Honey Whole Wheat Craisins® Walnut Bread

Honey Whole Wheat Craisins® Walnut Bread

Happy New Year! It’s my first post of 2016, and I’m so excited to see what this year will bring!

If there’s one food I want to see lots of in the coming year, it’s homemade bread. We’re all familiar with the yeasty goodness of bread that doesn’t come in plastic bags from the grocery store, and it’s so easy to get a perfect loaf with just a little help from my best friend, a.k.a. the bread machine. Life was so cold and dark before we met!

Luckily, fresh bread is always possible, and this one is special. It’s made with mostly whole wheat flour, which will help you stick to your healthy eating resolutions. It’s also full of walnuts for an extra protein punch, not to mention sweet Craisins® Dried Cranberries. It’s a loaf worth making!

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Cinnamon Chocolate “Quesadillas”

Cinnamon Chocolate “Quesadillas”

So I speak enough Spanish to know that quesadillas contain cheese. These do not. But the concept is the same, so I’m cheating a little!

My third (and not final, one more Monday) Cinco de Mayo offering are these easy dessert…quesadillas? Tortillas with a rich cinnamon chocolate filling?

Who cares what they’re called? As Shakespeare said, roses are cool even if they’re not called that. That’s exactly the way he phrased it. And while I wish my name had been different, I’m still me.

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Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Every now and then, I treat myself to a cinnamon raisin bagel spread thickly with cream cheese. I don’t make this myself. Oh, no. I go to the local bagel place so they can do it right. If I were to make the sandwich, the cream cheese would not be as generously doled out. I’d be too stingy.

If I want a less indulgent version of that sandwich, I bake cinnamon raisin bread with whole wheat flour (mostly) and spread it with light cream cheese. It does the trick! Because really, what is better than freshly baked bread?

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Mostly Whole Wheat Challah

Mostly Whole Wheat Challah

Ahhhh…TGIF. Almost. Before I breeze through the last day of the week, it’s time to make some serious bread.

Challah, that is.

Challah is too awesome to fly so much under the radar. It’s traditionally an egg bread made with white flour and sugar, kind of like brioche. It makes amazing French toast. There are also water versions, calling for no egg, as well as challahs filled with anything from raisins to chocolate chips.

And lately, whole wheat challah has begun to pop up in bakeries with more frequency, though it’s often put down by challah traditionalists, and who can blame them? Challah is an indulgence, a bread so good that spreading butter or jam on a slice can actually take away from the yeasty, fresh-out-of-the-oven perfection of the bread itself.

I was pretty hestitant to give the whole wheat thing a try. Why fix what ain’t broke? But in a world where whole grains are healthier and white bread is just an occasional indulgence, I wanted to have my challah and eat it too.

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