January Temptation

Now that January is here and we are all determined to eat healthier and exercise more, I'm finally going to post our Christmas cinnamon roll recipe. Just keep it in mind for next year, or for some Saturday morning when you're feeling like indulging.

We have had cinnamon rolls for breakfast every Christmas since we've been married. I used to use a recipe that my great grandma made, but it was difficult to follow as much of it was just the ingredients and not the actual amount. Then, a few years ago I found this recipe in a Taste of Home magazine. I've altered it a bit to add in whole grains and we love it.

Whole Wheat Mini Maple Cinnamon Rolls

2/3 cup milk, heated to 115 degrees
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons gluten
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Filling
1/2 cup sucanat
2 tablespoons white whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons cinnamon
6 tablespoons cold butter

Maple Icing
1 cup confectioner's sugar
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 to 2 teaspoons milk

Combine milk and yeast and let sit until bubbly. In a mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine flour, gluten, and salt. Mix in butter. While mixing, add in egg, maple syrup, and yeast mixture. Mix several minutes until it comes together as a soft dough. Divide dough in half and roll each half into two rectangles. In a small bowl, combine sucanat, flour, and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles a thick paste. Divide the mixture and press onto each rectangle. Prepare to get messy because this is best done with your hands. Once the mixture is evenly spread over dough, roll up jelly-roll style and pinch the seam to seal. Cut each roll into 12 slices and place in a greased 9x13 pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. If they brown too quickly, place a piece of foil lightly over the top and continue baking until done. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. In a small mixing bowl, combine confectioner's sugar, syrup, butter, and enough milk to achieve desired consistency. Spread over warm rolls.

Christmas Baking

It just doesn't feel like Christmas around here without a week spent baking up all sorts of goodies. I may have gotten a bit overly ambitious this year and done a few too many types of goodies, but it was fun and they have been super yummy. I will say that yesterday I bagged up all the rest and sent them to work with Matt because I just kept eating them. Too much snow and too many Christmas cookies can just be, well, too much sitting and eating. :-)

My grand experiment for this year was to make all my cookies using absolutely no white flour. I recently discovered white spring wheat and have been grinding it and I'm finding that it's great for substituting in just about anything that calls for white flour. White whole wheat flour can also be found preground in most grocery stores. Still has all the benefits of being whole wheat, but it's a bit milder than the more traditional red wheat. We gave them away to neighbors and Matt's coworkers and I don't think anyone even knew their cookies were whole wheat.

One of my favorite recipes was out of a Taste of Home cookbook I have. I followed the directions exactly except that I subbed whole wheat flour for all purpose flour. They turned out great and were super cute. You can find the recipe here.


My other favorite recipe for this year was a sugar cookie recipe passed on to me by one of my Bible Study leaders from San Antonio. Once again I subbed whole wheat flour for the all purpose flour and I also used sucanat instead of refined sugar. Of course they look a lot darker that your typical sugar cookie, but they tasted fantastic!

Here's the recipe:

Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies

1 c. butter, softened

1 c. sucanat

1 large egg

1/2 t. vanilla extract

1 t. almond extract

2 t. baking powder

3 c. white whole wheat flour

Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl. This takes a little extra creaming when using sucanat. Add the egg and extracts and beat well. Mix in the baking powder and then add in the flour one cup at a time. Divide your dough in half and roll into two logs. Slice cookies and place on cookie sheet. bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes or until barely browned.

For the icing, combine 1/4 cup butter with 1/2 t vanilla extract and 1/2 t almond extract. Beat in 2 cups powdered sugar and 1-2 T. milk. Adjust the amount of sugar and milk until you reach your desired consistency. If using colored sugars for decorating, sprinkle them on immediately after frosting the cookies as the icing will quickly form a crust.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

Well I haven't been great about keeping up this blog, and now I'm being lazy and just repeating an old recipe that's on our family blog, but perhaps I'll have some new recipes to share in the future. I'm finding that because I'm so non regimented in my cooking, I don't always do a very good job of measuring the things I add or subtract from a recipe. The result of that is that I often make things that turn out yummy, but I can never repeat them exactly because I just dumped in a little of this and a little of that. So, I have several recipes that I'm needing to keep better track of so I can post them. Hopefully soon. But for now, enjoy some pizza!

Whole Wheat Pizza - Makes one large pizza or 4-5 personal size pizzas


1 1/2 Tbsp yeast
1 c warm water
3 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 T wheat gluten
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried marjoram
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 c olive oil


Combine yeast and water with a drizzle of honey to activate. In a mixer, combine flour, gluten, spices, salt, and Parmesan cheese. Mix well. Combine oil and yeast mixture, then add to flour mixture. Knead in mixer until dough forms and is soft and pliable. Remove from mixer and let stand 30 minutes.

Roll out and shape as desired. Lately I've been dividing it into four or five personal sized pizzas just for fun. Bake in the oven at 425 for 7-10 minutes (time depends on pizza size). Remove from oven and add sauce, toppings, and cheese. Place back in the oven and cook until the cheese is melty and slightly browned.

More Fall Goodness

Yesterday I made a trip to the local apple orchard. There is just nothing like a good crisp apple straight from the orchard. I've always associated apples with fall, but for the past 7 years, I have not had a good apple in the fall. I was never able to find that orchard fresh crisp tart/sweet combo in an apple while we were in Texas. So yesterday and today have been major apple eating days. I bought a ton, but I may have to head back up and get some more at the rate we all I have been eating them.

So today's cooking experiment included finding a good caramel apple dip for all these yummy apples. Not that they need dip, but I just love apples and caramel. I have this memory from growing up of combining caramel ice cream topping with cream cheese and it was amazing, so I was looking to recreate that. Unfortunately caramel ice cream topping in the store is really nothing but corn syrup and hydrogenated oil, so I did a hunt and came up with a recipe to make my own. I think it's even better than what I remembered from growing up. Now if I can restrain myself from eating it too quickly.

Caramel Cream Cheese Apple Dip

1/2 cup sucanat or brown sugar

2 1/2 Tablespoons water (omit 1/2 T if using brown sugar)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 Tablespoon salted butter

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

In a heavy sauce pan, combine sucanat, water, and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until it is bubbly and beginning to thicken. (About 6 minutes total cook time.) Remove from heat and stir in cream and butter. Stir until the mixture is smooth. Pour into a bowl and stir in the vanilla. Let mixture cool for about an hour. Place cream cheese block in the caramel mixture and beat with hand mixer until smooth. Serve with your favorite apples.

Pumpkin Pancakes

It has been seven years since I've experienced the cool crisp mornings and cool evenings that come with Indiana fall. It feels to me like this has been an unusually warm fall with many days still in the 80's, but the nights have been cool and we've had several cool days as well, so fall food has been calling to me. I got a huge pumpkin at the farmer's market last week and cooked it up. It actually turned out not to be that great for cooking as my huge pumpkin only yielded 4 cups of pumpkin puree, but it's still very tasty, so it's time for some pumpkin pancakes. This recipe is a repost from my family blog, but it's so yummy I thought it was worth reposting here. If you prefer not to use 100% whole wheat, you can substitute some white flour and cut the eggs and oil in half.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Griddle Cakes

1 3/4 Cups + 1 heaping Tablespoon whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoon Sucanat or brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 Cup milk
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons olive oil or melted butter
3/4 Cup pureed pumpkin

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together and stir into dry ingredients just until all is moist. Drop by spoonful onto hot griddle. Serve with butter, unsweetened whipped cream, chopped pecans, honey, peanut butter, or real maple syrup and enjoy!

Rustic No Knead Whole Wheat Bread

I'm pretty sure I've been making bread off and on since getting married. I started off using a recipe that was 2/3 white flour and 1/3 wheat. It was a delicious recipe, but as I've learned more about healthy eating, I've been trying to find a good recipe that uses 100% whole wheat flour. It's been a bit of a frustrating process. I had a recipe that we all liked, but it usually got crumbly if it wasn't used very quickly. Then another recipe was never consistent and often came out with huge holes in the middle. I tried my hand at sour dough for a while and while it was delicious bread, the time it took to care for my starter and then make the actual bread was just too much. I mean making bread in and of itself is a time commitment. If it weren't for the hefty price tag of over $3 a loaf (and that's cheap for good bread), I would just buy bread from a local bakery here, but I just can't justify that long term. And well, I just don't really like the bread off the shelf from the store. So, it was simply necessary for me to find a good recipe. And I did! Everyone has different desires for their bread. We like ours to be fairly dense and hearty, but not crumbling apart. This recipe is just that. It reminds me of those delicious whole grain baguettes you can get with your meal from Panera Bread. It's perfect for toast, sandwiches, and even makes great bread crumbs. And the best part, (aside from the taste) is that it requires no needing or double rising. It goes directly from being mixed to the bread pan with no rising needed in between. Delicious and fast. What more could you want?

Rustic No Knead Whole Wheat Bread

5 1/3 cups water
4 teaspoons honey
8 teaspoons yeast
1/3 cup + 1 Tablespoon honey
10 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons ground flax meal
1/4 cup millet (optional, but it gives it more of that rustic crunch)
2 Tablespoons oats

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.Combine water, yeast, and 4 teaspoons honey and let sit until the yeast is dissolved and the mixture is foamy. Stir remaining honey into yeast mixture and stir until dissolved. In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine 5 cups flour with salt, flax, and millet. Pour in a little more than half the water mixture and mix until well combined. Alternate remaining water with remaining 5 cups of flour and mix well until dough is evenly mixed. The dough will be very wet and elastic like. Grease three 9x5 bread pans well and divide the bread dough between them. Let dough sit in a warm place until just more than doubled in size. Carefully place bread in the oven and cook for 30-35 minutes. I usually cover the loaves lightly with foil after 20 minutes to avoid over darkening. Bread is done when it has a hollow sound when tapped. Cool completely before storing.

Moroccan Curried Lentil Soup

One of my favorite things about living where we do is the weekly farmers market and the fresh vegetable stands. Since moving here, we have had raw milk cheese, fresh green beans and potatoes, to die for peaches, my favorite flat leaf kale (which is unavailable at any grocery store here), range fed chicken, and grass fed beef. I love eating healthy (not all the time of course) and I love the idea of purchasing most of our food from locally grown and raised sources. Both because I like the idea of supporting local farmers, and because most of them use little or no pesticides in their growing process. However, this is a very expensive way to eat and my frugal side just can't justify it. I do not want to have to have only the best and I don't want healthy eating to become an idol, so I'm looking for what that balance is. I haven't found it yet, but in the search, and in trying to justify spending $2.69 a pound for free range whole chicken, I have been looking for yummy but nourishing meat free meals to have several times throughout the month. I have this theory that it would be better for us to eat less meat and have that meat be good quality, than to eat meat at every meal. So, all that rambling to say that I discovered a delicious and frugal lentil soup recipe yesterday and thought I'd share it. It came from the Schwarzbein Principle Cookbook, but I did lot of tweaking, so I'm sharing my tweaked version. It's a little bit spicy with hints of fresh ginger and cilantro.

I didn't feel like a salad last night, so instead I chopped up some fresh spinach and stirred it into my soup. It was delicious!

Moroccan Curried Lentil Soup
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large red onion, diced
2 minced garlic cloves
2 stalks celery diced
2 large carrots, diced
2 zucchini diced
3-4 teaspoons cumin
3-4 teaspoons curry powder - this depends on the hotness of your curry and how spicy you want your soup
2 cups dry lentils
8 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
2 Tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and finely minced - this is a key flavor, so dried ginger just won't work
1 cup medium salsa
1/2 - 2/3 cup finely chopped cilantro
1 1/2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
fresh ground black pepper to taste
1-2 teaspoons salt (omit if using canned broth with salt in it)

In a large soup pot, heat butter until melted. Add onion, garlic, and celery and saute until softened. Add carrots, zucchini, cumin, curry powder, and salt and saute another five minutes. Add the lentils, chicken broth, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and let cook over low to medium heat for 40 minutes or until lentils are tender. Add ginger, salsa, cilantro, and pepper. Stir to incorporate the flavors and then add lemon juice. Let stand 5 minutes and then taste and adjust seasonings as desired. This soup is delicious served with buttered whole wheat toast (recipe for that coming soon).