Bread recipe
2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 tablespoons lard, softened
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup oats
2 tablespoons flax meal
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
4 cups unbleached white flour

Directions
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Stir in lard, salt, oats, flax meal and two cups of the flour, starting with the wheat flour. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.
Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and a clean dishcloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into two equal pieces and form into loaves. Place the loaves into two lightly greased 9×5 inch loaf pans. Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and a dishcloth and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for about 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Yes, I do use lard… Mom brought some to us, so I use it in the bread. But you could use any shortening or butter of choice.
We also make one loaf into cinnamon raisin bread. After dividing dough into 2 parts and before forming loaves, roll dough for 1 loaf out. Roll it so it is about 9 inches wide and 1/2 inch thick…it will be about 20 inches long or so.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar and 1-2 Tbs of cinnamon ( depending on how much cinnamon you like), then sprinkle with about a 1/3 cup of raisins. With having a toddler in the house we always have those little boxes of raisins in the pantry. This is a great way to use up the box that got partially eaten, then dried out. The raisins will plump up great while baking.

Roll up and shape into loaf. Put loaf into greased pan and allow to rise for about 40 minutes. Bake as directed above.

Is there much better than a bowl of potato soup and a slice of fresh bread on a cold winter evening?
Enjoy!

I roasted my pumpkins. You can used canned, but I like roasting my own. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cut your pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and place the cut pumpkin cut side down into a baking dish. Add about a 1/4 inch of water to the pan and roast for 40-60 minutes or into the pumpkin gives when you poke it.

I like to scoop my pumpkin out with an ice cream scoop. It’s much quicker and easier than a spoon.
When the pumpkin has cooled a bit, scoop out the flesh and mash or purée.
Now for the pancakes!!!

~Pumpkin pancakes~
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup oats
1 tablespoon flax meal
1 tablespoon wheat germ
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons sugar
One egg
2 tablespoons oil
1 cup milk
One cup puréed pumpkin

Mix together dry ingredient in a bowl. Stir together wet ingredients in a small bowl, I actually do this in my 2 Cup measuring cup…why dirty another bowl. Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Pour about a 1/4 cup at a time onto a preheated skillet over medium low heat. Cook for about 3 minutes per side. You can tell that the 1st side is done when bubbles for and pop in the center of the pancake.

This recipe makes about a dozen 5 inch pancakes.

Top with butter and maple syrup. Enjoy!
For Squishy I leave the syrup off and cut the with a pizza cutter into bite size pieces. Pancakes are one thing I know he’ll eat, even when he’s cutting 1st year molars. It’s nice to be able to sneak in the whole grains and milk.

Have a great weekend! I hope you get a chance to get out and enjoy a bit of the fall colors.

Fruit & Whole Grain Bars

1 can Oregon blueberries
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup oats
1/2 cup wheat flour
2 tbs flax meal
6 tbs wheat germ
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 and grease an 8x8x2 inch pan with no stick spray.
Pour can of blueberries into a medium sauce pan and simmer, stirring every couple minutes, for about 10 minutes or reduced by half. Set aside to cool. The syrup will be thicker once cooled.
Meanwhile mix the softened butter, sugar, vanilla, egg and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl until soft and creamy consistency. Add in remaining dry ingredients and stir. Once combined your mixture with resemble a cookie batter.

Press half of the batter into the bottom of your 8×8 pan. Pour the cooled blueberries over and spread evenly with a spatula. Next take the remaining batter and flatten small amounts with your hands and place on top until it is covered. This won’t look pretty and may even look like a mistake, but it works.
Place dish in the center of your oven and bake 20-25 minutes until the berries are bubbly at the edges and the topping is golden brown around the edges too.

Allow to cool completely and cut into bars. I cut ours into about 1.5×4 inch bars. I wrapped 6 of them individually to freeze. Four of the bars were stored in an airtight container. Two bars were eaten as soon as they were cool enough to taste.
These passed the Squishy test right away! I should have waited until he was finished with lunch before letting him try a nibble. Oh well, at least I know exactly what is in them. No words we can’t pronounce and no high fructose corn syrup!

A lot has been going on around here for the past weeks. Squishy turned 1 year old, but that’s another story, and he has begun walking!!! Its like watching a tiny drunken old man stumble around the house! The cutest, most hilarious and oh so frightening thing all at once!
Fall is coming quickly and it has me itching to bake. The heat kicked on last night! Yay, fall! Yes, I’ll be complaining that I’m freezing in just a couple of weeks, but oh, I love fall!
Squishy loves food, especially muffins when it comes to breakfast foods. Last weekend we had some beautiful nectarines from the farmer’s market and a craving for muffins. So we got into the kitchen and whipped these up!

Nectarine Muffins
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
1 Tbs flax meal *
3/4 cup turbinado sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup + 1 tbs milk
2 nectarines finely diced
1/2 cup granola
2 Tbs brown sugar

Preheat oven to 400 and grease a muffin tin or line with paper liners. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Gently stir in moist ingredients including your diced nectarine. Stir in about 1/2 of your granola. (our granola has slivered almonds in it, so i stir it in after filling 1/2 of the muffin liners. No nuts for squishy yet, choking hazard.) Fill your muffin cups 2/3′s full. Sprinkle tops with what’s left of the granola mixed with the brown sugar. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until nicely brown and a toothpick come out with just a tad bit of crumb.
Squishy devoured these, so I hope you love them too! If you try them please let me know what you think!

*I know the pre packaged flax meal can be expensive. I buy flax seeds in bulk at the natural food store, whole foods may have them too. Our Baby Bullet that we received for a shower gift has a milling blade so we grind them with that and store them in a jar in the refrigerator. If you don’t want to bother with it at all, just leave it out. A small handful of oats might be good in its place.

Lentil meatballs

1/2 small onion, chopped
1 small celery stalk, finely diced
1/4 C shredded carrot
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 1/4 C rinsed lentils
2 1/4 C stock
Salt & pepper
1/2 C nutritional yeast
1/3 C flax meal
1 C breadcrumb
1 beaten egg

In a sauce pan, sauté the vegetables until tender. Add Italian seasoning, garlic and a pinch of salt and cook just until you smell the garlic. Stir in the lentils and stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer, cover with lid and cook for 25-30 minutes until the lentils are tender.
In a separate bowl mix the flax meal and bread crumbs with the nutritional yeast. (I grind my flax seeds with the milling blade on the Baby Bullet.)
When your lentil mixture is tender stir them into the nutritional yeast and flax in the bowl. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
At this point if you are vegan or have egg sensitivities, you could leave it out and start forming your balls.
If you are adding egg…beat it in a separate bowl ow measuring cup and stir in a little of the lentil mixture to temper it. The lentil mixture is still warm at this point, so you don’t want to stir your egg in without tempering, you could scramble it. Stir in your egg and season with salt & pepper.
Grease a baking sheet. The mixture is very sticky! If you grease your hands with a little olive oil now and then it will help. Form your lentil mixture into about 1.5 inch balls and arrange on your baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes. This recipe made 40 “meat” balls. We stirred a bakers dozen into homemade sauce for pasta and froze the rest for another day.
I hope you enjoy them! Squishy loved them!

This is the current state of our living room. I could have picked up toys and put away books, vacuumed the rug and hung up the diaper bag…but that wouldn’t be real. Life is messy!
I think I’ve had a hard time coming here and posting because of all of these lifestyle blogs that make everything look so perfect all the time. I start thinking if that I must not be good enough if my life doesn’t look perfect. I have an awesome kid who’s happy most of the time. Hey, he’s 11 months old and teething so yeah he screams when he frustrated or in pain. That’s just how life is. We had a fun time this morning eating apple muffins, watching Thomas and playing with toys. He’s down for his nap now. I could pick up all the toys and clean but you know what? It’s Saturday and I’m going to sit here for just a few more minutes.
As a challenge this week I want you all to take a picture of your “real” life, not the perfect clean and edited blog life photos. If you don’t have a blog, post it to twitter, facespace, instagram or where ever. Because life is real and life is messy!
I hope you all enjoy your weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

Summer is here so let’s make a favorite beverage of mine.

6 fresh limes
1/2 fresh lemon
2Tbs light agave nectar
6 cups cold water
1 cup ice

Squeeze your limes and lemon into a pitcher. I have an old press that we picked in a Mexican grocery years ago, it’s my favorite.
Add water and agave nectar, stir in ice. I like mine pretty tart, that’s how I roll.

This would probably be awesome with a splash of orange liquor and tequila. I know it’s perfect with a batch of guacamole and some chips!

Enjoy and stay cool!

There wasn’t a huge selection yet, but we found some beautiful veggies and bread! I can’t wait for more fruits to be ready. Oh, and corn!!!
It was a gorgeous evening for a walk!

Today we have Squishy’s 9 month wellness check and we need to go to the grocery store. Hopefully we’ll be able to fit in an afternoon walk too!
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Zucchini & Chick Pea Couscous

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 pound chopped zucchini
1/2 small diced onion
1 cloves minced garlic
1/4 diced orange bell pepper
2tsp ground cumin
2tsp fresh dill, 1/2 tsp if dried
1- 14 oz can rinsed chick peas
2/3 c couscous
1 cup boiling vegetable stock
Salt & pepper to taste
2 Tbs nutritional yeast

Cook onion, garlic and orange pepper in oil oil until just tender. Stir in cumin, dill and a pinch of salt.Toss in zucchini and continue to cook over med/low heat until tender. Stir in chick peas and cook for 3 min. Stir in couscous, pour in stock and mix well. Return to a boil, cover and remove from heat for 5 min. Fluff with fork and stir in nutritional yeast.

Even Squishy asked for seconds!
Enjoy!

Right now he’s handing me a shoe and pointing at the window. So, I’ll be back again, but 1st I need to go for a walk with a little boy!