Honey Wheat Harvest Grain bread in the Awesome Bread Machine

I brought the Awesome Bread Machine out after two years of snobbishly insisting that I would never use a bread machine again. My oven has become peevish. Action had to be taken.

I found a recipe for wheat bread through Pinterest from 100 Days of Real Food and since I can't leave a recipe well enough alone, I tweaked it. I cut the wheat flour with white, upped the honey by half and added a couple of handfuls of King Arthur Harvest Grains mix. The result was a nutty, quasi-dense loaf substantive enough to make a sandwich satisfying.

We had picked up some pumpkin butter and cherry butter from a little shop in Lampasas on the way back to El Paso Sunday. The tart cherry butter set off the nutty bread quite well. Can't wait to make this one again!

Insanely Simple Beef and Mushroom Stroganoff

Dave invited the missionaries over for dinner last night, so I had to think of something decent that wasn't spaghetti or pizza. After combing my brain for a while, I settled on mushroom stroganoff. I've made that before, but Dave said it would be best to have something with meat in it. So I compromised and added ground beef. You can easily leave out the beef, substitute veggie broth for the beef broth and make it vegetarian.

I like any recipe that allows me to try interesting ingredients. Mushrooms are one of my faves, and our local natural foods store has a pretty nice selection of mushrooms you can't find at Walmart. I grabbed some portabellas, shitake, and oyster mushrooms. Each has a great flavor and individual texture.

The only other ingredient that splurged on was the pasta. I thought about using the spaghetti noodles we already had, but I can't think of stroganoff without egg noodles. I found a bag of wide egg noodles that would soak up the sauce and add some extra bulk.

It's super simple and everything happens in one pot. I suggest using a soup pot for this - depending on how much you make, it could a lot of space at the end.

Beef and Mushroom Stroganoff

1/4 cup chopped onion
olive oil for sauteing
various mushrooms, sliced or chopped
2 bay leaves
1 lb ground beef
1 C sour cream
salt & pepper to taste

In the soup pot, saute the onions in the olive oil, then brown the ground beef. Once the beef is cooked, add the mushrooms and continue to saute for a couple of minutes. Add broth and bay leaves. Bring to a boil and add noodles. When noodles are done, remove from heat, fish out the bay leaves, and stir in the sour cream. Salt and pepper to taste.

I was running late with dinner, so I had to come up with a veggie quick. I ended up steaming some brussels sprouts, which neither of the missionaries had eaten before. One was a trooper and tried 4 with a good amount of butter. The other said he liked them and really had no idea why they made his dad vomit. Great dinner convo.

The evening went off easily, and there were no leftovers. Well...maybe a few sprouts.