Wheat Cooking

My wheat cooking started today. Lots of fun! I started off by having some wheat berries this morning for breakfast. I have to admit, it was less than desirable. To make wheat berries, I washed 2 cups of wheat kernels (hard red wheat). I then put them in the crockpot with 4 cups water and cooked in crockpot over night. I just scooped out 1/2 cup to eat. I only added a little almond milk and a banana, it would have been better with some brown sugar or cinnamon. Then I put the rest in the fridge to use later. These can be stored up to 10 days in the fridge. For dinner tonight I made wheat stir fry, it was very yummy and since I made up my own recipe, here you go:

Wheat Stir fry

2 chicken breasts, sliced
1 tsp. ginger powder
1 tsp. dried chives
1 pkg. oriental veggies
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 TBS. cornstarch
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 1/2 cups wheat berries

Heat olive oil in pan. Add slied chicken breasts, ginger and chives. Sautee until done. Then add 1 pkg. Oriental veggies and cook until soft. Then add 1/4 cup soy sauce mixed with 1 TBS. cornstarch, stir. Add 1 cup pre cooked brown rice and 1 1/2 cups wheat berries heat through and serve warm. You may wish to add some salt and pepper to taste. Let me know what you think of this recipe and if you have any other ideas for wheat.

I have a friend who did take out from the Olive Garden for Valentine's Day. It sounded so yummy, but our nearest Olive Garden is at least a 10 minute drive, on a good day, so I gave her the knock-off recipe for Olive Garden alfredo that I have, I hope she likes it. So I will share it with you today. I got this from my sister-in-law, I don't know where she got it, but I do know there are many knock-off recipes for different restraunts. Have fun with this one. I even shake it up and add spaghetti sauce to it to make a pink sauce, which is very yummy. I will also make my own breaded chicken breast. Dip chicken breast in milk, then in Italian bread crumbs and just cook on stove top with a little olive oil untl done, one of my favorites.

Olive Garden Alfredo

1 pint heavy cream
1 stick butter
2 TBS. cream cheese
1/2 - 3/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp. garlic powder

In saucepan combine butter, cream cheese and heavy cream. Simmer until all is melted and mixed well. Add parmesan cheese and garlic powder. Simmer 15-20 minutes on low. You ma wis to season with a little salt and pepper.

This also freezes really well, but when you reheat it (even if it comes out of the fridge), you need to reheat it on the stovetop. The butter separates from the cream and heating it in the microwave doesn't combine it. Have fun with this one. It is a favorite at our house and it's a lot cheaper than going to the Olive Garden to get it.

If any of you have been to Ogden's The Greenery restraunt, you know how good it is. We love to go there but don't make it often. They have the famous "Mormon muffin", they are so yummy! They are a bran muffin, so good for you, but to buy them at their restraunt, they are over $9 for 6 of them. Way to pricey for me. Well, our stake had some a few years back at a dinner, homemade. So here is the very yummy recipe. Just remember, this recipe make 6 dozen regular size muffins or 3 dozen big muffins. I made the whole recipe with regular and big size and then I put them in the freezer, they freeze well.

Mormon Muffins

Muffin mix must sit in the refrigerator over night before baking. Muffin mix will last one week, covered and refrigerated. Makes 6 dozen regular size tin cups or 3 dozen large tin cups.

2 cups boiling water
5 tsp. baking soda
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 quart buttermilk
5 cups flour (I used half wheat and half white)
1 tsp. salt
4 cups All Bran cereal
2 cups 40% Bran flakes
1 cup walnuts chopped

Add soda to boiling water and set aside. Whip shortening and sugar until light and fluffy, add eggs slowly, mix well. Add buttermilk, flour, salt and mix again. Add soda wter very slowly. Gently fold in cereals and walnuts in the mix.

spoon 1/8 cups into greased muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes for regular size and 30 minutes for large size. Let cool for 5 minutes. Serve with favorite honeybutter.

Enjoy! These are my favorite bran muffins.

So I think my newest craze is cooking with wheat. A dear friend of mine gave me a book and video from someone that she knows who ordered 10,000# of wheat and has learned to cook with it over the years. Well, I don't have that much wheat but we did inherit pounds and pounds from my inlaws when they moved years ago, so I have slowly started to use it here and there but I feel that I need to try harder to use more. So you will start to get recipes using whole wheat flour, which can be purchased in bulk at winco for pretty cheap, if you don't have a grinder and wheat on hand. Good Luck.

This recipe I got from The Food Nanny and can be found on her website (thefoodnanny.com), but I just love this recipe. It is for pizza crust that we have made a couple of times. I have altered it a little because it was too sweet the first time we made it.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

1 cup warm water
1 TBS. yeast
3 TBS. olive oil
3 TBS. honey
3/4 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour.

Mix all ingredients together. Makes 2 thin crust pizzas. Top with favorite toppings. We made a BBQ chicken pizza that was very yummy and canadian bacon, or we made a yummy chicken ceasar pizza.

We did not put the honey in the second time and it was much better, but experiment for yourself and make what you like. Let me know what you think of it

Wow it's been so long. Time gets away from you when your kids get sick and then you get sick and then it's tax time and everything else in between. Crazy. I do have a recipe for you though. I made these for my kids Sunday morning, since we have 11 o'clock church and don't get lunch. I usually make my kids a PBJ sandwhich beforehand so they have something to tide them over till after church. Sunday I just decided to make a late, big breakfast. So here you go: Peanut Butter Pancakes, yum, it smelled like I was baking peanut butter cookies.

Peanut Butter Pancakes

1 cup pancake mix
2 TBS sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 can (5 oz) evaporated milk
1/3 cup water

Honey Butter:
1/4 cup butter, softened (no subs)
2 TBS. honey

In a bowl, combine pancake mix and sugar. In a small bowl, beat egg and peanut butter; add milk and water. stir into dry ingredients until just moistened. Pour bater by 1/4 cupfuls onto a lightly greased med-hot griddle. Turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes; cook until second side is golden brown. Combine butter and honey in a small bowl. Serve with pancakes.

I actually didn't do the honey butter, I just used homemade buttermilk syrup (very yummy) but you can also serve them with jam like a PBJ sandwhich. Have fun with this recipe.

Recipes: pancakes & waffles

Something we really like to make and keep on hand is breakfast for our kids. It makes morning a lot easier and kids love pancakes and waffles. Following is the recipes that we use for pancakes and waffles that I got from Mike's mom (hope she doesn't mind). We make these in mass quantities. Make as much as you want. We usually do at least 4 recipes at a time, then we have enough for a few weeks (when they don't eat them everyday).

Pancakes

1 1/4 cups flour
1 TBS. sugar
1 TBS. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
2 TBS. oil
1 egg

Mix all but milk and flour. Add milk and flour alternating until smooth. Cook on griddle.

Waffles

1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 TBS. sugar
2 eggs, separated
1/3 cup oil
1 cup milk

Separate egg whites. Beat whites until stiff. In separate bowl, mix sugar, oil and egg yolks. Add flour and milk alternating. Mix. Add egg whites last and fold in. Cook until done in waffle iron.

Hope your family enjoys these as much as ours does. We shake up our recipes to and we have added banana, peanut butter, and chocolate chips to the batter. We also have tried them with wheat flour, very yummy. And fruit with whipped cream is yummy for a topping.

I have started the freezer meals, but I am taking a different approach than making full meals, which would be nice, but time and money do not allow that right now. So right now I am focusing on getting meat frozen and stored for future use. I was able to get 4 pork roasts for $.99/lb. on Saturday, so I have been cooking those for the last couple days. Tonight we will have pork burritos and then I will freeze the rest to use later on bbq pulled pork and more burritos. Thanks to a good friend, I also scored a killer deal at local grocer on chicken breasts. I bought them for $1.29/lb! You don't see prices like that very often. I bought about 74 lbs. worth but half will go to my mom. But I am going to freeze my portion. I want to cube and cook some to use in quick casseroles and salads. I want to also marinade and grill a bunch, we like that more on salad. Otherwise I just clean the excess fat off, and then I filet them and cut in half, to make 4 small pieces of chicken. The chicken breasts I have been buying are huge so to keep us from eating too much and being able to stretch our meat, I cut into quarters.

I hope you are doing well with starting your freezer meals. Let me know how it's going and if you have any questions.