I experimented a couple of months ago with Bread Pudding, which my family has decided that they really enjoy. Here's how I've made mine through bits and pieces of different recipes:

Bread Pudding

4-5 cups bread cubes
2-3 cups scalded milk
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 to 1 cup of raisins or dried cranberries or blueberries and/or walnuts to your preference

Lemon Sauce:
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon cornstarch or arrowroot powder
1 cup hot water
2 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 1-2 quart baking dish.

In a large bowl, place bread cubes. Heat milk until steam starts to rise from the pan, but do not boil. Pour scalded milk over bread cubes.

In a separate bowl blend all other ingredients. Add to bread cubes and milk and lightly combine. You don't want the bread to turn to mush.

Pour into baking dish and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

You can bake in a steam bath if you prefer - I've baked mine this week with and without a steam bath and it turned out fine both ways.

Before serving, make the sauce:

Put all ingredients into a saucepan and heat until thick and bubbling. Pour or spoon over individual servings of bread pudding.

After dinner one night I was in the mood for dessert, something a little sweet but not too much. Something like a custard or pudding ~ but I was out of milk! So, I searched Allrecipes.com for a custard to make with evaporated milk. I found one for Baked Pumpkin Pudding that I altered. Here's how I made it:



Baked Pumpkin Pudding

1 egg
2 cups canned pumpkin
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups evaporated milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Beat all ingredients in a bowl until well blended. Lightly coat 5-6 ramekins with no-stick spray. Evenly pour pumpkin mixture into ramekins. Line the bottom of a 9 x 13 or larger baking pan with a dishtowel. Place ramekins on the towel and fill pan to 1/2 way up ramekins with boiling water.

Place in oven and bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30-35 minutes longer or until set in the middle.

A few days ago, after dinner we were all in the mood for a warm, filling dessert. Cranberry Orange Bread Pudding is what I made - here's the recipe:

About 4 cups or so of crumbled bread (in large pieces)
2 cups scalded milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/2 cup dried cranberries
Zest of a whole orange
Dash of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 1 1/2 to 2 quart casserole dish and set aside.

In a large bowl, crumble the bread (I used whole wheat). Sprinkle in the dried cranberries and set aside.

Heat milk to scalding (just when steam starts to rise off the milk) and pour over the bread and cranberries. Stir just enough to combine. Set aside.

In another bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, nutmeg, vanilla and orange zest. Pour into bread mixture and stir to combine.

Pour mixture into greased casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers.

I didn't make a topping or glaze for this one, as it was just wonderful with the cranberry and orange flavor.

Our family loves homemade bread. Long ago I used to make mine a loaf at a time, when I had the time, in a bread machine. Once I tried making bread by hand though, I was hooked! I now make bread 2-3 times a week and make about 3 loaves at a time. It really doesn't take that long once you get the hang of it. Here's our favorite recipe for Wheat Bread.

I mix my recipe around a bit, depending on what I have on hand. If I'm running low on grains, sometimes I'll make this as a white bread recipe. I usually make it with white and wheat flour at least and sometimes I'll also add spelt or kamut to the recipe to make a multigrain bread. Here's my basic recipe:

Handmade Wheat Bread

6 cups unbleached flour*
2 Tablespoons wheat gluten
1.5 teaspoons salt
2 cups water at approximately 105-110 degrees**
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons yeast
1/4 cup oil

* For the flour, I usually break it down to 3.5 cups of King Arthur Special with malted grains. It is an unbleached flour that makes wonderful bread. To this I add 2.5 cups of whatever grain I want to grind myself that day - usually wheat, but sometimes spelt or kamut. Sometimes I use a combination of any two or even all three different grains. The dough will rise best with at least 3.5 cups of the flour being the King Arthur or whatever your favorite unbleached flour is to use. You'll notice I add wheat gluten to help the dough rise when I use the wheat or spelt or kamut.

**For the water, I use 1 cup of water at the desired temperature and 1 cup of kefir whey.

In a 4 cup mixing bowl, combine the water, yeast and sugar and mix well. Allow to set approximately 10-15 minutes to activate the yeast.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour(s), salt, and wheat gluten. To the activated yeast mixture, add 1/4 cup of oil (I use organic canola oil or a light olive oil or sometimes a vegetable oil) and mix well. Stir into the flour mixture until well combined and then turn out the dough onto a well floured surface.

Knead the dough well by adding additional flour, about 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough becomes a soft, silky ball. This usually takes about 10 minutes or so.

Place the dough into a lightly greased bowl and cover with a smooth cotton towel. Place in a warm place until the dough doubles in size. I put mine in my oven with the light on for about 2-3 hours.


Once the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, punch down and divide into half or thirds. If my dough has really risen well, I'll divide it into thirds and make 3 loaves. If it is not rising as well as I'd like, I divide it into half and make 2 loaves. Every day is different when you make bread - humidity, temperature, your flour, all play a part in how your bread turns out. Some days it will rise better than others.

Okay, here I don't knead the dough again, I just turn the corners and shape it into a nice little loaf. Put the loaves into lightly greased loaf pans and cover. Allow to rise until the dough is about 1/2 inch above the top of the pan.


Heat your oven to 350 degrees and put the loaves in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes. They will be nicely browned. Turn out immediately onto a wire rack to cool so the bread doesn't get soggy. Wait until they are completely cooled before wrapping. I keep mine wrapped in foil so they don't dry out too quickly. Usually, we can go through at least 1 loaf a day, so they don't last too long anyway!


If you try this recipe - let me know how it turns out, especially if you make any changes or additions I might like to try with mine!

I like to use buttermilk for a lot of my baking - things like biscuits, scones, bread and muffins all have a great texture and flavor when I use buttermilk. I do not, however, like to buy buttermilk at the store. So, we make our own.

We use Kefir Grains to make a soured milk called Kefir - it is much like buttermilk. I purchased a 1/4 cup of the live grains through the mail. When they arrived, we put them in a glass 1 quart jar and added about a cup of whole milk from a local dairy. The milk we use is pasteurized, but not homogenized so it still has cream that comes to the top.

After about 12 hours, we had our first cultured kefir. I strained the liquid through a strainer and put it in a glass jar in the fridge. We can drink this as a drink or use it as you would buttermilk for any baking. I then put the kefir grains back into a glass quart jar, add more fresh milk and start the process over again. We do this every day. For more great info about how to make your own kefir, visit the link here at Tammy's.

Now that we've been doing this a while, we have lots of kefir grains. They continue to grow and multiply and before you know it you could be making a gallon of kefir (buttermilk) a day! When our grains grow to the point where we have excess I either sell some of them or save them (if you are interested in purchasing kefir grains to start your own, please email me by visiting the Contact Me link in the header.

You can save them by drying out the grains and freezing them in a glass jar with powdered milk to protect them. They can usually be re-started up to 2 months after freezing them. You can also dry out the grains and keep them in a glass jar with powdered milk in the refrigerator. You can re-start them this way up to 18 months after storage. Saving some of the excess grains like this ensures grains for the future should something unforeseen happen to my current batch. Here's a photo of about a cup of grains that I've just rinsed and am starting to dry for long-term storage:


You can also pause your grains for up to a week by putting them in milk in a glass jar in the refrigerator.

We also use the kefir milk to make our own labne (sour cream) and cream cheese. Once I've strained the liquid off the kefir grains, I line a strainer with a sturdy cheesecloth that I've moistened. I put the strainer over a pot and pour the liquid kefir milk into the cheesecloth.

Depending on the amount of liquid, sometime in about 8 to 12 hours you get a cheese texture in the cloth similar to sour cream. Leaving it longer allows it to dry even more and it takes on more of a cream cheese consistency. Here's a batch I'm making for sour cream today. This is how it looks when I first pour the kefir milk into the cheesecloth, then when it is ready as sour cream and a final of how the sour cream looks when I put it in the container:



If I had let this set a few more hours, it would have dried more and been the consistency of cream cheese.

When I end up with more kefir milk in the fridge than I need for baking or drinking, I sometimes take 2-3 quarts of it and make the kefir cheese.

I also save the whey that is left from making the cheese. This I use in baking also, especially when I want something with a really sour taste. When I make my artisan bread, I often substitute most of the water with kefir whey and it gives the bread a delicious sour dough flavor without using sour dough starter. I also use the kefir whey in my regular loafs of bread. Sometimes I pour a little over the food for the dog, as it is excellent protein. There are a TON of uses for kefir whey.

This is how we make our own buttermilk, sour cream and cream cheese. I haven't had to buy any of these products in several months. I do have to buy the milk to keep the kefir growing. The milk we prefer to use from a local dairy is $3.89 per half gallon. I can use anywhere from 1-3 of these half gallons per week, depending on how much kefir we are making. So, it might cost a little more than purchasing sour cream or cream cheese would, but I'd prefer to know the origin of the milk that I use in these products than just buying whatever is on sale this week at the store that often has added fillers and ingredients.

Have you ever made kefir? Does this sound like something you'd enjoy doing or would you get tired of keeping up with it every day? I'd love to hear your comments!

Yes, not your typical pineapple upside down cake as I made it today with a twist. We never use the maraschino cherries with the red dye; instead I made mine today with chopped dates in the middle of the pineapples and added shredded coconut for a tropical flavor. It is DELICIOUS! Here's how I did it (photos of the steps at the end):

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1-1/2 cups brown sugar
1 large can pineapple rings or crushed pineapple, well drained - reserve juice
1/4 to 1/2 cup shredded coconut
4-6 pitted dates or dried cranberries
1 yellow or white cake mix or your own from scratch

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour melted butter into a 9x13 pan. Add the brown sugar and mix well. Sprinkle 1/4 to 1/2 cup shredded coconut over the brown sugar mixture. Place the drained pineapple rings or crushed pinapple on top of the coconut. Put chopped dates / dried cranberries in the center of the pineapple rings or sprinkle lightly over the crushed pineapple.

Make cake mix according to directions, substituting the reserved pineapple juice for all or some of the water required. When well blended, pour over the pineapple mixture in the pan.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until set in the middle. Allow to cool about 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a foil-covered cookie sheet or other serving tray. Serve warm or cold - we had ours with some whipped cream hot from the oven!

Enjoy!

Oh yes, if you find yourself out of brown sugar, as I did today - here's a quick substitute:

You can substitute white sugar for brown sugar 1 for 1 - you just have to add 4 Tablespoons of molasses to the white sugar for each cup used. Mix it well with a fork and proceed as usual. If it is very moist, you might want to decrease your other liquids by 2-3 Tablespoons. It worked just fine for me today and the flavor was delicious!

We like to have turkey throughout the year, not just at the holidays. When we have left-over turkey, as we always do, one of our favorite recipes is Turkey Enchiladas. You can also make these with chicken.

Here's how I put mine together:

2 cups diced turkey (approximately 2 cups - you can do more or less)
1 can cream of ____ soup. I use anything without MSG, like cream of broccoli, cream of mushroom or cream of chicken. All of these are good in this recipe.
1/2 to 1 cup sour cream
1/4 to 1/3 cup milk
1 cup plus extra of shredded cheese. We like the Sargento 4 flavor Mexican blend8-10 flour tortillas. If you use packaged and they are smaller, you'll need about 10.
Salt and pepper and other seasonings to taste - I change this based on how I seasoned my turkey meat during baking. If you are using chicken, I boil the chicken with onions and garlic for extra seasoning.

Dice your turkey so you have about 2 cups and place into a medium-sized mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl mix the cream of soup, sour cream, milk and 1 cup of shredded cheese. You want a fairly thick mixture.

Place 1/2 of the soup mixture in with the turkey and stir well. Spoon this mixture into the individual tortilla shells and roll them up. Place them in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan.

When you have all of the turkey mixture in the tortillas and they are all in the baking pan, you'll spoon the remaining soup mixture over the top of the tortillas and sprinkle with extra cheese.

For baking, if your turkey was cold when you started, you'll want to make sure it gets heated through. So I bake mine on the Convection setting of my oven at about 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is very golden and I'm sure the middle of the tortillas is warm.

If you are doing this with chicken and have just finished boiling your chicken and have cut it up and it is still warm, you can bake it in a regular oven at 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes or until the cheese is very golden.