Pita Bread

I don't think I can say it often enough, but I love bread. I mean I really LOVE bread, all kinds too, especially if they are fresh out of the oven. I have been on this journey of making as much as I can from scratch and I have attempted many different types to satisfy my love of a good bread. Some have turned out better than others and I still need more practice to make things like hot dog and hamburger buns. For some reason, pita bread gave me some trouble the first time I tried to make it so I kept buying it from the store. Then a Greek restaurant opened up not too far from the house, and I loved eating their fresh pita bread. That spurred me to try again to make my own and I am so happy I did.

The amazing smell of bread baking always starts with the yeast proofing in a bowl.

I love getting to this stage too, my dough is getting ready to rise, I can still smell the yeast with the combination of flour and I know goodness will be happening soon!

After rising pita bread is formed into a long "snake"

then, cut into equal size pieces. I usually cut mine into 12 pieces, If you want larger pitas to make a wrap, you can cut the dough into 8 pieces. Any less and then the pitas almost get too big to work with. 

Each section is rolled into a ball and then flattened into a disk.

I bake on stoneware most all of the time and always when I am making pita bread. When baked, these puff up and turn golden and are so delicious and tender. 

And once again, I forgot to take a picture of my finished pitas! But here is a picture of a lunch a packed with my pita bread.

Here is my favorite bread book. Pretty much everything is in here and it has 500 bread recipes...I haven't made them all yet!

Banana Nut Muffins

I am really trying to break several bad food habits and one of them bring waking up late, rushing to get ready for work and out the door on time. If I have not planned breakfast this means one of two things; either I will be eating out of the vending machine at work or I will go through a drive through on the way there. If I even really liked the fast food breakfasts, it would be okay on occasion, but for the most part I really don't even like the food I am eating. The honey buns in the vending machine are another story, I do like them a little too much. 

I try to have some healthier options on hand and one thing I like to do is have muffins in the freezer. I prefer to take them out the night before to defrost in the fridge. Banana Nut muffins are one of my favorites that I try to keep on hand. I use the recipe here, subbing some of the white flour for whole wheat or oat flour.

I like making my own because I know exactly what is in them, I can control the portion size and in the long run they are much more cost efficient. 

Adding in the nuts. This recipe calls for pecans and that is what I used for this batch but I like to use walnuts sometimes too.

Ready to pop in the oven. 

Yummy! They are all done and cooling. I will save a few out for breakfast for the next couple of days, and the rest will go into the freezer to be eaten later.

I love the pan that I use for baking cupcakes and muffins. A long time ago I taught preschool and I used to cook with the kids in the classroom  a lot. One day one of the parents came in with this pan that had been used at the business where she worked. She knew I also loved to cook at home too and when they were giving these away, she grabbed one for me. I have used this heavy duty pan for many, many years and every time I do I remember that sweet parent of one of my preschoolers. 

Biscuits

Making biscuits has been one of those skills that has eluded me for many years. Sometimes I would bake them and they would be okay. sometimes not so great but still edible. Since I couldn't always predict the results, I often relied on frozen biscuits. They were okay and more consistent. 

But then we started eating healthier and I started cooking everything from scratch. 

And I looked at the ingredients on the package of frozen biscuits and saw about 20 ingredients. I knew I was going to have to work on the biscuits or give them up. You can see above that my biscuits have three ingredients: flour, buttermilk and butter. 

A woman that I work with gave me some tips and now every batch I have made has been awesome.

I start with a couple of cups of flour and very cold butter. I slice the butter into small pieces and then cut it into the flour until you can no longer see the big pieces of butter. A very important tip here is to keep the butter cold and if you aren't sure if it is still cold enough, then you can set it back in the fridge for a few minutes before moving onto the next step.

Adding the cup of buttermilk.

It is very important to not over mix the dough. I only gently stir until the flour is moistened.

After it is mixed, I turn the slightly wet, sticky dough onto a floured surface. I will also add some flour to the top of the dough and pat it out.

Cut straight into the dough and pull straight out, do not twist the cutter.

I bake on a well seasoned stone with the biscuit edges slightly touching.

After they have baked, as soon as you pull them out of the oven, you can brush the top of each biscuit with melted butter.

Finally, when I make biscuits, we can eat them and more important, we can enjoy them!

Carrot Cake

Even though we are trying to eat healthier, we still have dessert on occasion. I have been trying to make our desserts though so that I know what is in them and I try and keep to real food ingredients as much as possible. We celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday last weekend and she loves carrot cake. I volunteered to make the cake since my friend Judy had shared her carrot cake recipe with me. I am not a huge fan of cakes in general but this is the best carrot cake, and possibly the best cake of any kind, that I have ever eaten. It is a recipe from a Southern Living magazine from a while back and the recipe can be found here. Above, I have pictured all of my gathered cake ingredients. (The mason jar is vanilla extract I had made a while back.)

Here is the batter and the added "goodies".

Isn't this just gorgeous with all the colors? I was already getting excited at this point!

I think the secret to this cake is the buttermilk glaze that goes on the cake layers when they come out of the oven. 

At this point I was seriously wondering if anyone would notice that my three layer cake had turned into a double layer! The whole house smelled so good and it was so hard to wait, because I am sure it was incredible while it was still warm.

I did wait though, because what is carrot cake without the cream cheese frosting?

And finally here is my iced cake, all ready to go to the birthday dinner.

To say this cake was a hit with the family is an understatement. Everyone loved it and my oh so sweet mother - in - law sent the leftover cake home with me and Kip.