Cozy Living

Fresh Bread is Here Again

Hello, bread.  Welcome back.  We've missed you.  I've missed the yeasty aroma turning our house into a home.  The boys have missed you, too, as evidenced by their cries of, "fresh bread! fresh bread!" when they first smelled you baking and then saw you on the counter.  Mmmm...you're making a welcome return to our home.

Unless you've perused the archives you will not know that my first loaf of bread was only about six months ago.  Now, I'm going to warn you, if you don't have a strong stomach, please avert your eyes, because here she is:

The saddest part is my conversation with myself as I looked at it, which went something like this: "Well, it smelled good, and it is homemade, so I know it might be a bit lumpier than storebought bread.  It doesn't look right, but I did it just like I was supposed to.  Hmmm...Maybe it's supposed to look like this?"  Let me assure you, that, no, homemade bread is not supposed to look like this.  It wasn't long ago, but it's certainly worth seeing, as I can guarantee you've never seen another loaf like it in your life.  But everyone has to start somewhere, right?  And I can just picture those of you non-bread-makers out there seeing my first loaf and thinking, "well if that's how she started, then gosh darn it, I've got to at least be better than her!" And more power to you.  Please, do, make a loaf of your own.  When you get around to making your first edible loaf, it's so, so addicting. (Of course, some of us take longer than others to get there.)  And if you have any confidence left in me after six months of breadmaking since this beauty, you'll find our recipe here, if you're looking for a good whole wheat loaf, which is perfect for cutting into thick slices (I think homemade bread just deserves generous servings, don't you?) and for spreading with butter or jam.  We make it with about 2.5 c. whole wheat flour and .5 c. white bread flour these days.  I'm always looking for ways to up the whole wheat factor.

And a few other little tidbits: -on the counter in the first photo: more zucchini and bananas for making even more whole wheat zucchini banana bread today.  White flowers to take tomorrow as a housewarming gift to my sister in her new downtown digs.  That beautiful striped wood breadboard we bought in Seattle this spring. And the pumpkin butter, an impulse buy at Trader Joe's, just because it seemed like the fall-ish thing to do (although it smells quite spicy, now that I've opened it...hmmm. What shall we do with it?)

-and down below, my boys enjoying our fresh bread on the front porch.  With cloth napkins, which I have decided are our next step in a more wholesome life.  I think I feel some more sewing coming on...

Quote + Cookies

  

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

A favorite quote of mine, reminding me that this IS the moment I've been waiting for.  Grab onto it.  And not being one to think too deeply without chocolate in hand, let me say that I've teased you long enough.  Here is the recipe for the most delicious chocolate chip cookies I've been talking about. And, oh, they just happen to be completely whole wheat.  And believe me, if my husband likes them despite their whole wheatiness, yours will, too.  (Anyone have any beloved whole wheat recipes to share?) Enjoy the cookies and come back tomorrow for my birthday/100th post giveaway!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies 

(recipe found in various places online, including this one.)

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 cups whole wheat flour 
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

Heat oven to 375 F.

Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in chocolate chips. 

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack. (My husband insists that unlike 'regular' chocolate chip cookies, these only taste good when cooled.)

Enjoy!

  

Beautiful Blueberries

Beautiful blueberries make for beautiful muffins.  After a light dinner of Jake's and Tyler's all time favorite meal (this salmon recipe...yes, salmon!) I decided we'd have blueberry muffins for dessert. With white flour! How decadent.  My husband was thrilled about the white flour part.  I did sneak in 3/4 c. of whole wheat, but left the other cup white.  So delicious.  I won't share a recipe for these, as I kind of combined an old Betty Crocker cookbook muffin with a crumbly topping from the internet, and will probably tweak in the future.  I had lots of crumble leftover, so I just sprinkled over a dish of plain blueberries and baked it along with the muffins.  I've been picking at it ever since. Yum.  And really, don't the muffins look beautiful in the sunlight streaming into my kitchen?  

Recent foodie thoughts

This will be a random post about several deliciously unconnected food adventures of late. 

First and, I think, best, is this beautiful  Blueberry/Blackberry Galette. I had to borrow Cooking Light's photo, as mine looked terribly unappetizing. (Thank you Cooking Light!) It makes me appreciate food stylists and photographers. Anyway, I made this two nights ago and I loved it.  I used all whole wheat flour along with the cornmeal for the crust, and I thought the crust was delicious. (I did not roll the circle out big enough before loading the berries and baking it, so the bottom of mine didn't cook all the way through.  Next time I will measure and get the full 15 inch circle out of it!) But the inside was sweet and summery and the crust, as I said, was delicious, whole wheat flour and all.  It was not hard to make, either. Watch out, though, because mine did leak.

Then there is salsamole. (Please say "moley," as in the end of guacamole, not "mole" as in the animal.)  I love guacamole. I make it with coursely chopped avocados, I do not like it mushed. Add some lime juice, a shot or two of tabasco, and a thinly sliced red onion if I have it, and I'm done. So fresh, so good, even the boys love it.  But how can I leave these beautiful CSA tomatoes on the counter? Therefore, salsamole was born. Is it salsa? Is it guacamole? Nobody knows, we just know it's good. (By the way, do you recognize the bowl?)

The last unrelated foodie item: this  German apple pancake.  Be aware that it does not taste like a pancake, but a mild not too sweet custard.  I did not take the time to lay it out in spokes like the magazine did, but it tasted the same, right? When apples start showing up at the farmer's market, I will be making it again.  After all, it's from Cooking Light, so it must be okay, right?  Ours stuck badly to the pan (maybe I forgot to grease it?) and did not slide out nicely, but it puffed up in a cool looking way and it still was delicious. I think maple syrup over the top would add to the experience. Takes forever to make, so maybe I'll make it the night before next time and heat it up in the oven in the morning.  We had it as our second breakfast (doesn't everyone eat second breakfasts?)

And I have not forgotten my promise to share my whole wheat chocolate chip cookie recipe! I would've made it today, but someone else from our fellowship group volunteered to bring brownies for tonight's study, so the cookies will have to wait. I did buy the chocolate chips today, though, so I'm ready. Perhaps sometime this weekend?  Happy eating!

My very first biscuits

Aren't they just beautiful? I felt so grown up, kneading the dough for these crumbly biscuits, and cutting them into circles (even though I was using a purple plastic cookie cutter, rather than a beautiful vintage tin round cutter, which is what any good old-fashioned girl should be using.)

I started with a recipe I found on the food network website (this is my go-to site for recipes with whatever I have on hand,) then just adapted it to use whole wheat flour instead of the white flour. Why is it that you have to search far and wide for a decent whole wheat recipe? I used 2 3/4 c. whole wheat flour, and just 1 c. all purpose flour. I think next time I'll try just 1/2 c. all purpose, but I wanted to break the family into whole wheat biscuits slowly, since our family favorite is a completely white flour biscuit covered in sugar from our favorite southern restaurant. Let's start slowly, why don't we? We skipped the raisins, as my husband doesn't like them, and I sprinkled the brown sugar over most of the top of each biscuit. This makes them pretty sweet, but as we don't eat baked goods often, I felt okay about it. The best part is, that although they're mostly whole wheat, they were a hit with the whole family. Oh, do I love it when that happens.

Does anyone have any great whole wheat recipes out there to share? Sometime soon I'll share the best one we've found...for whole wheat chocolate chip cookies! (And yes, they really are good!)

Mindful Meals

I've been thinking so much lately about food. Okay, so we all think about food. But I've been so mindful of what's in our food (the second ingredient in our poppyseed dressing is high fructose corn syrup!)  Even though I always had to read ingredient lists for Greg's chicken allergy and Tyler's nut allergy, I was mostly scanning for chicken and nut products, not noticing the corn syrup, white flour, weird "ose" ending words, and all that. Let me just say that now I am noticing. I actually had to throw our poppyseed dressing away because I just couldn't shake the image of Tyler downing lettuce covered in (basically) corn syrup. Yuck!

I'm amazed that I've never really thought before about what goes into our mouths, have you?  Of course you have, I'm a little late on the bandwagon. But better late than never, right? 

We're planning on trying out our local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture: a weekly organic produce basket from local farms) and when I get a chance I'm going to go through our pantry (which needs a good cleaning anyway) and look into what's in our food. Not sure yet if I'll be doing any donating of food for a clean sweep of the pantry. It'll depend on my mood, I guess. 

All this coming from a girl who had a TV dinner as her last meal. (It was just sitting there in our freezer waiting for me to have a night alone! I promise!) But I'm headed in the right direction, and that counts for something, doesn't it?

10 things

Inspired by SouleMama's amazing blog, here are 10 things I'm loving right now.

1. Amy Butler's new fabric. I especially love it in the orange dahlia colorway. 
2. My Lisa Leonard 'listen' necklace. I had to have one after seeing Ali Edwards' post about hers for her word for the year. My word is 'listen' and I've worn this necklace at least 3 or 4 days a week since I got it. I don't have a picture of it, but if you look here, mine is like the one that says 'sparkle.'  You must check out her amazingly simple and beautiful work.
3. Making bags. I have never made a bag before, and I'm really loving creating these camera bags from scratch. I can improve them each time and add whatever I want. Love that.
4. Photography without flash. Several months back, I pretty much stopped using the flash on my camera. It takes a little more patience, but what amazing results. If you mess around with the settings a bit, you can capture the moments so much more organically than with a flash. (Photo below is from our imaginary cat Miko's birthday party.)
5. Cream cheese frosting. I really try hard not to have sweets in the house, and now we know why. There's the tiniest little tupperware of leftover frosting from a cake I made for the occasion above, and I just can't resist dipping my finger into it a few times a day. Self control: I don't have it.
6. Used books. Spent $10 today on two adult hardbacks for my trip and about 8 kids books just because.  Yes, we can buy books just because when they cost $0.50 a piece! I love this.
7. Nonfat Plain Yogurt, topped with honey and blueberries. This is my current favorite food. I don't even feel guilty when I eat it, and it's just sweet enough to seem like a treat.
8. My Carpet Pro backpack vacuum. No, I'm not kidding. Read about it here.
9. Fresh bread from the breadmaker! Yes, do you recall that I had 'making bread' as one of the things I really wanted to start doing? And I love it! More importantly, all three 'boys' love it, too. Today I am trying cinnamon raisin bread, because it just seems like that kind of slow Saturday.
10. Thinking. I really do love thinking. Since becoming a mama, it seems like my brain has been put in slow motion. I often can't find the word I'm looking for, and I rarely have a chance to read up on current events in order to have a relevant conversation with a non-mama type. But lately I've spent a lot of time thinking...about priorities, goals, habits, food, quilts, fabric, oh-so-many things to think about. Is it sad that with the boys being 2 and 4, I am just now beginning to think again? No, I am not focusing on that, but on how happy I am to get a moment to think these days!

There's my top ten for now. What are your top ten today?

Shopping the Farmer's Market

Okay, so I took the first step toward starting new food habits for our family...I went to the farmer's market today.

I have to say, I felt a little overwhelmed. Now, I am no stranger to farmer's markets...I love them. I feel so healthy and inspired, just wandering the aisles among the gorgeous produce that's been lovingly tended to. I've always wanted to make going to the farmer's market a regular event for my boys (even before I had kids, I thought about this!) So why the sudden overwhelmed feeling?

Two reasons:

1. In the past, I've gone to the farmer's market to just buy whatever looks good to me that morning...to supplement my regular shopping, but not to replace it. Today, I knew I wanted to buy any fruits and vegetables we would need for at least several days. I think I was mostly worried we'd not be able to survive on what I found there with *gasp* no shopping list!

2. Even though the other trips were more casual, I almost always have my dad along. My dad is a talker. He knows the vendors and chats and laughs with Vincenzo about his current crops, and just generally seems to know his way around. I, on the other hand, wander about aimlessly, not knowing whom to buy from and what is a good price.

Okay, so I'm a novice. I need Farmer's Market 101. I'll try to remember to update you on my progress in this area.

Fresh Bread

Mmmmm....fresh bread has become the food of choice around here.  After our first failed loaf, we have had many successful loaves, and I've come to crave/love that amazing smell of bread baking. It fills the whole house and hits you as you walk downstairs or in from picking up the mail. And to hear the boys cheer when I say "fresh bread" or smile when they hear the breadmaker, makes me happy. I didn't realize that Greg hadn't had any of our first loaves, and when he tasted a slice about a week or two after I started making it, he complained that we'd been hogging it all to ourselves without sharing! I guess I just didn't notice (but it really is easy to hog.)

Today I'm trying a lot more whole wheat flour in the loaf because we ran out of bread flour after half a cup. (We usually do  1.5 c. bread flour, 1.5 c. whole wheat flour.) I've wanted from the beginning to make a bread with more whole wheat flour, so we'll see how this loaf works out. (I added some extra honey to balance out the flavor of more whole wheat.) I'll keep you updated.

It's really not very hard (with my dad's borrowed breadmaker, that is) and nothing can beat that aroma on a cool day like today.

Here's our usual recipe (I call it 1-2-3-4 bread):

1 c. hot water (I heat it in the microwave for 1:30)

1 T milk

2 T canola oil

3 T honey

4 T brown sugar (I just use a spoon and scoop about 4 scoops.)

1 t salt (I eyeball this)

1.5 c bread flour

1.5 c whole wheat flour

1 packet of yeast

I put the breadmaker on the white/light crust setting for a 1 lb. loaf.

This makes a light and sweet bread that's perfect alone or with butter (or honey for dessert.) Yum!

Food Changes?

Well, I mentioned I'd begun reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle the other day. The beginning is more propaganda heavy than the rest, and like I mentioned, there's lots of good info in there with the rest of it. The most interesting to me being the idea of changing the types of food you choose to buy.

Yes, our yard is tiny and mostly in the shade, so we will not be growing enough food to sustain our family (this is not to mention the fact that we'd have to have some spare time to grow and cultivate that food. hmmm.) However, I really like the idea of trying to eat more in season foods. Is it really necessary to fly produce in from South America when we in California can really buy locally grown produce closer to its actual growing season (making it cheaper and tastier than the jet-setting kind)? Am I willing to pay a bit more (in dollars and in ease of purchasing) in order to buy from local farms at the farmer's markets? And as for meat, will I follow through with making an effort to find beef that's not grain fed and full of hormones and disease?  Time will tell. I'd like to try. 

Local Foods

Well, I just picked up a book on a whim at Costco while buying the ordinary things (diapers, detergent, strawberries). It's called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and is about a family who decides to eat only locally grown food for one year. Well, it turns out that much of it reminds me of the propaganda exhibits I saw in museums in Germany, but there is a lot of great info in there, too. I'm muddling through it to get to the good parts that are actually about the family and their food trials. But preachy as it is, it is also inspiring in parts, and makes me yearn to go the Farmer's Market. Yes, I think I'll go this week.