Mom's Whole Wheat Bread

This is my mom's wheat bread recipe.  It is so so good.  Even the smell brings back so many memories. And now with my new stand mixer, I can finally make it myself - as often as I want! And since it doesn't seem to last very long at my house (my kids ate two whole loaves in one day just for snack!) I have been making it a lot.  So much, that my hand-scratched copy of the recipe has now been spilled on, dripped on, ripped and lost so many times that I am finally posting it here in a nicer and more permanent form!

Ingredients:

11 Cups Wheat Flour

5 Cups Water

2/3 Cup Oil

2/3 Cup Honey

2 Tb Salt

2 Tb Dry Yeast 

In a small bowl, prepare the yeast by mixing 2 Tb of dry yeast with 1/2 cup of warm water.  Stir slowly until yeast is bubbly and smooth then set aside. In the stand mixer combine 7 cups of flour, 5 cups of water, 2/3 cup of oil, 2/3 cup of honey, and 2 Tablespoons of salt. Add the yeast last and mix thoroughly with the beater.  Remove the beater attachment and replace it with the kneader.   

Slowly add an additional 4 cups of flour until the dough starts pulling away from the sides (it might be a little less than 4 cups).  Let the dough knead for about 5 minutes. 

Dump the dough out onto an oiled surface and divide into four equal pieces. Spray 4 bread pans with cooking oil and place the dough into the pans.  Cover with a cloth and let rise for about one and a half hours. 

Preheat oven to 375.  Place bread in oven and bake for 10 minutes at 375.  Then turn the oven down to 300 and bake for an additional 30 minutes.

Then enjoy!

Lydia is my helper at home making bread.

And the other kids look forward to Thursdays when they can come home from school to the delicious smell of freshly baked bread!

Mmmmm. . .

Thanks mom, for this delicious bread!

Texas Corn Dip

Here's the corn dip recipe you've all been waiting for.  It's one of my favorites - we all love it. Lydia eats it by the bowl full - jalapenos and all. And (picky, vegetarian) Clayton requests it as a meal. That's sayin' somthin'. I first discovered this dip three years ago at a Christmas party (for Nate's work) out on a real Texas ranch.  I couldn't stop going back for more.  It turned out to be a secret family recipe though (along with their homemade venison chili) and I have been trying to recreate the corn dip ever since.  I have tried it with jalapenos and without jalapenos.  With cilantro and without cilantro.  With sour cream and without sour cream. With black beans and without.  With canned corn, frozen corn, fresh corn. Fresh peppers. Garlic. A variety of spices.  You name it.  But this combination of ingredients here is by far the best version - the one I'm sticking with.  And lucky for you, my recipe is no secret.

1 can (15 oz.) of Fiesta Corn (drained)

1 package of frozen Southwest Corn and Black Beans

1 can (4.5 oz.) of Diced Green Chiles

1 T of Diced (canned or fresh) Jalapenos (less or more depending on your taste)

1/4 cup of Chopped Green Onions

1/2 cup of Sour Cream

1/2 cup of Mayonaise

1 1/2 cup of Shredded Cheese

3/4 tsp Chili Powder

1/4 tsp Ground Cumin

Salt (to taste)

Mix all the vegetables together in a bowl.

 Add the chili powder, cumin, and salt.

 Stir in the sour cream, mayo, and cheese.  Refrigerate for a few hours.  Serve with chips!

Mmm. . . 
I promise it won't last long.

Stuffed Peppers

I've been having fun with my new camera and trying out some of my sister-in-law's tips from Our Best Bites. Sara takes absolutely stunning pictures of food.  Beautiful enough to hang on your wall.  Not kidding.  She's amazing. She's an especially amazing cook and totally my hero. So go ahead, call me a Sara-wannabe. It's the truth.

I have also been having fun with the new ceramic pans my mom gave me for my birthday.  They are awesome and have been inspiring me to cook a lot more often than I have ever felt inclined.  

I remember my mom making stuffed peppers a lot when I was little.  I didn't like them then.  I didn't like cooked vegetables at all actually.  But I love stuffed peppers now.  For years I never really used a recipe because my mom never did.  When I asked her, she gave me some vague directions like, "Oh, you just put in a little of this and some of that, and if you don't have this, you can use that.  And then just stick it in the oven."  Anyway, over the years I have perfected this recipe.  It's one of my favorites:

6 Whole Peppers

1 lb. Lean Ground Turkey

3 C Cooked Brown Rice

1/4 C Onion (minced)

1-2 Garlic Cloves (minced)

1/2 can Red Kidney Beans (drained)

1 can Stewed Tomatoes (drained and chopped)

1 can Tomato Sauce (small)

1 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

1/4 cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese

6 Slices of Mozzarella Cheese

2 t Worcestershire Sauce

2 T Italian Seasoning

Salt and Pepper

Directions:

Cut tops off peppers and remove seeds.  Place peppers in a large pot and cover with salted water.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 5 minutes.  Drain peppers and set aside.

 In a large skillet, saute the onions. Then brown the ground turkey with Italian seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Add cooked rice, kidney beans, garlic, stewed tomatoes, and tomato sauce. Turn off heat and stir in the shredded cheeses.

Spoon the stuffing into each pepper (these should be stuffed full, but somebody at my house downed a bowl-full of stuffing ahead of time) and place a slice of cheese on top.

 Bake uncovered at 350 for 1 hour or until cheese is bubbly and golden brown.

 Mmm, enjoy.  I've made this vegetarian style (back when Nate didn't eat meat) with more beans (I used black beans), rice, and cheese.  You need a lot more cheese to hold it all together but it was pretty good.

Key Lime Cake

This cake is so incredibly good.  I think it might be our family favorite.  Like I mentioned on Eliza's birthday, I got this recipe from my sister Mandy who, I think, got it from her mother-in-law.

Key Lime Cake

1 pkg. Lemon Supreme cake mix

1 (4 serving) pkg lemon instant pudding

4 eggs

1/2 c. oil

1/2 c. sour cream

3/4 c. water

1/4 c. key lime juice

Glaze

21/4 c. powdered sugar

1/3 c key lime juice

2 T. water

2 T. butter

Oven at 350. Grease bundt pan. Mix all cake ingredients and pour into pan. cook for 50 to 60 minutes. Cool in pan 25 minutes. I take the cake out of the pan, and then put it back in the pan and poke holes into warm cake with a toothpick.  Pour glaze mixture onto the warm cake. Cool completely. Invert onto serving plate.

The key lime juice was kind of hard to find.  I finally found it in the juice aisle of our neighborhood grocery store.

 I made some extra glaze and added more powdered sugar to make it a little thicker and then drizzled it over the top after inverting the cake.  Eliza calls it the "lemon donut cake" and I must say that I agree.

 Enjoy!

Christmas Fudge

This is the fudge recipe that makes me famous every year. At every event. And every party. Every time. I originally got it from Nate's cousin's wife, Cami.

Now prepare yourselves for pure heaven.

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 stick of butter
12 oz. chocolate (12 oz is about equal to 1 bag of white chocolate chips or 3 Almond and Toffee Symphony bars or 3 Hershey's chocolate bars which is what I used here. Use whatever - just check the wrapper to make sure you're using about 12 ounces.)

Directions:
First. . .
Break candy bar into pieces and put in a large mixing bowl.
Have electric mixer all ready to go.
Cut butter into pieces and set aside.
Spray 8x8 pan with cooking spray

Then. . .
In a large pot, over medium heat, bring sugar and cream to a soft ball stage. (if you don't have a candy thermometer like me, just drop a spoonful into cold water and see if you can make a soft ball with it.)
Remove from heat and add butter. Do not stir.
When butter is almost completely melted pour mixture into the bowl with the candy bar pieces.
Beat with an electric mixer on low until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Pour into 8x8 pan, top with something delicious (like crushed candy canes, M&M's, chocolate drizzle, or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups) and place in refrigerator. It takes about 3 hours to set. Keep refrigerated unless serving.

Lastly. . .
Cut into big huge (er, I mean small bite-sized) chunks.


Eat your heart out. And box up the rest.


Add a cute label.


And some ribbon and. . . Voila!
Your neighbors, family, and friends will love you FOREVER.

Mmmmmm. . .

(poor, poor me and my dairy-free diet)
.