Quick Breakfast Bread - courtesy of Aunt Sandy

So scrolling through Facebook yesterday I came upon a picture of beautiful bread.

Picture Courtesy of my Aunt Sandy

Isn't that bread gorgeous!? Studded full of dried fruit and looking absolutely delicious. I had to know.

So going through the post I discovered that my Aunt Sandy had made this bread, she calls it "Quick Breakfast Bread." In the words of my Aunt "Just made Quick Breakfast Bread - my own creation. This recipe is super easy to make and pretty healthy - no oil, low sugar, and full of healthy fruits and nuts! Took some last night to a gathering and it disappeared! Had to make another loaf this morning for our house."

After that description on top of the picture I had to make it. Of course I'm cheap so I didn't buy any nuts to put in it but I can tell you it would just make it taste even better I'm sure.

So I scanned the ingredients. Flour, check. Brown sugar, check. Baking powder, check. Salt, check. Ground cloves and cinnamon, check. Milk, check. Only thing I didn't have was the dried fruit and nuts.

So after working out and sending the handsome man off to work I headed to Walmart for the missing ingredient and to maybe hunt down a fruit and nut mix.

Upon entering Walmart in any town of any state you are bound to have an adventure. Honesty there really isn't a way not to in some way. You are at least entertained. It's comical to me.

Anyway, my adventure began soon after entering the doors. I had walked in wearing my sweaty workout clothes (they do fit and cover all parts necessary). As I walked in there was this little girl (about 7) who had stopped dead in her tracks as she had been leaving with her mother and her eyes popped out of her head and she started to bounce. She had spotted a friend at the Subway in the entry and was obviously excited. Her mother stated "Well don't have a heart attack" and I proceeded to head for the back of the food section. Then about 20 feet in I hear this LOUD belch come from between the two doors you walk through. I turned around momentarily and just kind of snickered to myself. After walking past the produce this young man looked and me and said "do you run track?"

I had to quickly think, well technically no but I ran track in 7th grade and then in June as well. Mind you this was internal talk to myself. I smiled and said yes, because I do run everyday. The man had this triumphant look on his face as he said "I knew it, I have a knack for these things." I just smiled and kept walking. It was 9 pm and I really wasn't in the mood to chat with someone as I was on a mission.

I found the dried fruits but couldn't find a delicious combo of fruits and nuts that would work in my bread that wouldn't cost me more than $3. (I'm a cheapskate - ask Mike).

So headed home and break out all the ingredients and begin to follow the directions:

It already looked magnificent. Though I changed a few things. I didn't add nuts and I used 1/2 flour and 1/2 oats. Up the fiber a bit since I was using unbleached white all purpose flour.

Then add milk.

It smelled heavenly with the cloves and cinnamon, almost Thanksgiving like.

Now the fun part, deciding on a pan. For whatever reason I have not replaced the loaf pan I used to have and tossed due to wear and tear. So I found this pan hiding under all the casserole dishes.

Make due with what you have. So I do.

The recipe said to bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees F. Well, my electric oven runs a bit hot. Also, on another note, I can't stand electric ovens/stoves. I miss my old gas oven. So I only baked for 20 minutes to start. It wasn't done so I added another 10. It came out perfect at 30 min in a larger pan and my oven.

Anyway, I digress. This came out beautifully. Flat - but beautiful. I think I may have actually forgotten to add the baking powder. Oh well, still amazing.

So this is fresh and smelling wonderful. My kitchen now smells irresistible. I of course, cannot wait to dig in. 1. It's fresh, hot bread out of the oven. 2. Perfect timing to add butter or other toppings as desired. 3. This just looked AMAZING.

So I sliced up a sliver and taste tested.

I must say this is DELICIOUS! Perfection in a loaf. You could of course add any sort of dried fruits you want or any nut. My aunt recommends pecans or walnuts but get creative by all means. The fruits I used were a berry mix (cherries, blueberries and cranberries). I found this combination to be perfect. Though I can guarantee I will try apples, raisins, goji berries etc. Whatever strikes my fancy that time.

I will probably be making another loaf tonight just because I could literally eat this whole pan of bread by myself in one sitting. Hopefully Mike likes it too, he didn't get home until 8 this morning and am unsure if he had some for breakfast or not.

So thank you Aunt Sandy for the delicious recipe :) Keep them coming.

Quick Breakfast Bread
Courtesy of Aunt Sandy

Makes roughly 8 servings

Ingredients
2 cups flour (or 1 cup flour and 1 cup old fashioned oats)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup dried fruit of choice (I used cherries, cranberries, and blueberries - get creative with your choices)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I omitted because of cost - that's me)
1 cup milk (I used skim)

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease a 9 1/2 inch loaf pan (or 8 inch square pan in my case) and set aside.

Mix all ingredients except milk.

Add milk and mix well.

Put batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour. (I baked for 20 to start then had to add another 10 min to that to cook completely).

My aunt recommends toasting and serving with butter or cream cheese.

Also can mix up all the dry ingredients the night before and then just add milk in the morning and bake while you get ready in the morning. Warm breakfast bread fresh from the oven in no time. :)

Now go out and cook!

Foodie Pen Pal Reveal

Welcome to our first Foodie Pen Pal post. We are Foodie Pen Pals, well, I'm the one that wanted to do it, Mike helped find things and helped put the whole thing together and suggested things for me to put in the box for the person I was sending to. I ask for his input on a lot of things. So here we go. Reveal day!! I have been just itching to write about what was sent to me :) SOOOOO excited!!!

So first off, I had gone for a nice run Monday September 17 and came back to check my mail. Well as I was digging through my stock pile of mail, due to being out in St. Louis all weekend, I found the oh so sought after key that the mail man leaves when you have a package, unlike UPS who likes to leave me notes and keep my package from me until they can either magically find me at home or I have to go pick up the damn thing. I digress, so I excitedly opened up the special mail box to find my lovely package sitting there, patiently waiting for me. Oh man I was excited. I immediately snapped this picture as I was walking back to my apartment and sent to Mike and exclaimed "IT CAME!!!!"

So then I rushed to the house, so very excited to get this baby inside to crack open and rifle through like a kid on Christmas morning.

I opened it to find a glorious range of foods and goodies that I couldn't wait to dive into. (Yes there is a picture of a snickerdoodle cookie in my kitchen, I used to work in a local Costco Bakery, that was my parting gift). 

I found the card included after examining each item and drooling. I wiped the drool from my face so I could read what was in my card. My dear pen pal asked what I liked and would like included in my box. I had said I was a health nut a little and was training for a 5k mud run and that I loved peanut butter. Caitlin said in her note that she decided to do a peanut theme since I love peanut butter so much. How awesome!!!! And to top it off I love the card because being the Kansas girl I am, I adore sunflowers, they are my favorite. Such happy flowers :)

So now we dive into the box of deliciousness that is peanuts and peanut butter. She included Trader Joe's Salty, Sweet & Nutty Trek Mix. She said this was one of her favorites, it is now mine too! Oh my, the deliciousness that this bag of yumminess is! I almost ate the whole bag in two days. I adore this Trek Mix and still need to get my butt down to TJ's and pick up a package, or two, or ten! Sweet honey roasted peanuts, peanuts, cashews, and peanut brittle!! Mouth orgasm! And then there is the beloved PB & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams, which I knew was going straight to work to be enjoyed when I needed a healthier alternative to those days I crave chocolate but don't need a chocolate bar. YUM!!! :) Thank you.

Then we have Justin's Classic Peanut Butter. I have only tried the Justin's honey roasted and almond butters. So I again stashed these in my purse to take to work for days I didn't have time to eat or forgot breakfast (like that ever happens) or just needed something to nibble and not have to go raid the vending machine. :) YUMMM Peanut butter - perfect by itself.

Then, yes THEN, I found this. I went a bit crazy happy with this because I've been meaning to try it. I just haven't wanted to spend the money on a jar of it (my local Hyvee charges $6 for the stuff, bit pricey for something that won't last long in my house - PB is usually gone within a few days if not a week). I wasn't sure how I was going to use this though. Should I make a sandwich? Nah, too boring. Should I try adding it to something like cookies? No, I really don't need cookies. Oatmeal? Wasn't in the mood. I know!! I added it to a chocolate banana protein shake one day and made it chocolate peanut butter banana. Oh yum!! This would be a great addition to my protein shakes after my Insanity workouts. Add a little more protein and some delicious flavor. It didn't taste fake at all and satisfied that peanut butter craving that I have about 90% of the time.

Then I found the "Organic High Antioxidant Trail Mix." YUMMMMMM Almonds, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, walnuts, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, raisins...ooo it goes on. Delish - only thing is I found something delicious that just wasn't familiar to me. Anyone know what this is?

Next we have our bars. MoJo trail mix bars and a Luna bar. We had MoJo Mountain Trail Mix Sweet & Salty and then we had MoJo Peanut Butter Pretzel Sweet & Salty. Oh my yes! The PB MoJo was better in my opinion but both were great for work when I hit that 3pm slump. The PB Cookie Luna bar was fantastic, not covered in sicky sweet coating but enough sweet to combat the salty. Mmmm, definitely a go to if I need a quick bar to eat to supplement a crappy lunch.

As you can see I enjoyed, can you see that pretzel stick right on top there!!! YUMMY Real food :)

Now we have the "Women's Vitality Mix." Can I just say that I absolutely ADORE trail mixes. And these are all fabulous!!!! This had cashews, almonds, dried cranberries, raisins, pistachios, dark chocolate chips (which I ended up picking out and eating while at my desk one day hehe, then I was left with all the really healthy stuff - shhhhh). I thoroughly enjoyed and all trail mixes are gone, done, eaten quickly. 

Thank you foodie pen pal for the splendorous box of goodies. YUM YUM YUM!!!!!!

Check out Caitlin's Twitter @Hopefulhels and see what she got ;)

And here is the link to the person we sent to here at Kids and Canning Jars.

Now go out and cook, or eat some trail mix with peanuts like me hehe :)

 Here are the details:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal! 
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. 
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. 

Grillin' Time

Tonight we grilled out. Despite the weather having difficulty making up its mind to rain or not.

It held off enough that we could definitely grill out.

The menu tonight was:
--jalapeño and pepper jack burgers
--grilled onion rings
--grilled peach quarters
--German potato salad
--fresh fruit salad.

Big menu, yes. Delicious, yes.

This morning we headed out to find the fruit we wanted to use. We went to the local Italian market and got pineapple, kiwi, cantaloupe, and strawberries. We then ran around town trying to find onion which, for whatever reason, was impossible to find loose yellow onion. So back to the market we went after purchasing the bacon, vinegar and beef.

Mike of course did most of the vegetable and fruit chopping, he has a new knife now that is specifically for vegetable chopping. He started to get the hang of it. Still a bit unsure of the new knife as it is a different style than a chefs knife.

While he prepared the fruit salad I began preparations on the potato salad, which I have no recipe for. It's just something you watch generations of family members make and you just know by look and taste. A little of this, a pinch of that, a squirt of this.

Basic recipe is:
5 lbs potatoes (mom uses russet, we used red)
1 small bottle cider vinegar
3/4 pkg bacon, diced
1 onion diced
Spicy brown mustard
Garlic powder
Cornstarch or flour for thickening

Boil and peel potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces.

Fresh boiled and cut up potatoes, red potatoes. Easiest to peel after boiling. Skin peels right off with your hand.

Cook bacon and onion down until bacon is slightly crisp and onions translucent. Then add a nice squirt of spicy brown mustard, dash of garlic powder and then add a healthy portion of cider vinegar. After that, mix in watered down flour or cornstarch to mixture until thickened slightly.

Vinegar/Bacon/Onion sauce

Slice up boiled and peeled potatoes into bite sized pieces. Pour vinegar mix on top. Put in oven at 300 degrees for up to 40 min and then serve.

German Potato Salad fresh from the oven

The burgers were pepper jack cheese, shredded up, dice jalapeño and then an egg for binding purposes as well as worstershire (sp?) sauce and basic seasoning.

Action shot, Mike's favorite

Grilled peaches had a dash of sea salt and the grilled onions were seasoned with Tony Chachere's creole seasoning and a squirt of olive oil.

Grilled peaches, white peaches, surrounding the grilled deliciousness of onion

All in all it was a great dinner. As usual. Had a minor injury prepping the peaches. The pit was not cooperating and so in my desperate attempt to quarter this peach I had the misfortune of the knife slipping and cutting my finger. (picture included. There is blood)

Injured finger, right ring finger

everything is better with a band-aid

So despite the injury and stubborn peach we had a successful dinner with juicy and flavorful burgers, hot potato salad and delicious fruit.

Yummy!!

Now we are both stuffed to the brim and going to digest while watching a movie.

Final Product, fruit salad included here, on top of the peaches. YUMM!!