So I finally made a couple of beautiful loaves of whole wheat bread, with a lot of help from a dear sister in my ward who is a pro at bread making. I don't know what it is, I can make quick breads really easy and muffins and cookies and any other type of treats and especially meals, I can make no problem, I just seem to have an issue with bread. But this sister came over with her own fresh ground wheat and we figured out that we needed to start with less. So we did a half recipe, which made 2 big loaves and it turned out just beautiful! It even tastes wonderful!

So I learned yesterday how to make bread in my Kitchenaid mixer, so I plan to continue to make more! No more bread with high fructose corn syrup, and for so much less than store bought bread!

I also learned, that I DO need new wheat! I am almost to the bottom of one bucket that I have been working on for a while, so decided to check out one of the other 8 buckets in the basement and when I opened it, it was full of little worms and yucky stuck. It made me so sad to think I have been relying on all this wheat that is just full of yucky stuff. It was really weird though. So I will look through the other buckets and see if I have the same problem there and then we might be taking buckets of wheat to my mom and dad to feed to the chickens.

On a much better note, I found a Valentine's recipe in the "Relish" section of the weekly paper that I wanted to try. I love this section of the paper. It comes sometime during the week and has some very yummy recipes! This particular one that I made is Marbeled red velvet Cheesecake brownies. Oh my heavens, they are to die for! They were pretty easy to make. The only thing I was thrilled about was the tablespoon of red food coloring that goes into it, but that's how you make red velvet cake. I used all my red food coloring to get that much.

The recipe for these can found here. Wouldn't it just be so great to have a recipe recognized by a magazine or even an insert in the paper? That would be so heaven for me! I have actually considered publishing a cookbook. I have so many original recipes and so many more that I can come up with! Anyone know how to get that going? I need to type them all up and at least put them in a binder so they are out of my head and on paper where I can share them with others. Oh to be the next Racheal Ray! I love to watch her cook, she inspires me. But I don't think I could do a cooking show. There is still so much I don't know and need to learn about cooking. But to have a dream is a great thing!

Happy day to you all! Happy cooking!

Creamy Chicken/turkey wild rice soup

What a weekend! Mike took our oldest son and went ice fishing with his brother, so I stayed home with sick kids that were running a fever, and coughing. So since I was home and needed some bread, I decided to try my hand again at making bread, which turned out to be the most awful bread I have ever made! I try to make healthy things for my family and a lot of times I don't succeed, which gets so frustrating! I did, however, make some tomato basil bread that is so very yummy and turned out fabulous, so I feel I did ok.

I decided to make soup dinner, since I love soup when it's cold out. This is paired with my tomato basil bread, it was so very yummy. Here is what I did to make creamy turkey and wild rice soup, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Creamy chicken/turkey and wild rice soup

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup, or more, flour
4 cups chicken stock (4 cups water, 5 tsp. chicken bouillion)
4 cups milk
1 pkg. Uncle Ben's long grain and wild rice with seasonings microwave pouch
2 cups cooked, dicked chicken or turkey

In large pot melt butter on medium high heat. Add flour and whisk to blend. Cook flour and butter a little. Gradually add chicken stock. Whisk and stir until thickens. Gradually add milk and continue to stir until thickens to desired thickness (may need to add some extra flour mixed with water to help to thicken more). While this is thickening, chop and cook chicken on chop precooked chicken or turkey and set aside. Heat the rice pouch according to directions to heat through. When soup is thickened to desired thickness, add rice and chicken/turkey and heat through for a few minutes. Serve warm with bread or crackers.

I received a pot of soup similar to this from a dear friend, which was very good, which I think was cream of chicken soup with wild rice added. It was very yummy, but I thought maybe I could come up with my own rendition, which I did.

This recipe is just a basic recipe. You can also add any thing else to it that you like, celery, carrots, potatoes, whatever you fancy. For this particular meal, I had some left over smoked turkey from Thanksgiving in my freezer that I pulled out and chopped up, so very flavorful turkey I think this soup particularly good. I also don't buy chicken stock from the store, I make it when I can, but that isn't very often, so I just use water and then Knorr chicken bouillion, which I think has the best spices and seasonings in it. It is my favorite. So other than the chicken bouillion, there is not any added salt in this recipe either, and it didn't need it! It was so yummy just the way it was. Definitely one of the best soups I have ever made! Hope you enjoy it too! Happy cooking!