Potatoes O'Brein

A freezer friendly plant based breakfast. How could breakfast get any better than this?

Potatoes. I'm not a huge fan of potatoes, however hubby and the kids are. I'll make them once in awhile since they really aren't that bad for you. They just need to be cooked the right way.

After purchasing large potatoes at the farmer's market one weekend, I diced them and boiled them for freezing. I also did so with bell peppers and onions.

First off, cook the potatoes in water in a large skillet or pan. I couldn't quite them brown since they kept burning and sticking to the bottom. I'm not sure how to get the potatoes that lovely brown, so next time I will try browning/baking in the oven. to get them that lovely brown color.

After trying to brown the potatoes, add the peppers, onions, and mushrooms. You can also add the canned Anaheim or jalapenos to it for more flavor.

Even though it wasn't brown, it was still good. The family ate it all up and wanted more. This is a great breakfast that you can make a double or triple batch to freeze for later. Talk about a filling time saver!

Pepperoncinis

Pepperoncinis are one of the easiest canning things out there. Although I'm new to canning I had good luck making these compared to strawberry jam.

The first step you need is a pepperocini plant. We don't usually shop at big chain stores for plants unless we know specifically how to maintain it. We were actually at the in-laws while looking for something to do in town for awhile, we stopped by Eisley's Nursery in Auburn, CA. It was so neat to see absolutely every plant I could think of. Not everything grows there in Auburn, but Eisley's even carried a banana tree. I want a banana tree so bad! One less fresh thing to buy that I could grow...


Looking through their vegetables, I noticed a pepperocini plant. "How cool is that?" I love pepperocinis so
course I grabbed one of their 6 pack plants among a few other plants. Moving them to Bakersfield in their original container, they have thrived in the blazing sun. Out of six plants, two survived. Those two plants have produced so many pepperocinis that I had to start canning them before anything else was ready in the garden.

I won't go into detail about how canning works, but I'll give you a few links here in the text. Mom suggested I get the book "Putting Food By: Fifth Edition by Ruth Hertzberg, Janet Greene and Beatrice Vaughan. I also went ahead and scoured the internet and broke down and bought the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving by Altrista Consumr Products". These two books are lifesavers. They have every recipe you'll ever need for canning and preserving. Now only if I could get the rest of the garden to produce this well.

For the pepperocinis, all I had to do was make a hole in the peppers, stuff the peppers in a sanitized ball jar, boil some super easy syrup, pour over peppers, and seal. Done. How easy! I recommend having the kids wash their hands and stuff as many peppers into the jar.

I guess I'll put the recipe on here. This is the recipe for any hot pepper as well.
Putting Food By, pg 334

One overflowing bowl-ful is about 4 quarts

4 qts peppers (these peppers grow like hot cakes in the hot weather)
4 C distilled white vinegar
4 C water
4 t salt, preferably pickling (I used table salt)
Olive oil (optional) I didn't use

Take out seeds and remove stems if you want to.
Make slits in peppers if whole.
Place and stuff peppers in jars.
Boil vinegar and water- not for too long though. Vinegar dissipates if boiled too long.
Pour boiling liquid into jars.
If adding oil, leave 3/4" headspace.
Add salt to taste.
Close lids properly and boil water bath for 15 minutes.

Extremely easy! Now if it weren't so hot in here...

Make sure you stuff them in- I just set them in there

Who knew heavy whipping had so many uses?

Heavy Whipping Cream
Heavy whipping cream isn’t just for coffee and chefs. You can make whipped cream, butter, and buttermilk.

“Butter? Seriously? Why not just buy it?” hubby asked somberly.
“Why not?” I said. “It’s not like I’m buying a cow or anything, but the fresh cream…”
“No.”
“But the neighbors said they would help!”
“No.”

Well, the kids love experiment just as much as mommy and I needed something to entertain them. As I was surfing the web, I came across Free Range Living’s blog on making butter. I knew we just had to try it once I saw how easy it was!

Making butter is very easy and quick. Most people buy butter because heavy whipping cream is just as expensive as butter itself-just no dishes to wash. Another convenient item from the grocery store. Even if you don’t make butter for your daily dishes, it’s a wonderful experience on homemade bread-white, wheat, cinnamon raisin, etc.

You can make butter either by hand or by Kitchenaid. By hand, you will want to check out this YouTube clip: How to Make Butter with Robert Krampf.

Although I haven’t done it by hand, it too looks easy. I knew my kids wouldn’t want to shake it vigorously for so long, so we used the KitchenAid (they never tire of moving the switch). You need: jar with a lid, a marble, a strainer, and salt. Place the cream in the jar, shake vigorously until the cream becomes a solid. It takes awhile. Did I mention vigorous shaking? For at least five minutes. I’ll let you watch the video and determine which course of action you want to take.

For the KitchenAid method, you’ll need: cream, a KitchenAid (paddle attachment), salt, raspberries or garlic (optional).

First step is to let the whipping cream get to room temperature. I’ve made butter when it’s cold, but its better if its room temperature. It also helps if the bowl is cold, but I found it doesn’t matter if it is or not. Some people use the whisk attachment, but to me, that’s one more thing to clean (by hand).

Turn on your KitchenAid (or have your helpers do this). After about 2-5 minutes, you will have whipped cream! No wonder my friend, A, doesn’t buy the can stuff. All those preservatives-yuck! If all I am making with my cream is whipped cream, I use the whisk attachment.

Before buttermilk seperated

If you don’t want/need whipped cream for your fresh berries, cakes, etc., keep mixing! After another 5-10 minutes, you’re whipped cream will turn into a dough-like substance and a few more minutes later, your butter will transform before your eyes! You’ll notice a liquid at the bottom of the bowl. This is buttermilk. You’ll need to take the butter out of the bowl and strain it. You can save the buttermilk for other uses if you want. Otherwise, it goes down the sink.

This is why I don't use the whisk to make butter

People say to squeeze the buttermilk out of the butter, but I’ve never had any luck doing that. Squeeze if you can and rinse the remaining buttermilk out of the butter until you only see clear liquid draining off the butter. Make sure you get most of the water off the butter as well. See-not hard at all so far!

Butter!

Buttermilk

If you want unsalted butter, you’re done! If not, one more step. Wipe your KitchenAid bowl with a paper towel to get the remaining buttermilk. Return the butter to the KitchenAid with paddle (wipe that as well) and add salt. Add a pinch at a time. You do not want to oversalt!  Free Range Living says “add 1/2 a teaspoon of salt for every pound of butter (remembering that 1 quart of cream will yield about a pound).” I make butter out of leftover heavy whipping cream so my amounts always vary. This is also the time to add your optional ingredients (garlic, raspberries, etc).

Put in a container- I use plain ole Tupperware/glad containers, Free Range Living has a French butter bell. Amazon has a bunch of really cute buttersavers for $10+ dollars. What a way to present your homemade butter!

Check out how to make homemade whole wheat bread and enjoy!

You can freeze your butter- just make sure its sealed!



Free Range Living: http://freerangeliving.blogspot.com/2006/11/making-butter.html
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oropJD0CUxI
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com butter bell

Homemade Wheat Bread

Mmmmm. As hubby walks through the door, his stomach rumbles. "The house smells wonderful" he usually comments. There's apparently no need for us to buy candles to make our house aromatic. I just throw some flour, yeast, and a few easy ingredients into our wonderful bread machine. I love my bread machine so much I could sing about it! I promise I won't though.

In my house, my kids eat PB&Js every day for lunch so bread is a necessary staple. Do I feed them $1 store bought white bread/fish bait? No! Number 1. If they are going to eat that much bread, they need whole wheat. 2. As I am trying to simplify my pantry/life and get rid of the preservatives, homemade is the only way to go. Plus, it's just a few simple ingredients other than flour and yeast. You don't even need bread flour for most recipes (this recipe does call for bread flour though). After searching for a good recipe online, I finally gave up the search because all I have in the pantry is white whole wheat flour.

There is a difference between whole wheat and white whole wheat. The white whole wheat flour does have the same fiber and nutrition as wheat, it's just not as "whole" as whole wheat. White whole wheat is a little more grounded for a lighter/whiter taste. Some people use half white whole wheat flour and half whole wheat when making bread, but I had no problem with white whole wheat + the bread flour in this recipe. I didn't expect this bread to turn out the way it did and I will experiment with the white whole wheat more so I can convert hubby to eating more whole grains.

Off the computer, I took Betty Crocker's Cookbook out of my cabinet and turned to the whole wheat bread recipe on page 88. It's not a new recipe, but I really wanted to experiment with my white whole wheat flour. Maybe I could trick him into thinking its white bread.
  
Here is the Betty Crocker Recipe on Page 88: I couldn't find it on their website

Whole Wheat Bread

1 C + 2 T water
3 T Honey
2 T butter
1 1/2 C bread flour
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat and it came out perfect!)
1/4 C walnuts (optional)

White Whole Wheat Bread

1 t salt
1 1/2 t bread machine yeast

Put ingredients in bread making pan as ordered (wet always goes first).
Use whole wheat or white setting on bread machine.
Medium or Light cyle.
DO NOT use rapid cycle!
Remove from rack to cool and cover with a towel to keep moist. (I left the bread in the machine overnight and it turned out moist as a cake)

Good luck and let me know how yours turns out!