Carrot Cake Waffles

Yep, you read that title right, Carrot Cake Waffles.  That got your attention! 

We hardly ever make big breakfasts anymore, but I've been craving some pancakes or waffles.  This is unusual for me as I don't normally choose sweet for breakfast, but it was time to give into this craving - therefore, it was time for breakfast for dinner!   To top it off, my husband was sick and something comforting for dinner was called needed.

So I decided on waffles, but then I felt that little guy on my right shoulder saying, "But then there aren't any vegetables ... and it's dinner."  Well, I'm creative, I can solve that problem.  So I decided to make my own waffle recipe for Carrot Cake Waffles.  This is my first try, there are a few things I'm going to tweak and I'll get back to you with Version two.  But I've already decided that Zucchini Bread Waffles will be necessary in the future also!

Carrot Cake Waffles Version 1
This made 12 waffles.

1 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1/2 cup Oats (regular)
1/2 cup Gluten Free Whole Grain Flour Blend (This is a King Arthur blend, but you could use regular white or wheat flour here.)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
a pinch of ground cloves
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk (You could substitute soy milk or whatever your preference.)
2 tablespoons Olive Oil (I'll be tweaking this oil combination next time.)
2 tablespoons Flax Seed Oil
4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1 cup yogurt (Any type of yogurt will work.  I used plain greek.)
1 cup grated carrots (Next time I will be grating the carrots smaller and adding more.)
1/4 cup raisins (More raisins next time!)
Toasted Pecans

This is a long recipe but it's basically broken into two parts: dry and liquids. 

1. In a large bowl, mix together all your dry ingredients: flours, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spices, and brown sugar.

2. In another bowl, mix together your eggs, milk, oils, and yogurt. Stir in the carrots and raisins.

3. Slowly stir the liquids into the dry ingredients and let sit 5 minutes while your waffle iron heats up.  Make waffles per the directions for your specific waffle maker and top with toasted pecans.

I served this with a fruit salad.

Happy 2013 Everyone!

Everything Pumpkin

Fall is one of my favorite times and part of the reason is I love pumpkin, the flavor of pumpkin that is!  I had two organic Colorado pie pumpkins sitting in the garage just waiting to be used - oh they were so patient, but it was time.

First, I roasted the pumpkins.

After they cooled,  I carefully cleaned all the pulp out and sent the skins to the compost pile.

Second, I roasted the pumpkin seeds.

I've always played with the best way to roast seeds and I think Camilla over at "Enlightened Cooking" has figured out the secret.  I followed her steps for Roasting Pumpkin Seeds, found here.  The key was to make sure they were plenty dry before hand.  More please!

Finally, well not for the pumpkin, but for this blog post, I had the dream of good Pumpkin Bread floating around in my head.  Elise at Simple Recipes, put that dream in my head with her posting for Pumpkin Gingerbread.  Unfortunately, I didn't print it out when I first saw it and on the day I was going to make it we had an Internet outage.  I'm not talking a 10 minute outage, I'm talking our Internet was out for 22 hours.  Wow, that really made me realize how much I use the Internet!  So I had to make up my own recipe, with that idea in my head.

This was a very successful recipe.  I took a recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book and made some changes. This made one loaf, which is good, we did not need two of these evil and oh so yummy pumpkin bread loaves to eat!

Pumpkin Bread (Based on King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking recipe)

This recipe is typed from the book, with my changes below.
2 cups (8 ounces) whole wheat flour, traditional or white whole wheat
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
1 cup (7 1/2 ounces) packed brown sugar
1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (9 1/2 ounces) canned pumpkin
3/4 cup (3 ounces) chopped nuts (optional)
3/4 cup (4 1/2 ounces) raisins, dried cranberries, or chocolate chips (optional)

Christine's Changes:

• I amped up all the spices a bit and added 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger.
• For the sugar, I added 1/4 cup molasses and only 2/3 cup unrefined, organic sugar.  It's brown, so that should work, right? 
• I had a very healthy cup of pumpkin, probably closer to 1 1/4 cup.
• I added nuts, but no chips or raisins.
• I only had 6 tablespoons butter, so I added 2 tablespoons olive oil.

Only one more change, but how many of you are like - why bother making the recipe if she's going to change it so much?  Where's the challenge in making a recipe with no chance of failure?  :)

• Flour - I used a mix of whole wheat, brown rice, and quinoa flour.  I've been trying to cut down on wheat to figure out if it's causing some stomach issues, but as you can tell, I'm not ready to give it up yet!

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients, flour through spices.
3. Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, stopping to scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl.  Beat in the vanilla and pumpkin.  Add the dry ingredients, mixing until evenly moistened.  Stir in any optional ingredients.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  Bake until a cake tester (known in my kitchen as a toothpick) comes out clean, about 1 hour.  Remove the bread from the oven and place it on a rack to cool for 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes, run a table knife around the edges of the pan to make sure the bread isn't sticking, turn it out of the pan, and place on the rack to finish cooling completely before slicing. 

I can verify that the world doesn't end if you slice before the bread is completely cooled.  What's the point if you don't get to enjoy a nice warm slice of bread?

 A piece of fresh Pumpkin Ginger Bread with a drizzle of honey and butter.  Yum!

Muffins, Scones and Special Visitors

For the past week, we have been very excited to have a niece and nephew in Wyoming visiting us.  It was such a pleasure and we did a bunch of activities, but for the purpose of this blog, there was baking.  My niece is really getting into baking muffins.  Throughout the week, we made muffins, biscuits, and scones.  I've posted multiple times about the biscuits we made, you can find information here regarding these multi-grain biscuits.

The first thing we made were Morning Glory Muffins.  These are chock full of good things and were very moist.

Morning Glory Muffins (Adapted from the April/May 2000 Taste of Home recipe)
1 1/2 cup whole wheat or white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar (The were a little sweet for me, next time I'd lower this to 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup oat bran
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
3 eggs
3/4 cup applesauce (cinnamon applesauce, works well here)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon orange extract
2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1 medium tart apple, peeled and finely chopped or grated

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients.  In another bowl, combine eggs, applesauce, oil, molasses and extracts; mix well.  Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened.  Fold in carrots, raisins, nuts, coconut, and apple.  Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.  Makes about 1 1/2 dozen.

Next we made Pumpkin Scones and Spiced Pumpkin Butter.  These were super tall and moist.  A true scone would have been slightly dryer, but they were good!

Pumpkin Scones (I do apologize, I got these off of the web and they seem to be posted by many different people so I'm not sure who originally posted them!)

Scones
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup pumpkin ( if canned, make sure it is plain with no sugar or spices)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix together flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.  Cut butter into small pieces and cut into flour.  Mixture should look like coarse crumbs.  In a separate bowl mix together the pumpkin, buttermilk and vanilla.  Add to flour mixture and mix until the dough comes together (don't over mix).

Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead gently 3/4 times, and then shape/pat dough into a circle about 1 1/2 " thick.  Slice in half then cut each half into 3 equal pie-shaped wedges.  Brush with egg glaze (1 egg beaten with 1 Tablespoon milk), and sprinkle with Turbinado sugar.

Bake on a cookie sheet or preheated pizza stone at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Pumpkin Spice Butter
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
Combine all and mix until creamy.

A pumpkin scone with pumpkin spice butter on it.  It was such fun to bake with my niece!

I'll end with a note about ingredients and substitutions.  In the Pumpkin Spice Scones we used dry buttermilk, which I keep in the cupboard.  Considering how rarely one uses buttermilk, I view dry buttermilk to be one of the great inventions.  It is up there with Starbuck's via for backpackers.

Also, if you feel like a recipe is too bland, add spices, and always know that whole wheat flour can be added for at least half of the white flour in a recipe, and most of the time all, if your family is used to the heartier texture.

Mediterranean - Yumm!

I've been in the mood for Mediterranean, and due to the fact that we do not have any such restaurant in town, it was time to take matters into my own hands.  Last night a friend came over and we had a very fun meal and considering I made every piece of it, it really didn't take that long to pull together. The pictures aren't great, but you'll get the idea.

First, one must have hummus and a mixture of olives, feta cheese, and roasted peppers to much on, throughout the meal.  These were not treated as an appetizer because the pitas weren't done yet!

Next, I made these whole wheat pitas.  They were pretty easy and fun. How can you not like something that bakes in 3 minutes and really does puff in the middle?  For this step, I found a wonderful new blog called Wild Yeast.  I used Susan's recipe, the only change being I added some spelt flour when I ran out of Whole Wheat, and it worked perfectly, http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/01/19/whole-wheat-pitas/.

I was going to make fresh Falafel, but I couldn't find the recipe I'd seen just a day before, so I used the box mix I had in the pantry.  I, of course, didn't deep fry them, but I did lightly fry them in a pan.  We made them more of a patty versus a ball to cook better in the pan.  I enjoyed them very much.  I made a quick cucumber yogurt sauce to go with the Falafel.

 I made two salad sides. A quick salad made of cucumber, tomato, parsley, and scallions, with a little lemon juice and olive oil dressing.  It's been months since I've had cucumber and tomato so I enjoyed this little salad.  And, of course, a Tabbouleh.  Tabbouleh is traditionally a Bulgar, parsley mixture.  Other vegetables can be added and it just has a quick olive oil, lemon, sauce - salt and pepper to taste.  Well, not sure what happened but my Bulgar turned mushy - this has never happened before.  So I brainstormed and pulled some Red Quinoa out of the freezer and it worked perfectly!  Definitely, a substitution I will make again.

I can't wait for lunch today!

Healthy Cookies?

I have a secret.  Sometimes when I'm baking healthier versions of cookies and muffins, I think I tell people they are healthy so they will turn up their nose and there is more for me!   I really do prefer heartier grains and if some whole wheat, oats, and unrefined sugar are excuse enough for me to eat them, then that works for me.  I think Joe is on to me though, he'll eat any cookies I make no matter what I call them! 

Lately, I've had the goal to use up some of the grains I buy.  I am horrible - it's a weakness!  I stand in front of the Bob's Red Mill section and think, "Mmmm, that sounds good -  I might need that in the future".  So in organizing my cupboard I have some of the hot cereal mixes that I haven't been using for hot cereal.  I popped on the Bob's Red Mill website and, low and behold, there were recipes!  It's so convenient because you can search for recipes by the product you want to use.

Below you can find the Peanut Butter Oat Grain Cookies, featuring the 7 Grain Cereal.  They have a little crunch to them which is pleasant because other than that the cookies kind of melt in your mouth.  I used honey, I wasn't sure what they meant by fructose.  I don't think Joe ever gets as excited as when he comes into the kitchen to the site of cookies cooling.

This morning I whipped up a batch of High Fiber Scottish Oat Muffins featuring the Organic High Fiber Cereal mix to take on our weekend ski trip. There are so many good things in these muffins, including yogurt, dates, carrots and I added just a pinch of cloves and cardamon.  I also used unrefined sugar in place of brown sugar and they are tasty!

What to make next?

Christmas Treat #2: Pumpkin Waffles and Coconut Macaroons

A marathon baking session takes sustenance, plus my poor husband has not had a good breakfast in way too long.  Sunday morning before beginning with cookies and candy, and after shoveling the driveway and doing an early morning grocery store run, I made Pumpkin Waffles.  I just love Pumpkin Waffles and have, of course, adapted a recipe that came with my Cuisinart, 2 slice waffle iron.

Super Multigrain Waffles - with Pumpkin additions

Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached flour - I usually use all whole wheat.
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup soy milk(I usually use whatever I have, often FF or skim regular milk)
2 Tablespoons pure Maple Syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 Tablespoons flaxseed oil
1 cup  yogurt
Can add 1/2 cup fruit and 1/2 cup nuts.

To make Pumpkin:
I substitute Pumpkin for the yogurt and add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/8 teaspoon cloves

Other changes: I am always messing with the butter, oil ingredients.  I often substitute a couple tablespoons of ground flax seed for a couple tablespoons of butter.

Directions:
Place flours, oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt in mixing bowl and stir to combine.  In a separate bowl stir together eggs, milk, syrup, and vanilla.  Add to the dry ingredients. Stir in butter, oil, and yogurt (or pumpkin).  Let batter rest for 5 minutes while your waffle iron is heating up.

Cook waffles as directed by your waffle maker.

The real treat for today is Coconut Macaroons.  These did not visually turn out as I imagined, but they are good.  I think this may be a recipe that needed to be changed a bit for our altitude.  For festive reasons, and just because everything is better with chocolate, I melted a little dark chocolate and drizzled it on top.  I am not going to share the recipe because it is pretty vague and there are much more detailed recipes throughout the web, just google Coconut Macaroons and try one!  If you are looking for a fairly easy and quick recipe, that is actually not horrible on calories, this is your cookie!

Soup and Bread

Is there anything better than a bowl of hot soup with a piece of crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, warm, fresh bread?  I have been trying to make a big pot of soup every week for lunches during the week or even suppers, if the hubby is gone or I have evening meetings.

This past week I enjoyed a nice pot of Black Bean soup.  Of course I add more vegetables than they called for including a package of the handy garden kale in the freezer and I pureed some of the beans.  One of these days I'm going to have to give in and get a pressure cooker just for making beans.  I'm not the best at getting my beans rehydrated and soft enough.

It took us awhile to get the hang of bread here in Green River, WY.  Being around 6,500 feet means one had to make some changes to the bread.  Joe is actually the guy who figured it all out.  Back when I was working on the last degree, he patiently made batch after batch lowering the yeast each time.  We use almost 3/4 t. less than the recipe lists.  Then I figured out the next trick - more water!  This is just a 100% whole wheat loaf using the bread maker and look how high it is!  WooHoo!

Back to the sewing machine and my Christmas project.  I look forward to posting about it, after everyone has their presents, of course!

Soup and Rolls

Winter has arrived and to be honest I am fully enjoying the regular snow.  It's hardly been cold, so we can't complain about cold, we just get to enjoy the snow.  The best part was it came in Saturday afternoon after giving us a last good Saturday morning to blow, rake, and otherwise collect the final leaves from the front and back yard.  We mulched as many as we could fit in the compost area that holds the brown compost and trucked the rest to the green dumpsters!  Well after a morning of leaf work, my stomach was calling for soup.

I made this lovely Lentil soup that is very good and I'm enjoying for lunches this week.  Sorry, I didn't follow a recipe.  It started with the normal saute of onion, celery, carrot, and I added the ham about 1/2 way through.  Then I sauteed some cumin and black pepper for just a few seconds and added the rinsed lentils, 2 diced tomatoes, chicken broth, and a bay leaf. 

On Sunday afternoon, I wanted to test drive a roll recipe for Thanksgiving.  These did not turn out real pretty, meaning perfectly round.  But they are really good!  They are called Fast and Flexible Whole Grain Rolls.  They are 100% whole wheat flour and they called for bulgar, but I was out.  This was a surprise to me, so I had to choose a different grain, or walk the whole 3/4 block to the store ... I chose another grain.  So these were made with cracked wheat.  They are surprisingly light for Whole Wheat.  It's hard to make a bread recipe come out perfect here the first time because of high elevation. I cut back the yeast, but next time will add a little more moisture also to see if they rise more.  Also, since I used plain whole wheat flour, not bread flour I may add some gluten next time.

Fast and Flexible Whole-Grain Rolls
from The New whole grains cookbook by Robin Asbell
Ingredients:
2 cups water, divided, for Bulgar, or 1 1/2 cups water for cooked grains
1/2 cup Bulgar or 1 cup cooked grain
1/4 cup honey (not raw honey, it may kill the yeast)
1/2 cup olive oil or nut oil
1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 Tablespoon quick-rise yeast
5 cups whole wheat bread flour, divided
2 teaspoons salt

Directions:
Bring 1 1/2 cups water to a boil in a small saucepan.  Add the Bulgar and return to a full, rolling boil.  Cover, lower the temperature t a simmer for 10 minutes, then let stand for 5 minutes.  Add 1/2 cup cool water to bring the temperature down.  (If you planned ahead when making last nights dinner and are using cooked grain, bring 1 1/2 cups water to a boil, add the cooked grain, and remove from the heat.)

Stir the honey, oil, and vinegar into the hot grain mixture.  Take the temperature of the mixture, and follow the yeast package recommendations, letting it cool if necessary.  In a stand mixer or larger bowl, mix 4 cups of the flour with the yeast and salt.  Using the dough hood, stir in the grain mixture.  Knead to mix.  When the flour is mixed in, knead in the remaining cup, to make a soft dough.  The dough will seem sticky in the bowl, but you should be able to handle it without it sticking to your hands.  Oil a large mixing bowl and scrape the dough into the bowl.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place for at least 45 minutes and up to 3 hours.

Oil a heavy sheet pan.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  The dough should be bigger than it was.  Tear off small handfuls of dough, about three-fourths of the size you would like the rolls to be.  Roll each piece into a ball, and place on the oiled pan. Lightly cover with a sheet of plastic wrap.  Let rise in a warm spot for at least 30 minutes.

Bake for 15 minutes.  Slide the rolls off the pan onto a rack to cool.

This is one of my favorite books, the author does a great job of introducing lots of different grains and using them a variety of ways.

Falafel and Pitas

Lunch today was something that I myself will want to repeat often. I made pitas for the first time. They are easy! Of course I had to play wih the recipe so I could make it 100% whole wheat and because of our elevation, but they came out very well! The recipe is from King Arthur Flours Whole Grain Baking. I substituted Whole Wheat Pastry Flour for the bread flour and added 2 T. of gluten.



After making the Pitas, I put together the Open Faced Falafel Burgers from Cooking Light August 2006 and can be searched for at http://search.myrecipes.com/enhanced-search.html. Of course the chickpea patties are pan fried, not real fried! Yummy. This was a perfect lunch for me.