My WordPress theme is gone! I have no idea why. I didn’t delete it myself. It was so cute too! I worked for hours getting it to work right. Waaaaa!
Okay, I’m done. I’ll have to let it go the way it is right now and fix it another day. I don’t have hours to spend on it yet.
I changed my theme and tested the comments section. It’s now working! Yay! I also fixed the user registration so it now works too! I’m sorry it took so long to figure it out. It was more simple than I realized. Go figure! I added a simple privacy policy to my registration process so you know how I use the information I give you…basically only for blog updates! I never sell info or spam you. I did send a couple registration verification e-mails out again today. The second e-mail should work. I sent the first one before I realized the problem hadn’t been fixed like I thought it had. Thank you for your patience. I hope I didn’t scare anyone away!
Thanks for reading my ramblings!
I’ve adapted this from the recipe in the Betty Crocker Cookbook. It’s been a great substitute for hamburgers. Most of my kids will eat them too!
California Black Bean Burgers
Place beans in food processor or blender. Process until slightly mashed (our Vitamix does it in less than 10 seconds). Mix beans, bread crumbs, chili powder, and egg together. Let sit while you get the skillet or griddle hot.
Heat oil in 10-inch skillet over medium heat or rub over griddle. Sprinkle a little cornmeal on griddle or skillet. Scoop up bean mixture and press down onto cornmeal until you have a patty. Make it as big or small as you want. This recipe makes 6 very large patties. Sprinkle more cornmeal on top of each patty. Cook each patty between 3-5 minutes per side, turning once. Once thoroughly cooked, put on buns with toppings of choice.
My children love these with the exception of one them. Not bad, 4 out of 5!
Now for the homemade bun recipe. I found this recipe here. I’ve made them twice, and they really are easy to make, and more nutritious than store-bought ones, especially the cheap white-bread kind.
Homemade Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns
In a large mixing bowl, stir together 3 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 cups warm water. Set aside to let rest. In the meantime, mix together 1/4 cup water, yeast and honey. Allow this to sit for at least 10 minutes to activate the yeast.
Melt butter, milk and salt in a small saucepan on the stove. Do not allow the mixture to get above 120 degrees.
Pour yeast mixture and milk mixture into flour mixture. Add remaining two cups of flour (more if needed). Knead for about 10 minutes until dough begins to look “shiny”. Put dough back into the bowl, cover and let rise for at least an hour…or until it has doubled.
Pull dough onto a clean countertop and knead for a couple of minutes to get any air bubbles out. Roll dough on a lightly floured surface until about 1/2 inch thick.
Cut circles from the dough with a large drinking glass or wide mouth jar. Place circles on in a well buttered baking dish about an inch apart.
Allow to rise for about 30 minutes. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Makes about 18 buns.
{Update: For a printer-friendly version of the recipe, click here.}
My family was blessed with an abundance of apricots this year…again! I used to bottle apricots and make jam, but now I like to freeze them to keep them raw for smoothies and to eat later. I wash and halve them, lay them in gallon size bags in one layer, and then stack the bags in the freezer. Once frozen I sometimes combine bags, but they store better in a flat layer.
Since my family and I love apricot jam, I couldn’t help making an alternative to the super-sugary type I used to make. So, my husband and I came up with a new recipe and made 23 quarts of Apricot Jam made with Honey. (I won’t eat the refined sugar.) I think we may have overdone the amount, but we love apricot jam around our house, so we’ll see if it’s too much.
Apricot Honey Jam
42 cups crushed Apricots
6 cups Honey (add to taste, this amount makes a semi-tart jam)
7/8 cup Lemon Juice
Makes approx. 12 quarts of jam.
First we had to pick all the apricots. My next door neighbor’s tree wasn’t quite ripe enough, but a lady in my ward had 8 trees or so. Aurora and Lightning came and picked with me. We picked a bunch and brought them all home. I have to say that a wagon is a life saver when you have to transport heavy buckets/boxes back to the van!
When we were ready to make the jam, we sorted, washed, halved, and pitted the apricots. Apricots are really easy to open when they are ripe. Just put your finger in the natural split and it opens right up. My kids could help with that task. Of course we threw away all the pits. I’m not personally interested in sprouting and planting my own apricot trees when there are so many in my neighborhood whose fruit would go to waste.
Next we used my Vitamix blender to crush the apricots instead of using the hand-crank food grinder we used to use. We wrote down how much we put into the giant 32-quart stock pot since we’re making this recipe up based on other apricot recipes we’ve used. We added the lemon juice and honey (add to taste) and stirred it well.
We turned the heat on the stove and waited for it to boil, while stirring it frequently. Once it was boiling, we continued to stir it frequently for about 45 minutes while it thickened up a bit. If you don’t want to wait that long, just buy boxes of pectin to add. The no-sugar kind I have says 1 box per 6 cups of fruit. The reason why we boil it for so long is that apricots naturally have pectin in them, you just have to heat it long enough to thicken it. Just an FYI: the greener apricots have the most pectin, but the jam has less flavor if you use a lot of them.
Once the jam was thicker, we ladled it into hot jars, wiped off the tops, put a hot lid on, and tightened the ring (not too tight). Next we put them in the canner. I have a steam canner, but a water-bath canner works well too. Since I’m around 4300 ft above sea level, I steamed the bottles for 33 minutes, then removed them to the counter where they could sit for 24 hours and cool down. If you’d like to know how to adjust for altitude and processing time, here is a great resource! All of the jars sealed within the first couple of hours, although if they hadn’t after they were cool, I would have refrigerated them or re-processed them.
I could tell the jam wasn’t “set” yet, but I understand that it can take apricot jam 2 weeks to set completely. Also, since I didn’t add any additional pectin other than what was in the fruit itself, it likely won’t set like the store-bought jams. Actually, I don’t think I’ve had any of my jams set like store-bought jams, even when I used pectin, unless I used a ton of sugar in the recipe.
The batches of jam we did this year are not runny or super-sweet. So if you want a very sweet and completely set jam, you’ll need to add pectin and regular sugar instead of following my recipe above. There is great information and recipes on this site if you want to learn more about canning. Why reinvent the wheel, right?
