om nom nom: scones!

I tried this super easy recipe this morning and was thrilled. By my calculations, each one is about 150 calories if you follow her recipe. I am still searching for a good butter substitute, as her suggestion of Brummel/Brown is not in line with my eating habits (partiallly hydrogenated YUK)...but low sugar is great, and simple recipe that's easy to accomplish is right in line with a busy lifestyle.

Ingredients:
- 2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup dried apple/cranberry (publix has a great organic package of this), or dried berries of your choice...try to go low sugar!
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp table salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup egg whites
- 1 cup low-fat buttermilk*
- 1/4 cup low calorie butter, melted (still seeking a good product, I went with her rec. of Brummel/Brown in the meantime :(

Directions
Preheat oven to 400ºF.
Coat a baking sheet with non-fat cooking spray
In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar; mix well and set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together egg, buttermilk and melted butter.
Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just combined; fold in dried berries. Don't overstir or you risk a less than optimal texture.
Drop 12 equal two-inch mounds of batter on prepared baking sheet about 1-inch apart. Bake until tops just start to turn golden, about 15 minutes—oven temps vary.
Entire recipe makes 12 scones.

Skip the butter, and serve these with a tablespoon of low-sugar preserves. Trader Joes has a great cranberry "butter" or there are a number of healthy choices out there. Yummmmm.

* She has a recipe for making your own low-fat or fat-free buttermilk on her site.

Banana Bread

If ever there was a ringing endorsement of food, it would be the disappearance of my banana bread in the office. Not technically myyyy banana bread, since it's another AllRecipes gem. Still. Time to disappear: one hour flat.

Super easy (made it this morning so I could bring it in warm). Super super easy.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter: I use real, honest to goodness butter. Tastes better.
  
• 3/4 cup brown sugar: I had less sugar in the cabinet this morning, so that's what I went with
  
• 2 eggs, beaten: I dumped these on the butter/sugar mixture and "beat" them in there.
  
• 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas: I go for as rotten and overripe as I possibly can. I am in the habit of freezing overripe bananas for smoothies, so when I don't have enough "fresh" overripe bananas I nuke some of my frozen banana.
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and beat that together, then add mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten (over stirring makes it rubbery and that just sucks!). Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes (63 minutes for me), until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Please note: 

This recipe rocks for its simplicity, and its flexibility. You can add chopped nuts, chocolate chips, or whatever you think might taste good. You can also make it into muffins (more like cupcakes if you go the chocolate chip route ehehe), just adjust the bake time to about 25-30 minutes (for a dozen).

Peasant Bread, or A Slacker's Attempt at French Bread

This is my second attempt to make "French" bread in the oven, and while not overwhelming it's pretty passable and especially easy. Bonus points for having very few (simple) ingredients, and for being vegan.

I love my bread machine for the fact that it will knead/rise dough for me while I do more important things like Facebook and feeding my cats catnip. If you don't have a bread machine, there are inevitably reviews giving you instruction for doing it all by hand.

I used the Peasant Bread recipe over at AllRecipes then modified:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 1/2 cups bread flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Directions

1. Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle. 
2. When dough cycle is close to completion, start the oven on 350 preheat. When dough cycle is complete, throw onto a floured surface to mold into a reasonable "peasant bread"-shaped ball. Slice the top a couple of times with a sharp knife. (Honestly I don't know why, but there has to be a reason you always see that.)
3. Bake at 350 on a *pizza stone* (or bread stone) that's been lightly dusted with cornmeal. Apparently, the baking stone makes a huge difference.
4. At the same time, you want a pan of hot water below the stone to generate steam in the baking process. I put one of my Le Creuset pieces in there and poured boiling water from my kettle into it. 
5. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, but eyeball it until the crust looks about right (golden brown).
   
   I've been reading that they key to French Bread is a steam injection oven, which I obviously don't have and am assuming you don't either. So, that pan of water makes a difference. I've made the peasant bread recipe before in the bread machine and this turned out totally differently, and I'd say better. Maybe I'm partial to round bread.
   
   Another option is to fill a fine mister/spray bottle with water and spray it every 15 minutes. I don't have an open spray bottle at the moment, but maybe I'll try that next time.
   

Pumpkin Gingerbread

I will admit, I wanted very much to make Pumpkin Ginger cupcakes, but the recipe called for butterscotch instant pudding and J was unable to find anything but sugar free. Boo aspartame!

So, Plan B. WOW. Slight modifications to the recipe per some reviews, so I've shown it here with commentary. The original recipe is here of course.

Ingredients

• 3 cups sugar: I used 1 1/2 cups regular sugar, and 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
  
• 1 cup vegetable oil: I used 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
  
• 4 eggs
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger: I use a more liquid version that looks like this and NOT the powdered variety. I think this makes a huge difference!
  
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves: I left this out b/c I forgot. It did not suffer. I'll do it next time :-)
  
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large mixing, combine sugar, oil and eggs; beat until smooth. Add water and beat until well blended. Stir in pumpkin and ginger.
3. In medium bowl, combine flour, soda, salt, baking powder, cloves, allspice and cinnamon. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and blend just until all ingredients are mixed. Divide batter between prepared pans.
4. Bake in preheated oven until toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour 15 minutes.

applesauce oatmeal muffins

I'll admit I didn't take my own photo before we'd devoured all of these (so you know the recipe is good!). Another AllRecipes gem, these applesauce oatmeal muffins are to die for.

I didn't have any quick-cook oats in the house, so I went for the packets of instant oatmeal that we take on our backpacking trips (low-sugar variety) and upped the cinnamon for my own taste. I was liberal with the topping, making sure to use every last bit.

J was nomming happily and gave this one two thumbs up. I especially like that it's low-fat (and surprisingly low-sugar).

what's in your smoothie?

I usually like to make smoothies in the morning when I have time, especially when I'm feeling the need for a boost. This morning's smoothie contains some pretty awesome stuff:

Strawberries: Heart protective, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, great source of Vitamin C

Mango: one of the best sources of betacarotene, quercetin and astragalin, another great source of vitamin C, and vitamin A

Pineapple: Manganese, Vitamin C and Thiamin (again with the anti-cancer)

Peaches: Tons of Vitamin A, which is good for your eyes!

Ginger: Digestive aid which also helps to clear out mucus

Wheat Germ: Vitamin E, Folic Acid, Fiber, Omega-3, Vitamin B, iron, calcium, zinc

Bee Pollen: vitamins, minerals, proteins and amino acids, enzymes and coenzymes, as well as antibiotic, antihistamine, and antioxidant properties; great source of energy

Local Honey: builds immunity against local pollen allergies, and tastes good :-)

Apple Juice: Good for your heart, good for the fight against bad cholesterol

southern biscuits from scratch

I make no secret of the fact that I am a huge fan of AllRecipes.com and found this particular goodie there as well. They turned out well, though nothing will ever be as good as Bojangles :-)

JP's Big Daddy Biscuits

INGREDIENTS
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 tablespoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon white sugar
* 1/3 cup shortening*
* 1 cup milk (see note in direx)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in milk until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl---only add as much milk as you need, you may not always need the whole cup!
3. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead 15 to 20 times. Pat or roll dough out to 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Repeat until all dough is used. Brush off the excess flour, and place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet.
4. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges begin to brown.

* Whole Foods has a *great* non-hydrogenated, organic shortening option in their baking section. Don't go Crisco!