3 Tips for Finding a Good Recipe

Cookbooks galore. 

Internet recipe sites.

Food blogs. 

Pinterest.

Sometimes it can be overwhelming to find a good recipe. 

Here are my Top 3 Tips for Finding a Good Recipe:

1. Look for ingredients your family enjoys.
2. Look for ingredients you regularly cook with, but perhaps are used in a different way.
3. Look for strong reviews or comments of people who have actually made the recipe with success. 

When I look at recipes online, I go by these three item all the time.  If there are recipes that use ingredients we don’t regularly have on hand, or ingredients that we don’t like, that’s not going to be a recipe for us. 

I might initially find a recipe that looks appealing based on a photo, but if the comments only consist of “oh, that looks great!” – and the ingredient list doesn’t match up to what we would typically cook with, I am hesitant to give it a try. 

What about you, how do you find a good recipe? 

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Kitchen Tip: Keeping Homemade Bread Fresh

Homemade bread is the best, isn’t it? 

There is nothing better than pulling a loaf from the oven – the aroma overwhelmingly delicious. 

Like this Wheat Buttermilk Bread.
Or, this Wheat, Oat & Honey Loaf. 

But, if you don’t eat the entire loaf in one day, the bread just isn’t the same two days later. 

Without all the dough conditioners and preservatives, homemade bread has a very sort shelf life, especially when it comes to texture. 

Since we have not purchased bread in more than 5 years, we’ve tried just about everything to keep bread fresh: storing it cut-side down on a plate, in the microwave, in a bag, in Tupperware… you name it, we’ve tried it. 

Keeping Bread Fresh

Here’s what we’ve discovered: the freezer is your best friend. 

Freezing your bread preserves the texture of your bread and keeps it incredibly moist for weeks. 

Here’s what we do:

1) Bake bread, enjoy it fresh on day one.

2) Slice the entire loaf. 

3) Place slices into a freezer-safe plastic bag. 

4) Freeze.  You can keep your bread in the freezer for a few months. 

5) Simply remove slices as you need them. 

6) Thaw on a plate and use as you need. 

What do you do to keep homemade bread fresh? 

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

5 Ways to Make Christmas Baking Healthier

Christmas time is usually the one time a year when a lot of people make something from scratch!  Naturally, I love seeing people give Grandma’s cookie recipe a try, or trying a new recipe for the first time.

Black Friday is our family’s annual baking day – and my mom and I had way too much fun this year.  We did certainly miss my little sister, though. 

Here are 5 tips for tweaking Christmas baking to make it just a little bit better for you!

1. Use a better flour.

A simple change in flour can make a big difference! 

Best: White whole wheat flour.

White whole wheat flour is nutritionally equivalent to whole wheat flour made from red wheat.  White wheat grasses simply have a slight change in their DNA, resulting in a wheat grain that does not have the traditional red bran coloration.  The removal of the bran gene results in a flour that is lighter in color & texture, and less bitterness in flavor. 

White whole wheat’s draw back is that it does change the texture of baked goods; you’ll want to compensate by measuring just a little under on your flour measurements. 

Better: Eagle Mills Flour with Ultragrain

Costco sells an all purpose flour with a white whole wheat hybrid Eagle Mills is calling “Ultragrain”.  Ultragrain is a combination of two white whole wheat plants, and the results is a lighter in color & taste flour that they claim substitutes cup for cup with all purpose flour.

I love the consistency of this flour and have found it works as a perfect substitution for all purpose flour in Christmas cookies. 

2. Use butter, just less of it.

Don’t be tempted to use margarine in your baking this Christmas.  If you need a substitute, adjust the recipe and go with olive oil.  But, if it’s butter the recipe calls for, use butter. 

The thing is, you can easily reduce the total amount of butter in most recipes by 2 T easily, and sometimes by 3 T.  Nervous, try reducing the butter by just 1 T.  Removing 1 T saves you 100 calories and 11 grams of fat.  And, 3 T makes that 300 calories and 33 grams of fat!  Those savings add up. 

If you are making a cake or bread, consider substituting applesauce (unsweetened, plain) instead! 

3. Freeze goodies before baking.

If you’re like me, you enjoy a variety of Christmas goodies around the house.  Here’s a way you can "make your cake & eat it too” – the freezer. 

Seriously. 

Freeze that cookie dough.  Make up a whole batch of your favorite Christmas cookie, and bake 6 or so cookies.  Store the rest in the freezer either as dough balls all ready to bake, or in small portioned containers. 

If you freeze the dough rather than the baked goods themselves, it takes just one more step before you can eat them.  For me, that extra step keeps me from sneaking unto the freezer for just a snitch. 

4. Reduce the sugar.

Almost every recipe I’ve made, I reduce the sugar & no one knows.  Take for example, this apple cheesecake recipe – 40% less sugar than the original, and it was still plenty sweet. 

Nervous?  Just try not packing your brown sugar.  Brave? Try 1/8 C or 1/4 C less sugar for every cup.  Bold?  In a recipe that calls for 2 C sugar, try 1 1/2 or even 1 1/3 C.  

5. Share the wealth. 

Bake with family or friends; each person choosing a recipe or two and dividing up the loot.  No one close by who can bake with you? Make a list of who you can take treats to: librarians, cashiers at your local grocery store, public transportation drivers, Post-office workers, even the homeless in your town. 

Make your baking a blessing to someone else this season. 

Linked to: Kitchen Tip Tuesday

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Kitchen Tip: Printing Recipes

Today’s Kitchen Tip segment is designed to help you be able to print recipes more successfully from Finding Joy in My Kitchen. 

Printing Recipes from Finding Joy in My Kitchen

At the end of each post, there is a green “Print Friendly” button in the footer. 

Click on that button and a myriad of choices are provided:

Choose to eliminate all the photos in one click:

Then, you have the freedom to delete any line you choose!  This makes printing a recipe very easy and customizable.

 

What’s left?  A recipe that is easy to print, save as a .pdf or email!

I hope this is helpful!  If you have other questions about how to use this blog, feel free to ask! 

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Kitchen Tip: Removing Apple Wax!

Each fall, we process tons of apples – for freezing, applesauce, pies and more. 

While we carefully wash all our fruits & veggies, apples have a food-grade wax covering the outside of the skin that doesn’t wash off easily. 

Since we love to eat apples with the peel on them, and we love tea made from the peels, it was high time to find a way to really clean that wax off the apples. 

5 Easy Steps to Remove Apple Wax

1) Fill your sink with about 4 inches of lukewarm water. 

2) Add 1 T lemon juice & 1 T baking soda to the water; swirl around. 

3) Place your apples in the water.

4) Using a fruit/veggie brush, brush the outside of the apples.  Then, watch to see how gross your water becomes…

5) Rinse the apples & pat them dry. 

Now, admire the difference! 

Notes: If you still notice wax when you are finished, it’s likely because the apples didn’t get scrubbed with the brush all the way around.  I noticed this at first on some of my apples, but a second scrub and the wax was gone. 

Linked to: Kitchen Tip Tuesday

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

How to Freeze Apples

Right now, apples are abundant!  Take advantage of great prices right now and stock up for the winter. 

To freeze:

In three simple steps, you can preserve your apples for later:

1) Wash, slice and peel your apples.

2) Arrange the apple slices on a cookie sheet, covered with parchment paper.

3) Freeze the apples for 30 – 60 minutes.  Then, package the apples into serving-sized portions. 

We’ve kept apples in the freezer for a full year using this method. 

To use:

Run hot water over the apples in a strainer and then use as you would fresh apples.

Now, these apples won’t be good for eating when you remove them from the freezer, but you can use them in everything from baked oatmeal and crustless apple pie to DIY fruit roll ups and applesauce! 

Now, go forth & preserve these apples!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Kitchen Tip: Locating Recipes

The Kitchen Tip segment here on Finding Joy in My Kitchen is something I hope to include as a regular appearance.  I often get email questions that I will try to answer here as well as sharing tips from my own experiences.  If you have a question, please let me know!

Today, I’m going to share three easy ways to find recipes on Finding Joy in My Kitchen.  I hope this will help you find recipes more easily! 

Three ways to find recipes on Finding Joy in My Kitchen:

1) Use the recipe index. 

This is best used if you’re looking to browse all the recipes on our website.  You can look at breakfasts, lunch or dinner ideas, crockpot meals, desserts, snacks and more!  Each recipe has a photo snapshot as a teaser! 

 

2) Choose ingredients.

Do you have specific ingredients you need to use up?  By selecting an ingredient, you can easily see the recipes that use, for example carrots.  Ingredients that appear bigger in font size have more recipes associated. 

3) Search!

On the right sidebar, you’ll find a search box.  This option is helpful if you have part of a title of a recipe that you recall from my site, or have many ingredients that you want to find in a recipe.  Begin by typing your search terms in the search box. 

If you are looking for a recipe with multiple ingredients, use the “+” to separate the ingredients. 

Hit the search button and wait until your results pop up.  Here’s how to make sense of what you see:

I hope this has helped make Finding Joy In My Kitchen a more user-friendly site for you. 

And, if you have any questions you want me to address, send me an email (joyinmykitchen@gmail.com), or leave your question in the comments!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Kitchen Tip: Cleaning your Misto

Do you have an olive oil sprayer like a Misto at your house?  I’ve had ours for about a year now, and up until July, it had been working quite well. 

Then, it started spraying a stream of olive oil.  Which, to me was still better than an aerosol-filled spray. 

But, it wasn’t the spray my Misto had delivered before. 

Thus, we embarked on a clean –a detox if you will, for your Misto. 

And, I’m happy to report, our Misto has a nice fine mist of olive oil now!

You will need:
1/3 C vinegar
3/4 C hot water + more hot water (divided)
1 squirt of dish soap

To clean, follow these simple steps:

1. Dump out any remaining oil in your Misto. 
2. Pour in 1/3 C vinegar.
3. Spray away until you’ve passed all 1/3 C of that vinegar through the Misto.  This helps break up the oil.
4. Place one squirt of dish soap into 3/4 C hot water.  No need to mix, just squirt it in.
5. Pour the soap/water mix into the Misto & spray away.
6. Rinse with hot water.
7. Pour in more hot water and continue spraying until the stream is clear and there is no more soap. 
8. Rinse. 
9. Set the pieces out to dry.

When dry, refill and use as directed. 

Do you have a Misto or other oil spraying product?  How do you like it? 

Linked to: Kitchen Tip Tuesday

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Cooking for a long weekend

My husband and I just returned from a long weekend away with our dear friends from graduate school! 

We rented a “cabin” together and enjoyed bird watching, hiking, playing games, s’more making, staying up late, talking and praying with one another. 

It was a true blessing. 

Of course, I volunteered to do the cooking!  We had a beautiful kitchen with just about everything we needed to prepare some simple meals. 

And, the 6 of us ate 3 dinners, 3 breakfasts, 2 lunches, snacks and desserts for $130! 

Here’s what I learned about cooking for a long weekend:

1) Ask for dietary needs in advance. 

By asking our friends ahead of time, we knew that we needed meals with vegetarian options and that were nut-free.  We also learned our vegetarian friend was not opposed to meat in a dish, which was helpful to know. 

2) Plan a menu where you can re-package leftovers for another meal.

Thinking about our food needs, how many meals we’d need while we were away, I put together a menu from our recipe index.  I chose meals that were easy to prepare, used what we had in season – zucchini, green beans and tomatoes from our garden – and where leftovers could be reused.  For example, we made about 18 potatoes on Saturday, enjoyed them as baked potatoes on Saturday, on the grill on Sunday and in our breakfast on Monday.  Here is our menu:

Friday - Zucchini Mac & Cheese, grilled lake trout, green beans, S’mores

Saturday – Berry Baked Oatmeal, sugar-peppered roasted bacon {new} fresh fruit, OJ; Crockpot Baked Potato Bar, roasted red pepper, salad

Sunday - Cinnamon Oat Pancakes {from a DIY pantry mix}, & fresh fruit BBQ – Burgers & veggie burgers with all the fixings, Buns, corn on the cob, grilled potato & onion packets, S’mores

Monday – Leftover Breakfast Bake {recipe to come!}

*Lunches were simple – sandwiches with salad and fresh fruits.  We brought a loaf of pre-sliced wheat buttermilk bread and my friend made a batch of buns. 

3) Prepare dry ingredients in advance of your trip.  Buy fresh ingredients there.

I prepared the pancake mix and the berry baked oatmeal dry ingredients before we left.  Tossed those ingredients into a plastic tub and taped to the top the list of the wet ingredients.  Made for easy prep in a kitchen I wasn’t entirely familiar with!

We took a quick shopping trip to the Piggly Wiggly to pick up fresh ingredients and local favorites (e.g., cheese curds!).  Ideally, we would have hit up the farmers market in the town we were staying in, but we arrived too late to do so. 

4) For your last meal, plan a quiche or breakfast egg bake that allows you to clean out the fridge!

Come Monday morning, we had leftover potatoes, broccoli, onion, turkey burgers, avocado, tomatoes, spinach, cheese, eggs, milk, and roasted red pepper.  We tossed those all together in a delicious egg bake.  Yum.  I can’t to share this recipe with you. 

5) Ask everyone to bring a snack and/or beverage to share.

This worked out wonderfully for us – this way each family could bring something they really enjoyed.  We brought some cookies and also no-nut, olive oil chex mix!  Others brought pretzels, cheez-it’s and fruit leathers. 

We all concluded that the weekend was a complete success and that we can’t wait to do it again next year!  Next year, there will be 7 of us… our friends are welcoming their first baby in September. 

How do you cook for a long weekend? 

reade more... Résuméabuiyad