Garden Goodness for Dinner!

There is nothing like walking through the garden gate to get fresh food for my family.

I've also been getting so much use out of my bread machine. Today I used my usual oatmeal Bread recipe but added many other grains in exchange for the wheat flour.

For dinner I made a casserole of sorts to go along with the bread, by layering cooked ground beef with veggies into my Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker. First I cooked the ground beef. Then I dug up white potatoes, carrots and onions and sweet talked my husband into helping with the washing and slicing of the veggies. These were layered with a homemade Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup that I made up tonight too. (This is a great and easy recipe! You'll especially like it if you're not a fan of MSG.)

Here's the yummy bread. It seemed even better than usual too! It could be the added grains but my husband even commented that it reminds him of what his grandma used to make.... and now I'm Mrs. Ramsey too, of course.

Here's the recipe for the bread. It's from the cookbook, Bread Machine Magic and it's called:

Honey N Oats Bread

"The egg and oats lend a wonderful, rich, creamy flavor to this bread. Serve it with a crock of sweet butter and homemade preserves."

1- pound loaf

1/3 cup old -fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour
1 tsp. salt
1 T honey
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp Red Star brand active dry yeast

Place all ingredients in bread pan [by order listed], select Light Crust setting and press Start.

After the baking cycle ends, remove bread from pan, place on cake rack, and allow to cool one hour before slicing.

Notes from me: I exchanged about 3/4 cup of the wheat flour for a few tsp each of 7 grain cereal, barley flakes, triticale, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds. I also always add about 1 T flax seed and I double the honey to 2 tablespoons. What a great recipe! This time instead of letting it bake in the bread machine, I just used the dough cycle and then set it in a stoneware bread pan in the oven. (Turn your oven on warm till it gets heated and then shut off till the bread has risen double. )Then bake for at least 25 minutes at 350. the texture of doing the bread this way was similar to an english muffin bread. It had lots of holes.

Here is the Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup before it was thickened. I even added Italian Parsley from my herb garden.

I made a double batch of the soup so that I could put 1 "can" of it in the freezer.

The potatoes and carrots were sliced up and layered between this saucy delight.

And here is the finished product! I could have used less soup, I suppose but my family does love saucy foods, instead of drier ones. This pan was FULL so I had to bake it for about 1 1/2 hours. The texture was similar to scalloped potatoes but the taste was more like a creamy, beef flavor. Try it sometime for a simple, delicious "homey" meal!

My daughter just saw the pictures for my post and said, "That's yummy!" I guess you now have her opinion. :)