Black Bean Flour

I have decided to be a part of the Cold Spring Farmers Market this year and I am pretty excited about it!  I am going to be selling my breads and freshly milled flours.  There are so many different types of flours out there with many uses other than bread.  Some of them are, whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour, oat flour, amaranth flour, brown rice flour, millet flour, black bean flour, white bean flour, green pea flour, and the list goes on and on.

Since I am going to be selling these products I figured I better taste them and know how to use them. Last night I milled some black bean flour and found a recipe on www.bobsredmill.com for a black bean flour dip.  This website has many recipes for using different types of flours and they have lots of gluten free recipes for those of you gluten free-ers.  This recipe is super easy and my kids loved it, like ate it by the spoonfuls-forget the chips!

This is what black been flour looks like. I thought it would be blacker than this but it turns black once you add water to it.

And here is the recipe from www.bobsredmill.com and a picture of the dip.  It looks a little gross but if you are a black bean and salsa type of person, I promise you will love it!  We ate this last night with burgers on the grill and it was a perfect spring evening dinner followed by a bonfire of course!

• 1/2 cup Salsa or Picante Sauce
• 2 cups 1/2 Hot Water
• 1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Chili Powder
• 1/4 Teaspoon Cumin
• 3/4 cup Black Bean Flour

Whisk 3/4 cup of Bob's Red Mill Black Bean Flour mixed with 1/4 tsp. cumin, 1/2 tsp. chili powder and 1/2 tsp. salt into 2 1/2 cups of hot water. Stir 1 minute while cooking over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover saucepan and cook an additional 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 1/2 cup of your favorite salsa or picante sauce and allow mixture to cool. Let mixture cool for 15 minutes if serving as a dip. May be topped with grated lowfat cheese (if desired) and chopped green onions and cilantro.

Happy Friday!

Here is a quilt that I just finished today.  It is a twin sized quilt that someone requested that I make for her son along with one to coordinate for herself.  I think it turned out really great!  They both love elephants so I used a fabric with elephants on it (which by the way is incredibly difficult to find!).

I still have a few projects to work on, including baby quilts for each of the girls that I have been dreading hand stitching, so they have been sitting in a chest unfinished.  And I also need to quilt this little gem that is for our bedroom.  By the time I actually do it, I will probably hate the colors and start another one.....I want to do some really intricate stitching on this one, so I am still planning what I want the finished quilt to look like.

With the weather finally warming up, I am getting very excited for my garden and to be able to play outside with the kids.  Happy Friday everyone!

Spring is near...

So, as it turns out, I am not the best at blogging on a regular basis after all...there are just too many things to do and not enough hours in the day.  Once the weather warms up I am going to plant the greatest vegetable garden Cold Spring has ever seen! ;). I attempted this last year and was doing pretty good with it all until some starving cows decided to trample our 5 foot tall chain link fence and completely demolish the entire garden.  They ate EVERYTHING down to the dirt, no joke.  So, I have been dreaming of which tomatoes to plant and paging through my Azure catalogue dreaming of Spring.  In the mean time, Matthias cheers every time a snowflake falls from the sky...

I am still baking bread every Wednesday and quilting whenever I get a chance.  I just completed a queen size quilt for someone and am working on a coordinating twin sized quilt for her son.  I will post pictures of that soon.  Here are a couple of baby quilts I made for my nephews when they were born.

Soon enough I am sure I will be sharing pictures of my fabulous garden, but until then, Happy Spring!

It's been a while....but I've been busy!

I have so many projects in the works right now it was nice to be able to start and finish one all in the same day. My sister-in-law had some pillows she wanted recovered so that was my project for Saturday morning.  I think they turned out beautifully and now I have the itch to add pillows to every chair or bench in my house.

Here is another quilt that is almost completed.  I made it completely out of the clothing of my brother-in-law who passed away.  I think it will be a nice keepsake for my niece Hope to enjoy when she is older.

Someone contacted me about a quilt she saw on my blog.  She loved the pattern and sent me a picture of her decor so I could coordinate the colors.  I started with this: (these little babies are super fun to quilt with. They are called jelly rolls.  They are made up of 20-40 strips of coordinating fabrics.  I made these but they sell them at any quilt shop for about a dollar a strip, so $20-$40 a roll.)

(the blue roll will be used for a quilt for her son in the same pattern)

And now I have this:

I still need to add a border or two and then quilt it.

As you can see, I have a lot of work to do!  So, I had better hop to it while the girls are asleep and the boys are gone.  Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

Play Dough!

Who doesn't love play dough!?  I do, and so do my kids, so with a snow day on our hands today, I tossed out the crumbly, cruddy store bought play dough ( that, by the way dries out after you've played with it three times) and made some new homemade stuff that is really easy to make.  You will need:

1cup water
1cup flour
2T salt
2T cream of tartar
2T veg. Oil
1-3oz pkg jello for color

Dump everything together in a saucepan over medium heat and continually stir until it begins to thicken and eventually form a ball.

Pour it onto a heavily floured surface, cool 20 minutes or so, and then knead the dough, adding additional flour until it reaches the consistency you like. It did take quite a bit of extra flour, so don't worry if you think you are adding too much!

The result, really soft, pretty, play dough that will last 10 times longer than anything you buy in the store.  This woud be an easy and fun project to let the wee ones help with too.

Thursday is coming!

Thursday is coming and you know what that means....it's a Breads and Threads day so get your order in!  This week I am baking up my tasty, high fiber bread.  Don't let the name scare you, it is delicious.  This recipe was created for someone who came to me and said, I want a high fiber bread that tastes like this...(as he hands me a loaf of well known, super yummy, moist bread).  I struggled for months trying to perfect my recipe.  Each week I would slightly change the recipe and have him taste test until I got the OK.

I am wrapping up another quilt I made for someone out of their loved ones clothing so I will post pictures soon!  If you are interested in having something made please contact me and I can answer any questions you have.  I am currently 6-8 weeks out and may be up to 12 weeks or so shortly, so please contact me if you have a project in mind so it can be finished by the date you need it for.

Sesame seed hamburger buns

Last night I had a hankering for hamburgers so I thought...I gotta make some buns to go with it.  I found a recipe online at www.browneyedbaker.com and it was really good so I have to share it.  Anyone can do this so don't be scared just dive right in!  The instructions below look overwhelming at first glance, but basically just dump everything together, knead, rise, shape, rise, bake....piece of cake! Enjoy!

4¼ cups bread flour
1½ teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 egg, slightly beaten, at room temperature
¼ cup butter, at room temperature
1½ cups buttermilk or whole milk, at room temperature

1 egg, whisked with 1 teaspoon water until frothy, for egg wash (optional)
Sesame or poppy seeds for garnish (optional)

1. Mix together the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a large mixing bowl (or in the bowl of an electric mixer). Pour in the egg, butter and milk, and mix on low speed until all the flour is absorbed and the dough forms a ball. If the dough seems very stiff and dry, trickle in more milk until the dough is soft and supple.

2. Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin kneading (or mix on medium speed with the dough hook), adding more flour, if necessary, to create a dough that is soft, supple and tacky, but not sticky. Continue kneading (or mixing) for 6 to 8 minutes. (In the electric mixer, the dough should clear the sides of the bowl, but stick every so slightly to the bottom.) Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

3. Ferment at room temperature for 1½ to 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

4. Remove the fermented dough from the bowl and divide it into twelve 3-oune pieces. Shape the pieces into tight rounds. Mist the dough lightly with spray oil and cover with a towel or plastic wrap. Allow to rest for about 20 minutes.

5. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper. Gently press down on the tops of the rolls with your fingers to flatten slightly. Transfer the buns to the sheet pans.

6. Mist the tops of the dough with spray oil and loosely cover with plastic wrap or a towel. Proof the dough at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the buns have nearly doubled in size.

7. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Brush the buns with the egg wash and garnish with poppy or sesame seeds, if desired.

8. Bake the buns for approximately 15 minutes, or until they are golden brown and register just about 180 degrees F in the center. The buns should cool for at least 15 minutes on a rack before serving. Store leftovers in an airtight zip-top bag. If you want to freeze them, I would wrap individually in plastic wrap and then store in a zip-top bag. Thaw at room temperature.

Another quilt completed!

Good morning everyone!  Last night I completed another quilt.  This one was made for my mother-in-law.  It was actually her Christmas present this year so shame on me for only finishing it now.  I completely quilted the entire quilt and was not happy with my "free style" approach, so I ripped it apart and started over.  I am glad I did too, because it turned out beautifully the second time around.  I covered the whole quilt in a feather pattern which I just can't get enough of!  So, here it is....

Also, tomorrow I will be whipping up a batch of honey whole wheat and cinnamon raisin so let me know if you want some!  $5 a loaf, ready for pick up after noonish.

I have been getting lots of questions about pricing for quilts, so if you have an idea in mind or a project you want me to work on, please email or call me and I can get a ballpark price to you, as each project is so different from the next I can't set one flat rate.

Hope you all stay warm on this freezing cold Wednesday!

Valentine's Day Dinner!

Alright, so I was dreaming of my Valentine's Day dinner all week and tonight was the big night.  We had chicken Parmesan, eggplant Parmesan, and three cheese ravioli all with homemade pasta.

For the pasta:
3 1/2 cups flour ( half semolina, and half all purpose)
4 eggs
Water as needed

Make a well in the flour and add eggs, slowly incorporating more and more of the flour until it is combined.  I found the dough at this point to be crumbly, so I added some water, by wetting my hands and kneading the dough until the consistency felt right.  Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, but don't over work it.  Once the dough is smooth and elastic it needs to rest, so I covered the surface with olive oil and placed it in a plastic bag.

I borrowed my sisters pasta maker to roll it out, which in hind sight I would say is a must.  You need to be able to get the pasta very thin, which I think would be very difficult using a rolling pin.  I made fettuccini and ravioli.

For the ravioli filling:
1 cup ricotta cheese
3 T fresh grated Parmesan
1/2 cup mozzarella
2 eggs
Salt and pepper
1/2 t basil

Roll the dough out wide enough to be able to fold the dough over to make your ravioli pocket.  Spoon  some cheesy goodness onto the dough and seal the sides.  This is all easy, nothing difficult, just time consuming.  I will definitely not give up the convenience of buying pasta, but it was super yummy so I would do it again, maybe it will be our Valentine's Day tradition!



Along with our meal we had steamed broccoli, sautéed mushrooms, and Alfredo sauce (1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup cream, 3/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese).

Our dinner was a success!  Everything turned out as planned and most importantly we spent our day with the ones we love.

White chocolate cranberry almond valentines day bread.....that's a mouthful!

With Valentines Day coming this week the kids and I have been doing the typical, making homemade valentines and baking cookies.  Last night I tried a recipe I had never used before from the one and only Betty Crocker.  I had great intentions of adapting the recipe to make it slightly healthier, but found myself too lazy to get the grinder out to make my own whole wheat pastry flour...so I followed the recipe.  They are fine, nothing to write home about.  That's probably better anyway because I can't have delicious sweets in the house without eating way more than I should!  My weakness is definitely  sugar and Diet Coke....probably the two most unhealthy things for you.  I am working on it, baby steps!

This Thursday I am baking up some delicious bread!  It's a whole wheat bread with white chocolate chunks, cranberries and slivered almonds.  YUM!  So, if you'd like some, let me know by tomorrow!

Here is another quilt I made for my niece when she was born.  I have been getting lots of questions about pricing for quilts.  I am working on it and will get it up ASAP!

Pottery Barn Inspiration

It's snowing!!!  I love sitting by the fireplace watching that fluffy snow come down.  As I was enjoying my morning coffee today I thought of a past project I could share with you all!  If you are anything like me, you love flipping through catalogs from Pottery Barn, William Sonoma, BHG looking for things that you love and can recreate at home.

So, when it came time for Matthias to move into a big boy bed, I knew exactly what I wanted to make.  I had seen a quilt in Pottery Barn Kids a while back that I loved.  It can be tricky to make a quilt for a little boy without it feeling girly.  It was simple with strong colors lined up in strips of different widths.

I picked my colors and started cutting.  Now, in my inexperience at the time, I thought 'I'll just cut strips and sew them together, no big deal'.  I was so wrong.  After 3/4 of the quilt was finished I looked at it and realized the whole thing was gradually twisting because of the way I had cut it.  So, I scratched that and started over....

Each strip is made up of squares, so what started out as a simple project ended up taking me a long time.  You learn as you go I guess!  I hand stitched this one too and Matthias uses it every night.  The bed you see is also a very special piece to me.  It was my great grandparents.  Both my mom and grandma were born in it, I used it all through school, and now Matthias uses it.  It has 2 matching dressers with a mirror and is such a special piece that I am lucky to have.

Bread for sale!

Some of you have asked me "Hey can I buy some of your bread?"  I am pleased to say the answer is YES!  So here is how it will work...Thursdays are my baking days, so if you would like something please let me know by Wednesday morning so I can make sure that I have all necessary ingredients on hand.  Posts to my blog have unfortunately not been working :( so shoot me an email at carolinenierenhausen@gmail.com or Facebook me.  Loaves are $5 each and may vary slightly in size, but are the same weight.

So what do you get when you purchase a loaf of my fantabulous bread?  Primarily organic ingredients, flour that has been freshly milled, and bread that is totally free from any preservatives, dyes, or chemicals.  Which leads me to my next point....because there are only natural ingredients, this bread will not be soft and fluffy after sitting on your counter for a week.  Enjoy it as sandwich bread the first few days, and later as toast!

Honey Whole Wheat pictured above.

I also use some nuts in my breads and cannot guarantee that everything is nut free, so please be aware of this if you or someone in your home has a nut allergy.

Here is what's cookin' this week....Honey Whole Wheat, Cinnamon Raisin Whole Wheat, and High Fiber Cranberry Bread.

Honey Whole Wheat Ingredients:
Organic whole wheat flour, water, organic flax seeds, organic honey, sunflower oil, salt, yeast, egg wash, bran flakes.

Cinnamon Raisin Whole Wheat ingredients:
Organic whole wheat flour, water, organic rolled oats, organic honey, sunflower oil, raisins, ground cinnamon, salt, yeast, egg wash.

High Fiber Cranberry ingredients:
Organic whole wheat flour, water, organic flax seed, organic honey, dried cranberries,  organic millet, organic oat bran, organic sunflower seeds, organic wheat bran, yeast, salt, egg wash.

Sourdough part 2!

Here it is!  Smells so good right now!  Looks like one of these loaves had an air bubble so it's a little misshaped but who cares!  I actually think that is part of the beauty of baking bread, no one loaf is the same.  I love rustic breads soooo much!

Coming up later next week I am working on a recipe for some valentines day bread.

I am considering selling at the farmers market this summer as well.  What are people's thoughts on this?

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!
Caroline

Sourdough bread!

Today I am working on a batch of sourdough bread to have with dinner tonight.  Typically I try to steer clear of making white breads because they only fill you with substance, nothing with any nutritional value.  Growing up my parents NEVER EVER bought white bread, and to this day, it is my very favorite thing!  I could eat the entire loaf...(that sounds really gross, but have you ever accidentally squished one of those "wonder" loaves?  It's all air anyway!

Ok, back on track....white breads, although lacking in the nutrition department, and the most fun to make!  With only 4 ingredients, flour, water, salt and yeast, the possibilities are endless depending on how you combine them.  For today's bread, I am using my sourdough barm that I have been brewing for over a week and once the dough is mixed it has to rise for 6-7 hours.  Perfect!  Long and slow rise time will give me lots of flavor in this bread.  So I will post the finished result in a few hours!

I also thought it would be fun to share where I get all these fantastic ingredients.  When I make whole grain breads, I use only organic wheat berries that I mill into flour myself so it is super fresh and at its peak for nutrition.  If a bread needs to be sweetened I use honey or molasses.  All my ingredients are real, whole, unprocessed.  If you are looking for place to buy organic foods in bulk I would highly recommend Azurestandard.com.  That's where I go to buy either 25 or 50 lb bags of wheat berries, honey by the gallons and also some fresh produce like apples or potatoes.  If you have questions about how it works let me know!

I am also in love with the new bulk section at Cash Wise in St. Cloud.  LOTS of options plus, I like the idea of paying for my food, and not all the fancy packaging.  If anyone knows of someone locally that sells honey I would love to know about it; this by far is the most expensive ingredient that goes into my breads.

Well, the bread is rising and I will be back in a few hours with the finished product!

Memory quilt

Here is a project that I finished at Christmas time.  It was a gift for some parents who had lost their son to cancer in 2010.  He was also my brother-in-law, so it was another very special project that I got to work on.  It is made up entirely of his clothing and uniforms and took many hours to complete. He was a police officer and in the Service so it was neat to incorporate his uniforms and badges as well.

A blanket for baby

I had someone come to me with a request, and a bag.  The request was for a baptism blanket, the bag....filled with scraps, left over from her daughters wedding dress alterations.  Immediately my mind started spinning with different ideas of what I could do.  So, I got to work designing something  I hoped they would love.

This starts with me scribbling out some different designs of different sizes, then I need to make sure that for design I have chosen, I have enough material to work with.  I knew when I started that there would have to be a portion of the quilts' material that was purchased from a store, but still wanted to use as much of the scraps as possible.  I knew that a 41/2inch square was the biggest piece I would get so that's where I started!

After lots of thought and some time it was finished!

Last night was the unveiling to the new parents and I think they were very surprised and really loved it!  One other thing I didn't mention, baby decided to come 6 weeks early and I hadn't even started yet!  But, I got it done and we laugh about it now.  This was a really fun project to work on and I hope this quilt is something special they will be able to pass down to future babies in their family.

Birthdays, Bread and Bars (granola that is)

Today is the birthday of a very special person to me, my father in law, Mark.  Celebrating his 2nd birthday with Jesus, I know Heaven is very lucky to have him.  He had a special way of making anyone feel welcome and loved.  I can still hear him saying "Hey Liner!" when I would come over.  We laugh often at the funny jokes and stories he told and think of him daily.  Love you and miss you Mark!  I think he really would have liked these:

 Nature Valley fake outs....

Combine:
1 1/2 C whole oats, not instant
1 C steel cut oats
1/2 C oat bran
1/2 C ground flax seed (you can leave it whole if you'd like)
1/2 C whole wheat flour
1/2 C honey
1/4 C brown sugar
1/4 C oil ( I used sunflower oil)
2 t cinnamon
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

Once everything has been combined and evenly distributed, spread it onto and PARCHMENT PAPER LINED 9x13 (or so) cookie sheet.  You really do need the parchment paper, otherwise when the sugars caramelize they will stick to the pan and you will not get the bars off.  Use the bottom of a drinking glass (or any flat surface) to press and smooth the bars into the pan.

Bake for 25 minutes at 300 degrees.

As soon as they come out cut them into the sizes you want and then leave them in the pan to cool completely. They will be soft and gooey at this point but don't rush them, they need to cool completely and then you can break them apart where you have made the cuts.

(Another love of mine, antiques and all things sparkly!). I LOVE these antique salad plates I got for Christmas and can't wait to use them with my china.  I may just need to have a fancy dinner just so I can use them.  Who says Christmas and Thanksgiving are the only times to use fine china anyway?!

And here is today's bread!  I have not made this actual recipe before so we will see how it tastes tonight over dinner with some family members!

My first quilt

 Here is a photo of my first quilt that I made for Matthias as a baby blanket!  It's nothing difficult or fancy but I loved the colors together and I did hand stitch the entire thing.

I am working on getting together pictures if everything I have made so please bear with me!  And for later on in the day I will be sharing with you a tasty recipe for my version of Nature Valley's Oats and Honey Crunchy Granola Bars.  Your kids will love them and they are packed full of whole grains and  fiber, plus they are delicious!

On the 20th of January I started the process for making a sour dough starter with wild yeast.  The process literally takes over a week to ferment the dough and allow the natural yeast to develop and grow.  Let me tell you, you get the best tasting bread when it has been given lots of time to develop its flavor, and these are some of my favorites to make because the result is soooo good.  Later today I will use some of it to make a yummy whole wheat bran bread...can't wait!

Here goes nothing...or maybe something!

Welcome to my blog featuring all things homemade and handmade!  I love making something out of nothing. Whether its taking scraps and creating a beautiful quilt or taking simple, natural ingredients and combining them to create a meal, a snack, or my favorite...BREAD!

Now, bread making might not be all that exciting to some of you because A) you either go to the store and buy it, or B) you make your own.  For me, learning to make and bake my own breads has gone through quite the evolutionary process.  There was a time that I vowed never to attempt to make bread AGAIN.  Time after time I ended up with something that looked like a hockey puck and tasted like cardboard.  But, with a little encouragement from my sister and an uncle who promised he really loved my bread I gave it another shot (and by another shot I really mean hundreds).  So, my family, friends, and neighbors have been eating lots of bread as I have created, and tried to perfect my recipes!  Finally, I feel as though they are top notch and ready to hit the marketplace!  (More on this in future blogs).

Time out for a huge thank you to my dear friend +Rachel Sogge for helping me choose a name: Caroline's Breads and Threads.  Thank you!

My other love, for things handmade, is quilting!  Call me old fashioned, but I love the design and creative process that goes into creating a beautiful quilt.  I began 5 years ago when I made a baby quilt for my son (Who is almost 6....:( ).  Since then I have made lots and enjoyed everyone.  My newest venture is making memory quilts.  Bring me your clothes, and I'll make you a quilt!  Baby clothes, clothes of a loved one who has passed away, uniforms of a loved one in service....I will be posting projects completed as well as those I am currently working on.

That's Breads and Threads in a nutshell!  I hope you enjoy reading and sharing in the things I love.