Fall Harvest

On Sundays I love to make bread in my bread machine and dinner in the crock pot. This past week, both items turned out fantastically.

It was the third time I've tried this particular bread - the other two failed miserably because I had tried to do it with a gluten-free bread flour, which is apparently a very wrong name for that product because the bread did not rise AT ALL. So this time I made it with regular bread flour, and it was beautiful. It's called Cranberry Oat Bread, which I found while perusing allrecipes.com. It says to add the cranberries before the final kneading. I didn't do that, and I don't know if it made a difference, but at any rate that direction isn't necessary to follow.

The dinner I made is called Pork Chops & Acorn Squash, which I found in my Oct/Nov 2008 Healthy Co0king from Taste of Home magazine. I have been trying to make sure that Ryan and I eat healthy dinners as the holidays approach. That way I won't feel AS bad for eating all the sweets! The reviews for this dinner on the website don't make it sound like all-the-rage, but it turned out great for us! We added some cranberries and orange wedges, and the squash cooked wonderfully in the crock pot. We ended up having it cook for 4 1/2 hours instead of just 4 - maybe that made a difference as compared to the people complaining about the squash not being cooked all the way. The flavors were great, and I recommend this for a snowy day when you can enjoy the fall harvest in your mouth!