Healthy Whole Wheat Pitas

Pita party!

Look at them, all puffed up!

Everyone should join the pita party. It brings the baker a great delight seeing the little brown circles puff up like balloons in the oven. Even greater joy taking a knife and opening up the bread to see the little pocket formed inside the bread. These darn little circles of dough are just too fun to bake! (And eat...) You can see your baking skills pop up right in front of you!

Another great thing about pitas is you can make them ahead of time! Just stick the dough in a Ziploc bag and refrigerate!

Whole Wheat Pitas

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 tablespoon olive oil

Combine all the ingredients in bread maker. Let knead for 45 minutes in machine. When done, put in bowl. Cover bowl tightly and let rise for 1 1/2 hours, or until dough has risen double in size.

When time as come for baking, place a baking stone in oven. Preheat oven to 450°F.

Take dough, roll out balls of dough, about size of golf balls if you wish to have small pitas. Let dough set for 10 minutes, then flatten with a rolling pin on parchment paper. Bake 3-4 pitas at a time for 5-10 minutes, or until pitas have fully "ballooned".

Look how big they get!

They open right up! (By the way, those are not my man hands!)

You can serve them warm or cold. My boyfriend and I enjoy pitas with falafels, hummus, tomato-cucumber-onion salad, and chicken sandwich. Very, very enjoyable!

Nancy Jane

Simply Refreshing Apple Cider Vinegar Drink

 

Delicious, refreshing, health building

Apple Cider Vinegar Ginger Tea

Drinking apple cider vinegar has a multitude of health benefit claims.  We enjoy this at least daily and up to three times per day.

This recipe must be altered to your taste preference, the perfect balance of vinegar, stevia (or honey) and ginger is a personal choice.

It is important to use good quality apple cider vinegar—unpasteurized, raw, unfiltered with the ‘mother’.   Our absolute favorite is Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar.

This drink is sold in bottles at Sprouts, while it is delicious purchased ready made, developing your won combination is less expensive and more accessible.

Simply Combine 

(In your favorite mug,  I prefer cups and saucers for other hot beverages, but a mug is needed for this concoction.)

Apple Cider Vinegar-start with 1 tablespoon and adjust to taste

Stevia or honey to taste

Ginger-we use 3 quarter size pieces

Hot water

Sip and adjust ingredients to your taste.

This can be made hot or cold, but the ginger will steep getting full flavor benefits if you use hot water.

Other options….Forego ginger….Nancy Jane is not a ginger fan like Mother Judith (her dog Gingersnap is the exception) so she drinks it solo, or with a smidgen of good quality cinnamon.

As with the vinegar, good quality cinnamon makes all the difference in the world, we use Vietnamese cinnamon.

Experiment with portions and other herbs and spices…try to add this to your daily maintenance for a wide spectrum of benefits.

Mother Judith

Open-Faced Rustic Berry Pie

The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion defines rustic as "the method of shaping the crust". I define it as "well, the edges of my crust did not turn out as pretty as I wanted".

Open-Faced Rustic Berry Pie is the easiest pie I have made up to this date. (Granted, this is not a well seasoned baker here). Basically all you do is roll out the dough, toss the berry mixture in the middle, fold over the dough and you made a pie!   The recipe is originally from the book, but with a few modifications.

Ingredients

• One 9 inch single pie crust (follow link for recipe)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3 cups berries

Preheat oven to 425° F.
Take aluminum foil on cookie sheet, spray with oil. Roll pie crust flat on sheet. (The edges might hang off, this is ok). Set aside.

In a separate bowl, stir together sugar and cornstarch. Add berries. I opted for strawberries and raspberries since they were on sale. Stir ingredients together. Poor in middle of pie crust, leaving a 3 inch gap between berries and pie crust edge. Fold the dough over the berries, leaving a 4-5 inch hole exposing berries.

Steps for folding over dough.

 
Place in oven, bake 20-30 minutes, or until berry mixture begins to bubble and crust turns brown. Let cool for 15-30 minutes, serve with a scoop of ice cream and a cup of coffee!

I am so very looking forward to my berries this summer so I can make this pie with them.
Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Nancy Jane

Get Tropical with Coconut Pie

  

 

Coconut Pie is a custard-like pie with hints of macaroons, almond joys, and tropical islands. Not only does the pie taste delectable, but is beautiful to look at. The vision of the pie was so tempting that I could not wait for it to cool off to try it. Of course, don't forget to add whip cream to the top of the pie to make it extra delicious!

 

I found the recipe in the Better Home and Garden New Cook Book. For the pie crust, I used a simple crust. You can buy one at the store or try this recipe here at this link. 

 

Coconut Pie

• 3 beaten eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 4 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/3 cup flaked coconut
• 1 uncooked pie shell

 

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine eggs, sugar, butter, lemon juice, and vanilla. Stir in coconut. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Bake for an hour or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean.

 

Hope you enjoy this recipe!

Nancy Jane

Lucky Green Cheesecake

 

With Patrick's Day rapidly approaching, coming up with an Irish themed dessert is probably popping up in your mind. Well, have you given thought to a green cheesecake? Festive, fun, and unique are the perfect words to describe the cake. Kids and adults will love the look and taste!

This recipe could not get any simpler. For the crust I just used vanilla wafers. I opted to make cheesecake in a cupcake form, but you can easily use the wafers as a pie crust, just line the pie dish with them. It makes a simple, yet scrumptious, pie crust.

For the cheesecake, Mother Judith recommended me using a no bake recipe. I found this recipe on Martha Stewart's website. The contribution I added to the otherwise white cheesecake is the green dye.

Ingredients:

• 2 eight ounce packaged cream cheese, room temperature. 
• 1 fourteen ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Green dye

Using electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add in sweetened condensed milk, a little at a time. Add lemon juice and vanilla. After the mix is smooth, add in green dye until desired color is achieved (it doesn't take a lot).

Take cupcake pan, put in cupcake papers and add a vanilla wafer to each one. Scoop in cheesecake mixture over each wafer. Set in refrigerator and let chill overnight. The website only recommended letting it set 2 to 3 hours, but letting it chill overnight definitely made the cheesecake a little  firmer.

Remove cheesecake from the fridge the next day, and add decorations! I melted chocolate the night before and drizzled it on wax paper. I set that in the fridge over night as well, then set it atop my cheesecakes. You can also use green M&Ms, sprinkles, etc. This recipe is perfect to make with kids.

 

Nancy Jane

Purple Cabbage Salad

Before and after

 

The strategy to get family to eat more salad is a variety of choices.  If there are cold salads ready  to go...they are simple to top off green salads with various favors, colors and textures. 

This is one of Nancy Jane's favorites, if this was ready to go, she was a happy girl, have a piece of fresh fruit on the side and life couldn't be better....well, if I let her dog in the house maybe it could be better.

Purple Salad

• 1 head purple cabbage shredded
• 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar. (vinegars are can be interchanged, so use what is on hand)
• 1/3 cup whole cane sugar or pure maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup water....amount depends if sugar or syrup is used, the lesser amount using sugar

Optional add-ins ...sliced onions, caraway seeds, any fresh herb you have available...we like tarragon, parsley, or cilantro.....but usually we make it solo with only the cabbage.

In large pot combine vinegar, sugar or syrup, water, salt, optional herbs...heat until simmering.  Add cabbage and optional onion.....cook until cabbage changes color a bright magenta and slightly tender....with a little crunch.

Cool a bit and refrigerate.

The best way to store is in a clear glass container with lid....when to refrigerator door is opened the salad looks so pretty and inviting.

With the vinegar this keeps for days, but it never lasts too long at our house.....

Mother Judith

Pick Up the Beat With Pickled Beets

 

 

Yes, we are still in beet mode. We just can't help it. Not only are they in season, we just plain love them. Pickled beets are one of my dad's favorite foods, so I really enjoy making them for him.

 

Pickled Beets (recipe from The Ball Blue Book)

Yields: about 6 pints or 3 quarts

• 3 quarts beets (about 24 small beets)
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 tablespoon whole allspice
• 1 1/2 teaspoon canning salt
• 3 1/2 cups vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups water

 



First step is to clean and boil the beets. You take raw beets, remove the leafy part and place in a large pot full of water. Boil beets until soft. I tested it by sticking a fork through it.

 

Raw beets

 

I had to use two pots, a couple of my beets were huge!

After being boiled.

 

 

After the beets are boiled, set aside to cool off a bit. While the beets are cooling, combine all ingredients (except beets) in a large saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, once boiling, reduce to simmer. Let simmer for 15 minutes.

 

While mixture is simmering, remove skin from beets, and slice beets to desired size.

 

Once the 15 min is over, remove the cinnamon sticks from mixture. Pack beets into sanitized jars, leave a 1/2 inch headspace.   

 



 

After packing beets in, ladle hot liquid over the beets, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles, add two-piece cap. Process the pints and quarts 30 minutes in a boiling water canner.

It's that easy! If you have a pickled beet recipe, please share!

Nancy Jane