Apple Bran Muffins

You need:
1/2 Cup Oat Bran
1/2 Cup Flax seed
1 Cup of Flour
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon B. Powder
1 teaspoon B. Soda
1 Cup Apples - peeled and grated
1/2 Cup Walnuts
1/4 Cup of oil
1 Egg

Mix together the dry ingredients, leaving a well in the center.




Mix the sugar (okay, I used sugar in the raw because I had it and I like it for baking. I try to stay away from bleached when I can) egg and oil.

Add the apples in last. As you can tell, I grated my apples before I started, thus turning them a little brown. No harm just didn't take a very pretty picture.

Combine wet and dry with a mixer, careful not to over mix. Your batter should be lumpy. Fold in walnuts by hand.

Bake at 350 until done. I used mini muffin pans and baked for about 20 minutes. For a loaf pan, I think you'd be good at about 45 minutes. I must say, they turned out even better than I had hoped and by using a cup flour, lighter than my last batch. Enjoy!

Primal Trail Mix *Thanks Kyla

The Mix:
1/2 Cup of the following: Almonds, Walnuts, Peanuts, Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds
1/4 Cup dried cranberries and dried apricots
1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil *not pictured because I forgot. Just imagine
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon *Thank you Sherry* Vanilla
1/4 Cup honey


So get your nuts (set the sunflower and pumpkin seed aside for now) and chop them up till they are all about the same size. I decided to put mine in the chopper because I thought it was brilliant. It might have been if you enjoy eating trail mix with a spoon. If you don't I suggest roughly chopping them with a knife.


Mix the nuts, now the seeds, coconut oil, spices and half the salt until combined and spread out on a cookie sheet. Toast at 350 up to 5 minutes being careful not to burn. Remove and let cool.


Drizzle with honey (Central Market sells local honey) and remaining salt and put back in the oven for another 5 minutes.


Remove and add in fruit.


Store in airtight bags/containers/tubs. Yum!

Cranberry Pumpkin Cookies

Who's invited:

Two sticks butter
3/4 Cup of sugar
3/4 Cup of brown sugar
Vanilla
2 Eggs
1/4 teaspoon of each- pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves
1 Cup J's homemade cranberry sauce
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 Cup flour
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup white chocolate chips


Creme butter, sugars, vanilla- adding eggs one at a time.


Add cranberry sauce and pumpkin. Mix flour, b. powder, b. soda, oats and add to wet mix.

You want to mix until a spoon will stand up in the mixture.

Bake 375 for 14 minutes. Wonderful!

Yummy Granola

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted....it's not that I haven't been making things, it's just that I've been too busy making things to update :). I'm actually getting ready to go to RS for the birth of Cash Landry (my new nephew) and thought a bag of granola is the perfect snack...it doesn't need to be kept cool or warm and stores in a ziplock. Enough of my ramblings.....

To the dry party we have invited:

3 c. Rolled Oats
3/4 c.Coconut
1 c. Almonds
1 c. Walnuts

To the wet party:

1/4 c. Brown Sugar
1/4 c. Oil
1/4 c. Maple Syrup
Pinch of Salt


Preheat oven to 250. The not so fun part of this recipe is that you really need to bake the granola in 20 minute increments as you will need to stir that often...for an hour.

We mix the dry in the mixer

In a bowl mix the wet

Join the two parties together.

Spread on two cookie sheets and bake- Turning every 20 minutes until done (about an hour)

Enjoy :)

Blueberry Cobbler

Who's invite to the party:

Blue Berries (2 pints- I used a mix of frozen and fresh but whatever you have on hand)
Sugar (1 cup for the berries and you will need another cup for the cobbler topper)
Corn Starch
Flour
Baking Powder
Cinnamon
Dash of lemon juice (I tell you, I dash just about everything with lemon juice and recommend purchasing the little lemon bottle (Sam's has them the cheapest for the amount) as my lemons always go bad before I get to use them all.)
Milk
Eggs
Oil (butter would have been better but was out)


I put the blueberries in a sauce pan and brought to a boil- I didn't have to add any water to them as my frozen ones had plenty of ice chips (oops). Added about a cup of sugar and a sprinkle of corn starch to make a thickened sauce.


Poured into a 9X13 baking pan that had been sprayed with cooking spray- any kind will work here but the best is the baking spray with flour already added in the mix (genius!)- I was out so I went with olive oil spray.



In the mixer I added: eggs, oil and milk till mixed completely. Then I added the dry ingredients: flour, b. powder, sugar. Our the mixture over the berries and spread around. It's important to have all the berries covered. If you have to do the *scoop and move* you can. Place in a preheated 400 degree over for 25 minutes.

This gets the top all brown and yummy first. Then turn the heat down to 350 for 35 more minutes. The end result should be similar to this unless your lucky enough to get it a little more level.

Strawberry Jam

The players:


Strawberries (6 pints)
Sugar (5 cups)
Lemon Juice (dash)
Butter (two tablespoons)
Surejell (2 boxes)

Strainer
Two stock pots or other big pots
Lids for said pots
Wooden spoon
Tongs
Sauce pan and lid
Potato masher (sorry folks, this works best anything else will make it too soupy)
Jam jars, lids and rings (I used 12 8 ounce jars but I'm going to try bigger jars this next go round)

Optional:
Veggie peeler (I peeled my strawberries because I dislike the little seeds that much. You can use a knife but that really takes away too much of the berry)

First task: wash the jars, lids and rings in hot soapy water, rinse and set to dry. I added the rings and lids to the sauce pan about half full of warm water and put the pan on the stove to simmer. I filled one of the big pans with about two inches of water in the bottom and put on to boil. I dried the inside of the jars completely and placed them in the boiling water on a little grill thingy (They might have been okay placed directly on the metal pan bottom but I have had one too many Pyrex explode in my kitchen for me to feel comfortable chancing it.). Actually, and I encourage you to skip this next step, I knocked the jars over in the water, fished them out, dried them again and tried again. :)



Wash the strawberries (stainer) and started the peeling process. This took as much time as one would expect. Definitely not my favorite part of the task but completely worth it.



Once this task is happily completed, mash the berries with the p. masher until your happy with the texture. For me, I wanted small tiny bits of fruit so I mashed until I was happy.



Placed the strawberries and dash of lemon juice in the second big pot and placed on the stove to boil. Added a box and a half of Sure Jell, butter and brought to a full rolling boil, stiring constantly.



Stir in 5 cups of sugar and return to your rolling boil for 1 minute. Really, 1 minute.




Add to heated jars and seal with the lids and rings. Enjoy!




Two options for sealing the jars...turn them upside down and hope for the best or you can put them back in the boiling pot they bathed in before and cover for 10 minutes, take them out and listen to them "pop".