Spring:Cleaning and Cooking

I am in the mood for spring. Even though it isn't feeling much like spring temperature wise I have caught the spring bug. I am in the mood to organize, clean, dig in the dirt and bake spring foods. So that is just what I spent my Saturday doing. From 11am on I was baking, prepping, cleaning, reorganizing, pulling weeds, trimming trees and doing more baking.

Phil has the bug too. Which is great because if we both have the cleaning bug we are able to get a lot more accomplished. He spent time cleaning in the garage, planting grass seed, watering said grass seed and pulling weeds.

I was able to bake some delicious
strawberry muffins. I adapted them from the pioneer women's Awesome-est Blueberry muffins. I used rapadura instead of sugar and I used 1 cup white whole wheat flour and added an egg to help with the consistency. They turned out delicious! I think next time I will add some sugar to the strawberries before adding them in as they were a bit tart but not too bad. I can't wait to share them with the college students going on the mission trip to D.C.

After baking the muffins I started dough for rolls to go with dinner. This was my first time baking rolls from scratch. Luckily I have a recipe from a fabulous cook and my friend, Nicole. They were simple to make because you prepare the dough in the bread machine then break them in to pieces, roll them in to balls and place in a 9x13pan to rise again. I was able to let them rise in the cooling oven from the muffins. They plumped up real nice. After letting them rise for 2 hour I popped them in the oven for 18 minutes. They were delicious! They tasted just like Texas Roadhouse rolls! I even added some honey butter. They were the perfect compliment to the Indian Stew we had for dinner.

Speaking of dinner...I am having a great time planning for and
preparing vegetarian meals. It has been fun to seek out new recipes and try them. On Thursday I made Hoppin' Johns Cousin without sausage and it was delicious! A few weeks ago I tried a recipe that I am sure we will make again. It was called Southwest Stuffed Red Peppers from my favorite cooking blog ourbestbites. They were yummy. I froze half of the "stuffing" so I could make them again later. The best part is that they are SUPER filling and fairly healthy. Once red peppers go on sale again we will add these to the menu plan.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my cooking adventures as much as I have enjoyed writing about it. I want to encourage you to try some from scratch items this month or try to make an adventurous meal that you normally wouldn't try. Good luck!