Breakfast Fruit Salad

This recipe for Breakfast Fruit Salad is so easy.  I really does make a great breakfast and even lunch–especially on those sweltering hot summer days here in Texas.  Okay, it’s the middle of February and I’m only DREAMING of those summer days, as it’s gotten cold here, (well cold for Texas!).  This is a breakfast that my kids really enjoy, it’s sweet and crunchy, which makes it a good substitute for the crunchy breakfast cereal we are no longer eating while on the grain free diet.  The yogurt dressing really makes this salad so yummy!  You can add other fruit and nuts to the mix.  In the past, I’ve added walnuts (which I’ve discovered I have an allergy to) and pecans.  I’ve also added strawberries instead of the grapes.  To make it sort of like a Waldorf salad, you can even add a bit of celery.  The recipe is versatile, and I haven’t found a combination that didn’t work alright.  But it’s a healthy substitute to more processed breakfast foods.  It can also be pretty frugal depending on the fruit you use and if you use seasonal fruits on sale.  The yogurt dressing is simple and healthy.  Purchasing plain yogurt and flavoring it yourself, if MUCH more healthy than purchasing the stuff already flavored, which is full of high fructose corn syrup and other not so good for you things.  Not to mention that it really is easy!  Which reminds me, I think I’ll do a post about making homemade flavored yogurt this week!  In the meantime, enjoy this recipe!

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Whole Wheat Biscuits

Biscuits are one of our favorite way to help spread a meal. My guys love them. It’s expected for me to make them whenever we have something like chili or soup. But we also enjoy them for breakfast and for dinner with out meal.  While these are not soaked, they do include fresh ground flour.  One of these days, I’ll get around to converting these to a more Nourishing Traditions  based recipe, but for now, we eat them as they are.  I’d also like to try converting them to gluten free.

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Grain Mill Wagon #3 – Rustic Cornbread

This is a nice old-fashioned cornbread. It’s dense and has no sweetening, which is what my family prefers. It’s a simple recipe that uses few ingredients, which makes it cost effective and most of the ingredients may already be in your cupboard or refrigerator. It puts me in mind of the cornbread my grandmother use to make.

I use popcorn that I grind in our Wondermill grain grinder. I just love fresh ground flours! Using the fresh ground corn meal in this recipe REALLY makes it pop. It’s so fresh tasting that my family just gobbles it up as fast as I can make it.

The popcorn ground up great and the Wondermill made just a find flour that I absolutely adore!

Here is the recipe, it’s such a quick and easy cornbread and really doesn’t require much in the way of ingredients.  I nearly always have what I need on hand!

Rustic Cornbread

Ingredients

• 3 cups buttermilk (cultured)
• 3 cups cornmeal (fresh ground)
• 3 teaspoons real salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil (in liquid state)

Directions

Preheat oven to 450°. Melt the lard in a rectangle casserole dish in the heating oven. In a large bowl, stir the cornmeal, salt and baking soda together . Stir in the eggs and buttermilk. Remove the casserole dish from the oven and pour the batter into it, stirring the melted lard into the batter. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Cut into squares and serve with butter.

If you don’t have buttermilk available, you can substitute milk, kefir or even watered down yogurt.

Rustic Cornbread

This is a nice old-fashioned cornbread.  It’s dense and has no sweetening, which is what my family prefers.  It’s a simple recipe that uses few ingredients, which makes it cost effective and most of the ingredients may already be in your cupboard or refrigerator.  It puts me in mind of the cornbread my grandmother use to make.

I use organic popcorn that I grind in our Wondermill grain grinder.  I just love fresh ground flours!  Using the fresh ground corn meal in this recipe REALLY makes it pop.  It’s so fresh tasting that my family just gobbles it up as fast as I can make it.

[gmc_recipe 393]

Linking With: Titus 2sday, Making a Home, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, Tackle it Tuesday, Domestically Divine Tuesday, Teach Me Tuesday, Living Green Tuesday, Thankful Homemaker, Tasty Tuesday, Titus 2 Tuesday, Tempt My Tummy,

More Thanksgiving

Another week is almost gone…Thanksgiving is another day closer! We as a family are traveling, even while I’m writing this. We have several stops planned in NC and TN traveling to share about the needs and work in the Philippines, along with some pics of Floyd’s late trip there.  I am thinking, “thanksgiving” all around us we are being blessed, always. Sometimes our outlook in life is dimmed by trials, frustrations, and lethargy of our own making. Namely, the neglecting of spiritual food for our souls, and taking responsibility for ourselves. When we begin focusing on God, taking that time every day to have that get-in-the-closet time, our senses become heightened, our mind clearer. We also are alerted to being more grateful for the blessings in everyday life. Just last night, I realized the *beauty* of having a good bed. In fact sleeping so well that I didn’t wake up once!  We teach our little ones early in life to say please and thank you. This has far reaching effects for the rest of the child’s life. Getting to the place in life where are minds are geared to be “Thankful” may be easy for some,but a real undertaking for others We are commanded “To give Thanks in everything”  Not necessarily FOR everything. When we open our heart to being supple in Gods’ hand, we begin to see the *terrible* in our trials are actually a blessing in disguise. In other words, as through our prayer time we are submitting to what our Heavenly father wants, we also  begin to think more like Him.”His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts better then our thoughts”

Umm, how does this connect with saving bread crumbs, and being frugal?     It all starts with thanksliving…On the morning of Thanksgiving, I toast the bread cubes. Set aside to cool. Peel a medium carrot, and shred. Place in a 4 quart bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of finely chopped celery,1 tablespoon of chopped onion. Melt 2 tabespoon butter in a saucepan, and saute vegetables. In the 4 quart. bowl beat 4 eggs, add 2 teaspoons poultry seas.,1/2 teaspoon sage, 1 teaspoon chicken boullion, 1/4 teaspoon black ground pepper. Add 1 quart hot  broth from your poultry broth.    Next add, 6 cups toasted bread cubes. Mix all together. Pour half of the melted butter into your baking dish, than add the stuffing mixture. Top with remaining melted butter. Bake covered at 350  for approximate 25 min. then uncover for the next 10 minutes. This is the most important part of Thanksgiving dinner besides the turkey! That’s our family’s’ opinion 🙂

No matter, where you find yourself, or what you will be eating on Thanksgiving day…the most important thing is the people you are with, whether friends or family, count it as a wonderful time to be together, and be ye Thankful! God bless your day.

–Luella

Pinterest Banana Pancakes

Do you like Pinterest? I sure do! It has so many wonderful ideas presented in glorious color! Sometimes it is a bit overwhelming to be honest. Today I’m going to share a recipe that I tried after seeing it on Pinterest.

2-Ingredient Banana Pancakes

What you need:

• whisk
• medium bowl
• spatula
• skillet

Ingredients:

• banana, the riper the better
• 2 eggs
• oil or spray for skillet, optional really but it helps

What to do (this is super easy!):

Mash the banana as well as possible in the bowl and add the two eggs, yolk and all to the bowl. Keep whisking until it is definitely all mixed. And that’s it!

Spray your skillet or frying pan with non-stick or use a little oil. Next measure out your batter to make your pancakes. It is a bit runny but it ‘sets’ quickly on the edges.

Flip the pancakes after a few moments. You’ll be able to tell that the edges are ‘drying’ much like when making other pancakes. The image below shows the pancakes in the skillet without oil; they stuck. The second image shows oil 🙂

It only made 5 pancakes- not quite enough for the three of us this morning. Two are teenagers so I think you can understand. My daughter didn’t like these banana pancakes. She decided to make a full batch of ‘regular’ pancakes afterward. I thought they were okay; different. My son hasn’t tried it yet but I’m sure he’ll eat it either way.

The nutritional facts, according to Cassey at Blogilates, are as follows:

Calories: 248.5
Fat- Saturated: 3.3g
Polyunsaturated: 2.2g
Monounsaturated: 4.2g
Cholesterol: 370mg
Sodium: 141.2mg
Potassium: 6.7.3mg
Carbohydrates: 27.7g
Dietary Fiber: 2.8g
Sugars: 14.6g
Protein: 13.6g

What is the most interesting thing you’ve tried from Pinterest? Did it turn out like it ‘should’ have? Please leave a comment!

Egg Free Scones, Not Sugar Free

We don’t have allergies in our house (well, not food allergies anyway) so we don’t have to be overly cautious about what we cook with and eat. Sometimes though we run out of what is called for in a recipe. Such as eggs. There are a lot of recipes that call for eggs that really can be made without!  I’ve titled this “Egg Free, but Not Sugar Free” because, although I’ve made my scones without both egg and sugar, this has brown sugar and honey. I would like to also point out that these are nice and moist; no dry scones here!

What you need:

not everything is pictured here

• Large bowl
• 1 cup dry measure
• 1/3 cup dry measure
• 1 tablespoon measure
• 1/4 teaspoon measure
• 1 cup liquid measure
• pastry blender or two butter knives, for cutting in butter, if desired
• spoon, if desired
• rolling pin, if desired

The ingredients:

• all purpose flour
• baking powder
• brown sugar
• honey
• salt
• butter
• milk

What to do:

Preheat oven to 400*F. Choose a cookie sheet to bake your scones on. I used parchment paper this time to line the sheet but often use aluminum foil.

Measure out 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 TBS baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Combine all in the large mixing bowl.

Measure 1/3 cup butter. This is 5 1/3 TBS if you are using stick butter, which is conveniently marked for measuring. Add this to the flour mixture. Using either a pastry blender, two butter knives or your hands, ‘cut in’ the butter until mixture resembles crumbs. I use my hands rather than an extra utensil.

  

Measure 1 cup milk into the liquid measure, and 2 TBS brown sugar; stir. You could add the brown sugar to the flour mixture but I’ve found it doesn’t always mix well.

Make a well in the crumble mix and pour in milk and brown sugar mix. Again, I use my hands to mix. I can feel when it is mixed to the right consistency better this way.

Divide the dough into two lumps. Each of the lumps, pat out or roll out with a rolling pin, into a circle. The thinner you make the dough, the less ‘fluffy’ your scones will be. I usually try for 1/2″ to 3/4″.

Cut them into wedges. I cut one into 12 wedges but the other into thirds.

I didn’t cut well! Use a sharp knife or butter knife dipped in flour to prevent sticking.

Arrange on cookie sheet and drizzle with honey.

Bake for up to 14 minutes, until golden brown.

Clean up is super easy with this recipe- there’s very little used! And no eggs 😉

Breakfast?

As a teenager, I didn’t eat breakfast. I drank a glass of milk – and it had to be a glass glass, you understand – and was out the door in record time. As an adult, and especially as a nursing mother of twin toddlers, I simply cannot go without eating within the first hour of waking up. And an hour would be pushing it.

So, I eat a lot of cereal. Especially during the summer time, my family consumes crazy amounts of cereal. It’s fast, it’s light, it serves as breakfast meal, in-between meal, snacks, and even dessert. Not all in one day, of course. Well, not most days, anyway.

Here’s the problem:

As a frugality maven who is always looking for a better, more economical, money-saving way to do things, (balanced, of course, with how much time I actually have to put in to doing them,) buying cereal really pricks at my brain.

It is NOT a frugal option. It’s not cheap. And, most of the time, it’s not even very healthy. Even the whole wheat, iron-packed type versions aren’t exactly the most nutritious items on the shelf.

But really, what are my options?

I could get up a little earlier (or start our day a little later) and actually cook every day. Yeah, right. I could whip out the frozen waffles, which at least my 9 year old son does quite often and the rest of us do on occasion. In fact, if I had the extra time one Saturday, I could whip up a whole month’s worth of homemade waffles for the freezer and do double duty on the whole frugality mission. Or going with that theme, I could whip up some breakfast burritos or sausage biscuits and freeze them. The problem here is that I’m barely getting the bare home keeping minimum done every week, let alone having the chance to get ahead like that.

I’m telling you, though, that eating cereal twice daily every day for three or four months (yes, it’s hot that long in Texas, sometimes – often – longer) just really gets on my frugality nerve, not to mention it gets old really, really quickly.

I’ve even pondered the possibility of trying to learn to make my own cereal. I’m sure pinterest or your friendly search engine would turn up something. Wouldn’t it? But would it be practical, and most importantly would it still be frugal? I mean the nutritional value is important, but around here, right now, bottom dollar is the bottom line. I guess I won’t know until I search it, but it just seems like such a pointless exercise, spending hours and hours preparing something that the whole point of continuing to consume it is convenience and saving of time. I could spend the time I’d use making cereal simply doing one of those other options and freezing ahead of time.

It’s overwhelming me this week!

What do you eat for breakfast? What do you do when you’re in a hurry? What do you do when convenience AND money are applied to the decision? And, just for fun, what’s your very favorite breakfast item to cook or serve?