Breadsticks/Baguette/Pizza Dough Recipe


This is my most versatile bread recipe. It came from my BreadBeckers cookbook. I use it for Pizza, Breadsticks, or French bread. Here it is:

1 1/4 c hot water
1/2 c milk (I use fresh almond milk) -makes lukewarm temp. when combined
2 Tbs. oil
1 Tbs. honey
2 tsp. instant yeast
4-5 cups freshly milled flour (here’s why)
2 tsp salt

Combine water, milk, yeast, oil, and honey. Add flour and salt. Stir until well mixed. Knead to make a smooth ball (about 5-10 mins by hand). Let rise until double. Turn dough onto a generously floured surface working with just enough flour to make the dough workable.

For Pizza Dough: Divide in half. Use rolling pin to roll to desired thickness; place on oiled pans for about 20 mins to rise. Bake 15 mins in preheated 400 F oven. Cool, add toppings at convinience, then bake again about 20-30 mins till done. (We use lots of toppings; it takes longer to dry out than it would with few toppings. Nobody likes soggy pizza!)

For French Baguette: Divide for 2 small, or leave together for 1 big loaf. I usually do one. Roll into a rectangle and then roll each side in tightly, tucking under the ends. Placed on greased pan. Let rise until double. Bake at 400F for about 30 mins. May glaze with slightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds the last 5 mins of baking.

For Breadsticks: Roll out onto oiled pans, and use a pizza cutter to cut into strips. Let rise about 20 mins, then bake at 400F about 15 mins. I like to sprinkle with oregano before final rise, and baste with butter as soon as they come out. I also add 1 tsp garlic powder to the dough if I want them garlicky. Yum.

Menu Plan Monday-May 3


I’m really glad I’ve made a commitment to planning my meals again. Even having a general idea ahead of time is more helpful than none at all.

We usually have fruit & nut smoothies for breakfast, leftovers or sandwiches for lunch, so I’ll just focus on the dinners for now.

Monday-Gnocchi with Mushrooms & Sage Butter, Salad, Fresh Garlic Breadsticks

Tuesday-Chinese Fried Rice

Wednesday- Curried Pumpkin Soup, fresh French Bread, and salad

Thursday-Mexican Taco Casserole

Friday-Fish of some kind. Not really planned.Couscous, steamed green beans, Challah. Chocolate mousse

Saturday-Leftover Pumpkin soup and bread

Sunday-Shakshuka and Hash Browns

I’ll be adding recipes as I can; check back to see.

Have a great week!

For other menu plans visit OrgJunkie.

Whole Wheat Pancake Recipe

From my BreadBeckers cookbook.

3 cups freshly milled flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 c oil
4 eggs
3-4 cups buttermilk*

Mix together dry ingredients (or empty your homemade mix into a bowl). Add liquids. Stir just until mixed. Fry on hot oiled griddle or nonstick pan. Serve with fresh chopped fruit and real maple syrup or raw honey.

Sometimes we have some leftover breakfast oatmeal from another day; this can easily be mixed in to the pancake batter. Tastes good and eliminates waste!

*Anyplace I see buttermilk in a recipe, I substitute 1 cup milk (any kind; I use nut milk) + 1 tbsp vinegar. I know some like to avoid vinegar; I am not sure if lemon juice would work instead, but it might.

Homemade Pancake Mix-Works For Me Wednesday


singing….“Nothing could be finer than the taste of Aunt Jemima in the mo-ho-ho-rning..”

Do you remember that? I actually paused here to look on YouTube to find that commercial, but couldn’t…I’ll look later.

Back to Aunt Jemima. Or Bisquick. Or any mix. (um…Pillsbury brownies, anyone? I’m not saying I like them or anything. Ahem.)

Here are the ingredients of original pancake mix as listed on Aunt Jemima’s website: INGREDIENTS: ENRICHED BLEACHED FLOUR (BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), SUGAR, LEAVENING (SODIUM BICARBONATE, SODIUM ALUMINUM PHOSPHATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE), SALT, CALCIUM CARBONATE (A SOURCE OF CALCIUM).

I made bold the bleach, the bleach, the sugar. By the way, that’s bleached WHITE flour, in case you weren’t sure. And the other stuff….basically other than the salt and the baking soda, none of it should be added to your food.

Flour should be whole wheat, (or other whole grain), and freshly ground. I began a post series on the benefits of freshly ground flour;I didn’t finish it, but hope to soon. But read here for the first part.

A box of pre made mix costs about $2. Your ingredients cost less than that. But to make it all from scratch takes too long, you say. So…why not make your own mix? A mix is just the dry ingredients pre-combined with instructions of what to add. I can do that!

I made a pancake supper last night, and while preparing my batter, I grabbed 2 ziplocks and made 2 mix bags. Easy as pie. Or should I say pancakes. 🙂

By the way, you can do the same thing for all kinds of mixes. Makes it easier to “whip something up.”

Homemade mixes are definitely something that work for me.

This post is linked to Works For Me Wednesday.

Menu Plan Monday-April 26th


I’ve been away (from posting, not really away) for too long. It’s going to change. Starting by just keeping it “real”, not only informative about health stuff. That stuff is important, and I love researching and teaching it, but the truth is, I don’t have much time. Go figure.

But I miss posting, and I have aspirations of a blog that actually reflects my life on a regular basis. So, I’m going to start adding more, but very regular day to day kind of stuff. And as I have time, I’ll share my “natural” version or take on the topic, as well as add others specifically in that vein.

I long ago discovered the many pluses of creating a menu plan for the week. No need to think about what to make at the late hour of 5:00. That’s stress I don’t enjoy. But, for whatever reason, I haven’t been doing it. That needs to stop.

So, yesterday, I sat down and made a plan. A menu plan, that is, for this week. I’m a day late posting it, but here it is:

Monday- Vegetable&tuna noodle casserole (it was good!)

Tuesday- Pancake supper (whole-grain, of course) with fresh fruit toppings

Wednesday- Baked potatoes with grilled mushroom&onions topping, and steamed peas & lima beans

Thursday- Minestrone soup & salad

Friday (Shabbat dinner) – Roasted Chicken, steamed broccoli or green beans, coucous or mixed grains, fresh challah bread, chocolate chip banana bread

Saturday- (breakfast) Homemade granola, fresh almond milk. Dinner: leftover minestrone soup & challah.

Sunday- Cuban Black Beans and rice

There are plenty of food & recipe blogs out there. I will add recipes slowly. Please ask me if there’s something specific you want me to post or explain.

I’m going to try to post our menu plan each week on Monday. I have no idea if any of you out there give a hoot what we eat, but posting it each week will help keep me accountable for actually making a plan. I’d love your feedback. Share what you’re making!

I’m going to link up to Menu Plan Monday at I’m an Organizing Junkie. See more menus there.

14 states sue to block health care law

On AOL, this was a leading story.

…”Thirteen of the states, led by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum (pictured), filed a joint federal lawsuit Monday in Pensacola, where they called the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act an “unprecedented encroachment on the sovereignty of states,” CNN reports. McCollum and 12 other attorneys general involved are Republicans; Buddy Caldwell of Louisiana is the lone Democrat.

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, the state legal officers assert, is there a mandate requiring citizens to have health coverage. The new law, which offers subsidies to help low-income people buy insurance, imposes financial penalties on those who do not comply by 2014.

Lawsuits challenging federal authority often rely on the “commerce clause” of the U.S. Constitution, which states that “powers not delegated” to the federal government by the Constitution are “reserved to the states respectively.” But efforts by states to circumvent federal laws are often trumped by the Constitution’s “supremacy clause”: laws passed by the Congress “shall be the supreme law of the land.”

This is what I’m talking about.

The original CNN article is here.

Constitutional Problems with Obama’s Health Care Plan

I’m not into politics. Like, Not.At.All. But, I do believe that the powers that be are purposing to strip us of our inalienable rights. And I am against that. So, once in a while, I do a little to share what I think is truth about certain injustices or deceptions I don’t even try to follow or keep up on them all.

On Facebook this morning, I noticed some friends commenting on Obama’s Health Care bill being passed. I don’t really know that much about it, but did look into it a little. And this is some of what I found. Taken from a blog post I found here.

This is an essay from an attorney and teacher of constitutional law who actually went to the trouble of reading the entire bill.Finally, someone did read the entire House Bill 3200:

The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009
From: Michael Connelly – Retired attorney, Constitutional Law Instructor,Carrollton, Texas

Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far WORSE than what I had heard or expected.

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law DOES provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medicalprofession.

The Bill will ALSO eventually FORCE private insurance companies out of business [Goodbye Aetna / Goodbye Blue Cross Blue Shield, etc.] and PUT everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will NOT be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.

However, as SCARY as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has NO intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive ‘transfer of power’ to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been DESTROYED!

The first thing to GO will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.

If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.”
So, there are THREE of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It DOESN’T stop there though.

*The 9th Amendment that provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;”

*The 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United Statesby the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea.. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation” to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution:
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
And another to the Bill of Rights: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton, Texas

A Not So Sweet Surprise

I keep coming across articles & conversations about High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and its dangers. I know it’s bad stuff, but didn’t really know that it’s MUCH worse than sugar. I skim most but took the time to read this one.

As usual, I feel like I don’t have time to write a thorough post. But I’m going to try to get back to posting more frequently, and keeping it short, just doing what I can. Better to “hit a lick at a snake”, as Flylady would say.

Most of the following info. is from this article; click to read the whole thing. Bold is mine to emphasize main points.

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) came around in the early 1970s. It’s now the main sweetener in soft drinks and is increasingly replacing sugar in baked goods, bread, cereals, canned fruits, jams and jellies, dairy desserts and flavored yoghurts. Sweeter and less expensive than sugar, HFCS represents the major change in the American diet over the last forty years.

Although the food industry made this change very quietly, consumers are beginning to ask a lot of loud questions about the new sweetener as research accumulates to indicate that it is much worse for us than we thought. Growing consumer resistance to HFCS is the likely explanation for a recent industry campaign to put the new sweetener in a favorable light. Ads run on television and in popular magazines portray HFCS as benign and its critics as bossy, overbearing, unqualified and misinformed.

Since refined carbohydrates, sugar and HFCS included, tend to be addictive, it is basically impossible to follow the advice to consume them “in moderation.” In fact, the entire food industry has succeeded very well over the past thirty years in getting Americans to consume far more than moderate amounts of refined sweeteners, particularly high fructose corn syrup. Between 1970 and 2000, the per capita consumption of HFCS in the U.S. increased from less than one pound per person to over sixty pounds yearly. There can be no debate about the fact that both sugar and HFCS, with their empty, depleting, addictive calories, are bad for you. But the real question is whether HFCS is actually worse for you—more depleting and more damaging— than ordinary sugar. The research indicates that it is.

Calorie for calorie, HFCS is more likely to cause weight gain than sugar.
The industry would have the public believe that the fructose in fruit and in HFCS are chemically identical. The fructose in HFCS is not recognized in the human Krebs cycle for conversion to blood glucose in any significant quantity, and cannot be used for energy utilization. Instead, these refined fructose sweeteners are primarily converted into triglycerides and adipose tissue (body fat). In fact, a new study found that obese people who drank a fructose-sweetened beverage with a meal had triglyceride levels almost 200 percent higher than obese people who drank a glucose-sweetened beverage with a meal.

Chronic high triglycerides translate into increased insulin resistance, inflammation and heart disease. HFCS is a recipe for obesity, lack of energy and metabolic syndrome—sounds like the modern American addicted to a diet of HFCS-sweetened sodas.

Out of My System & Out of Their System

I am very excited to share with you a new source for natural health care information.

WellWithU.com

Helping people regain their health, naturally, is a passion I have. And, for those who are Bible-Believers, most of the existing resources are a little too….out there, in a new-age-y kind of way, if you know what I mean.

The name and mission are based on Deuteronomy 4:40, which states that when you follow the instructions of the Almighty, “…it will go WELL WITH YOU, and your children after you, and your days will be prolonged…”

Join WellWithU for their official launch, at a FREE WEBINAR TONIGHT. (the large link above works; this one doesn’t and won’t change for some reason. sorry. Use the one above!)

Click on the large link above for more information and to register.

The group of presenters are fantastic; I can’t wait to hear what they have to say.

After you register, pass on the link!

www.WellWithU.com/launch