2013 | Comments Off

We make this recipe as its easy and versatile. We can make loaves of bread, rolls, pizza dough, or bread sticks from this recipe. I don’t have a heavy duty mixer or bread machine, so this has been the easiest recipe I’ve ever made for minimal amount of work.

3 c hot water
6 T oil
2 T honey
1 1/2 T yeast
8 c white whole wheat flour
2 1/4 t salt

First use hot tap water and pour into your bowl. The water should be pretty hot, not scalding as it will kill your yeast but enough so that it activates it.

Sprinkle the yeast over the water

Add the honey to your yeast and water

Whisk it to combine the ingredients

Let sit for about 5 minutes until bubbly

Add your oil, we use coconut oil–have to melt it then add, but you can use canola oil as well

Next add your salt

Then add your flour, not all at once or you will have a mess

Just add a cup at a time, you can either whisk by hand

and continue to keep whisking until your whisker gets clogged

or you can use a hand mixer and do a cup at a time until your beaters get clogged. Beat for at least 3 minutes. The longer you beat, the better the elasticity of your dough.

Either way it will all turn out the same in the end. At the point where you have to start doing it by hand, I like to knead it directly in the bowl, to avoid making a mess on my counter tops. Knead for about 2-3 minutes. Don’t know how to knead bread dough? Check this out.

Then grease another bowl and put your dough into it, turning once and let sit till double in size. You can keep punching it down until you are ready to make something out of it.

Form it into pizza dough, bread, rolls, calzones, or bread sticks. Very easy and versatile.

Here is a picture tutorial to teach you how to form a loaf of bread.

Bake 350 for 30 min.

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Posted in breads, In my kitchen

Tagged bread, kitchen

Popover recipe a blast from the past

Posted on 06/13/2013 | 1 comment

Little Women has to be one of my all time favorite classic books. Besides the fact that I was named after two of the characters Amy and Jo, the nostalgia of the movie is something I seek after. I love seeing all the girls crowded around their Marmee, enjoying her telling them a story and seeing women dressed in the feminine ways that God intended for us. Its a time period that has been somehow lost in our society.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is where the girls come running down the stairs to a kitchen for their Christmas breakfast. The smells are tantalizing and the girls are longing after all the wonderful foods that they have gone so long without due to the war.

Amy speaks up and says “Oh Marmee, popovers, they are simply divine!” After that my children and I decided to look up popovers and how to make them. We have tried various recipes over the years and tweaked them a bit and have come up with the following easy recipe, which we love.

These taste amazing plain, with butter, or a dab of homemade strawberry jam. We don’t have an official popover pan but just use our muffin tins and they turn out fine every time. Make sure to grease your pans thoroughly so that it does not stick.

2 eggs, room temperature
2/3 cup of milk
2 T butter melted
2/3 cup flour
1/8 teaspoon of salt

This recipe makes 6 popovers, we usually quadruple this for 24 popovers.

Preheat oven 425 degrees

crack your room temperature eggs into a bowl

add your milk

then your flour–we use white whole wheat flour

and your salt

we don’t own a microwave–another post on that later, so our butter has been melting in the oven while adding the other ingredients, so that goes in last

mix on medium speed till well blended, will be real watery

make sure that you grease your tins very well, or these will not turn out, I just use cooking spray, but have used butter wiped on as well.

pour into the muffin tins, or you can get “real” popover pans in the store, but these work just fine

little messy, letting the younger children fill them:) They need to be about 3/4 full to ensure perfect puffiness

Bake 20-30 minutes, this is what they will look like

nice and puffy as soon as they are out of the oven, but they will start to relax soon afterwards and the tops will collapse inward.

Its best served right away, to ensure the most delectable flavor

They are great plain, you can put a dab of butter on top or some of my children love strawberry jam on them.

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Posted in breads, In my kitchen

Tagged breads, kitchen

homemade spinach dip

Posted on 06/12/2013 | 1 comment

* Frozen chopped spinach
* 16 oz sour cream
* 1 cup salad dressing
* Can water chestnuts
* Packet ranch mix
* 2 green onions

Thaw spinach and squeeze out excess water. You can use the smaller boxes or the larger family size bags depending upon how much spinach you like for your family.

Add sour cream

Add salad dressing

Chop up water chestnuts and add

Slice green onions and add

Add one packet ranch mix

Mix and let refrigerate for few hours.

Serve with homemade cheesy crackers, pretzels, or raw veges.

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Posted in In my kitchen, snacks

Tagged kitchen, snacks

Homemade cheese crackers

Posted on 06/11/2013 | 12 comments

My children love goldfish crackers. How tempting it is to have that as a staple in our pantry because it is so easy to just grab. Most mother’s probably don’t give a second glance to the ingredients, I know I never did. As my quest to eating simpler and healthier continues I try and find alternatives to those favorite processed items. This is a super easy and delicious alternative to cheesy snack crackers.

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt or salt free seasoning
6 tablespoons room temp butter

cut up your stick of butter

Place the butter into your food processor

Add your flour and salt

Add your shredded cheese

Pulse your food processor until you get a ball of dough

Roll out dough 1/4 inch thick on a floured surface.

Slice into crackers or cut out shapes with a cookie cutter.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-17 minutes.

Great served with spinach dip.

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Posted in breads, In my kitchen

Tagged breads, kitchen, snacks

Potato bacon chowder soup and mess free crackers

Posted on 06/06/2013 | 12 comments

We all need more hours in our day. Preparing and serving meals takes up much of that time. Soup is a great time saving meal, that is enjoyed by all. I love having a big pot of soup simmering on the stove all day, served with a nice fresh loaf of homemade bread–unfortunately today was not a homemade bread making day, so we served it with crackers, still just as good. You can modify this depending upon the size of family you are serving. This makes one large pot, enough for our dinner plus lunch the next day.

Start by peeling and dicing 10 lbs of potatoes.

When your hand has fallen off, from peeling and dicing all of those:)its time to move on.

Add a package of bacon bits to your pot, you can also fry up a package of bacon, but I am looking at the ease right now.

You can then add some diced onions, I didnt have any on hand, but did have some dehydrated ones that will do the trick. We added 2 Tablespoons, or you can dice up a whole onion, depending upon what your likes are.

Fill your pot almost up to the top with water and add some chicken bouillon to taste. I added about 6 Tablespoons, but you can add however much your family enjoys.

Cook on medium heat until all your potatoes are tender.

Then it is time for your thickener. I like to use instant potato flakes, baby rice cereal(yes if you have lots of leftovers from babies like we do) or today I am using leftover mashed potatoes that I have previously frozen.

Place it in your pot and slowly stir away. It should start to thicken in the next few minutes. Start by adding about 1/3 of the box of instant potato flakes, baby cereal or 2 cups of mashed potatoes. Then as the soup thickens you can add more depending upon how your family likes it.

After it is all heated and thickened, add a 16 oz container of sour cream and stir. Don’t boil the soup any longer or the sour cream will separate.

Ladle into soup bowls and garnish with green onions.

Here are the “lower half” children’s soup

Our children really like saltine crackers crushed into their soups. But with 6 little ones all crushing crackers at the table, it can get very messy real quick.

Here is what we do to solve that. Take a package of crackers.