recipes

A few people asked me yesterday to post the recipes for the dishes I mentioned in my blog yesterday, so here they are!  For the bread, I used my Sunbeam bread maker and my Nutrimill grain mill.

Whole Wheat Bread (makes two loaves)
Place in your bread machine in this order:

2 cups warm water
1/4 cup of soft butter
1/8 cup molasses
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp sale
5 1/2 cups flour (I used 4 cups of freshly ground wheat flour and 1 1/2 cups white flour
3 tsp bread machine yeast

Set your breadmaker on the dough setting.  When it is done, take the dough out and divide it in two. Slap the dough a few times to get the air bubbles out, then shape them into loaves and put it in your bread pans (in my opinion, Pampered Chef stoneware loaf pans are the best you can buy).  Bake at 350 for 23 minutes.  When done, remove from the pans and spread butter over the tops of the loaves.  Let cool a bit before cutting.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup shortening (I used butter and olive oil)
1 cup peanut butter (I used Jiff's natural)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour (I used freshly milled wheat)
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla (I used The Bakers Scoop - twice as expensive, but you only use half as much)
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup chocolate morsels (Ghirardelli is the kind Tommy can have)

Cream the wet ingredients, then add the dry ingredients.  Drop by heaping teaspoons onto the cookies sheet (again, Pampered Chef stoneware is the best) and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

My chicken soup uses whatever I have on hand.  Yesterday was chicken, lots of it, as I needed to use the rest in the fridge, chicken stock left over from when I cooked the chicken a few days ago, left over mashed potatoes, frozen corn and frozen vegetables, lots of salt and pepper and garlice, rosemary from my flower bed and a little fresh cream at the end.  Just keep tasting until it tastes like you want it.

We also drink a LOT of smoothies.  I try to always have frozen fruit on hand.  I put it in the blender and then mix in whatever else I feel like that day: 7 up before Tommy went on his diet, or milk, yogurt, juice, even ice cream.  We LOVE smoothies!!

Let me know if you try any of these!

Here's Mary Susannah making butter outside: