Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

Let's face it--whole wheat anything here tends to be crumbly or tough or just not quite the same as at home. I think it's the absence of vital wheat gluten in baking supplies or something different in the milling. Well, these rolls are anything but. They are fluffy, soft, and delicious! I wanted a roll that reminded me of those soft buttery ones my school cafeteria made when I was a child, but I wanted a whole wheat alternative. I found this recipe on An Oregon Cottage, and it is a real winner. I only altered the mixing method and the option to use milk, as my take 2 using kefir was much fluffier than the first ones I made. Yes, this one takes a little time, but patience, Grasshopper. Your efforts will be rewarded!

The back ones have caramelized onion filling.

Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls
2 Tablespoons yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup (or 128g) butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk, sour milk, or kefir
4 1/2 to 5 cups wholewheat flour (atta)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water with the honey. Set aside. Cream the butter in a bowl. Add eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition to prevent separation. Next pour in the buttermilk and yeast. Add 1 cup of the flour to create a sponge and stir until relatively smooth. Add in the remaining flour and salt, kneading just until the dough begins to spring back when poked and is no longer tacky. Do not add too much flour, or you'll get a tough dough. Place in an oiled bowl, cover, and allow to rise in warm place for 1 hour or until doubled. Once doubled, knead on a lightly floured surface to release air and allow to rest several minutes. Shape into 24 equally sized balls (see tutorial) and place in a greased 9x13 baking dish. The pieces should be touching. Cover and allow to rise again for 1 hour.

Bake in a 170C/350F preheated oven for 15-30 minutes. Brush the tops with melted butter before serving and enjoy warm!

Note: These freeze really well. Just wrap in plastic then foil once cooled. To reheat, thaw, remove plastic, wrap in foil and bake 10 minutes. Also, yeast can be a bit problematic here as far as blooming/not blooming. I have found that buying smaller packets more often (check for expiration) alleviates this problem to some degree.
 

Black Bean Taquitos

Over the summer, I was trying to think of ways to change up our traditional southwestern style dishes that we eat at home. Tacos, taco salad, enchiladas, and even bean tostadas are classics in our house, but still I want more variety! I remembered seeing taquitos in America, which are basically just a crispy rolled up tacos, and thought they might actually be easier my small kids to eat. Filling and delicious, these are a great weeknight meal, especially if you've cooked some black beans in advance. Serve them with fresh salsa and sour cream for dipping. If you flash freeze these on a cookie sheet for a couple hours, then bag them, they also work great for lunches! No need to thaw in advance.

Pardon their slight burned color! Priorities, people...

Black Bean Taquitos
1 Tablespoon oil
1 onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons taco seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups cooked black beans
1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup cheese, grated
6-8 tortillas or thin rotis

Heat oil over medium heat and saute onions until translucent. Add garlic and cook about 30 seconds until fragrant. Sprinkle in taco seasoning and salt, stirring about 30 seconds. Add in the black beans with 1/4 cup of water and cook over low heat about 5 minutes. Sprinkle in cilantro in the last 2 minutes of cooking. Remove from heat. Into each tortilla, spoon about 1/3 cup of the bean mixture and sprinkle with cheese. Carefully roll each filled tortilla to look something like the photo and place seam side down in a baking dish. Preheat oven to 225C/425F. Prior to baking, brush each rolled taquito with some oil. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the tops of taquitos begin to turn golden.

Caramelized Onions

A few years ago, Megan's husband used to make this delicious crusty French boule bread to bring to gatherings. Well, this recipe is unfortunately not about artisanal bread -- you can buy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for that -- but it is about this delicious caramelized onion topping that "Bob" would occasionally bake on top of smaller boule loaves. These onions are divine. Amazing baked into bread, spread on a little crostini with a slice of cheese, on top of steamed vegetables, pretty much just amazing. I love them! They also make your house smell wonderful when you're cooking them.

Caramelized Onions
3 Tablespoons olive oil
2-3 onions, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon white wine (omit if you don't have it)
1 teaspoon cider or red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon dried thyme
4 Tablespoons water
Pepper, to taste

Heat the oil on medium-low. The key to caramelizing onions is low heat, time, and moisture. Add everything the pan at once. Cook for about 25-30 minutes on low until the onions have a nice golden brown color. If the pan is getting dry, add another spoon of water to keep them moist and prevent burning.

This the perfect relatively hands off recipe that you can do when you're washing dishes or working on something else in the kitchen. A little work for a lot of flavor!

Miso Noodle Bowl

I'm back after a long silence! Although our weather has alternated between hot/summery and rainy, something about monsoon rain makes me want that occasional bowl of soup--even when I'm sweating. This soup, inspired by a recipe from Mushrooms Canada, can be made in under 15 minutes so it's a definite winner for easy weeknight meals. If you want it to be extra special, soak some dried black/Shitake/Chinese mushrooms in the morning to give you delicious natural mushroom broth in the evening. Just make sure you don't pour in the dredges from the bottom as they may contain grit.

Miso Noodle Bowl
1 Tablespoon oil
2 small onions, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
3 Tablespoons miso paste
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
4 cups water + 2 vegetable bouillon cubes or mushroom broth
2 cups mixed mushrooms or bok choy, chopped
2 scallions, chopped finely
200g noodles (soba, ramen, or chowmein)
Sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar, to taste

Heat oil over medium low heat. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the garlic and ginger, cooking until fragrant, about 1 minute, but do not let them brown. Stir in the miso paste and soy sauce, making sure the onions are coated with the mixture. Pour in the broth (water + bouillon) and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the vegetables, cooking over medium heat just until they are al dente or the greens are wilted. Add the noodles and cook another 4-7 minutes until they are also al dente. Remove from heat. Ladle into bowls, top with chopped scallions, and sprinkle over sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar to taste.

To add more protein content to the meal, you could also drop in cubed tofu toward the end of the cooking process.

Monkey Breakfast Cookies

I don't know what these cookies should be called, but being loaded with bananas for my little monkeys made me think they should be called Monkey Cookies. These are seriously some of the easiest cookies to make ever! Only 4 ingredients. These are something I can feel good about giving to my kids for breakfast or any other time of day for that matter. Use up those ugly bananas sitting on your counter to make these cookies from The Sweet Life. These are completely safe to eat raw, too, if you're starving while you're making them!

Monkey Breakfast Cookies
1 cup ripe mashed bananas
1 1/2 cups quick oats
1/3 cup peanut butter (try them with crunchy!)
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Combine the bananas, oats, and peanut butter in a bowl. Once the batter is roughly uniform, fold in the chocolate chips. Preheat oven to 170C/350F. Drop cookies by the tablespoon onto the pan, flattening just slightly to help the centers cook more evenly. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool and enjoy!

Note: If you are gluten-free, you should buy oats specifically marked as "gluten free" and not assume that locally packaged oats are. 

What's on Our Plates?

I am not the best at coming up with or writing recipes, but I told Lizzy maybe I would post some meal plans on here, as I do enjoy finding recipes that work well here or can easily be adapted and making a plan for the week.  I put my original plan here and noted a few changes that I ended up making.  Seems that the end of the week usually brings some changes in plans!

Monday
Breakfast--cereal
Lunch--Office
Dinner--Moroccan Chickpea Stew (with leftover chicken pieces, green beans, and carrots added in and no greens)

Tuesday
Breakfast--oatmeal with bananas
Lunch--egg salad and crackers, cucumbers, fruit
Dinner--One Pot Spaghetti, roasted vegetables
peach crumble

Wednesday
Breakfast--cereal
Lunch--Cheesy Beans, fruit
Dinner--leftovers
apple muffins
On Wednesday evenings, we meet up with our team, and we bring a snack to share and pack dinner for the kids and then eat a quick dinner of leftovers when we get home because my husband has to jump into work calls.

Thursday
Breakfast--pancakes
Lunch--office
We had to wait on a plumber and ended up at home with leftovers instead.
Dinner--Spanish Bean and Rice Casserole with a can of corn added in, served with tortilla chips and some leftover roasted veggies.  I cooked a bigger batch of black beans earlier in the week to use for the cheesy beans and for this.

Friday
Breakfast--eggs and toast
Lunch--leftovers
Dinner--miso-glazed tofu with udon noodles and veggies (with different veggies subbed than the original recipe)
Friday got a little strange for us.  Our kitchen wasn't really available at lunch, so we ended up eating cereal!  :)  And, we didn't make it to get the miso paste I had hoped to use, so for dinner, I cobbled together some bacon, veggie, cheese skillet stuff and made some quick biscuits.  If I had the ingredients around, I had been meaning to put together a batch of Lizzy's bisquick mix, which would have made the biscuits even easier, but this biscuit recipe was fairly quick and easy to pull together as well.

Saturday
Breakfast--Cereal
Lunch--out
Dinner--leftovers

Sunday
Breakfast--french toast
Lunch--out
Dinner--macaroni and cheese--the Kraft stuff from a care package! :), salad

Cheesy Beans

Lizzy asked me if I would post this, as it is an easy fix for a meal like lunch, and I really didn't know what I did before, so I made them again today and now have a rather rough "recipe."  I originally saw something like this in my More with Less cookbook, which is a great one for life overseas or just simple and frugal living anywhere.  I actually gave my copy to someone, but I think the recipe in there was called Monterey Beans.
This is one of those foods that really was just a matter of trying to give a little variety to the amount of beans we eat!  So, here is the basic run-down of what I did and a quick photo (clearly, food photography is not my calling) of the cheesy beans over some rice with some leftover veggies and olives for an easy lunch.

Cheesy Beans

You could use canned beans or dried and really any variety of beans.  I like black beans, but kidney beans work well with it as well.  Once the beans are cooked (or if you use canned ones), put them with a little bit of liquid.  I just kept some of the cooking water with mine right in the pressure cooker, but if you like to drain that off (especially if you are a bit prone to gassiness--ha, the things you say freely from life overseas!), just add in a bit of water until you can see liquid among the beans but they are not totally covered.  Kind of a preference thing on how liquidy you want them.  I probably had about 1 1/2 cups of beans and maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup water today.

I added 1/2 of a bouillon cube and some seasonings.  This is pretty flexible, but I put in a dash of onion powder and garlic powder (though, if you don't have them, I sometimes skip these, and I don't actually like having chunks of onions or garlic in beans this way, but you could put in fresh garlic and onions), and about 1/2 teaspoon of cumin.  If your family has a higher threshold for spiciness than mine, a dash of chili powder or sauce is nice in these.  

I then added...ugh, not loving admitting this...processed cheese!  You could try it with actual cheese, but I think it would get a bit stringy, and what I like about these is the smooth, sort of creamy texture.  So, yeah, I did it.  I tend to use whatever is available.  The slices actually work really well and melt much faster.  Despite one of the only actual advantages of processed cheese being that it melts well, some of it here really takes a long time.  Today I used 3 of the Britannia brand of cheese cubes.  Anything would work (think Velveeta or Amul or whatever you have available).  If you have something that melts faster, though, wait a bit to add it.

I brought the liquid to a boil and then simmered it all together, stirring occasionally because the cheese starts to burn before it actually melts!, for about 10 minutes.

That's it.  My super gourmet dish. :)  It's nice to have as a quick lunch to add a smidge of variety to the parade of beans and lentils that we have, though, so there you have it.