Mexican Ham Bean Soup & Oatmeal Molasses Bread

Do you know why I'm not a very good blogger? I hate to type, I don't have a good camera, and I'm not humorous. So I do wonder sometimes why I continue doing this. I've decided it's for me. It's my journal, my recipe box, my reminder of how much I love my kids, my reminder that I accomplished something, made a new recipe, did something that was hard for me (like writing a blog post). So, I press on...Here's one of our favorite winter soups. I make this 4 or 5 times every winter. It's really quite a forgiving soup, so amounts don't need to be exact. You must put the toppings on; they make the soup. Also, the bread is so good with this. You really should eat them at the same time!

Mexican Ham Bean Soup (adapted from CL)

Ingredients
2 cans pinto beans (or 4-5 cups cooked from dried beans)
8 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 ½ c. chopped carrots (around ½ inch slices)
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups cubed smoked ham steak (I always use leftover ham, great with the bone)
1 ½ tablespoons chili powder
1 T ground cumin
1 T. dried oregano
3 bay leaves
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 t. chopped chipotle chile in adobo sauce (Use more or less to suit your taste, but don’t leave it out!!)
Toppings
shredded Manchego cheese or Monterey Jack cheese
minced fresh cilantro
sour cream
Preparation
Cook onions, celery, and carrots in a Dutch oven size pot over medium heat for about five minutes. Add garlic for a minute .Combine the rest of the soup ingredients; bring to a boil. Cover; reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer 1-1 1/2 hours or until beans are tender.
Discard bay leaves. Ladle soup into 8 bowls. Top with cheese; sprinkle with cilantro.

Oatmeal Molasses Bread (adapted from CL)

2 loaves (12 servings per loaf) (serving size: 1 slice)
Ingredients
2 cups fat-free buttermilk
1/2 cup regular oats
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
around 4 cups whole wheat flour (I've also subbed a little for wheat germ and liked it)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup raisins (if you don't like raisins you'll be missing the best part of this bread)
1 tablespoon yellow cornmeal

Preparation
Preheat oven to 400°.
Combine first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl.

Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flours, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture. (Ileft this part in , but you all know I just throw it all in with the liquids :-)
Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist; stir in raisins. Stir until dough pulls together in a shaggy mass. Let rest 2 minutes.
(The recipe says to knead this. Impossible. If you put enough flour in to knead this bread, it's too dry.) Mix a couple of times more and drop half of dough into a 6-inch round loaf on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. Repeat procedure with remaining dough. Make 3 diagonal cuts 1/4-inch deep across top of each loaf using a sharp knife.
Bake at 400° for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375° (do not remove loaves from oven); bake an additional 15 minutes or until bottom of each loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Let stand 15 minutes before slicing. Don't overcook!!!

Pecan-topped Pumpkin Bread

Here's a great bread recipe that we all enjoy. I think it tastes fine to cut down the oil a little bit more (per my instructions). Let me know if you try it and like it!

(adapted from Cooking Light)

2 loaves; 12 servings per loaf (serving size: 1 slice)

Ingredients
3 1/3 cups whole-wheat flour (about 15 ounces)
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup egg substitute
1/2 cup canola oil ( I sometimes cut this down by 2 T. and sub plain yogurt)
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
2 large eggs
2/3 cup water
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
Cooking spray
1/2 cup chopped pecans

chocolate chips, if desired

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 6 ingredients (through allspice) in a bowl.
Place sugar, egg substitute, oil, buttermilk, and eggs in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed until well blended. Add 2/3 cup water and pumpkin, beating at low speed until blended. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, beating at low speed just until combined. Spoon batter into 2 (9 x 5-inch) loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle pecans evenly over batter. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on a wire rack; remove from pans.

Zucchini-Orange Bread

\The zucchini has arrived in our garden! Zucchini casserole, zucchini pancakes, zucchini chocolate cake, zucchini cake with caramel topping, etc. But the following recipe is one that I've now made twice, and we all really liked it. It's a very dense bread and the first batch didn't make a very tall loaf. Reviewers on the CL site said the same. So I doubled the recipe along with all my other changes. As always, if you'd like the original , go to Cookinglight.com. As an FYI, if you're interested into baking with more whole grains, you have to check out the KING ARTHUR WHOLE GRAIN BAKING cookbook. It is an amazing resource! One tip I picked up was to stir up my wheat flour before scooping in order to incorporate some air into it. Then scoop lightly into your measuring cup. After you do that a few times, you realize how packed down your flour can be.

ZUCCHINI-ORANGE BREAD
(adapted from Cooking Light)

Makes 2 8" x4" loaves and 1 mini-loaf


Ingredients
5 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup oat flour (I just grind my own)
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup egg substitute (or 3 eggs)
1 egg
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 c. plain, nonfat yogurt (I put in 1/3 c. oil and fill to 3/4 c. with yogurt)
2 tablespoons grated orange rind (get a Microplane!)
2 tablespoon fresh orange juice
4 cups shredded zucchini
3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted in the oven (I like them quite dark)
Cooking spray

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. To prepare bread, lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flours and next 3 ingredients (through baking soda) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk; make a well in center of mixture. Combine granulated sugar and ingredients through juice). Add sugar mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Fold in zucchini and walnuts. Divide batter between 2 (8 x 4–inch) loaf pans and one mini-loaf coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on a wire rack; remove from pans.
3. To prepare glaze, combine powdered sugar and 3 tablespoons juice, stirring with a whisk. Drizzle evenly over warm loaves. Cool completely on wire rack.