Grandma's Whole Wheat Pancakes

As I’ve mentioned other places in this blog, I spent a lot of time at my Grandma Smith’s house during my growing up years. We went nearly every Friday night, then she and Grandpa would bring us home on Saturday. She helped us work on sewing projects ,or read stories, or listen to music, or play games like Flinch and Mahjong. But she always encouraged us to help out in the kitchen when it was mealtime.

Best of all was when she decided to make pancakes for breakfast. She never made it out of a box, and she was quite health-conscious, so we ground the wheat ourselves. Grandma owned a large old wheat grinder that allowed you to pour the wheat into the opening at the top, and a fine brown flour would be deposited in a drawer at the bottom. Of course, a good deal of it got sprayed into the air too, so you never wanted to stand too close, especially because it sounded like a jet engine taking off and the noise was deafening.

The wheat grinder I bought a decade ago is significantly smaller, considerably quieter, and much less messy. Yet I don’t always take the time to set it up and use it. Hence, I often make pancakes from mixes when I’m in a hurry. But every time I make them from scratch I only use this recipe. With my family, I have to triple the batch in an enormous bowl so that everyone can have their fill. They’re that good.

2 eggs (separated)
2 c. milk
1/3 c. oil
3 T. sugar
1 T. baking powder (rounded)
1 t. salt
2 c. whole wheat flour

In small bowl, whip egg whites until stiff.
In large bowl, mix egg yolks, milk, and oil. Add sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix thoroughly. Add flour. Fold in egg whites gently.
Fry on 300° griddle, measure out with ¼ c.
If you want a special treat, slice up some bananas on top before you pour the syrup on—we never failed to hear how that was the way Uncle Bri ate pancakes on his mission to South Africa. So we often ate them that way too.

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Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo

John is now in training for his second marathon. Last fall, when he was preparing for a long Saturday morning run, we would often go to Olive Garden so that he could “carb-up” for his 15+ mile treks. Well, our budget isn’t what it once was in the “going-out-to-eat” category, so the challenge now was to create an alfredo sauce to match that of a restaurant. Anyone can cook pasta easily enough, at least I had that part down.

I looked at many recipes in cookbooks and online. They all called for one of two varieties: heavy cream and parmesean or cream cheese and butter. So last week, I made one batch of each. Guess what? They were both pretty good, but the ideal sauce, I thought, was when I mixed the leftovers together.

So this week, I tried a combination recipe of my own making:
4 oz cream cheese
½ stick butter
Melt together and add
1/4 to 1/3 c. parmesean cheese
Blend until smooth and add
1 c cream (either whole or half & half, depending on how rich you like it)
Stir until thick.

That’s it! Four ingredients for perfect alfredo sauce. Granted, they’re all quite fattening, which probably has a lot to do with it, but it really doesn’t take a lot of sauce to coat a bowl of fettuccine. If it’s too thick, add a little milk to the mixture until it is the desired consistency. I like a little pepper in mine as well.

Another nice addition was some grilled chicken. I invested in a small countertop grill that went on sale for half price last week and already feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of it. Earlier in the day, I took my kitchen shears to two chicken breasts and cut them up into bite-sized pieces, poured about 1/3 c. zesty Italian dressing over them, and let them marinade for a few hours. After a few minutes in the grill, they were a delicious addition to make a perfect Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo.

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Yesterday afternoon, I went to my storage room to get a bag of chocolate chips. My oldest son is getting his Eagle Scout award on Sunday, and I wanted to have a couple of days to get all of my baking done for the guests who will want refreshments afterward. Much to my dismay, there were no more chocolate chips in my stock. Rats! I always have chocolate chips. What’s up with that? All I could find was a bag of peanut butter chips that I must have bought on an extra-good sale, because I honestly don’t know what to do with peanut butter chips. Since it was all I had, I took the bag upstairs and looked at it. I didn’t really like the cookie or the brownie recipe on the back—they called for more peanut butter and I didn’t feel like working with sticky, messy peanut butter right then. But the idea of doing a sheet of bar cookies sounded appealing as I was short on time.

I took down my favorite brownie recipe, given to me by a good friend, and tried to do something in-between them and the cookie recipe on the bag. I’ve made cookies enough in my lifetime to know approximately what goes into an average recipe, what the dough is supposed to look like, and that if it tastes good before you bake it, they should be just fine when they come out of the oven. (I also know roughly what a half-cup of shortening looks like, so I just took a knife and scooped some into the bowl, like I said, I wasn’t in the mood for cleaning up a lot of sticky stuff.)

The batter was large enough to not only make a sheet of bar cookies, but to also get 18 round cookies for our stake dance Saturday night. When my husband got home, we split one of the cookies to make sure they tasted good enough for company. After I told him what I did he said, “Did you write down the recipe?”
“Um, not yet,” I replied
“Write it down right now, I’ve never had cookies that taste quite like this before.”
So here is my latest experiment, courtesy of John's insistence that I be able to duplicate it. If you want to come to the court of honor tomorrow night, you can sample them for yourself. :o)

2 sticks (1 c.) butter
1/2 c. shortening
2 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. cocoa
1/4 t. salt
1/2 T. baking powder
1 T. vanilla
4 eggs
4 c. flour
1 bag peanut butter chips

Blend all ingredients together except flour and chips. Add flour 1 cup at a time until well mixed. Stir in chips.

For round cookies, reserve some of the chips and press 4-5 chips into ball of dough before baking. It takes an extra minute or two, but they look a lot nicer that way. Bake 8 minutes at 350.
For bar cookies, spread batter evenly into pan with the back of a large spoon, then smooth together with fingertips. Bake 25 minutes at 350. (This picture isn't very good, since it looks like I burned it, but it's really because it's chocolate batter and just makes a dark cookie.)
Enjoy!

New Sewing Blog

I sort of disappeared off the blog scene for the last few weeks. I was asked by a friend mid-January if I'd like to participate as a vendor in a boutique she's sponsoring in March. (Flyer below) I took up the challenge and started a small business making 18" doll clothes--my favorite thing to sew, and one that I knew my kids (particularly my daughters) would be enthusiastic supporting me in. Last night, I launched a new blog called "Lizzie and Girls" showcasing samples of the doll clothes I make. If you're an American Girl doll fan, I'd love to have you stop by http://lizzieandgirls.blogspot.com/

Happy Valentine's Day!

This holiday is almost completely overlooked by our family at times. I buy valentines when they go on clearance after the big day so I don’t have to think about it the following year (and also because I’m cheap). Consequently, the kids know they can just rummage in the bin in the storage room and pull out a new box of cards for their class. They get pretty excited about that part, actually. Now that they can all read and write for themselves, all I have to do is provide a little candy for them to tape onto the notes they will distribute. My biggest reminder that Valentine’s Day is coming up is by the fact that once they begin the project, little heart stickers and odd cards litter the kitchen table for the better part of the week prior to their parties. Finally on the day of, I see that there are some that say “Mom” in the “to” space and it dawns on me that I’d better write out cards of love and appreciation to my children as well.

It’s not that I don’t like to show love to my children or my husband, I like to think that it’s something that I do all the time. The problem lies in the tendency for Valentine’s Day to coincide with two other events (at opposite ends of the spectrum) that easily detract from it. First of all, it always seems to fall on the same weekend as our Stake Conference, and when you’re married to the Stake President, it ties up a bit of time. Secondly, the school science fair is usually the week following, so there is a frantic push to get projects and display boards done over the weekend because it’s less likely to be done very well on a school night. I thought of a “thirdly” too: John and I celebrate the day we got engaged every February 4th. We’ve already had a special date this month, and Valentine’s Day doesn’t do as much for romance by comparison.

While talking to a good friend of mine yesterday, she made the comment, “I love this holiday because it’s the one where my kids are most likely to think of giving instead of receiving.” How profound! Where I’ve always thought of this as a laid-back kind of holiday where I don’t have to do very much, I realize that perhaps I’ve been missing an opportunity to teach my children a valuable lesson in giving. On one hand, I think they get the concept pretty well without me interfering. On the other hand, by not pointing it out to them, perhaps the lesson will be completely lost as time goes on. They’re only in elementary school for so long, after all.

So as I sit here at my computer, listening to my children watching a church movie in the room beneath me, I reflect on the idea of changing my perspective a little. I would do well to encourage their spirit of love and giving by devoting a little more of my time and attention to enjoying this holiday we call Valentine’s Day. And there is certainly much to be gained by nurturing a little more love for family and friends.

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Red-Ribbon White Bread

About three months into my engagement to John and three months still to go, my sweet grandmother invited us to their house to open our wedding gift from her and Grandpa. Much to our astonishment, it was a Bosch mixer, very much like the one she always made bread in. Admittedly, it sat unused in a cupboard of our tiny apartment for most of the time we lived there, but I promised myself when I had a house of my own, it would have a place of honor on the counter. And it has ever since.

If your mixer doesn’t hold the volume of a Bosch, it’s easy to cut in half. One batch makes four full-sized loaves.

5 c. warm water
2 T yeast
½ c. sugar
½ c. oil
2/3 c. powdered milk
2/3 c. potato flakes
2 eggs
2 T. salt
12-15 c. flour

Pour water into mixer and sprinkle in yeast. The rest of the ingredients can be added after a minute or so. I always start with the sugar (because it helps feed the yeast) and end with salt (because it halts the growth of the yeast) before I start adding the flour. Mix in 6-7 cups flour until dough is smooth (it will be very sticky). Add in the rest of the flour 1-2 cups at a time until the dough is not sticky to the touch (if it comes off on your fingers, keep adding flour until it doesn’t. Once dough is desired consistency, let it mix for several more minutes. At least in a dry Utah climate, the most helpful thing to having bread rise and not dry out and crack in the process is oil. Where many recipe books will say to roll out dough on a floured board, I use oil instead. I’ll pour several tablespoons of oil out on my counter, take a pastry brush to spread it out and oil the pans with it at the same time, then rub my hands in it to get it out of the mixing bowl.

Divide the dough by pinching in half, then half again until there are four loaves.

If the mixer has done its job right, it only takes about 2-3 times kneading by hand to shape dough into loaves.

Place into pans, brush oil on the tops, and cover with a dishcloth to rise.

After about an hour (I use rapid-rise yeast, regular yeast may take a little longer) the dough should be ready to bake. Preheat oven to 350 and bake for 30 minutes. When done, remove bread from pans and place on wire rack to cool so the bottom doesn’t get mushy. I usually run a stick of butter over the tops while they're still hot, which gives them a nice golden glaze. This is my family’s favorite, and after several years of experimenting with ingredient proportions, it took second place in the State Fair in 2005.

I never did master Grandma’s wheat bread recipe, but over the years I’ve adapted my own. One note here is that it typically takes about 16 cups of wheat flour for 100% whole wheat bread. There’s also a big difference between red wheat and white wheat, and white wheat has a much nicer, lighter flavor and texture if you're grinding your own. I know you can buy whole wheat flour in the grocery store, but I've never tried it, so I can't vouch for it. :)

For wheat bread, I actually use the same recipe as white, but there are three critical extra ingredients that make up for the lack of gluten found in white flour so that the bread will be light, moist, and fluffy instead of dry and dense. They’re typically found at specialty food stores (like the Bosch Store—that’s where I go), but they make all the difference—and they last a very long time.

2 T. dough conditioner
2 T. vital wheat gluten
2 T. lethicin oil

Imagine my surprise though, when my wheat bread recipe, based off my white bread, won a blue ribbon that same year.

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Epiphany

The year 2009 was one of tremendous growth and introspection for me. So many of the circumstances and situations I found myself a part of caused me to dig deeper and try to understand why I think the way I think, why I feel the way I feel, and why I do the things I do. I still don’t have all the answers. In fact, I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface, but one realization I had this weekend has propelled me into a greater depth of self-discovery.

I’ve always had a love for scrapbooking, card making, sewing, and other visual-type home arts. But I’ve never paused to think about why. While talking with John about a new project or two that I was just starting up, I found myself feeling so excited about them and speaking with a greater passion for what I was doing than I have had in a very long time. I can’t quote myself perfectly, and these thoughts have had more time to distill since then, but essentially, here is what I discovered.

What I really love is the process of taking raw materials and shaping them into something of value. It’s exciting to look at a length of fabric and think of all the possibilities of what I can make from it. I love to start with a blank Aida cloth and a few dozen skeins of embroidery floss and shape a cross-stitched picture from it. I delight in taking a stack of pictures and an assortment of papers and arrange them into something that enhances the memory associated with them. It’s the process of creating that is often just as fulfilling than the actual finished product.

As intrinsically rewarding as creating is, the thing that enhances the completed project’s worth is when I am not doing it solely for my own benefit. I find myself thinking throughout the process “my daughter is going to love this new dress for her doll” or “I hope Sister Smith enjoys this baby blanket” or “John and the kids will really like this scrapbook” or “everyone is going to love these cookies,” then when they do, I feel fulfilled. Whether or not my daughter ends up using the doll dress every day matters less to me than the first smile it puts on her face. Perhaps that scrapbook will gather more dust than attention, but if it provides my family the chance to relive the memory just once, it was worth the effort.

I don’t think it was mere coincidence that I heard three different talks on talents today. It was a blessing to know that I have talents that I’ve worked hard to develop and that the Lord has helped me to increase them. It was also a reminder that there are things I used to spend a lot of time on that I virtually don’t do at all now. I have lost a significant portion of what I had because those things which we neglect will eventually disappear from our lives. I also have a hope that things I haven’t learned to do yet are not entirely out of reach if I’m willing to spend a portion of my time on them to learn.

So what good is all of this introspection? By recognizing that there’s a pattern—a common thread—that is woven through all of my hobbies and interests, it gives me clearer direction to move forward. I feel less selfish spending time doing the things I love to do and more purposeful in doing them. If I decide to reclaim lost talents or develop new ones, I will better be able to enjoy them if I can apply to them the principle I learned about myself—that I love process as much as product and the joy of bringing satisfaction to others. Then the journey is just as delightful as the destination.

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