#14-#16 gratitude list and Chicken Stew Recipe.

14. Picking blueberries with the boys.....and the yumminess that follows.

15. My mom's chicken stew recipe.....beyond yummified! Eaten with sour cream and onion chips....our WHOLE family is in love with this and I have had a ton of people ask me for the recipe....


1 whole chicken cooked and deboned
1/2 stick to whole stick of REAL butter
1/4-1/2 cup of VERY finely chopped onion
1 gallon of whole milk(can also add heavy whipping cream for a richer flavor, I usually don't)
1-2 sticks of celerly VERY finely chopped
5 cups of rice
salt and pepper
Most important ingredient: SOUR CREAM and Onion chips as topping...kevin likes a little shredded cheese on his.

saute' onion and celery in butter. Add cooked chicken, continue to stir in. Add gallon of milk. Let the liquid heat back up, stirring often as to not scald milk( you don't want it to boil). Add cooked rice. Let heat up....salt and pepper to taste...add chips just before serving.



16. Bonhoeffer Biography with setting sun shining in....ahhh....



God is so good....His graces are EVERYWHERE you choose to stop and look!

Oatmeal pancake recipe: as requested.

These are delicious and you can make these without a Mill and they are still pretty healthy. Although I must tell you that grinding your own wheat makes a huge difference in all your healthy bread baking in regards to nutrition and taste. I highly recommend it!!

This is a recipe we got from a South Beach Diet Cookbook.
I suggest you put the batter together the day/night before you cook just for time sake

Ingredients:
2 cups milk
1 1/4 cup quick oats
1 egg
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ(optional)
1 Tablepoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar substitute
2 teaspoos canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Combine the oats and milk and allow to stand for 10 min.
Stir in egg, flour, wheat germ, baking powder, sugar, oil, salt and mixing evenly.
Let batter stand in fridge for 30 min.
Skillet on medium heat.

Add cinnamon, nutmet or cloves to add a different flavor.

Cinnamon Rolls

We just enjoy having a few friends over to help make our cinnamon rolls. I like to make these because I know my boys will eat them and they are very healthy minus the icing of course. But I made them with my freshly made flour which i HIGHLY recommend. It is soooooooooo good for you! One bite of anything made with this flour has more nutritional value than a whol loaf you buy at the store. If you want to know more about this check out breadbekers.com.

Marshmellow Pilgrim Hats!

Today we learned about the first Thanksgiving. We colored our Mayflower pictures and made pilgrim hats! It was so messy and fun. All they wanted to do was eat....they really like the food much better than the project.

Chubby Bunny

Chocolate Bunny



I got this recipe off familyfun.com

Ingredients:
chocolate-striped shortbread cookies
semi sweet chocolate chips
large marshmellows
yellow frosting

Instructions:
1. Set cookie on wax paper
2. Melt chocolate in microwave
3. toothpick marshmellow and dip into chocolate covering entire marshmellow
4.place on top of cookie in center
5. chill the hats to let the chocolate set.
6. pipe yellow buckle

homemade bagels recipe

These are absolutely delicious!!!! WE made them when corrie came for a visit! i have never tasted a better bagel!

http://www.tammysrecipes.com/homemade_bagels

Description:

These home-baked bagels are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and great with cream cheese or butter!

Yield:

8-12 bagels

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups warm water (112-115 degrees F)
2 tablespoons dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
4 1/4 cups bread flour
8 cups of water, for boiling
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon water

Additionally, you can add one of the following (or be creative and come up with your own delicious addition to the recipe!):

cinnamon and/or raisins
poppy seeds
onions or garlic
sesame seeds

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, mix yeast, sugar and warm water together and let stand 3 minutes.

2. Mix 2 cups of flour with the salt in a large bowl; then add the yeast mixture. Stir until combined and slowly mix in the rest of the flour.

3. Knead dough on a floured surface for 5 minutes, adding additional flour if necessary. Dough should be fairly smooth and somewhat firm. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover and let rise until double.

4. Punch dough down (if making cinnamon raisin bagels, add the cinnamon and raisins now -- knead just enough to swirl the cinnamon through the dough). Divide and shape into 12 balls. (For larger bagels, make only 8 balls.) Allow to rest for 5 minutes.

5. Bring 2 quarts of water to boil. Make a hole in each ball of dough and pull open about 2 inches, making a bagel shape. Place the shaped dough onto a cookie sheet and cover for 10 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drop 2 or 3 bagels at a time into the boiling water for about 45 seconds, turning each once.

7. Drain cooked bagels on a wire rack. Mix egg white and water; brush tops with egg white mixture and top with optional toppings, if using. Place bagels on greased baking sheets.

8. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, turning once half-way through baking. (If making plain bagels, you can flip the bagels; otherwise, just rotate.) Bagels will be lightly browned and shiny.

Additional Notes:

This recipe and photos were submitted by guest chef Bethany Kerr.

She writes, "I love this recipe because the bagels taste so much better fresh than they do bought from the store...the kids and hubby adore them! They really are not that difficult or time consuming to make either. :)"

Original recipe from recipezaar.com. Recipe has been edited by tammysrecipes.com. The photos are property of Bethany Kerr and tammysrecipes.com. :)

Note from Tammy: We made these onion poppyseed bagels by mixing minced onion with the egg white before brushing it on the bagels. Then we sprinkled poppy seeds on top and baked them! Yum! :)

Preparation Time:

30 minutes + 60 minutes rising time

Cooking Time:

35 minutes

Dill Pickles and okra

God has blessed us so much! I am so thankful for all the fresh vegetables that others have given us while we start our garden. I have had tons of fun canning. This week I tried dill pickles and my family loves them, especially my Elijah, which I am so thankful for because he rarely like anything that is good for him. I ended up canning 12 jars!

Garlic

Fresh Dill

2.5 cups white vinegar

9 cups water

1/2 cup pickling salt(less salt if you don't like too much salt...i thought it tasted great!)

10 quart cans or more

Large canning pot

dutch oven pot

small sauce pan for lids

1. wash jars

2. fill large canning pot half full with hot water put on low heat

3. place lids and rings in small sauce pan bring to almost boil

4. combine vinegar, salt and water in dutch oven bring to boil set aside

5. put 1 clove garlic and a layer of dill on the bottom and fill the jar with cucumbers.

6. fill jars with brine to neck of jar and seal with lids

7. place jars in large canning pot and put heat on high and time for 15 min. lid on.

8. remove jars, place on towel on counter and cover with another towel until cooled.

Blueberry jam recipe

Last year made blueberry jelly and was not real happy with it. So this year I decided to try jam and tweaked the recipe to make it the taste and texture wanted and it WORKED. So here it goes in the Wright recipe blog so that I can remember it for next year.

Here is what you need:

2 large pots (a good sized dutch oven or something that doesn't burn too easily AND a large canning pot for processing the jars).

1 good sized sauce pan (to place the lids and rings)

10 half pint jars

1 jar picker upper

tongs-i use to get the lids out with but they have something more precise for the job that you can buy.

10 cups of fresh blueberries-sorted and washed (none too hard and none too mushy)

1/2 cup of water

1/4 cup lemon juice (i just use the store bought kind)

1 small box sure-jell

5 ish cups of sugar- you can use any amount but i didn't measure precisely but i am sure it came out to around five cups. Some people use less some use more. i think 4 would have been fine too.

STEP 1. sanitize jars-wash with warm soapy water or put them in the dishwasher. I put them in the dishwasher on the sanitize cycle and heat dry, that way they are nice and warm and ready to handle the heat of the jelly. Also place lids and rings in another sauce pan almost to a boil.

STEP 2. Fill the Large canning pan about 1/2 full of water and turn on high heat.

Take the blueberries and blend in blender. Place in dutch oven on med. heat.

In a small bowl put box of sure jell with 1/4 cup of sugar and mix well.

STEP 3. Add the sure jell mixture, the 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/2 cup water to the blended blueberries in the dutch oven. Bring to a good boil, stirring frequently, then add 5 cups of sugar, mix well. Bring to another good boil and let it boil hard for 1 min.

Step 4. Pour into glass jars, wipe off tops, seal with lids. Place in Large canning pan. Cover with 2 inches of water and bring to a boil for around 5-10 min.

dehydrating bananas and blueberries

We had a lot of left over bananas from Rush Week that I didn't want to go to waste, so Elijah and I went to work.  Elijah peeled all the bananas for me and then we soaked them in lemon juice to retain the color and placed them in the dehydrator.  I had also picked some blueberries on thursday and wanted to dry those to see how we like them....

so the blueberries.....well....probably won't be trying those in the dehydrator again....but the banana chips are very yummy.

Home made frosty!

1 cup sweetened condensed milk

12 oz. whip cream

nestles chocolate milk

mix first two together add milk. pour into ice cream maker then fill the rest up with chocolate milk.

Broccoli and cheese casserole

This is so good for brunch or as a side dish with a meal. It is absolutely delicious!!

2 pkgs. frozen broccoli

1 can cream of chicken or mushroom soup

1 cup mayonnaise

2 T. grated onion (makes all the difference in the world)

2 beaten eggs

1. cup shredded cheddar cheese(i use more)

1 sleeve of ritz crackers (has to be ritz)

butter

Cook broccoli as directed and drain. Mix soup, mayo, onion, cheese and eggs. Pour into a buttered casserole dish. top with ritz crackers crumbled (Elijah likes to help me do this).

Dot with butter and bake at 400 degrees for 30++ min. or until brown on top and bubbly.

granola and candy day

So one of my goals for Feb. was to make granola.  I am trying to find healthy snacks for our family.  I love those chewy granola  bars, but i only buy them on special occasions because they are too expensive.

Here is the recipe (adapted from another on line recipe i found, i just used more ingredients i liked).

2 cups oats

3/4 cup wheat germ

1/2 cup crushed pecans

1/2 cup crushed walnuts (the original recipe called for 1 cup crushed peanuts)

3/4 cup sunflower seeds

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup molasses and pure maple syrup (the original called for 1/2 cup honey, but i really like molasses and maple syrup flavorings and i didnt want to use all the honey i had left).

4 TBL butter

2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

6 oz. dried fruit (the original called for 8oz., but i didn't have it so i did 6 and i really think 8 ounces would have been too overwhelming...oh i used dried cherry flavored cranberries by oceanspray)

oven 400. mix oats, wheat germ, nuts, sunflower seeds and place in a glass baking dish.  toast in oven for 12 min.  while toasting mix other ingredients (excluding the dried fruit) in a small sauce pan bring to simmer, stirring constantly.  Combine the dry mix and the sweet mix along with the fruit.  mix well.  Get large glass dish lined with parchment paper and a bit of non-stick spray. pour mix and press.  Give it a good press so it will all hold together.  let cool for a few hours.

next time i want to incorporate ground flax seed into the recipe.

Also, while cooper was napping this morning, Elijah and I made chocolate heart candies.  i can't believe how easy it was.  But I did find out that hershey bars don't set up that well after being melted.

Fruit leather

Elijah loves fruit roll ups and they have a massive amount of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, in fact, they don't contain strawberries at all.  So i tried this recipe to see how it worked.  I thought they tasted pretty good, but my opinion is that it was too much trouble unless you have a dehydrator.

1/2 cup water for every 4 cups of fruit (i used strawberries).

honey and maple syrup

lemon juice

Put water and chopped fruit into sauce pan and bring to a simmer.  Reduce to low heat for 10-15 min.  Add a Tablespoon of honey and/or maple syrup at a time, to taste.  Also add lemon juice a teaspoon at time to taste.  Add a pinch of cinnamon to taste.  Puree in blender.  Pour into a cookie sheet lined in plastic wrap(1/4 inch thick) and put into oven(140 degrees).  Make sure the plastic wrap does not touch the over rack or turn back over onto the fruit.  Cook for 8-10 hours (over night is a good idea).

laundry soap recipe

One of my favorite ways to save money is by making my own laundry detergent.  Believe it or not but i have saved hundreds of dollars on this recipe i got from the Dugger's book, 20 and Counting.

1 fels naptha soap bar, grated

1 cup washing soda

1/2 cup borax

grate soap. melt in pot of water until completely dissolved.  In the mean time take a 5 gallon bucket and put washing soda and borax in it.  I am very generous with the borax since we have very hard water and it is really good on hard water.  (Borax is also amazing on hard water build up in your shower and shower door).  When soap is melted pour into bucket with soda and borax, mix well until dissolved.  Fill the rest of the bucket up with warm  water.  Let it sit overnight.  Pour into a container half full and fill the rest up with water.  I use 1 cup per large load.

p.s. i couldn't get the soapy smell out of my pan so now it is just my soap pan.  So you might want to use something old.