How much do I love CB's Organic Peanut butter from Kingston, WA?!

Baking was always a little tedious for me in my younger years with following a recipe, measuring and weighing ingredients...where was the personal expression? I liked cooking for that outlet of creativity, smelling, stirring and tasting as you went along. But now, haking has  become a chemistry experiment! Taking a recipe and following it to the letter as a dry run, followed by evaluation process...was it what I had hoped, what could be better...This is where the fun and joy originate for me in the baking process. How can I improve upon something good, even great.

This Valentines Day, I saw a recipe in Martha Stewart Living Magazine's February issue for Peanut butter and Jelly cookies. The cookies were rolled into balls, flattened and then a thumb print at 11:00 and 1:00 made a heart shape, later to be filled with jam. The recipe was good and most of the kids LOVED them in my son's class. So the challenge was on...how could I improve the recipe? (Funny you should ask)

I started my "elevation process" by using CB's Organic freshly ground roasted peanut butter from the dispenser at Sunny Farns, CB's is a local roaster in Kingston, WA(soon to become a field trip video-watch for it). The product was pure roasted peanut butter with a touch of salt, an appealing granular texture with still some cream but without any oils to mix.

The next "boost" was to use Nash's Soft White Winter Wheat Pastry Flour milled here in Sequim by Bell Street Bakery. (I used it previously in my Grandma's cinnamon roll recipe). The flour is weightier than the all white version but with a added bonus of a nutty, possibly sweet taste. I find that the flour amplifies the nutty factor and texture without weighing it down like a conventional whole wheat flour might.

As a fun twist on the Jelly center idea, my husband, ever the Reeses Peanut butter cup fan,  suggested using chocolate instead of jelly. It was also well received but now AMAZING. How could I improve it? (Love a curious reader!) Dark chocolate rather than the original semi sweet will potentially add a deeper chocolate flavor.I WILL be keeping you up to date on the trials and hopefully "elevations" of recipies.

The morale today is to use GREAT, hopefully local ingrediants whenever possible! BRAVO Nash's, Bell Street and CB's Nuts!!!

Huevos Rancheros are for dinner too!

Sometimes we have breakfast for dinner depending on time, mood or leftovers. I had some beans from last night's dinner and was duely inspired to use them as Huevos Rancheros, or "Ranch Eggs".  I started off with toasting these great corn tortillas, available at Sunny Farms and Safeway locally on my heavy bottom skillet for a few minutes on each side, using medium high heat.

Same skillet,  I then sauteed half of an organic sweet onion, medium chop with about a pound of the FANTASTIC Chorizo Sausage made expertly by the afore mentioned talented staff at Sunny Farms' Meat Dept. To the pan I added several cracks of fresh ground pepper and 1 Tablespoon each; dried cumin & dried cilantro, and 1lb grass fed organic ground beef from my family's farm (to lighten the richness of the Chorizo).

Nash's Store has some fresh organic eggs from Dry Creek, outside of Port Angeles which I poached lightly. I assembled the toasted tortiallas (2 each plate), smeared with warmed leftover beans, about 1/2 c. Chorizo mixture, 2 poached eggs and some Sriracha Chili Sauce (zippy but only slightly spicy-available in Asian Grocers...we got our's @ Ely's store next to Ely's Cafe in Sequim).

Hubby and I enjoyed one of his famous Bartender's Cadillac Margaritas with this meal (Sauza, lime juice, splash orange liquier, cranberry juice)

 Muy bien Amigos!

Dinner before basketball game

So have to rush dinner tonight and make it light as hubby and oldest son are playing hoops tonight and basketball is a family affair at Chez Ulin! So I grab some of this cabbage, a leek and some carrots I bought from Nash's Store on Sunday and gave the cabbage a fine chop, the carrots a shred on my box shredder & into the large salad bowl. Then I chopped off the root of the leek and most of in future), halved the white part of the leek , chopped finely and gave a big rinse in colander. They joined the cabbage and were tossed liberally with Sunny Farms' Ranch Dressing (a HUGE favorite of the Ulin men!) and we have our quick, healthy, anti oxidant coleslaw:) 

The beans with smoked ham hocks were just as easy! I started them 1st actually...then did the coleslaw. 

Soaked some dried white navy beans from Sunny Farms' Othello Farm during lunch hour in water so that they were softened when I got home from work. Into my Rikhon Kuhn 5 qt. pressure cooker( in the top 5 items in my MUST HAVE TOOLS list!) and grabed the frozed ham hocks (also Sunny Farms) out of my freezer, covered beans/ham w/ water and added 2 dried bay leaves,  2 T dried cumin, 4 cloves/toes fresh garlic, several cracks of fresh ground peper and 15 minutes later on medium-low heat, we had a quick bean dish! Took out the ham bones, mashed the ham and garlic toes and we were eating a low fat, healthy and quick dinner! Off to hoops we go:)