Simple Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing and Dipping sauce

I have a quick and easy dressing and dipping sauce for yall!

 

Simple Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing and Dipping sauce

2 tbsp olive oil of choice

1/2 c Kraft Zesty Italian Dressing

1/4 c Kirkland aged balsamic vinegar, it has a sweeter flavor

2 tbsp raw honey

2 tsp minced garlic, I use the jar kind

In a skillet heat the oil, add the rest of the ingredients. Reduce for about 3-5 minutes until the vinegar aroma no longer causes you to choke when you taste it. Lol vinegar….

Allow to cool for use as a salad dressing or serve warm as a dipping sauce when you overcook your chicken 😉

Hey I’m not perfect ^-^

Mexican Salsa Verde-Vegan

Super simple blender recipe for you. It is the same salsa verde that you can get in most Mexican restaurants here in Texas. My version is not too spicy, though you can make it more spicy depending on how many chiles you put in. The best part? This only takes about 5 minutes and has only a few ingredients!

Mexican Salsa Verde

2 small avocados

1/2 small white onion

1 jalapeno with seeds, you can also use serranos and use more if you want it hotter

10 sprigs of cilantro

2 tomatillos

1/2 cup water

1/2-1 tsp salt

Cut the ingredients into large chunks. Toss all the ingredients into the blender and puree until smooth! That’s it!

This goes very well with all tacos, tostadas, flautas, chips, and whatever else!

 

Easy Einkorn Artisan Bread

I LOVE bread. Maybe because it tastes so good with butter? It’s a guilty pleasure that was once taken from me when I discovered that I have food allergies. Thanks to Jovial I have my life back! Here is a recipe that I adapted from here and here . So the first link is a youtube video. Before I learned of my food allergies I used to bake this guy’s recipe like once a week. The second link is an overnight bread in the New York Times by a famous baker in New York City. I use the recipe from the first and the baking / kneading technique in the second. I recommend you watch both videos so you get an idea of the techniques. I have found that the first videos recipe is slightly yeasty and salty. So I have slightly reduced both in my recipe.

Ingredients:

3/4 tbsp Red Star active dry yeast ( I eyeball the measurement on the yeast and salt)

3/4 tbsp Himalayan salt

4 cups of einkorn flour ( I scoop the flour out from the jar or bag)

2-3 cups warm water (the measurement is eyeballed) I’ll explain this down below

1/2 cup Whole Wheat Einkorn Flour for dusting the board.

Directions:

You must have a coated cast iron dutch oven with a lid to make this bread! I bought mine at HEB for $30.

Start by getting a bowl and putting your flour and salt in it. I fill the tablespoon measure until there is about an 8th of an inch of spoon showing. Set this aside.

Start your tap to make warm to the touch water. In a little bowl (I use a Corelle 18 oz bowl, it comes in all Corelle dish sets)

Fill the bowl 1/2 way with warm water and add in the yeast. I measure the yeast exactly the same as the salt with 1/8 of an inch showing on the spoon. Set aside to proof for a minute or two.

You can do this by hand, but since I have a Kitchenaid mixer now I use it. Use the bread hook for this. Pout in your flour and salt and briefly turn it on just to mix them together.

Pour in your yeast from the little bowl. (here come the hard part!)

You are going to take warm water from the tap and pour it in the mixer with the mixer running on medium. You want just enough water for the dough to come together and come away from the sides. I can’t say how much water that will be! It usually takes me about 2-3 half bowls of water to get it right.

Once you are all mixed up cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 1 hour. Einkorn flour proofs in half the time of regular flour! So you can start this late and still have bread by dinner.

After 1 hour get a board out and put some Whole Wheat Einkorn flour on it. This makes a really nice crust.

Turn your bread until you get a ball. It only takes a minute. With einkorn there is no need to knead! Coat the top of your loaf with the whole wheat flour and plop it seam side up in a kitchen towel. You want a towel that is not a terry cloth.

At this point you start your oven. Set it to 500° and place your dutch oven inside, leaving the lid out. Once your oven and pot is preheated you are ready to bake.

Pick up your towel and plop your loaf into the pot. This is why you left your dough seam side up in the towel so that when you plop it in the pot is will be seam side down. Shake your pot to even out the loaf. Cover the dutch oven and bake for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes take the lid off and bake for another 15 minutes.

Allow your beautiful loaf to cool before cutting into it. It is best slathered in Kerrygold salted butter!

*This recipe is REALLY forgiving. On Sunday I made a loaf and added way too much water. I ended up adding a whole nother cup of flour pretty much to get it to be less messy.  That being said it STILL turned out really good! I was certain it was not going to turn out!

This really is a simple recipe. It is just a little harder to explain in words than video. Watching both videos above will make this a whole lot easier for you!

Easy Einkorn Flatbread

BeFunkyCollageHi all you Einkorn lovers!

I have a new recipe for you. When I worked at Quiznos my favorite thing to eat was the flatbread topped with chipotle mayo, turkey, red onion, tomatoes and lettuce.This is a perfect recipe for those of us that need to make lunches for our husbands or ourselves and don’t want to use bread or have run out of bread! Flatbreads are a very versatile little bread. You can make sandwiches, little pizzas for the kids, or even top them with a herbed oil to serve with spaghetti!  Today I will share with you my recipe for making flatbread using Einkorn flour.

 

Easy Einkorn Flatbread

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Inactive time : 10 minutes

Cooking time: 1-3 minutes per flatbread

 

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups Einkorn flour   (if using normal flour use 1 1/4 cups)

1 teaspoon yeast dry active

1/2 teaspoon himalayan salt

1/2 cup warm water 110° F

2 teaspoons olive oil

 

Directions:

In the bowl of your kitchenaid mixer that has been fitted with the paddle attachment, put 1 1/3 cups of einkorn flour, 1 tsp active dry yeast, and 1/2 tsp salt. Turn your mixer to low to just blend the dry ingredients quickly. Add 1/2 cup of the 110° F water and the 2 tsp of olive oil. Mix on medium for about a minute until the dough comes together. On a well floured surface. The dough will be pretty sticky but do not add any more flour to it. Turn your dough out only about 4 times, enough that you can make a ball. Too much kneading and the dough will be too firm. Cover the dough with a towel and let rest for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes of resting cut the dough into 4 pieces. Gently form the pieces into little balls,sprinkle flour under and on top allowing the dough balls to absorb a little more flour the make them more like a pizza dough and less sticky. Knead the balls in your hand to toughen them up just a little. Roll them out about as wide as your hand. Like 6 inches. You want them to be a little thick since they are not tortillas they are flatbreads!

Heat an ungreased Cast Iron pan to about medium high. Place a flatbread on the pan and wait until some bubbles form on the top side. This will take about a minute. Turn the flatbread and cook for about another minute. There should be some brown circles here and there on the bread.

And that’s it! Flatbread made with healthy Einkorn in just a few minutes!!!

Comforting Vegan Potato Soup

potato soup picedited.jpg

Hi there,

I have another quick and easy recipe for you guys. This one is vegan! What? Traditionally potato soup would be made with milk and lots of it. I found a recipe the other day for a vegan alfredo sauce. While it was a yummy recipe, when I tasted it, it screamed potato soup! So today, I opened up a bag of cut cauliflower from Costco and decided to try and make vegan potato soup with the ideas that I got from the alfredo recipe.

Vegan Potato Soup

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 10-15 minutes

Equipment needed: Blender of some sort ( I use a Nutribullet
)

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter (Earth Balance is a good vegan one)

1 large yellow onion – sliced

4 cloves of garlic – sliced

1 pound cut cauliflower ( I get mine at Costco because it’s like 4$ for 2lbs already cut up)

3 smallish russet potatoes or 1 large baking potato

2 cups unsweetened plain almond milk, plus a little more if you want it thinner ( I love HEB brand, it’s thin and mild tasting) .

1-2 tsp himalayan sea salt

pepper to taste (I probably used 1/4 tsp)

Directions

Heat butter in a skillet and add the sliced onions and garlic. You want to caramelize them very well. It will take about 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile boil your cauliflower for about 10 minutes until very nice and soft, but not completely mushy. While those are working, peel and cut your potatoes into nice chunks. Boil potatoes in a separate pan from the cauliflower until soft, almost very mushy. When the cauliflower are finished, drain the water and set aside to cool. If you use a Nutribullet like I do you want the cauliflower to be very cool because you are not supposed to put hot things in the Nutribullet. Once the onions and garlic are nice and light to medium brown pour them in the blender with the cauliflower, the salt, the pepper and the almond milk. You want to puree this until very smooth. If your soup is too thick you can add more milk. Drain your potatoes, then add the soup base to the potatoes.  You will want to bring this back up to a boil for just a second to warm through. Adjust your seasoning to suit your taste. Then serve hot!

Enjoy