Whole Wheat Orange Cranberry Scones

Whole Wheat Cranberry Orange Scones (dairy-free options in blue)

1 3/4 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
3 Tbsp. sugar
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
5 Tbsp. butter, chilled (or Earth Balance)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup half and half (almond milk or coconut milk)
1 orange (zested and juiced)
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla


*1-3 hours before making the scones, mix together the dried cranberries in the juice and zest of one orange. Set aside until you're ready to make the scones.

Preheat the oven to 425*. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line with parchment.

In the bowl of a food processor, add flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and pulse until blended. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. (This can be done without a food processor in a large bowl using a pastry blender or 2 knives)

In a small bowl, mix together half and half, egg, and vanilla.

Add wet ingredients and cranberries (with any extra juice and zest leftover from soaking) to the food processor and pulse just until a dough forms. Do not over blend. (or add wet ingredients to the bowl of dry ingredients and stir just until a dough forms)

Scoop out dough onto parchment paper lined or greased baking sheet in 1/4 cup amounts, 2 inches apart. The balls of dough should be the size of a large egg. Sprinkle the tops with sugar, if desired.

Bake scones but about 15 minutes or until they're golden brown around the edges. They're best if served warm or within 1 day of baking.

Makes about 10 scones.

Morning Glory Muffins aka. The Best Muffins In the World!

These moist muffins are full of such delicious ingredients. This recipe makes 24 muffins but keep for a few days at room temperature and they freeze beautifully. This is one of the only recipes that I don't alter. It's perfect just as it is. A little sweet and full of flavor.

Just look at all the yummy add-ins!


Morning Glory Muffins

1 1/4 cup sugar (you can use less if you want to... I think I used 3/4 cup)

2 1/4 cup flour (I use either white whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour but all-purpose work too)

1 Tbsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup shredded, sweetened coconut

3/4 cup raisins

1 large apple, peeled and grated

1 cup crushed pineapple, drained

2 cups grated carrot

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

3 large eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350*

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Add the coconut, raisins, apple, pineapple, carrots, and nuts. Stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, and vanilla. Pour into the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir ONLY until combined.

Spoon the batter into muffin tins that have been sprayed with Pam or lined with muffin cups. Fill each one to the top since these muffins don't rise much. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool muffins in the pan for 10 minutes then move to a rack to finish cooling.

Donut Muffins

Another great recipe from King Arthur flour. These muffins taste like the cinnamon sugar coated cake donuts. I ate them from the bottom up... saving the buttery-sugary topping for last.

Here's the recipe from King Arthur and the blog post that shows the how-to. Dipping the warm muffins in butter and then cinnamon sugar was pretty fun. (Like the blue fingernail polish that matches my blue custard cup?)

The only changes I made to these muffins was to substitute whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose, reduce the sugar just a bit, and to use almond milk instead of cow's milk.

Looking at these pictures makes me want to go bake another batch!

Maple Bacon Scones

Any recipe that calls for a pound of bacon gets my attention...

One of my favorite blogs is the King Arthur Flour blog. When the recipe for Maple Bacon Scones appeared one morning, I knew I had to try it. They go into more detail and the how-to in their blog post about this recipe.



I tried baking the bacon and it turned out wonderfully! I just laid out 12 oz of bacon (what is the deal with some packages only having 12 oz instead of 16oz??) on parchment paper and baked it at 350* for about 30 minutes. Yum!



Since I have a really hard time following a recipe exactly, here are the changes I made to the recipe (though I'm sure they'll be great if you follow the recipe exactly)...
-I used 12 oz of bacon instead of 16oz.... next time I'll find a package that has a full pound.
- I used Whole Grain Spelt flour instead of All-Purpose (Whole Wheat Pastry flour would have worked well too)
-I used Maple Syrup instead of sugar since I didn't have maple flavoring or maple sugar. I couldn't really taste much maple flavor in the scones so next time I may buy some maple flavoring.
-I used almond milk instead of regular milk ( I have IBS and my stomach can't handle dairy anymore... except butter... thank heavens for small favors!)
-I sprinkled the top with coarse unrefined sugar since I didn't have maple sugar.



Overall, a great recipe that I can see myself using again. I may try it with ham next time to see how that tastes.

All In A Day's Work....

Monday, we woke up to a toilet that wouldn't stop running. After trying all the things I know to do to stop a running toilet, I trouble-shooted online and decided we had a faulty fill valve. I watched a video on how to replace one and it looked really simple. Evan and I headed off to Lowes at 7:20am and bought a new fill valve for $11. That's my kind of price!
Evan helped me for a few minutes until he decided to watch Finding Nemo with Charlotte.

The fix took me about an hour and it wasn't difficult at all. The toilet is back to working dependably and it feels great to know that I fixed it. Let's see... what else needs to be fixed around here?




On Saturday I went to the farmer's market and brought home these goodies. It's not quite peach or blueberry season here but some farmer's in the sand hills have early varieties and I was happy to pick some up. The blueberries are great but I found the peaches very tart.


I wanted to use the fruit in a pie to take to my Mom and Mark's house Monday evening for a Memorial day dinner.

I used this recipe, substituting whole wheat pastry flour for half of the flour in the crust and all of the flour in the topping. I also use half lard and half butter in the bottom crust. The crust and topping recipes are enough for two pies (though it doesn't say this in the recipe), so I made two pies. I used 1/3 slices peaches and 2/3 blueberries. I increased the cornstarch to 1/3 to insure the filling wouldn't be runny.

Yum! Especially delicious with a big spoonful of whipped cream on top.

I also made a double batch of cornbread to take to Mom's and swirled grated cheddar into half of the batter before baking it. I put the double batch of batter into a 9x13 pan so it made a really tall cornbread. I loved how tall the slices were and will have to do that again in the future... or maybe put a single recipe in a smaller, square pan would give the same result.

Nothing like being able to fix the toilet and doing some baking to make my day. I'm an easy gal to please.

Tomorrow I'll show you what I accomplished in the garden this weekend.

The Food Highlights from Last Week

I haven't been posting as much about food lately since I've been making a lot of the same foods that I've already blogged about. Here are a few new recipes I tried this past week or so...

Charlotte's preschool had a consignment sale and a bake sale so I volunteered to bring cookies. I started with this recipe and tweaked it a bit.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup sugar
2 tsp. molasses
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 large egg
2 cups flour (I used All Purpose but if I were making them for us,I'd use mostly Whole Wheat Pastry flour)
2 cups chocolate chips (all I had were mini chips)

Preheat oven to 375*. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease them.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar molasses, butter, salt, extracts, vinegar, and baking soda, beating until smooth and creamy.

Beat in the egg. Mix in the flour, then the chips.

Use a spoon and scoop Tablespoon sized balls of dough onto the cookie sheet.

Bake for about 11 minutes or until they're nicely golden brown.





Homemade Tortillas using lard...

These were not a great success because they ended up being really dry. I think I tried to add too much white whole wheat flour... or I used too much flour to roll them out. I'll try them again another day and hopefully I'll have a recipe that works out better for me.

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Lasagna with Homemade Noodles

This was so easy! I've made homemade pasta once before but I've never made lasagna with homemade noodles. I found it easier then trying to boil and separate the store bought kind. I used this recipe but I made it in the food processor and used half white whole wheat flour and half semolina flour. The dough came together really easily. After it rested for a bit on the counter, I rolled it out with the pasta maker and put the sheets straight into the lasagna.

The noodles cooked perfectly with everything else. It was a big hit!

Becky's Favorite Rolls (aka: King Arthur Flour "Chain Restaurant Rolls")

I didn't make them into the log shape that they recommended so this recipe made 12 smaller rolls. They taste very similar to Outback Steakhouse's rolls (except I didn't use the caramel coloring that gives their rolls their dark color). These are fantastic! I cut back the honey to 1/3 cup and use mostly White Whole Wheat flour and only a cup of All Purpose flour. They're slightly sweet, soft, and filling. I think I need to make another batch this week.

I forgot to take a few pictures of some other successes this week. These peanut butter cookies are amazing. Too good really... I couldn't stop eating them.

I've also made bread using this great basic recipe this week.

I'll be sure to keep the camera close by this week.

This Week In Food

Wow, I'm really slacking with the blog this week. We've had such wonderful weather that we've been spending a lot of time outside lately. I have a lot to catch up on. I'll start with a post full of food. I like to post the successful new recipes that I try so I can keep track of them. I tend to have a stack of printed out recipes with scribbles all over them with the changes I've made. Posting them keeps them much more organized and readable.


Homemade Ice Cream
adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe

8 egg yolks
2/3 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla

In a large sauce pan, whisk together all of the ingredients except for the vanilla. Stir constantly over medium heat (I switch to a wooden spoon after the sugar is dissolved). Cook until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the wooden spoon. Take the custard off of the heat and stir in the vanilla. Transfer mixture into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap (making sure the plastic wrap touches the top of the custard to avoid a skin forming) Refrigerate until the custard is cold. Pour it into your ice cream maker... simple as that.

I like to freeze ours in small storage containers so no one is tempted to eat the whole batch in one sitting. Though I know no one in this house (Jon) would do that.

Super Easy Peanutty Snack Mix (from the top of the Smuckers Peanut butter)

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup peanut butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. cinnamon

4 cups Cheerios (I used 2 cups honey nut and 2 cups regular)

1 cup peanuts

1 cup mini pretzels (I didn't have any so I used another cup of plain cheerios)

Heat oven to 350* and line a baking sheet with foil.

In a microwave safe bowl, combine butter and peanut butter and microwave until the butter is fully melted. Stir in vanilla and cinnamon.

In a large bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients. Pour the butter mixture on the cereal and mix well. Pour onto the baking pan and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let it cool and store in airtight containers.

**I also added raisins to this mix AFTER baking. This recipe can be really flexible. I think you could probably substitute any similar cereal for the cheerios. I bet Chex would work well. You could change out the peanuts for another nut... or add other dried fruits. I loved how the cereal stayed nice and crunchy even after 5 days.

"See my cheerio?"

Evan is a good cinnamon shaker.

I'm going to be making a double batch of this before we go on our next trip. It would be a perfect car munchy snack.




Oven Roasted Crispy Potatoes

This is more of a method instead of a recipe. I've roasted potatoes before but have never gotten them crispy. I finally have figured out how to oven roast them so the bottoms are nice and golden brown and crispy.

Potatoes (I like Russet for oven roasting)

Olive Oil

Lard

Salt (I used sea salt)

Pepper

Preheat oven to 450*. Cut up the potatoes in large chunks. Put them into a large casserole dish or on a baking sheet. Pour enough olive oil on the potatoes to coat them heavily. Put little bits of lard around in the pan so it'll melt when the pan goes in the oven. I put about a tablespoon total. The lard was the essential crisping ingredient. Sprinkle liberally with salt and as much pepper as you like. Toss the potatoes around so they're coated and bake for 45-60 minutes. (I stirred the potatoes about 10 minutes after I put them in the oven so that the melted lard would be evenly distributed)

I used this same method over the weekend for french fries but cutting the potatoes into spears and laying them in one layer on a baking sheet. YUM!





Mini Fruit Pies

I had leftover pie crust and decided to use it to make mini fruit pies using a muffin tray.

I used a large drinking cup to cut out circles from the pie crust.

I sprayed a muffin pan liberally with non-stick spray and then lined each one with a crust disk.

I still had a quart sized bag of frozen strawberries leftover from last summer so I tossed them with 2 Tbsp. of corn starch, 1/4 cup of sugar, a little cinnamon, a little salt, and a bit of vanilla. I baked them at 400* for about 40 minutes.

Before

After

The cornstarch left a bit of white powder on the tops of the pies but otherwise I was over the moon pleased with these. The juices gelled nicely so that the pies held together and were easy to get out of the pan. Between Jon and I, these only lasted 2 or 3 days. Very, very delicious.




Whole Wheat Banana Bread (adapted from King Arthur Flour recipe)

(I doubled the following recipe so I could freeze one loaf)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

3 very ripe bananas

3 Tbsp. peach jam (or any other slightly tart jam)

2 Tbsp. honey

2 large eggs

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt (because I use salted butter... if you use unsalted butter, use 1 tsp. of salt)

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

Preheat oven to 325* and grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

In a food processor, puree all wet ingredients (butter, sugar, honey, vanilla, jam, bananas, eggs) until smooth.

In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients well. Pour in wet ingredients and stir just until combined but DON'T OVERMIX!

Bake for 45 minutes, lay a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the pan to prevent over browning and the bake for 25 more minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool the bread in the pan for 10 minutes then turn it out onto a rack to cool completely.

*This banana bread is great on it's own but it's heavenly when you toast a slice and top it with plenty of butter.




Peach Pie

Before

After

No recipe to go with this one. I used the same recipe as my apple pie but I used a gallon sized bag full of frozen peaches from last summer. This pie had great flavor but because I left the peaches mostly frozen, the bottom crust didn't get quite done enough. It also leaked all over my oven because the peaches were so juicy. Next time I think I'll let the peaches thaw halfway, drain any extra liquid from them, and definitely put them on the bottom rack of the oven lined with a cook sheet to pick up any spills.

Her cousin, the apple pie behind her, was delicious just the way it was. Miss Apple Pie also didn't leak all over my oven. Not that I'm playing pie favorites....

Honey Wheat Rolls (from King Arthur flour)

I actually didn't change this recipe at all except to make the rolls larger so I could use them as hamburger buns.

These made delicious hamburger buns (they're topped with butter in case you were wondering what that was in the picture). I wanted a softer, potato bread style bun and this was it. I'll definitely be making these again as dinner rolls or hamburger buns.

Lentil Brown Rice Casserole

After reading a few recipes online for various lentil/brown rice dishes, I came up with this one. It was amazing. Jon even loved it and he's not a bean lover like I am. It was healthy, filling, and so inexpensive. It took me 5 minutes to get it ready for the oven. I'm going to be making this a lot more often.

Preheat the oven to 300* (yes, a low oven).

In a 9x13 pan, add the following:

5 cups of chicken stock (I used unsalted homemade stock.. skip the extra salt if you use salted stock)

1 1/2 cups of lentils

1 cup brown rice

1 onion, chopped

3 medium carrots, chopped

1 tsp of salt **see note with the stock.. you may need to reduce the salt**

pepper

Stir all of the ingredients together. Cover with foil. Bake for about 2 hours. You'll know it's done with the broth has been absorbed. Stir in a few tablespoons of butter before serving.

Ginger Snaps (adapted from this recipe)

This recipe makes a lot of cookies. I froze half of the cookies after I baked them.

2 sticks of butter, softened

1/2 cup lard, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup molasses

4 cups flour (I used 3 c. whole wheat pastry & 1 c. All purpose)

4 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

3 tsp. cinnamon

3 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375*.

Cream butter, lard, sugar, and molasses until fluffy. Add eggs one at at time and the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Add dry ingredients to the butter mixture a little at a time until full combined. Put the batter in the fridge to firm up for a few hours.

Roll the dough into balls about an inch around. Be sure to put the cookie balls about 1 1/2 " away from each other since they spread into discs. Bake for about 11 minutes. Cool on a rack.

The cookies on the left were baked for about 12 minutes and are crispy all the way through. The lighter cookies on the right were only baked for about 9 minutes. They were crispy on the edges but chewy in the center. Either way is perfectly delicious.

These have been a hit around here. They're spicy, a bit sweet, and wonderfully crisp.

Well, I'm hungry now... how about you?

Last Week In Food

This has been a busy week in the kitchen. To continue my effort to make more foods from scratch, therefore eating fewer processed foods, I kept the oven busy this week. Here's what we've been eating.

Homemade Hamburger Buns. This is a good recipe. I'm not going to call it my favorite yet since I'm looking for a softer, almost potato bread type bun. That might be hard to attain though since I want to use mostly whole wheat flour. I skipped the onion powder and bagel seasoning since I didn't have either.

The buns spread outward as well and upward while rising so I had to make our local ground beef into very thin, wide burgers. They were delicious!

These bagels were a bust. I was so excited to make homemade bagels but I think between not letting them rise quite enough and by using only whole wheat flour, they turned out more like chewy hockey pucks. I tossed these and I'll experiment with other recipes and post the keeper recipe. Feel free to suggest a recipe if you know of one that is a winner.

Mmmmm... more graham crackers. I cut them out using spring inspired cookie cutters.


These graham crackers never last long around here.

We eat breakfast for dinner about once a week around here. This was a busy weeknight dinner of local eggs, homemade bread toasted with homemade jam, and homemade strawberry applesauce. It took me about 10 minutes to make dinner and it's a whole lot healthier and cheaper then fast food or ordering take out.

Charlotte helped me make pudding popsicles this weekend. We made vanilla ....

and chocolate using the pudding recipes found here. I make up a bag of mix and keep it in the pantry so I can make pudding whenever we get a craving. It's not as rich as an custard based pudding but it's still delicious. The kids love it. I need to pick up more popsicle molds at the store this summer. (pouring the cooked pudding into a spouted measuring cup makes it much easier to pour into the mold)

I was looking up local food co-ops and buying clubs after reading about how much money they can save you on The Inadvertent Farmer blog. The Deep Roots Market was the only thing I came up with in my search. It's about 25 minutes away so the kids and I headed there on Saturday morning while Jon with with his high school band kids at All State try-outs.

I was hoping to find bulk grains, nuts, flours, etc. at a great price to be able to stock up. Unfortunately, I found a very small, jam-pack store that in many ways was just like Whole Foods in price. Everything was MUCH more expensive then I could afford. The boxed cereal was at least $2.00 more per box then I can find at a regular grocery store. The flours and grains were no bargain. I'm fully willing to pay a bit more for healthy food but I'd go broke buying from stores like this.

We left Deep Roots and headed to the farmer's market. They have an indoor space where vendors set up year round. I have a favorite shop at the farmer's market, J & S Farms, that is struggling to make ends meet right now. He usually carries every kind of flour and grain you can imagine, mostly local and all milled locally, but he can't put in a grain order because he's only making enough to pay the rent on the space. He carries local meats, cheeses, eggs, milk, and a little bit of anything you could imagine. If you're local, please consider shopping at the farmer's market to help keep these small family farms/businesses afloat.

I did end up picking up some organic sugar, semolina flour, roasted peanuts, local honey, and a butternut squash.

It was so beautiful on Saturday that we got to eat our lunches outside. The pudding (leftover from making popsicles) was the first thing to be eaten.

I made eight loaves of bread. I'm using 100% whole wheat flour now (mostly white whole wheat
) and I need to learn to let it rise a bit longer since the loaves came out a bit shorter then they usually do. I put it in the freezer to be taken out as we need them.

I made pizza the other day with more of the local sausage. I made small pizzas for the kids and a larger one for Jon. When I got to making mine, I decided to make it into a calzone of sorts. I rolled out the dough, spread out pizza sauce on half and sprinkled it with sausage, sealed up the little pocket, and baked it at 400* until it looked done. It was AMAZING! I can't wait to make more!

These are supposed to be homemade crunchy pretzels. I say "supposed to be" because they didn't work. I think I had the same problems that I had with the bagels. I used White Whole Wheat flour and didn't let them rise enough to combat the density that can happen with whole grains. I also didn't bake them long enough so they came out dense and slightly chewy/crunchy. The flavor was really good though so I'll give these another shot soon with using a little All Purpose flour mixed with my Whole Wheat and let it rise more before boiling them.

These are Pumpkin Gingerbread muffins. YUM!!!! These are now my second favorite muffin after my apple butter muffins.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins (adapted from a King Arthur's Flour recipe)

3/4 c. butter, melted

1/4 c. sugar

1/4 c. honey

3 Tbsp. molasses

2 cups pumpkin puree (or a 15oz. can)

3 eggs

2 3/4 C. Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (you could use A.P. if you want)

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. ground ginger

Preheat oven to 350*

Spray about 20 muffin cups with Pam or line them with muffin cups.

In a large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients. In a small bowl, mix together all of the wet ingredients. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir ONLY until just combined. DO NOT OVER MIX. Fill muffin cups 2/3 of the way to the top. Bake until toothpick comes out clean (~20 minutes).

And finally, last night I put chili in the crock pot to cook all day since I used dried beans. I used a combination of kidney and black beans that I had soaked overnight. I added corn at the last minute. I used my cast iron skillet to bake/fry some corn cakes using my cornbread recipe. I made sure to put plenty of butter in the skillet before adding the batter. They were delicious!! I'll definitely be making them that way more often. Charlotte has requested the leftover corn cakes for dinner again tonight.

I have loved the added baking and cooking that I've been doing lately. I've found the challenge of making more from scratch to be very therapeutic for me. It gives me a creative outlet and I find it a lot of fun to search for recipes. I wonder what I'll make this week....