Recipe: Oatmeal Whole Wheat Buttermilk Bread

My husband is currently training to run the St George marathon. We nearing the finish line of training (only about 4 more weeks) and each week he seems to get hungrier and hungrier with all of the calories he's burning running! So he asked if I could make some whole wheat bread. In my searches I came across Tracey's Culinary Adventures: Whole Wheat Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread.

I loved that it had a combo of white and whole wheat flour as well as oatmeal. It was easy to put together and turned out to be a wonderful bread. Here is my take on the recipe!

Oatmeal Whole Wheat Buttermilk Bread

1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup room temperature water
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon honey
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature (or 1 TBSP lemon juice + milk to = 1 1/2 C)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt

Place 1 C water in a heat glass bowl and microwave 2 minutes or until boiling. Then add 1 1/2 C oats. Stir together and let soak for 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Meanwhile make "buttermilk" by pouring 1 TBSP lemon juice + milk to equal 1 1/2 C and let sit for 2 minutes or until milk begins to curdle. Add everything into mixer with paddle attachment and knead for 10 minutes. Dough should be smooth and not sticky.

Put into a well oiled bowl and let rise in a warm place (a warm oven works well) for 30 to 45 minutes.

Once doubled in size punch down and split in half and form loaves.

Place each loaf in a prepared loaf pan. Let rise for 20 to 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375. Mix 1 TBSP warm water with 1 TBSP honey. Brush tops of loaves and sprinkle with oats. Bake at 375 for 50 minutes. YUM!!

Recipe Review: Monster Magic Cookie Bars

Another Pinterest find today that I wanted to try. I have a meeting this evening and I thought this would be a good opportunity to not have the whole pan for us! The original recipe was found at Something Swanky!It was super easy and I only made 1 adjustment (peanut butter chips, in addition to chocolate chips!).

Monster Magic Cookie Bars

• 1 sleeve graham crackers crushed in a quart size ziploc baggie


• 4 TBSP butter


• 1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk


• 3/4 C Oats


• 3/4 C M&Ms


• 1/2 C Chocolate Chips


• 1/2 C Peanut Butter Chips

Place crushed graham crackers and butter in ziploc and microwave 30 seconds. Mix graham cracker and butter mixture until all of the butter is incorporated. Press into the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the crackers and carefully spread out evenly. Sprinkle oats then M&Ms, Chocolate and PB chips over oats. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or edges are turning brown.

Before Baking:

Mine are not as pretty as the ones I found on Pinterest, but they're still pretty tasty and it was super easy to put together.

After Baking:


I think this would be a good bar to take to a potluck and it would be fun to use seasonal M&Ms.

Recipe Review: Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

I have generous neighbor that recently gave me a few large zucchinis. Generally we slice them, marinade in italian dressing and grill. Today I decided to do a little baking and found this recipe on Jamie Cooks it up! I made only a few changes from her recipe and the kids are gobbling them up!

Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins (adapted from Jamie Cooks it up!)

3 1/2 C white flour

1 C Wheat flour

1 1/2 C sugar

1/2 C cocoa

1 t baking soda

1/2 t baking powder

3/4 t salt

1 t cinnamon

1 1/2 C oil

1 1/2 C milk

3 eggs

2 t vanilla

2 C shredded zucchini

1 1/2 C semi sweet chocolate chips

Mix wet ingredients (including sugar & zucchini). In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients. Mix dry with wet until just combined. Add chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 for 15-17 minutes for standard muffins, 13-15 minutes for mini muffins

Yield: 24 standard + 48 mini muffins

These were moist and chocolatey, just like you want a chocolate muffin to be. My kids had no clue there was a healthy dose of zucchini (which is exactly what I wanted!).

Recipe: Green Enchalada Tostada

I love Mexican food! This recipe over at Brown Paper Packages hit all the right flavors for me! Green Enchilada Tostadas! It's basically an open face enchalada done in the crock pot! I love the crock pot!  Even the kids loved it

It was my first time frying tortillas. I think I need to do them a little longer next time.

 

Recipe: Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

My daughter and I decided to try a new dessert on Sunday. Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars from Tastes of Wonderful. They were pretty wonderful, very rich and chocolaty. I would have liked a little more peanut butter and less chocolate though. All in all a fun change from our standard chocolate chip cookies we make each Sunday afternoon.

I did omit one ingredient, vanilla. This wasn't on purpose, just an oversight and it was fine without it. On the chocolate I used 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips. On the peanut butter I used chunky, I'm just a chunky PB kind of person. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

by Greta White

Combine:

1 pkg. plain yellow cake mix

1 stick melted butter

1 c. creamy peanut butter

2 eggs

Press this into a 9X13 pan reserving 1 1/2 c. of the mixture to crumble on top.

Melt:

1 (12 oz) pkg. chocolate chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2 T. butter

Melt on low heat in a small pot. Remove from heat and add:

2 tsp. vanilla

Spread chocolate mixture over the mixture pressed in the pan and then crumble the 1 1/2 of reserved cake mixture on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 325 degrees. Cool completely before cutting into bars.