Garlic Rosemary Wheat Bread

One of my favorite things to make is bread! I've done many basic wheat bread recipes, but I wanted to add some interest and favoring with garlic and rosemary! 

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of whole wheat flour
• 2 cups of white flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup butter, softened 
• 1/4 cup of honey
• 1 packet of yeast
• 2 cups of warm water
• Roasted garlic 
• Fresh rosemary  

Dissolve the packet of yeast in the warm water and let sit for 5 minute. In a separate bowl mix together the honey, butter, & salt. 

Add the water/yeast mixture to the honey/ butter mixture.

Slowly begin to add the yeast. 

With about one cup of flour left to add the mixture will be too dough-y to mix, which is when I turn to kneading. Transfer the dough ball to a lightly floured surface, add the remaining flour and kneeeead! 

Add in the roasted garlic! Yummmm!

Then add in the rosemary!

Once everything is evenly mixed move the ball to a clean bowl and lightly cover the dough with olive oil.

 About an hour or two later the dough will double...

Once the dough ball is twice it's original size divide it into two separate balls.

Leave these to rise some more, about 30 minutes. In this time pre-heat the oven to 375.

Bake at 375 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.
And you're done! Now the tricky part here is to not eat it all in 10 minutes!

(possibly) The Easiest Tortilla Soup!

 It has been freezing cold here in Oregon so why not warm up with some yummy and easy homemade soup!!

The key ingredients you need are:

• chicken broth 
• canned tomatoes
• tomato paste

Beyond those three ingredients I literally started to dig in the pantry to see what would be good! Here is a list of what I added:

• canned corn
• yellow onion
• garlic
• canned green chilies 
• black beans
• pepper jack cheese 
• chili powder to taste

First I browned the onions in a large pot on medium heat. While the onions were browning I opened all the cans, grated the cheese and washed the beans.

 Add the chicken broth, tomato paste and canned tomatoes and stir.

 Then add the beans, corn, chilies, garlic, and whatever else you decide to add! I let this all cook together on medium heat for about 20 minutes. 

 A few minutes before serving, I added the cheese to melt in. Check for taste and if needed chili powder, salt and pepper as needed.

I had tortilla chips on hand which I crushed for a little garnish and bam! Tortilla soup! How easy? It was perfectly spicy, chunky and warm on a cold winter day!

This was the only photograph I got before all the soup was snatched up!

Baked Chicken Nuggets!

Finals week has officially begun! Between fighting for space in the library and gulping cups of coffee, cooking is low on my list of things to do. But I recently stumbled upon a recipe for chicken nuggets and noticed how easy it was! Poor-college-student easy!

We cleaned out the pantry and found some bread crumbs, defrosted chicken breast, and borrowed cheese from our neighbors. Just a few simple ingredients to yummy chicken nuggets!

First preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Then cut the defrosted chicken into bit-sized pieces. (Note: Shelby is also an aspiring hand model, shout out for her nice hand pose here!)

We then made our kitchen table into a nugget station! Taking the chicken, shaking on some salt + pepper, dipping them into olive oil, then dipping them into the cheese & bread crumbs. Once they were coated and ready to go they looked like this:

Then pop them in the oven!

Set the timer for ten minutes...

Then take them out and FLIP them over and back in the oven for five more minutes! 

Shelby likes her nuggets extra crispy, so we left them in another couple minutes. And take them out and enjoy the tender, yummy, healthier option for chicken nuggets! 

Between dips of ketchup we were thinking of other things to add to the crust, maybe next time some crushed garlic? Yum!