Super Seedy Bread and Some Wise Men

Well, we've reached the last day of Christmas. You don't know what I mean? Ah, yes, modern society has almost done away with the Wise Men...in more ways than I like to think about, really.

Today is Jan. 6th, also known in olden days as the Feast of the Epiphany. In the Christian tradition it is the day when the Wise Men from the East, who had been guided by a star, arrived in Bethlehem and found the Christ Child in a stable, in a manger (the kind that animals eat out of) because there was no room at the inn, due to the required census bringing so many people to town.

There are other things to remember about Jan. 6th, about no roof over heads and the fact that the ancient census required folks to return to their family area to be counted, so the Child and his parents were immigrants with no place to stay. Some modern Christians have seemingly forgotten about 'Love one another' and 'What you do to the least of these you do to Me' but many others remember, especially at Christmas. Fortunately we no longer have to return to where our family came from to be counted every ten years. It would take me a long time if I had to ride a donkey.

My family had a Nativity setup when I was growing up and it went on the mantle in the living room each year. On Christmas the Christ Child was added and on Jan. 6th the Wise Men were brought into the scene. Since I inherited that setup, I continue the tradition. Having no mantle, I set it up on the Willet hutch cabinet top shelf. This year I set Mom's photo right next to it, too. The Wise Men were behind the scene until this morning when I moved them to the front for Epiphany. Photo above shows how it looked this morning.

I had my own Epiphany (coming to a realization) a few days ago when it occurred to me that Sweetie had asked me to stop baking bread a few years ago because he was losing weight and has little will power to resist freshly baked bread. My realization was that he has been buying bread fairly frequently and eating it, so it seems I can bake bread again.

I started with a Super Seedy Bread based on THIS recipe. My seed addition (see below) included brown flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and 1/4 cup of the King Arthur Baking Harvest Grains Blend which has four kinds of grain flakes as well as four kinds of seeds. These grains are whole oat berries, millet, rye flakes, and wheat flakes and the four seeds are flax, poppy, sesame, and sunflower which you can add to any bread dough for their range of textures and taste.

After I finished the dough and let it rise for about half an hour, I covered the bowl of dough and let it sit the next day in the fridge. Once out of the fridge and warmed up a bit, I added those seeds and kneaded them in, shaped the dough into a loaf and put it in a loaf pan to rise. It made a really delicious and seedy bread that was excellent sliced with a little butter the day it was baked, but this morning it made awesome toast!

A great way to begin 2026 where there is sure to be more bread baking. I can hardly wait to have fun with hand in bread dough again!

Leftovers

 Many of us feel a rush of new energy with the coming of the New Year. I know I usually do. Still, resolutions seem a bit restrictive of this new energy so I also seem to use that energy to tackle leftovers.

There are, of course, food leftovers in the fridge and we had our share of those. Day by day since K's crew flew home we've put leftover mashed potatoes with some eggs for breakfast and cleared out those small containers of salad and cooked veggies. The crisper has yielded lunch and dinner salads. It's amazing what you can put into a salad in the way of leftovers! Soup is another leftover rich environment so soup has been a lunch time treat. Some things, like the ham bone and chunked ham, have gone into the freezer for future soup.

Another kind of leftovers are the places in our home where various kinds of things have sort of collected. I'm usually the culprit since Sweetie is really good at throwing things out in a reasonable amount of time. I tend to think that I'll need it later...and then don't remember I even have it.

So the day after New Years I sorted through the drawer that holds my greeting cards and now I know what usable cards I have and also that I have some return address labels with my name from when I donated to the National Parks. Bonus was I also found some pads of paper. I'm still a pen and paper, make-a-list kind of gal, so pads of paper are always welcome.

I won't go on, but you get the idea. Leftovers can be great or terrible, but new year energy has been applied.

Which brings us to last night's dinner casserole. It started out as a way to use up some leftover grilled Italian sausages, but ended up being an amazingly delicious casserole that didn't scream 'leftovers' at all.

I don't actually have a recipe since I made it up as I went along, but I can tell you what went into it and you can probably figure out how to make one of your own that is truly yours...it will have your specific leftovers!

First I checked out the fridge and pantry to see what was available and what needed using up. Besides the sausage, I found two partly used packages of pasta; one of orecchiette and one of mixed veggie twists. I found part of an onion and a handful of fresh green beans in the crisper, plus newly purchased cremini mushrooms, some mild hard cheese and some Parmesan ends in the cheese drawer, and last of all, a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup. I knew that I had both butter and margarine, plus dry bread crumbs. Bonus was an unopened jar of roasted red peppers.

With these I was able to make a pasta casserole that included sliced Italian sausages, sautéed onions and mushrooms, steamed green beans, small pieces (hand torn as it turns out) roasted red pepper, all mixed into a pasta mixture that included the can of cream of mushroom soup and some pasta water to make it the right consistency. That mixture was topped with a mixture of melted butter, grated cheese, and dry bread crumbs and the whole thing was baked at a high temperature for about 15 minutes until the casserole was bubbly and the topping was golden brown. Because of the flavor developed by the slow cooked onions and mushrooms I didn't even add salt or pepper or herbs and it was still delicious.

So I wish some leftovers for you, dear reader. May your new year bring you new energy and the ability to look at old things with new eyes.