Whole Wheat Cinnamon Caramel Rolls

This recipe is the Featherpuff Bread from the Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book. I would never have thought to put cottage cheese in a bread recipe, but Laurel just raved about how light this bread turns out, which makes it ideal for cinnamon rolls. The thing I like best about this recipe is that the high protein from the milk, eggs, and cottage cheese makes me feel satisfied, but not heavy. And the kids don’t have a sugar high either.

In the picture, our cinnamon rolls almost look like chocolate sticky buns, but that’s just our natural sweetener, rapadura. It tastes quite good, but it does look rather dark.

If you already bake with hard white wheat flour, you may not be impressed with this, but do you see the cinnamon roll near the top of this picture that looks like white bread is showing through underneath the caramel topping? That, my friends, is 100% whole wheat flour from Prairie Gold Hard White Wheat. If you have access to it, you definitely want to use that kind of wheat flour for these rolls. It makes a BIG difference, especially if you mill it yourself.

We start the dough before bedtime on Friday night using the full amount of yeast. The dough rises in the fridge, and it’s ready to roll out into cinnamon rolls for a special Saturday family breakfast.

One trick to making these rolls light is to roll them up loosely – they need room to rise!

1 recipe makes 2 9×13 pans of cinnamon rolls.

For the Dough

1 1/2 c. cottage cheese
2 eggs
1/4 c. honey
1/2 c. warm water (for the cottage cheese mixture)
2 t. yeast
1/2 c. warm water (for the yeast)
5 c. Prairie Gold white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 t. salt
2 T. cold butter plus a little more for the bowl

• Warm the cottage cheese gently in a saucepan. Remove form heat and mix in the eggs, honey and water, taking care that the cottage cheese is not so warm that it cooks the eggs.
• Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. (The water should be about skin temperature, or slightly warmer.)
• Mix the flour and salt thoroughly, making a well in them and adding the cottage cheese mixture and the yeast mixture. Mix to make a dough, and test for consistency, adding more water or flour if needed. The dough should be very soft. If it’s sticky, add just enough flour to keep it from sticking to the counter – not too much or the dough will get too tough to rise properly.
• Knead by hand for about 15 minutes, or by machine for 8 minutes, adding the butter in pieces halfway through the kneading. Then place it in a large buttered bowl and cover it with a towel. Let it rise overnight in the refrigerator.

For the Rolls

1 stick of butter, melted
3/4 c. Rapadura whole organic cane sugar
2 T. cinnamon

• In the morning, take the dough out of the bowl and cut it into two pieces. Dust a surface with flour and shape each piece of dough into a rectangle. Roll them out into large rectangles that are about 3/8″ – 1/2″ thick.
• Brush half of the stick of melted butter on each rectangle.
• Stir together the Rapadura and cinnamon. Using a spoon, sprinkle a thin layer of the mixture over each piece of dough.
• Roll the dough up somewhat loosely – jelly roll style – and pinch the end to seal. Set aside while you make the caramel topping.

For the Caramel

1/4 c. honey
3 T. water
6 T. soft butter
3/4 c. Rapadura
1 1/2 c. pecans (optional)

• To make the caramel topping, mix together the honey, water, soft butter and Rapadura. Spread the mixture in the bottom of two 9″ x 13″ pans. If you’re using pecans, sprinkle them over the caramel.

Putting It All Together

• To slice the cinnamon rolls, take a length of strong thread or fishing line and tie the ends to two pencils. Slide the thread under one of your long rolls and cross the two pencils, pulling to cut the roll. In this way, cut each roll into about 12 pieces. Place the rolls on top of the caramel mixture and let them rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, or until they’re very soft.
• When they’re about double in size, place the rolls in a preheated oven at 350 degrees. Bake them for approximately 30 minutes, or until golden brown.
• To serve, remove the rolls from the pan using a metal spatula and place them, caramel side up, on your serving dish. They are best served hot out of the oven.
• Makes about 24 rolls.

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Whole Wheat Apple Walnut Muffins

Some muffin recipes call for milk to make up most of the liquid. And that’s fine for those recipes. But this one is all about flavor since the apples themselves make up almost all of the liquid. If you use freshly ground soft white wheat flour, the muffins turn out light and soft, and baked in preheated stoneware pans, they’re heavenly.

Ingredients

3 or 4 fresh apples, or you can substitute 2-3 cups of applesauce
1/3 c. melted butter
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. soft white wheat flour (use freshly ground flour if possible)
1/2 c. Rapadura (whole organic cane sugar)
1 t. baking soda
2 t. cinnamon
pinch of salt
1 c. chopped walnuts

Directions

• In a blender (or you can do this by hand), blend together the bananas, melted butter, egg, and vanilla.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, rapadura, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and chopped walnuts.
• Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and spoon into buttered muffin cups.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
• Enjoy!

Variation: Apple Blueberry Muffins
Prepare as above except use 2 c. of applesauce instead of the bananas, and 1 c. blueberries instead of the nuts.

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Homemade Wheat Thins (Soaked 100 Percent Whole Wheat)

I packed these crackers on a winter trip to the north woods of Wisconsin, and we ate them with organic raw cheese and homemade raw jerky from a grass-fed steer. The butter I used in the crackers was deep yellow, in fact, raw too until the crackers were baked. To me, it was the most nourishing travel meal imaginable, because at the time, I was reading a book (Cure Tooth Decay, by Ramiel Nagel) that explains how to remineralize your teeth and reverse tooth decay by eating traditional foods, especially high quality, organic, yellow butter, soaked or sprouted whole grains, raw cheese, and grass fed meats.

This recipe comes straight from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook, but it’s not a cracker recipe in the book. It’s actually the recipe for Yogurt Dough, which is used to make crusts for empanadas and even pizza. In somebody’s real food blog – sorry, I can’t remember whose it was – I read that this recipe produces crackers that taste a lot like Wheat Thins. And it does! It’s a simple recipe too, and best if you actually take the time to soak the flour. I use yogurt sometimes, but most often, kefir is what I have in the fridge, and I think I like it’s flavor best in the crackers. You can use either.

Soaking the flour in this recipe makes the crackers easier to digest and the minerals more available to your body because the phytic acid will be broken down. It’s best to soak the flour for 8-12 hours. Much longer than that, and they may become too sour. (Of course, if your kitchen is cooler, you may be able to get away with a longer soak time.)

Ingredients:

1 cup plain, whole yogurt or kefir
1/2 pound butter, softened,
3 1/2 cups freshly ground soft white wheat flour, or, if you can’t mill it yourself, use pre-milled whole wheat pastry flour
2 t. fine sea salt, plus more to sprinkle on top
unbleached flour for rolling out the dough

 

Soaking the Flour

In the Nourishing Traditions cookbook, the recipe calls for creaming the butter and yogurt together, but I’ve never had any luck with that method. Instead, I’d suggest that you mix the yogurt with half of the flour and half of the salt in one bowl, and mix the butter with the other half of the flour and salt in another bowl. Once you have two separate balls of dough, one with yogurt and the other with butter, combine the two together. I do it this way, sometimes it produces a cracker with pretty marbling.

Cover the dough and leave it at room temperature for 8-12 hours.

Rolling Out the Crackers

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Use a pastry cloth if you have one. Otherwise, just sprinkle some unbleached flour on the counter to keep the cracker dough from sticking. Roll the dough to about 1/8 inch thick. It’s nice to sprinkle salt on at this point and give the dough one more light rolling to press the salt in a bit. Or you can sprinkle it on later.

Either with a pizza cutter or a knife, cut out your crackers. Prick with a fork. Transfer them to an ungreased metal cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, checking now and then to be sure they don’t burn. They’re done when they’re golden brown on the edges.

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Gluten Free Buckwheat Pancakes

Our daughter has been avoiding wheat for the past 6 months or so, having discovered that her skin clears up nicely when she does. But, as many of you know, coming up with gluten free recipes can be a challenge. This recipe was an immediate winner with the whole family, husband included.

We have always added a little bit of buckwheat – really only a handful – to our pancake batter, milling it fresh in our Nutrimill. But this recipe is made entirely from buckwheat flour, lightened by an overnight soaking in yogurt or buttermilk, and by beating the egg whites until they’re stiff.

Since this batter is so light, it works well in a waffle maker too.

Here’s the recipe that feeds our family of 7.

4 cups of buckwheat flour

4 cups of buttermilk, yogurt, or kefir

2 tsp. baking soda

pinch of sea salt

2 tablespoons maple syrup

4 tablespoons of butter, plus more butter for cooking

10 eggs, separated

In a bowl, mix together the flour and yogurt, buttermilk, or kefir and leave it out in a covered bowl overnight.

In the morning, melt the butter in a small pan and allow it to cool.

Separate the eggs, being careful not to get any of the yolk into the whites. Then beat the egg whites until they’re stiff.

You want to add the baking soda to the flour/yogurt mixture carefully so you get the best rise, so what I do is combine the melted butter, egg yokes, and baking soda, salt, and maple syrup and add this mixture to the flour mixture at the same time I add the egg whites. This way, the whole thing can be stirred once. Gently fold all the ingredients together. Then ladle onto a hot, buttered griddle; flipping each pancake once after it becomes bubbly.

Serve with plenty of butter and maple syrup!

 

 

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Gluten Free Corn Bread with Millet

Gluten Free Corn Bread
Made with all corn or a combination of corn and millet

One of our kids is not eating wheat right now because her skin stays much clearer without, so this cornbread has been a staple for simple lunches around here lately. I’ve added millet because it’s an alkaline seed which helps to balance the body’s PH. Besides that, I like to feed our family as much variety as I can, and this is one easy way to do it.

Add the millet if you’d like, but this recipe works just fine with all corn, freshly ground if possible.

Ingredients:

3-4 tablespoons ghee (butter oil) or coconut oil, or a combination

3 eggs

1 3/4 cups coarse cornmeal, preferably freshly ground

1/2 cup coarsely ground millet (or use 1/2 cup additional cornmeal instead)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

scant 2 cups yogurt, buttermilk or kefir

Preheat your oven to 400°.

Place an 11″ cast iron skillet or 9″x13″ baking dish in the oven. Add the ghee or coconut oil to the skillet and let it melt in the warming oven while you mix up the batter. The hot oil will give your cornbread a nice crispy crust, especially if you’re baking in cast iron.

Mix the cornmeal, millet flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl and set it aside.

Beat the eggs with a fork and add the yogurt, buttermilk, or kefir. Combine the mixture together with a spoon or fork until it’s a fairly even color (no unmixed swirls of egg).

Add the egg mixture to the cornmeal mixture and stir to combine, but be careful not to overmix.

Remove the hot pan from the oven and swirl the melted oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Then pour in the batter and bake 20 – 25 minutes. The cornbread will pull away from the sides of the pan when it’s done, and it will be a nice golden color.

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Sloppy Corn Bread

Earlier this morning, Laura of Heavenly Homemakers posted this yummy recipe for sloppy corn muffins.

From Heavenly Homemakers: Sloppy Corn Muffins

It looked so simple and so good, I made up a quick batch just in time for lunch.  And not surprisingly, it was a huge hit, so I now have one more great recipe that can be made almost entirely from ingredients I always have on hand.

I sincerely hate to mess with muffin cups if I can avoid it (unless the children are helping, and they were busy with schoolwork today) so ours was baked in a hot cast iron skillet instead.  I love the way the edges get brown and crispy when you use a skillet, but it will work just fine if you bake it in an ordinary 9 x 13 pan.

Sloppy Corn Bread

Ingredients:

1 recipe Corn Bread

1/2 recipe Sloppy Joes

Directions:  Heat 2 – 12 inch skillets in a 350 degree oven.  Melt a little butter oil or coconut oil into each, maybe about 2 tablespoons.  Once the skillets are good and hot, pour half the cornbread batter into each pan and top it with spoons full of sloppy joe meat.  Bake both for about 20 minutes, or until the middle tests clean with a toothpick.

Corn Bread Batter

Sloppy Joe

Sloppy Corn Bread Skillet

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Corn Bread

This recipe is a staple in our house.  The ingredients are always on hand.  Everyone always likes it.  And it’s so good with so many things, like baked beans, chili, scrambled eggs and sauerkraut salsa, even just simple soft butter.

We use 100% corn meal instead of including some unbleached flour, so it’s gluten free, and we soak it in kefir.  Kefir seems to work much better than yogurt or buttermilk to give a nice light texture and higher rise.

Ingredients:

3 cups cornmeal

2 1/2 cups kefir

3 eggs

1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon Celtic sea salt (If you live in TN, get this amazing salt cheaper when we order it wholesale through our co-op!)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 cup melted butter

2 tablespoons butter oil or coconut oil

First, ideally the night before you’re going to be baking, combine 3 cups cornmeal with 2 1/2 cups kefir.  Cover the bowl and soak overnight, or up to 12 hours.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat a large cast iron skillet in a 35o degree oven.  (Alternatively, you can bake in a buttered 9 x 13 pan, but don’t preheat it.)  Melt 2 tablespoons of butter oil or coconut oil in the skillet.

Combine the eggs, honey, salt, baking soda and melted butter in a bowl and add the soaked cornmeal, but don’t over mix.

Pour the mixture into the hot skillet, and bake for about 20 minutes.  The edges will become a nice crispy brown (if you’re baking in the skillet, that is).

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Chicken Alfredo with Homemade Noodles and Steamed Vegetables

Every Friday night, one of my children cooks with me.  I can get the girls cooking with me most any night, but not the boys.  They’d rather be digging, building or getting into trouble.  So our Friday night tradition is my way of making certain our boys grow up with the ability to prepare at least a  handful of their favorite dishes.  And it’s working.  The chosen child gets to choose the meal and a dessert, help prepare it and set the table with china dishes.  It’s special, complicated, messy and fun, and each child looks forward to “their night.”  Out of my five children, three of them chose this for dinner over the past five weeks.

We make Chicken Alfredo with homemade noodles – that’s a big part of the fun at our house – and we use the egg whites leftover from the Alfredo sauce to make the noodles.  If you prefer, save your egg whites for a lemon meringue pie, and use store-bought noodles instead.  Just know that you’re missing a home-made delight!

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken

4 carrots, peeled and cut into short sticks

1 head broccoli, chopped (keep the stem pieces separate from the flowerettes)

For the sauce:

2 cups cream

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

3 oz Parmesan cheese, finely grated

4 egg yolks

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Rinse the chicken and pat dry.  Rub with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake in an uncovered casserole dish for about 2 hours.

While the chicken is baking, prepare the noodles and get some water boiling to cook them.

To make the sauce: Pour the cream into a medium saucepan, and warm gently over medium heat.  Add the butter, and cook until melted.  While stirring with a wire whisk, add the grated Parmesan cheese and allow to melt.

You need to be very careful when adding the egg yolks.  If the sauce gets too hot, the eggs will curdle, like scrambled eggs.  Start by stirring a little of the sauce into the egg yolks.  Then pour the yolks into the sauce and whisk, while continuing to cook over medium heat until the sauce thickens.  Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.  (If your eggs happen to curdle, you can still save the sauce.  Either strain it to remove the bits of egg or puree the sauce in a blender.)

Steam the carrots and broccoli:

To steam the vegetables, place the broccoli stem pieces and carrot sticks in a steamer basket over a pot of boiling water.  Steam them for 5 minutes before adding the flowerettes; then steam for 5 more minutes.  This keeps the flowerettes from getting overcooked.

When everything is finished, serve noodles onto individual plates, top with steamed vegetables, slices of chicken and ladle sauce over the top.

Serves 4 – 6.

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