I can't speak Italian

I can't read Italian either.  So I was a little bummed when I finally pulled out the old pasta machine my dad gave me out, only to find that the instructions printed on the box were in Italian. And that's it.  Luckily, it's three pieces so it was pretty easy to figure out.  It wasn't easy.  I don't why I said that.  But I DID figure it out.

I wanted to use my pasta machine to make ravioli after making a giant batch of homemade spagehetti sauce on Monday from some farmer's market leftovers (recipe for spaghetti sauce to come!).  I also had about 1/4 of a container of goat cheese sitting in my fridge and about a handful of spinach.  Small enough quantities that I couldn't do anything with them.  And that's when ravioli popped into my head.  I've had this whole wheat pasta recipe saved on my phone for awhile now and today I had just enough guts to try it.  Making homemade pasta, to me, sounds like something real savy kitchen are capable of, but not me.  But I've never let that stop me before.  I've also never let throwing away really disgusting food I've made, deter me from cooking the next day.  Pasta dough is 4 ingredients, so I kinda figured, if it goes bad, I haven't lost much.

The other great thing about attempting ravioli and busting out the pasta machine was this:

Look at those guys.  They were so into it!  Forget successful pasta dough.  They were so excited to play with this thing.  Oh my gosh they're so cute.  Ok - this is supposed to be about ravioli.

First, let me say you don't need a pasta machine to make pasta.  You can just roll it out.  Just make sure you get it reasonably thin. You've seen pasta before.  Make it look like that!

Here we go.

Whole Wheat Spinach and Goat Cheese Ravioli

For the dough:
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tsp salt

For the filling:
- 1/4 cup goat cheese
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan
- 1 cup spinach, chopped or torn

In a glass bowl, mix together flours and salt.  Make a well in the center.  Whisk together the eggs and water in a seperate bowl and pour into the well.  Stir until well mixed and a dough forms.  Knead dough about 20 turns.  Wrap dough in wax paper and let rest for about 30 minutes.  Divde dough into 3 or 4 balls and roll out or run through a pasta machine.

Mix together cheese and spinach.  Cut dough into rectangles with a pizza cutter and spoon the cheese spinach mixture on the lower half of the rectangle.  Fold the top half over and rub a little bit of water on the edges of the dough to help form a tight seal.  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and drop in raviolis.  Let them cook for 1-2 minutes and then drain.

Serve with spagehtti sauce, alfredo sauce, or just eat them plain!  They're awesome, regardless.

I hate breakfast

I mean I like breakfast food.  But I can't eat at that designated breakfast time.  I know many people suffer from this same affliction.  Still, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  It's been beat into my brain by countless magazine articles on dieting.  Got it - eat yo breakfast, folks.  It'll get that metabolism goin'.  Most of the time I go for a banana or a grapefruit - the bare minimum.  But on a recent trip to Chicago, my husband mentioned he had some homemade granola and talked enough about how great it was, that I finally decided to make some of my own.  Having never made it, I was intimidated.  Mostly that I'd burn it.  Or it would be chewy.  Granola intimidated me.  Which seems like an oxymoron or something.

As much as I'm not all about breakfast, even more so, I really don't like sugar in the morning.  I mean fruit is fine, but sugary cereal's or baked goods tend to be too much for me.  There's a lot of granola recipes out there that are pretty sugary.  But I finally found one from Mark Bittman's website that removed all of the refined sugars and just stuck to a little bit of honey. 

This granola is so gooooooooood.  It's toasty and without all the sugar you can really taste everything.  I like it on top of a bowl of fruit.  Joe eats it with vanilla soy milk.  You can eat it with yogurt.  You can eat it anyway you want!  Just eat it.

Homemade Granola

-6 cups of rolled oats
-2 cups of dried fruit (I used blueberries, cranberries, and cherries)
-1/2 cup sunflower seeds
-1/2 cup slivered almonds
-1/2 cup chopped walnuts
-1/2 cup flax seed
-1/2 cup honey or agave nectar
-2 or 3 dashes of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and make sure the dry ingredients are well coated with the honey and cinnamon.  Pour into a cassarole dish and bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes to make sure granola cooks evenly.  Let cool completely before serving.


Obviously this recipe makes a lot of granola but it keeps for about 2 weeks when sealed in a ziploc bag.  It's so good, you guys.  Cheap, easy, homemade, and a great morning starter.  It makes me hate breakfast a little less.

Baby it's hot outside

Seriously, with the heat?  Seriously?  Seriously.  I always complain in the winter, that it's too cold for the kids to play outside so I have to come up with so many activities we can do inside to keep them occupied.  And now, here we are, 4 days into official summer and it's almost to hot to go out at all!  My kids are so red they're purple from the heat.  This time next month, we're just going to make bean bag chairs out of garbage bags and ice cubes and not move all day.

So when I found a recipe for Frozen Yogurt Pops in a cookbook of kids recipes, I knew I'd stumbled upon something that might keep me from making that horrible idea for an iced bean bag chair.  Phew! 

My kids are in love with this one particular smoothie I make, which was the inspiration behind my first stab at yogurt pops.  My favorite things about these pops are that they're low in fat and sugar and they don't have the high fructose corn syrup that's found in a lot of store bought popsicles.  But with the addition of fat free yogurt, they're creamy and a filling, guiltless snack.  FroYo on a stick!

Brrrrrrrrr-berry Frozen Yogurt Pops (makes about 10)

-1 3/4 cup of fat free vanilla yogurt (I used Greek, you can use regular, whichever you like!)

-2 cups frozen mixed berries (I used blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries)

-a splash of fruit juice to help blend (I used Pom juice)

Put all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and well mixed.  Pour into popsicle holders or ice cube trays.  If using ice cube trays, after you've poured, cover with aluminum foil or saran wrap and poke a toothpick through to help keep the toothpicks stay upright while freezing.

 Freeze for 4-6 hours.

OR you can try this other recipe I just whipped up as a treat for my own special self :)

Orange DREAMsicle Yogurt Pops

-1 3/4 cup of fat free vanilla yogurt

-1 can of frozen orange juice concentrate

-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

-a splash of vanilla soy milk (or an additional 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract)

Put all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and well mixed.  Pour into popsicle holders or ice cube trays.  If using ice cube trays, after you've poured, cover with aluminum foil or saran wrap and poke a toothpick through to help keep the toothpicks stay upright while freezing.

Freeze for 4-6 hours.

Perfect timing.  That tree house was HOT.  Whatever - everything was hot.  We just hid in there while it was shady and I turned on the sprinkler.  It was all just enough to be bearable.  It was a delicious kind of bearable though.  These icy cool treats are crazy good.  And I love a treat I don't have to feel bad about.  Especially one this cold.  Apparently I'm going to need it...

Monster trucks and Hummus

I've been asked by several of my parent friends how I find the time to cook and watch twin, two and a half year olds.  We don't live in a huge house, but we do have a pretty decent sized kitchen.  And it is easily the kids favorite room to play in.  Those two things are how I accomplish a morning of cooking in the kitchen.  That and Joe's work schedule has him here until lunch time, so I there's someone to wrangle those two.  The truth is they tend to be fascinated with whatever I'm cooking and are always right there to try it when it's ready.  You can pretty much guarantee as soon as the food processor or blender or oven time goes off, it's immediately followed with "Some?!" and a tiny hand shooting up in the air.  This morning they were trying to help me find recipes from my cookbooks.  "Help" is a generous word...they can't read.

They cute, they cute.  Mommy's little helpers.

So today, in honor of these super cool kids, who allow me to enjoy them AND enjoy cooking, I'm bringing you a meal that is loved by my little ones. 

Homemade Pita bread with Roasted Red Pepper Hummus and Summer Veggies

This was my first attempt at making pita bread, but after reading the recipe I was shocked to learn how easy it was.  And it's easy.  I'm serious.  Here, lemme show you:

Pita Pocket Bread

-1 cup warm water

-1 pkg active yeast

-1 tbsp honey

-1 tsp salt

-1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

-1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Pour yeast into warm water in a bowl and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.  Add honey, salt, 1/2 a cup of all purpose flour and 1/2 cup of wheat flour and stir until its well mixed.  Add the rest of the flour, 1/2 of a cup at a time, until dough cleans the sides of the bowl.  Knead dough on a lightly floured surface, adding flour as needed to keep dough from being too sticky. Brush olive oil in a bowl.  Once dough is smooth, place it in prepared bowl and cover it with a damp towel.  Let it rise in a warm place until doubled, or about an hour.

When dough has risen, punch the dough down and knead for about 5 minutes.  Split the dough into 6-12 pieces, depending on how big you want your pita bread.  Knead each piece a few times.  On a floured surface, roll each ball out flat (no thicker than 1/8 of an inch).  Once all the balls are rolled out, let the circles rest for about 30 minutes. 

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.  Brush oil on a baking sheet and put the pan in the oven just long enough to get hot.  Pull it out and put as many pita circles on the pan as you can without the circles touching. Bake for 6-8 minutes, until puffed up and slightly browned.  To keep the bread soft, remove them from the pan and cover them with a towel for about 5 minutes and then bag them immediately. 

Check out that pocket!  Totally awesome! These pita breads are great, stuffed with grilled chicken and cucumbers and feta cheese or any other sammich fixins.  Or you can cut them into triangles (like the kiddos love) and serve them with a dip or spread.  Something like Roasted Red Pepper Hummus!

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

-2 Red Bell Peppers

-2 cans of chick peas, drained, reserving the liquid from one can

-2 or 3 cloves of garlic

-1 lemon, juiced

-1/4 cup plain greek yogurt (optional)

-1 tbsp tahini

-2 tbsp olive oil

-2 tsp turmeric

-1 tsp cumin

-1 tsp paprika

-1 tsp salt

To roast the peppers: You can broil the pepper on a baking sheet, rotating as each side turns black.  The way I learned to roast peppers is to put them on the stove top like this:

Just put them straight down on the burners and rotate as they get black. You can use tongs to turn them, or you can use those nifty little stems, like I did!  Once they are pretty well blackened on all sides, remove from the broiler or stove and put them in a brown paper bag and close it up.  This traps the steam and helps the skin slide right off the peppers when they are cool and ready to peel.  Once the peppers have cooled and you remove the skin, slice the pepper into strips, removing the seeds.

In a food processor or blender, pour in chick peas and 1/4 cup of liquid you reserved from the can.  Add garlic, lemon juice, tahini, greek yogurt, paprika, cumin, turmeric, salt, olive oil, and sliced roasted peppers.  Blend until smooth. 

Serve with pita triangles, carrot sticks, and sugar snap peas.

There's so many things I love about this meal.  One of those things is that this makes A LOT of hummus.  Easily enough for 5 days worth of lunches.  It keeps well in the fridge and it's really filling.  It's really inexpensive, as well.  But the thing I love most, obviously, is that the kids love it.

And the pita triangles make a pretty cool monster truck obstacle...

How does your garden grow

The thing I love about summer (and it's a short list that includes my birthday and freckles...that's about it) is that grocery stores quite literally grow all around you.  I love that I can drive just about any direction, give it a minute, and boom - there's a produce stand.  It's nice to all of a sudden have the luxuries of a metropolis!  This year, after having two summers full of two small children keeping us constantly busy, we finally were able to get a garden together.  Joe put together some raised beds and even though we're a little late in the season, we got some plants instead of seeds, and should see some squash, zucchini, eggplant, okra, banana peppers, and bell peppers in the next few weeks.  I've already got a few peppers coming in and it's a pretty proud feeling.  I'd compare it to the pride of having children...but that might be a little dramatic.  Still, it's pretty awesome.

Today I decided to make something that really celebrates summer veggies: Zucchini Crusted Pizza.  It's one of my favorite recipes from a cookbook I've known all my life.

The Moosewood Cookbook is one I highly recommend to any and every one.  It's healthy, vegetarian (there are some meat dishes in here too...but mostly vegetarian), 70's goodness.  My parents relied heavily on this cookbook through my childhood.  Yeah, I was raised by hippies.  Or hippie wannabes anyway. 

I used the recipe from Moosewood to make my pizza crust and then I used the summer veggies I'd stocked up on from the farmer's market and some squash from my in law's garden.  So this is a pizza you can make according to what you like.  Don't live your life in a box, man.  Was that convincing hippie speak?  Nailed it.  Mom and Dad are gonna be so proud.

(For my version of this pizza, I used baby tomatoes, summer squash, fresh basil, oregano, garlic, and mozzarella)

Zucchini Crusted Pizza (adapted from The Moosewood Cookbook)

For the crust:
-2 cups grated zucchini
-2 eggs, beaten (ok to omit one or both yolks)
-1/4 cup flour
-1 cup mozzarella
-2 tbs olive oil

Topping suggestions:
-1 large tomato, sliced or 20 baby tomatoes sliced in half
-1 thinly sliced summer squash
-fresh olives
-1 red bell pepper, sliced
-sauteed mushrooms
-2 to 3 cloves of garlic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Generously oil a baking sheet or pizza pan with olive oil and sprinkle with flour or cornmeal.

Combine zucchini, eggs, and flour in a bowl and mix well.

Spread on to the prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until golden brown.  About halfway through baking, brush with olive oil.  Remove from oven.  When it has  cooled for about 10 minutes, use a spatula to loosen the crust from the pan, so it won't break later.

Top with mozzarella and your favorite pizza items and bake at 400 degrees until heated through.

Note: I like to mix all of my veggies in a bowl together, with a light drizzle of olive oil, garlic powder, salt, basil and oregano, and then pour them on top of the mozzarella covered crust.  That's just me.

Those hippies were really on to something, weren't they?  Summer rules.  Foodwise, anyway.

Home away from home

Before I moved to my happy little middle of nowhere, I was living in Memphis.  More specifically, Midtown Memphis.  Ya know, that arty farty hipster part of town.  The part of town where everyone rides bikes and is a painter or photographer or obsessed with Ray Bradbury.  Which worked out fine for me, since I like all of those things.  Ultimately, I learned that no matter how much I thought I should be in that great big city, I really belonged in the country.  Because as soon as I got further away from bright lights and noise to the big ol' nothing, my heart just filled up.  I found home.

Blah.  That's so sappy.  I'm a sap.

Anyway, yes, I found home here in the country.  But the truth is, there are and will always be things I miss about cool midtown.  And, sadly, they are almost all food related.  It's Memphis.  Obviously the food makes an impression.

There was this little Vietnamese restaurant on Madison Avenue, between a dry cleaner and an Irish bar called Pho Ha Bin that was this little slice of heaven I visited regularly.  And I only ever ordered one thing: Lemon grass tofu.  Give it to me.  So when I found lemon grass stalks in the produce section of Piggly Wiggly in Batesville, MS, I squealed!  No really - I did. 

Lemon grass looks sort of like a shallot and is super fibrous.  So in order to use it in a recipe, you'll want to slice the base (the lighter part) of the stalk into thin rounds and then pulse them in a food processor or spice grinder.  Like I said, I found it at our local grocery store in a small town.  It can also be found in Chinese grocery stores if you have them around you. You can save the rest of the stalk and boil it down for tea or soup bases.  It smells AMAZING.  Maybe I could use it as an odor diffuser for those terrible diaper occasions...

What a terrible way to dive into this recipe.  Come back to me!

The thing about frying tofu is that tofu usually comes packed in water.  And wet stuff is not ideal for frying. You'll need to take your block of extra firm tofu out of the package and wrap it in a towel and place something heavy, like a cast iron skillet, to push out the excess moisture.  Let it dry for 20-30 minutes and then cube it.

Spicy Lemon grass Tofu (adapted from Epicurious)

-2 lemongrass stalks, outer layers peeled, bottom white part thinly sliced and finely chopped (about 1/4 cup)

-1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce

-2 teaspoons chopped Thai bird chilies or another fresh chili

-1/2 teaspoon dried chili flakes

-1 teaspoon ground turmeric

-2 teaspoons sugar

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-12 ounces tofu, drained, patted dry and cut into 3/4-inch cubes

-4 tablespoons vegetable oil

-2 shallots, thinly sliced

-1 teaspoon minced garlic

Combine the lemongrass, soy sauce, chilies, chili flakes, turmeric, sugar and salt in a bowl. Add the tofu cubes and turn to coat them evenly. Marinate for 30 minutes.

Heat oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat. Add the shallot and garlic and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute.

.

Add the tofu mixture and, using chopstick or wooden spoons, turn so it cooks evenly, about 4 to 5 minutes. 

Remove from the heat and transfer to a serving plate. Serve immediately with steamed rice.

 

My (not so) strange addiction

Before I get too far into this healthy blogging deal, I feel like I should be honest about something.  Yes - I have always and do always try to eat healthy.  Try.  TRY.  But the truth is, once I hit college, I got addicted to sugar.  Chocolate, more specifically.  And here I am 10 years later, still addicted but with a slower metabolism, as 29 creeps up.

I guess I'm bringing this up because as I continue to post recipes for healthy food and pushing the vegetarian options, I want to be completely truthful that I am someone who has set backs.  I try to workout twice a day, 5 days a week.  I usually end up doing that maybe 3 days a week.  I try to eat a bowl of fruit for breakfast, a bowl of fruit with nuts for lunch, and one of the recipes I'm sharing on this blog, for supper.  And while I stick to that, if it's been a stressful day (and I'd say stressful days, in a world with twin toddlers, happen 7 out of 7 days) chocolate is inevitably in my future.  And I do the things that all the healthy eating articles say, where I don't buy sugar at the store when I do my weekly grocery shopping.  But that doesn't mean I can't go to the gas station.

The fact is sugar is addicting.  It's as addicting as cigarettes.  And the other fact is that I struggle with that.  I'm only human.  I am working towards completely cutting out refined sugar and have found agave nectar to be new best friend.  It's easily my favorite refined sugar replacement in recipes.  But the point is to cut back on any kind of sugar completely.  It's a hard thing to do and who knows if I'll ever kick the habit completely. 

Just know that this blog is more about STRIVING to eat healthy and to understand what's in the food that you are eating and that you're feeding your family.  It's about being ok with set backs and then moving forward and trying again. 

So I won't feel bad about this:

Ok, that's not quite the truth...

There it is.

At least I'm eating fresh peaches at the moment.

I belong anywhere but in between

It's so lovely today, on top of our hill.  Just before lunch, Joe, the kids, and myself were all up in the tree house, taking turns going down the slide and Joe and I couldn't stop commenting on how nice it was out there.  We love our little slice of paradise.

After a busy morning of running errands and then running outside, we'd worked up an appetite.  As I mentioned yesterday, today's lunch menu was Chicken Feta Spinach Burgers, using the leftover Honey Wheat Buns I'd made.  I'm really excited to share this recipe because it includes my new favorite way of getting ground turkey or chicken. 

  Chicken Feta Spinach Burgers

In an issue of Martha Stewart Magazine (let me just warn you now - her name will come up A LOT in this blog) there was an article about making your own turkey breakfast sausage.  The instructions were to take turkey breasts, cut the meat into 1" cubes, and freeze the cubes on a parchment lined baking sheet for 20 minutes.  Then remove them from the freezer and put them in a food processor.  Pulse the turkey until it resembles ground beef.  From there you add a mix of spices, roll the meat in parchment paper and freeze.  I've made this sausage and its fantastic, but the part that stuck out to me were the steps about making your own ground turkey.  I don't need a meat grinder?  It's that easy?  What the what? 

It is that easy.

I personally prefer ground chicken over ground turkey.  Chicken tends to stay more moist.  So using boneless skinless chicken breasts, I followed the above instructions and voila!  Ground chicken!  The thing I love most about doing this is you can make as much or as little ground chicken as you need.  You can easily get 4 medium sized burgers out of 2 chicken breasts.  This also means if you get a package of 4 chicken breasts, you have 2 breasts leftover for another meal.  Pretty awesome.

Another great thing about these particular burgers is that both spinach and feta can go a long way. 

I usually pick these two up at our "local" (25 miles away) Wal-mart.  The spinach is about $4 and it'll keep in your fridge for 2 weeks.  You can get salads, burgers, sauteed pasta dishes, even smoothies, out of this big ol' box.  Love that.  And the feta keeps for around 6 months.  Yeah.  That's a long time.  It costs about $7 and I usually throw it on pizzas, in salads, and in Greek pitas.

There ya go.  Using leftover buns, a couple of chicken breasts, and a handful of spinach and feta from your fridge, you have these amazing burgers.   So filling, so juicy, so satisfying - we're about to be best friends, once you make/eat these burgers.  I look forward to it. 

Chicken Feta Spinach Burgers

-2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
-1 egg
-1/2 cup panko (optional.  I like a crunch in my burger.  You can use regular bread crumbs or no crumbs at all.  Do what you want!  I ain't yo mama.)
-1 cup of spinach, torn up
-3/4 cup of crumbled feta
-5-6 dashes of Worcestershire
-salt and pepper to taste
-2-3 tblsp olive oil

Cut chicken breasts into 1" cubes and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and freeze for 20 minutes.  Remove from freezer and put chicken into a food processor.  Pulse 8-9 times until it resembles ground beef.

Heat  oil in a cast iron skillet or non-stick skillet.  (I use a cast iron because I like how hot it gets, which ends up giving the burger a nice crunch on the outside.  It also is a pain in the rear to clean afterwards, so go with non-stick if you aren't in to rear pain.)

In a bowl, mix ground chicken, egg, panko, spinach, feta, Worcestershire, salt, and pepper.  Once all of the ingredients are mixed together well, form your patties.  Place in the hot skillet and cook on each side for 3-4 minutes at a time until the burger is completely cooked through. 

Note: Turkey or chicken burgers tend to not hold together as well as beef.  I find that having two spatulas to turn my burgers in the skillet seems to help them keep together.  These burgers are better about staying together, however, because they have cheese. 

                            
                                                                              Yowzah.

Hill Kitchen Tunes: Wednesday, June 13th

You'll find me in the kitchen with headphones a lot.  There's something about just the right amount of booty shaking that makes your food turn out better.  Don't ask me - I'm not a scientist or anything - I just know this to be a fact. 

I'm not the biggest fan of this band in general, but when I heard this song on an Acura commercial the other night, I whipped out my phone and pulled up Shazam as fast as my hands would let me.  If this isnt an ideal summer cooking jam, I don't know what is.  I will say, its more of a burger making tune than a spinach salad making tune.

Also, if your kids are under your feet while you're trying to work in the kitchen, just show them the album cover art for this song and they'll be gone in a puff of smoke!  It's a little creepy...

Jump right in

I could bore you with with a long testimonial on my love for cooking and with my ideas on eating healthy and eating local, as a way to introduce this food blog.

Or...

...we could just skip to the good stuff.

How about some Shrimp Rolls on homemade Honey Wheat buns? 

If you're like me, heavy food and the heat of June just don't mix.  So around our house we do a lot of sandwiches and salads in the summer.  Not only are they light, but its pretty easy to shop with a menu like that. 

I've recently gotten into trying to make things that I tend to forget to put on my grocery list (I NEVER remember to get taco seasoning.  So annoying.  I need a real problem...).  One of the things I've started making is my hamburger buns and sandwich rolls.  After testing some different recipes I'd looked up, I kept getting a dry version of the buns.  And then this weekend I made my new favorite pizza from Naturally Ella using Erin's perfect pizza crust and I thought "Why not adapt this into a hamburger bun?" I know what you're thinking - "Do you always think about other meals while you're in the middle of eating one?" Yes.  Yes I do.  Just assume I'm always thinking about food. 

If you've never made bread, this is a great recipe to start with because it can be anything from pizza crust to a bread loaf for sandwiches.  The difference is really just in whether or not you squish it flat or not.  I will say, however, if you are going to use this recipe for bread or rolls, I would let the dough rise for another 30 minutes after you've formed your buns.  Just promise me if you're a first time bread maker you won't be intimidated.  I was intimidated and it was a total waste of time. 

So let's get to it.

Perfect Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns (adapted from Naturally Ella's Perfect Pizza Crust)

 -3/4 cup of warm water

-2 1/4 tsp yeast

-1/4 cup of honey (I used agave nectar)

-1 tsp salt

-2 tblsp sunflower oil (I used evoo)

-1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

-1 cup whole wheat flour

In a bowl, mix water, yeast, and honey and let sit for about 5 minutes until yeast dissolves and becomes foamy.  Add salt, oil, and 1/2 a cup of the all purpose flour and 1/2 a cup of whole wheat flour.  Stir until all of the flour is incorporated.  Then, alternating flours 2-3 tablespoons at a time, add more flour to your dough, making sure to mix in all the flour you add before adding the next few tablespoons.  The idea is to eventually get a dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl but is still kind of sticky to the touch.  Once you've reached the right consistency, form your dough into a ball and place in a greased bowl.  Cover with a towel and let rise for about an hour in a warm place (warm = somewhere around 80 - 110 degrees.  Anything over 110 degrees will kill your yeast.  Dont' be a yeast murderer.)

Once dough has risen, punch the dough down and then divide into baseball sized balls.  Arrange on a baking sheet a few inches apart, cover again, and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes.  Once they've risen again, cook the buns in a 400 degree oven for 10-12 minutes, or until browned. 

Shrimp Rolls (from Martha Stewart Magazine, July 2012)

-1/2 lb medium shrimp, deveined

-1/4 cup light mayo

-1/4 tsp dried tarragon

-1-2 tblsp lemon juice

-salt and pepper to taste

2 homemade whole wheat buns

2 lettuce leaves

In a small bowl, combine shrimp, mayo, and tarragon.  Mix in lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.  Line each bun with lettuce and fill with half the mixture.

Happy Summer Sammich eating!

(P.S. Stayed tuned for the next post where I'll make Chicken Feta Spinach Burgers and use our leftover buns we made today.  Fresh homemade bread doesn't keep as long as store bought bread because it doesn't have all the preservatives.  So it's good to have two days in a row where you'll do some form of sandwiches or burgers.)