Another Cabbage Dinner

Tonight I made stuffed cabbage. I could have cooked the cabbage a bit longer but, it still turned out pretty tasty. I served it with fresh home-made bread. I usualy mix white, whole wheat and oat flour. I decided to use rye flour instead of oat flour. It turned out really well. I'm not getting any better at slicing bread though. I'll be getting a good bread slicer this month.

This quote was in the cryptogram I did today.

"The time has come the walrus said to talk of many things. of shores and ships and sealing wax of cabbages and kings." Lewis Carrol

Cabbage Kuchen

My brother Kevin has quite a garden this year. I took home half a large cabbage the other day. I had some left-over meat loaf. So, I thought I'd make some Cabbage Kucken. The recipe is from a vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flanders, and Bronwen Godfrey. I've had this cookbook for years and remembered how I liked this recipe

Cabbage Kuchen:

Topping: 2 onions, 4 cups shredded cabbage, 2 T butter, 1 cup yogurt, 2 eggs beaten, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp black pepper, 1 T caraway seed.

Dough (Kuchen): 2 cups whole wheat flour, 2 tsps baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 egg beaten, 1 cup milk, 2 T butter melted.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

To make topping , slice onions thinly and saute with cabbage in butter. Mix in other topping ingredients and set aside.

Stir flour, baking powder and salt lightly with a fork. Combine egg, milk and butter and stir briefly into dry ingredients.

Spread in greased 8 x 8 pan. Spread with topping and bake for 35 minutes.

I varied this recipe slightly. I like to add in other flours so I also used rye and oat flour. I used only 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/4 water in the topping. Next time I'm thinking to adjust the recipe to have less kuchen and use only 1 1/2 cups flour. I made it in a 9 x 6.5 inch glass baking dish. It was surprisingly good just like I remembered.

Tonight, I warmed it up and we had it with pork chops and hashbrowns. I had fried onions with mine. I made a mushroom sauce for Mike.

Baking

I believe one of the best ways and challenging ways to make a difference in your diet is to bake your own, cookies, cakes, breads etc. One reason is to avoid unhealthy ingredients like processed white flour. The other is to incorporate ingredients not usually found in store bought baked goods. I like to use a variety of flours including adding buckwheat flour into some of my baked goods. I have found the more you bake and experiment the better results you will have. Below is my peanut butter cookie recipe. My friend Deb raved over these. She thought they looked pretty good too.

Peanut butter cookies
1/2 cup oranic peanut butter, 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup sugar - 1/2 organic white, 1/4 sucanat or rapadura

1 egg well beaten, 1 1/2 tsp milk
1 cup and 4 T flour - 1/3 whole wheat, 1/3 white + 2 T, 1/3 oat flour and 2 T buckwheat

2 T ground flax seed, 1/4 tsp soda

Roll into a ball and make criss-cross marks with a fork.

Bake in 325 oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Happy Together

This is turning out to be quite a year so far. My husband, Mike, and I are enjoying doing more things together. I've done crosswords for years and now after around 3 1/2 years of marriage my husband is doing them with me. Oh, and I've tried fishing, something he's done since he was young. I was surprised at how much I actually liked it. But, this is to me the biggest surprise. We are going in on a business adventure together. It's a networking company, so I understand the challenges. But, I'm really excited about doing this with him. The company is Silver Mania and they sell purchasing power to buy high quality silver. Well, when a friend of ours told Mike about the possibility of getting silver coins for free that caught his attention. Our website is www.silvermania.net/mjg. Check it out if you get the chance.

Times in life

As a young teenager I can remember being bored in the summer looking for something to do. Now at the age of 49 there are so many things I would like to do. I want to really get back to doing more painting. Thankful I have a good friend to encourage me in this. I couldn't imagine back then how I would feel at this age. As a teenager 30 seemed old. And actually 49 would have felt much older if at the end of my 30 years I hadn't made some healthy changes. I'm really feeling good at 49. I'm really focused on maintaining good health because there is so much to do and enjoy in life.