Pasted this recipe from sisterscafe.blogspot.com

Bread from Macaroni Grill
(This is a recipe intended to approximate that awesome chewy bread that they bring out at the Macaroni Grill. The kind you dip into the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and cracked garlic.)

1 Tbsp. Dry Yeast

1 Tbsp. Sugar 1 cup warm water (105 - 115 degrees)

2 ½ cups white flour, divided

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. rosemary, chopped, (I used about a tablespoon of dried rosemary and it worked great.)

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. butter or margarine

Coarsely ground salt

Put the yeast, water and sugar into a blender. Mix it until it is frothy.Turn the oven onto 200°. (You just need to warm it up; you’re not baking yet.)

To the mixing bowl of yeast mixture, add two cups of the flour, salt, and half of your chopped rosemary. Keep the other half cup of flour close at hand. Knead the dough for a few minutes. Add the rest of the flour as needed to get the dough to the right consistency (soft and stretchy without being overly sticky).Turn the oven off

Lift the dough out of the mixing bowl. Add the olive oil to a bowl and swirl it around. Roll the dough in the olive oil so it is well coated and let it sit in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and place it in the oven (the oven should be off by now, if you missed that step). Leave the door cracked so it isn’t too hot in there.Let the dough rise for about an hour. It should be approximately doubled in size. Punch the dough down and knead it again. Divide it into two equal sized lumps and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes.( I just made one big loaf--but I am thinking it would have been easier to cut--not smash so much if the loaf was smaller--so I think I will follow these directions next time)

Prepare your baking pan. I use a ceramic stone, but a cookie sheet will work. If the surface is not naturally non-stick, spray it with the cooking spray, or use parchment paper. Shape the dough into two oval-shaped loaves and arrange on the pan. Melt the butter or margarine. Use a brush to paint the surface of the loaves with butter. Use all of the butter. The loaves will be quite saturated when you’re done. Take the rest of the chopped rosemary and sprinkle it over the loaves. Pat it down gently to set it into the dough. Return the loaves to the oven. Don’t turn it on yet. Let the dough rise again, for about 45 minutes. Remove the loaves and preheat the oven to 450°. Sprinkle a little bit of coarse(kosher salt is perfect) salt over the loaves. Return the dough to the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes until light brown.Makes two loaves. Best enjoyed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and garlic.

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup oat flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup nonfat milk
• 5 oz. Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips (or your favorite bittersweet chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, stir together flours, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then the milk. Stir in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto cookie sheets. Bake 12-14 minutes or until browned around the edges.

Makes 36 cookies.

Wheat Thins

Recipe from http://everydayfoodstorage.net/2009/05/10/wheat-thins-whole-wheat-food-storage-recipes/food-storage-recipes

In a medium bowl, whisk together:

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (whole white wheat flour is my personal preference)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 T. brown sugar
1 1/2 T. dry buttermilk powder*
2 T seeds (sesame seeds, poppy seeds, or a mixture of the two is good), optional

*although buttermilk powder is a somewhat unusual ingredient, it can be found in most grocery stores in the baking isle. I use it all the time in place of fresh buttermilk in recipes. It’s quite handy and has a long shelf life. If you’d rather use fresh buttermilk, leave out the powder and use 1/2 cup buttermilk in place of the water later.

“Now here’s the really cool thing you can do with this. You can mix up a whole bunch of batches of these crackers up to this point and bag them up in Ziplocs and put them in the freezer where they will sit just waiting for your next cracker emergency. I like to keep several cracker mixes in my freezer, labeled with the ingredients I need to add.” *Note from Crystal…I love it! She’s a woman after my own heart, making mixes to save time and make less of a mess and it makes the process so DO-ABLE!*

And those ingredients are:

1/2 cup water
3 T. oil or melted butter

Add these to the ingredients in your bowl (either freshly mixed, or dumped out of the bag from your freezer) This is olive oil I’m using here, but use whatever you have.

Stir together to make a soft dough. It will be very soft and sticky.

“Don’t over-mix the dough. It should be stirred just until the flour is all absorbed, and not kneaded at all. Once it’s all incorporated, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for about 10 minutes. This lets the whole wheat flour absorb all the liquid that it wants.

After you let it rest, divide the dough in half (eyeball it) and plop half of it on the bottom of a regular baking sheet that has been greased or sprayed well with Pam. You can also use a silicone liner, which is what I usually do, but for these pictures I showed just a plain old baking pan because not everyone has silicone liners. If you do have one, by all means, use it. If you do, you don’t need to grease it at all.”

“Once your blob is on the pan, cut a piece of saran wrap the size of your pan. Place the saran wrap over the dough and begin rolling with a rolling pin right over the saran wrap.”

“If your pans are kind of warped like mine, you may not get too far rolling with a rolling pin, but this is a really soft dough, and you can just press it and smooth it with your hands. This is where the silicon liners really come in handy– you can have the silicone liner flat on your counter, roll the dough and THEN put it on your warped pan to bake! But if you have just a pan to work with, smooth it out the best you can with your hands.”

“One half of the dough will cover the sheet pan entirely. It will be very thin. When you have it all smoothed out, remove the saran wrap. It will come right off.”

“We’re almost there! Now just the finishing touches. I use a pizza cutter to score the dough into cracker squares. You don’t have to cut all the way through the dough, but you can. Just don’t press too hard because I don’t want you to scratch your pan or damage your silpat because then you’ll be mad at me. Just lightly score so that you can break the crackers apart easily after they’re baked.”

“After you do several lines vertically, turn the pan to make some horizontal cuts. Finally, sprinkle the dough with a generous sprinkling of salt (table salt, sea salt, kosher salt, whatever you have), and you can sprinkle it with some extra seeds or whatever floats your boat. I used some extra sesame seeds here. You can get creative here with garlic salt, onion salt, etc.”

“There they are, all beautiful and ready for the oven. See how my edges aren’t straight, and some of the dough has oozed over the side of the pan? Doesn’t matter. People will eat them anyway. If you want to get really picky you can trim the edges with your pizza cutter, but why?”

“Oh, and don’t tell your 6-year-old daughter that pricking with a fork is not necessary. She thinks it’s an important job!” *Note from Crystal-YEAH, get you kids involved! They’ll love making their own crackers!*

“Now Bake at 350 for 14-15 minutes or until golden brown and crisp. They might be slightly soft right out of the oven, but they’ll most likely crisp up as they sit. If they don’t, you can always stick them back in the oven to crisp for a few minutes.”

“See, I couldn’t even get the picture taken before there were two crackers swiped from the bottom corner! The kids had these taken care of in no time. I was lucky to have some to take a picture of after they were broken apart into individual crackers. Here’s a really blurry picture for you!”

Yummy Spinach salad!!

Chicken Poppy Seed Salad

Resubmitted by Mindy (Originally submitted by Brittany)

www.sisterscafe.blogspot.com

Printable Recipe

Salad:
Spinach leaves

Romaine leaves

Grilled chicken, sliced (Best if marinated in Lemon Grilled Chicken Marinade*, but if you don't have time then grill with lots of lemon pepper seasoning)

Red onion, sliced thinly

Crispy bacon, crumbled

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Toasted almonds (or you can sugar the almonds. Put sliced almonds in a pan with lots of granulated sugar (about equal amounts). Cook on medium heat until sugar melts, coating the almonds as they brown.)

*Lemon Grilled Chicken:

Juice of one lemon (~3 Tb lemon juice)

3 Tb oil

1 tsp minced garlic (~2 large cloves)

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp oregano

1 lb chicken breasts

Marinate the chicken overnight. For salad, dice the raw chicken and marinate it that way so there is more surface area to marinate. You can get away with marinating for a shorter amount of time this way. Grilling is best, but cooking in a skillet is great, too.

The best part... The Dressing**:

1 1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp salt

2 tsp dry mustard

2/3 cup red wine vinegar

3 Tb Maui or Vidalia onion, chopped

2 cups canola oil

3 Tb poppy seeds

Mix the first 5 ingredients in a blender, then slowly add the oil, blending until thick. Stir in poppy seeds. Toss all ingredients together with generous amount of dressing before serving.

**This makes a lot of dressing! If you need a really big salad for a party then start with a large bunch of spinach, large head of romaine, 4 chicken breasts, 1 lb bacon, etc. I rarely make a salad that big so that is why there are no "amounts". So have fun with it - you're going to love it!