Funky Lime Pizza

I originally posted this funky lime pizza here. I have refined it a fair bit so am reposting with the refined directions ...

pizza dough enough to make two pizzas

4 cloves garlic, minced ~ I do a whole lot more but you do what you like !!

2 T extra-virgin olive oil

2 ears of corn, kernels removed

pinch of black pepper

2 cups Mozzarella, shredded

1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

zucchini, thinly sliced

feta cheese, crumbled

fresh cilantro (coriander) leaves, coarsely chopped

juice of 2 or 3 limes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F/ 200 C if using oven.  (We do ours in our outside pizza oven ... and have even done it in the weber ... just cook it however you would normally cook pizza)

Use your favorite dough, roll out two bases.

Drizzle olive oil on both bases, spread around with a spoon.  Sprinkle with black pepper.  Top with zucchini, onion, corn and feta.  Top with mozzarella.

Bake for about 8 minutes then swap which rack the pizzas are on. Bake for another 5 - 8 minutes, til cheese is done to your liking ! I like it a bit brown ...

While the pizzas are cooking, heat the olive oil in a small frying pan. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, til light brown ... DON'T BURN IT !! Burned garlic is bitter and narsty ! (that's for you Jimmy !)

Immediately after removing the pizza from the oven, top with garlic, squeeze a lime over the top and cover with the cilantro.

I serve with additional lime and we sqeeze more lime over during the meal !!

PS ... I googled funky lime pizza today and my original post came up FIRST ! How fun is that ? It also brought up another couple people who have reposted the recipe. One I knew about. One I didn't. Again ... FUN !!!

Poppy Seed Muffins

I modified these today. I've decreased the amount of sugar necessary and I've substituted whole wheat for the majority of the white flour. Next time, I'll try even less sugar until I can use as little sugar as possible and still be happy with the muffins. On a side note, I forgot to put the eggs in today and these muffins were still fine. I'll put the eggs in next time and then decide if they are even necessary.

Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F.

1 and 1/2 cups canola oil
3 cups whole wheat flour, sifted
1 cup white flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
2 cups milk
2.5 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons poppy seeds
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp almond extract

Mix all ingredients 'til lumps of flour are gone. Pour into muffin tins. Bake 20 - 25 minutes. I always bake about 10 minutes, then check them every 5 minutes after that til they are done. (when a toothpick inserted into the middle of them comes out clean !)

These are so amazing ! Love them !!! Perfect for breakfast ! Perfect to go in lunchboxes ! Perfect for an afternoon snack after school ! Perfect for dessert after dinner ! The options are endless !!

Makes 24 muffins.

Homemade Wheat Buns

These can be made in a bread machine, or with a mixer or even by hand!
(I made them in my bread machine until I received a Kitchenaid from my husband for my birthday recently!)
If making with a breach machine add all ingredients except yeast. Add the yeast last, in a well made in the flour. Select 'Dough Cycle.'

1 1/3 cup warm water
¼ cup Sugar (scant)
2 ¼ teaspoon bread machine yeast
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/4 cups All-Purpose Flour

Preheat oven to warm and then turn off.
Place water yeast and sugar in mixing bowl.
Allow to sit about 5 minutes, until foamy.
Add oil, salt, and flour and allow mixer to knead for 10 minutes.
Remove dough onto floured surface and knead into a tidy ball.
Put ball of dough back into mixing bowl, cover with plastic wrap or tea towel, and place in warm oven with bowl of warm water placed on bottom rack.
Allow to rise until doubled in size.
(When dough cycle on the bread machine is complete continue as follows.)
Roll on floured surface, into long log, and cut into 9 pieces.
Place on parchment lined baking sheet and flatten dough pieces until they are the thickness of a pancake and sides are almost touching.
Cover sheet with cloth and put in warm oven for 45 to 60 minutes or until doubled in size.
Remove from oven.
Preheat Oven to 375 degrees.
Bake for 17 minutes.

Printable Recipe:

Homemade Wheat Buns

Whole Wheat Brioche Bread Maker Rolls

This one is made from the last of the dough .... I just rolled it into a ball and it came out like this.
The others were round ... but you'll see that in the coming cheeseburger recipe !!

My inspiration for this recipe comes from here.
Of course, I had to make it fit our unprocessed specifications ... here's how I did that.

1/2 cup milk
4 eggs, large, at room temperature (I just sat them in a cup of hot water for a few minutes)
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons powdered milk
1 & 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 & 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (I sifted mine)
3 teaspoons yeast

Put all of the ingredients in your bread maker and run on the dough cycle.

Roll it out and cut or shape into whatever you like. I used large biscuit cutters to make hamburger buns ...

Let rise for 1/2 an hour in a warm place.

Brush the rolls with an egg wash of one egg beaten with one tablespoon of water.

Bake in a 350 F/ 180 C pre-heated oven until the bottoms are browned. I think mine only took about 20 minutes ...

Whole Wheat Foccacia

I just replaced the sugar and flour used in this recipe with honey and whole wheat flour and voila !

Water ~ 250ml
Olive Oil ~ 2 TBLS
Salt ~ 1 tsp
Honey ~ 2 tsps
Whole Wheat Flour ~ 3 cups
Yeast ~ 2 tsps

Add ingredients to bread maker in order listed and use the 'dough' setting.

Press dough into a lightly greased pan. I used baking paper.

Cover and stand in warm area for 30 min or til doubled in size. (I always fill the sink with hot water and stand my doughs on top of that to make it warm ... works well)

Remove cover, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with rock salt.

Bake in pre-heated oven 200C (400F) for 30 (mine only took 20 minutes) minutes or until golden brown.

Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas ~ Video Tutorial

Over the weekend, I made a huge batch of whole wheat flour tortillas and froze them ! I cannot wait to try them out of the freezer. I have high hopes that they will be WONDERFUL and make my unprocessed life much easier !! Having a supply of tortillas ready and waiting to be used .... bliss !

I did have a few issues with the dough. Turns out I had made a typo in the recipe when I posted it here and had been adding twice as much water as I should have been ! The cool thing though is that this is a very forgiving recipe and I was able to just add more flour ... knead it a bit and still make the tortillas !

(Ready to go into the freezer)

I took this little video while I was making them to show you how simple it is ! It takes a little bit of time to make as many as I made but they should last us a good while before I need to do it again !!

Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas ~ Bread Maker Edition

I'm reposting this because it had an error. These never turned out right after the first time I made them and I couldn't figure out why !! Then a friend tried them and questioned the amount of water, then today I made them today and they were WAY too wet so I went back to the source and for some reason, I had the wrong amount of water. DOUBLE the amount, in fact. So ... I've changed the recipe here to be correct. It is in fact only 1.5 cups of boiling water ... not three !!! I had to add another couple of cups of flour to salvage the ones I made today ... I'm off now to cook them and pop them into the freezer for easy use during the week !!! Sorry if you all have tried these without success. Try them again !!! But ... with the right amount of water !!!

***

I've been wanting to try making flour tortillas for a long time. The thing that always stops me though is making the dough. I'm just not a lover of kneading ! NOT. AT. ALL ! I found this recipe and for some reason that is not obvious to me now, I thought I could do it in the bread maker. I did and it worked so well !! HUGE SUCCESS !! I'm so excited about it !!

I read through a whole bunch of the reviews of this recipe and found a few changes that I thought would be good and therefore almost completely changed the recipe ! Here's the way I did it.

Add the following to your bread maker ...

5 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1.5 cups boiling water

After you stop wondering if it's going to bubble over, shut the lid, and turn your bread maker on to the 'dough' cycle. I did mine last night before I went to bed. When I woke up this morning, it looked great. I left it for an hour or two or three til I was ready for the next step. When you're ready, roll them into golf ball size balls and put them on a tray. I used a meatloaf pan. When you've rolled them all, cover it. I used press and seal because I was planning to leave them all day and I didn't want them to dry out. And then I left them ... all day, til dinner. One of the reviews said the longer they sit, the easier they are to roll out. So ... when you are ready to cook them ... roll them out, one at a time. (while one is cooking, roll out the next one) I found the ones I had rolled weren't big enough so I combined one and a half balls each time and rolled that out. I just used a rolling pin and I didn't flour the surface because I hate the feeling of flour on my fingers. But ... it was sticky so you might want to if you don't have my same flour foible. Heat your griddle or large frying pan over high heat. I put some olive oil in the bottom of mine. Fry your tortillas one at a time. I'm not exactly sure how long to cook it ... some people talked about bubbles. Some of mine bubbled, some of them didn't. But ... you do both sides. Doesn't take long. I just chopped off a piece of the first couple to see when they tasted done and went from there !!

This recipe says the tortillas can be refrigerated or frozen. I didn't cook them all tonight (there were 27 balls !!) and have refrigerated the leftover balls. Tomorrow, I'll cook up a few more. Freeze a few dough balls. Freeze a few cooked tortillas. You know ... experiment and see what works best !!

I served tonight's tortillas with :
black beans
avocado
tomato
spring onion
greek yogurt
cilantro lime rice

YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMY !

Healthy Muffins {Take Two}

So ... I tried THE MUFFINS again and these were a huge success. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. We didn't need butter on them at all ... We'll keep making these and trying different fruit variations !! Again ... this made 24 muffins !! And they are perfect for lunches !!

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups whole wheat spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup milk
3 granny smith apples
1 cup frozen mango squares
1.5 cup frozen blueberry/cherry mixture
1 frozen banana (I chopped it, Rory reckons mash it next time ...)

Put your muffin papers in your tins.
Peel and chop apple, add 1 or 2 tsp water and cook in microwave about 5 minutes. Smush 'em up.
Combine dry ingredients.
Combine wet ingredients, minus the fruit.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and combine.
Fold in fruit. ( I make 12 berry ones and 12 mango/banana )
Put in muffin tins.
Bake on 180C/350F for 20/30 minutes. Mine took about 30 ...

Healthy Blueberry Muffins

The inspiration for these muffins was from a great blog called The Gracious Pantry. I've just recently discovered this blog but I love it. Probably because I can eat most everything on it !! Her Clean Eating Kiwi Flax Muffin recipe looked so good and they were ok for us to eat on our whole unprocessed journey this year so the kids and I had a go at making them !! We did make a few changed and I'll post my adapted recipe here ... It will be a bit of a work in progress though. Next time I plan to stew some apples and add them ... these were a bit dry. And pretty heavy. We're still eating them and loving having a baked good but I think apples will be a great addition ... Any other suggestions would be welcome too ...

Here's what I did. I doubled her recipe and got 24 muffins out of it. This is the doubled recipe ...

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup flax seed meal (I might replace this with whole wheat spelt flour next time)
2 eggs
1/4 cup agave ( I actually decreased this ... next time, I'll use none ... just apples)
3/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup milk (I used regular milk ... next time, I'll use almond !)
2 cups blueberries (I used frozen)

Put your muffin papers in your tins.
Combine dry ingredients.
Combine wet ingredients, minus the fruit.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and combine.
Fold in fruit.
Put in muffin tins.
Bake on 180C/350F for 20/30 minutes. Mine took about 30 ...

And there you have it. I'm going to make some more tomorrow. With the apple. I'll let you know how they turn out ...

A Good Whole Wheat Bread

Pay no attention to the fact that this sinks in at the top.
Other than that, which made no difference at all, this bread was great !!

I used a few different recipes and modified this to our specifications.

Here's what I did ...
Add the following to your bread maker.

1 & 1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons honey
4 teaspoons olive oil (I might try canola next time)
4 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 & 1/4 teaspoon yeast

Turn on the bread maker. Select the wheat bread setting. I'm not sure how big of a loaf this would be but I think I selected the medium size. And I always select light crusts ...

Come back in roughly four hours to find a freshly baked, healthy, delicious loaf of whole wheat bread !!

Stuffed Crust Whole Wheat Veggie Pizza !!!

I am soooo excited about this !!

Shifting from white flour to whole wheat flour has been one of my biggest fears in this whole unprocessed journey. I finally decided early in the week that I just needed to 'give it a go' ! If I have some failures along the way, no worries ... just 'give it a go' again !! Last night, I put this dough into the bread maker and it worked ! And it's delicious ! And I'll make it over and over again !! I think I like it even better than my white flour pizza dough. And knowing that it's doing our body some good is just a cherry on top !

I hadn't planned on doing a stuffed crust but when I rolled the dough out, it was bigger than the pizza tray so I decided to go for the stuffed ! Probably wouldn't do it all the time because it just adds more cheese but it was good ...

You know how to do stuffed crust right ?
You just spread the cheese around the edges and then fold 'em over ...



Did anyone else notice that I forgot to round the corners on those pictures ? Duh.



Here's how I topped this pizza.
Tomato paste ... garlic flakes ... fresh oregano, parsley and greek basil from our garden.
Onion, thinly sliced
Fresh Spinach, diced like the herbs
Zucchini, thinly sliced
Green (preservative free !!) Olives
Pumpkin, thinly sliced
Mushrooms (except on the kids one)
Asparagus
Pine Nuts and Mozzarella Cheese




It was sooo good.
Just look at it.



You can almost taste it ...



But not quite ...

I think you might need to go make your own !

Here's how you do the dough ... compiled from about four different recipes I found on line to meet my own requirements !

1 & 1/3 cups water
2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons olive oil
4 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 & 1/4 teaspoon yeast

Put it all in your breadmaker, I did mine in that order. Turn it on to the 'pizza dough' setting. When it's done, roll it out. It will make two stuffed crust pizzas or 4 thin crust pizzas !

PS ... I forgot I was going to make 'mini pizza' ... oops ! I'm thinking I'll do that soon and pop 'em in the freezer for easy lunch options !

****
Edited to add ... I cook my pizzas in an oven preheated to 200C/390F - for between 10-20 minutes. Totally depends on how much is on the top ! I just do it til the cheese is a nice golden brown.

Whole Wheat Bread Maker Bread

I found this recipe at bread-maker.net ... a fantastic site full of bread maker recipes.
I plan to try a bunch of them !! If you have a bread maker, I'd recommend checking the site out !

This one was really really nice !! I'm cutting and pasting the recipe ...

Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients for a 2-lb (1kg) loaf:
1 1/3 cups milk
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons honey or sugar
4 teaspoons margarine or butter
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 active dry yeast

Directions:
Add ingredients according to manufacturer's instructions. Select Basic cycle. When baking cycle has ended, let cool to room temperature before slicing.