Honey Whole Wheat Waffles

The kids were begging for waffles this morning and Caleb loves "yellow" waffles, a.k.a. all-purpose flour waffles. However, to show him whole wheat waffles can be almost as good, I decided to add honey to the batter. The result was delicious! He claims he likes these even more than the "yellow" waffles.

2 eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour (we used white wheat)
1 tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbs. baking powder
1/2 cup oil
1 3/4 cups milk
1/4 cup honey

Separate the eggs and beat the egg whites until stiff and soft peaks form, set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl mix together egg yolks, milk, honey and oil. Mix together the dry and wet ingredients just until slightly blended. Gently fold in the egg whites. Cook on a hot waffle iron.

Easy, Fast Spaghetti Sauce

Tonight I meshed together a couple of recipes to make a super easy, flavorful spaghetti sauce. I guesstimated a lot, but I will put down how much I think I put in of each ingredient:

Homemade turkey sausage: (if you don't want to make it, you can buy a pound at the store, but the storebought stuff is very high in sodium)

1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dried sage
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
3/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 lb. lean ground turkey


1 large onion chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed or finely grated
canola oil
1 28 oz. can crushed tomato, no salt added
2 cans 8 oz. tomato sauce, no salt added
1/2 tsp. dried basil or more to taste
1/2 tsp. dried parsley or more to taste
1 tbs. sugar or more to taste
salt and pepper


To make the sausage: Mix together the first five ingredients. Put ground turkey in a large bowl. Sprinkle spice mixture over the turkey, carefully blending it in with your hands.

Drizzle oil in a large frying pan, enough to coat. Turn heat to medium high. When the oil starts to bubble just slightly on the edges, put in the onion and garlic, stirring until onions or a light caramel color and tender. Put in the turkey sausage, breaking it up with a spatula and cook until brown.

Put in the crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce, basil, parsley and sugar. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer for about half an hour.

I don't always cook spaghetti noodles since it seems they are harder for my kids to eat. I love to pour this sauce over bowtie pasta, but penne or shells pasta would work, too.

Turkey Pot Pie

I used a couple of different recipes to get ideas on the turkey pot pie I made. I used two cups of cut up turkey that I boiled off the bones of the turkey carcass from our Christmas Eve dinner, frozen peas, fresh carrots, celery and onion and few spices along with my freshly made broth (see my earlier post). I pour all this into a 9x13 pan and topped with biscuit dough. You could easily substitute out any of these vegetables for others.

Pot Pie Sauce/Filling

A couple tablespoons oil
2 cups cut up carrot
1 cup sliced celery
1 cup frozen peas
1 large onion chopped
6 tbs. butter
6 tbs. flour
2 cups fresh turkey broth
1 cup milk
2 tbs. dried parsely
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 cups cut up leftover turkey
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 450. Heat the oil in a large skillet on medium high heat. Cook the onion until tender. Add carrots, celery and peas and a little of the broth. Cover, lower setting to medium and steam for about five minutes. In a large saucepan, melt butter. Whisk in flour. Slowly add the remaining broth, whisking the whole time to prevent any lumps. Bring to a light boil for about 5 minutes while the sauce thickens. Slowly add the milk, whisking the whole time. Add the parsely, oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Boil for a few minutes whisking the whole time. Pour in the vegetables and turkey. Turn stove to low and let this sit while you make your pie pastry or biscuit topping.

I used biscuit dough for our topping, but you could also make a pie pastry.

Here is the biscuit recipe I use:

Biscuits

1/2 cup shortening
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tbs. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 cup milk

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in the shortening using a pastry blender or forks. Stir in the milk just until moist.

Pour the vegetable/turkey mixture in a 9x13 pan. Drop biscuit dough across the top. Bake in 450 oven for about 10-12 minutes or until the biscuits are light brown.

Turkey broth

We had a turkey for Christmas Eve dinner and I decided to use the leftover turkey for additional meals besides just turkey sandwiches. This led me to look up leftover turkey recipes. I found this recipe to use the turkey bones for broth at CheapCooking.com. Tonight I used the brother to make turkey pot pie and I was surprised at how much better the pie sauce was using the freshly made broth. Here is the recipe:

Turkey Broth and Other Leftover Turkey Recipes

Do NOT throw away that turkey

carcass. Pick all the meat you can off of it and make skillet turkey and rice or turkey enchiladas or a turkey casserole or at least turkey sandwich mix. If you don't want to deal with it now, chop it up and freeze it in 2 cup portions. If you don't want to make the broth now, you could freeze the carcass as well, if you have room in your freezer. Or make the broth and freeze that and make the soup later.

• 1 turkey carcass
• water to cover
• 2 cloves garlic (optional)
• 1/2 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• 2-4 peppercorns
• 1-3 tsp salt
• a few shakes of pepper
• 2 stalks of celery
• 2 carrots
• 1 onion, halved

Put the turkey carcass in a big stock pot and cover with water. You can break up the carcass a bit to fit the pan. Add everything else. You don't have to peel or neatly slice anything. Just break it up into chunks. And don't worry if you don't have something; broth is very flexible! Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat. Simmer (with barely a bubble breaking the surface) for a few hours. Simmer

longer if you have time, but it will be good after a few hours. Strain the soup using a colander or cheesecloth or whatever you have around. Pick out all the meat that you can and use in the dishes mentioned above or reserve for soup later. Pour the broth into a large jar (I pour it into a big pickle jar) and refrigerate it overnight.

In the morning or the next evening when you go to make soup, the fat will have solidified at the top so you can just spoon it off. Generally, the broth will be quite thick and jelly-like. This is good. When you heat it to make soup, it will be great! Keep the broth 5 days in the fridge or freeze it for soup later. I like to freeze it in 2 cup and 4 cup portions.

Chili and Cornbread

Here's our family chili recipe. It's a good basic recipe that I mostly got out of my old Betty Crocker cookbook, but I modified it about 30% to make it more to our liking:

Chili con Carne

A couple tablespoons olive oil
1 lb. lean ground beef or turkey
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely grated
2 tbs. chili powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. cocoa
1/2 tsp. red pepper sauce
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/8 tsp. allspice
2 tbs. brown sugar
1 28 oz. can low sodium crushed tomatoes
1 16 oz. crushed or diced low sodium tomatoes or tomato sauce
2 15.5 oz. low sodium cans of any bean of your liking, such as black beans, pinto beans or kidney beans (I actually cook my own from dried beans to lower the sodium and to increase the flavor.)

Heat oil in large skillet over medium high heat. When you start to see bubbles add the onion and garlic. Saute until the onion is slightly soft, add the meat and brown. Pour meat mixture and rest of ingredients into a crockpot and cook on high for 4 hours. Or you could bring to a simmer on the stove and cook for about 2 hours.

Cornbread

I got this recipe four years ago off the America's Test Kitchen website. When I went to link you to it, it now asks you to sign up for a free trial membership. Hmmm....I hope I am not breaking any copyright law or anything, but here's the recipe, and if you want to check out their site go here:

1.5 cups flour (I use whole wheat)
1 c. cornmeal
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup frozen corn, thawed
1 cup buttermilk (Or put 1 tbs. vinegar in 1 cup of milk)
2 large eggs
1/2 c. butter or margarine melted and cooled

Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 8-inch square baking dish with non-stick spray. Whisk all the dry ingredients except the sugar in a medium bowl. In a food processor or blender, process brown sugar, thawed corn and buttermilk until combined, about 5 seconds. Add eggs and process until well combined (corn lumps will remain), about 5 seconds longer.

Using a rubber spatula, make well in center of dry ingredients; pour wet ingredients into well. Begin folding dry ingredients into wet, giving mixture only a few turns to barely combine; add melted butter and continue folding until dry ingredients are just moistened. Pour batter into prepared baking dish; smooth surface with rubber spatula. Bake until deep golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 20-35 minutes. Cool on wire rack 10 minutes; invert cornbread onto wire rack, then turn right side up and continue to cool until warm, about 10 minutes longer. Cut into pieces and serve.

Editor's note: I know it's not the healthiest version of cornbread due to the high amount of butter. It is moist and has a good sweet corn flavor, however, and can be eaten plain and is totally delicious. I need to experiment with ways to lower the fat content. If and when I do, I will repost. If you have any other cornbread recipes that you really like that are moist and sweet but healthier feel free to let me know, I am open and willing to try something different.

Cracked Whole Wheat Cereal

People have asked how I make my cracked wheat. This is a recipe where I never measure, but I am going to give you some estimates and you can fiddle with it. If you like a creamier texture, add more water, if you like it thicker, use less water.

1 cup wheat berries
2 cups water
Pinch of salt

Put your wheat grinder on it's highest setting. Pour in the wheat and grind. While the wheat is grinding, bring water and salt to a boil. Slowly add your ground wheat using a whisk so you don't get any lumps. Lower heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cover while you get your condiments out to serve with it.

My children just love honey drizzled over top and some milk. That's it. You can add so many other things, though, like raisins, coconut, fresh berries, cinnamon sugar, etc. Sometimes I add little vanilla.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

I got this recipe mostly from an old Betty Crocker Cookbook, I tweaked it a little, but not much.

6-7 C whole wheat flour
1/3 C honey
1/4 C oil
1 T salt
2 pkgs. regular or quick-acting yeast
1/4 C wheat gluten (you can leave this out, but the texture is sub par when you do this)
2 1/4 C very warm water (120-130 degrees)


Mix 3 cups flour, honey, oil, salt, gluten and yeast in 4-quart bowl; add warm water. Beat on low speed, scraping bowl frequently for 1 minute. [When I double or triple the recipe, I just mix by hand.] Beat on medium speed, scraping bowl frequently for 1 minute. Stir in enough flour, 1 cup at a time to make dough easy to handle.

Take dough out and knead on a floured surface for about 10 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Place in a greased 2 1/2 quart bowl, grease the top and cover. Let rise in warm place until double, about 40-60 minutes. Dough is ready when you push your index finger into the dough about 1/2 an inch and the indentation remains, i.e. it doesn't start to push back out.

Punch down dough; divide into halves. Let rest 5 minutes. Shape into two loaves and place in greased loaf pans. Brush loaves lightly with margarine. Let rise until double, 35-50 minutes.

Heat oven to 375. Place loaves on low rack so that the tops of pans are in center of oven. Bake until loaves are deep golden brown and sound hollow when tapped, 40-45 minutes. Remove from pas; cool on wire rack.