About Jodee

After thinking about various ways to share my memories, I began to write my blog, Learn from yesterday, live for today..... I started writing this blog, for the most part, to share my life experiences with family and friends, a journal of my experiences, but gradually the idea grew into sharing it with everyone. It's just about day to day living and sharing with loved ones the ordinary things that make every day memories. My blog covers everything from cooking family recipes to travel memories and more. Throughout this journey called life, each of us experience many things and what we take away from those experiences makes us who we are today. My journey has had its up and downs like so many of us and as a result, what I have learned from my experiences has shaped my perspective of life. I invite you to take a look and see what I have shared so far. Hopefully, you will enjoy the experience and share this new adventure with me! Jodee

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts

By Jodee Weiland

Homemade cookies are always so good when freshly baked. The whole house smells wonderful when baking, and cookies are no exception to that rule. That’s one of things I like best about baking a fresh batch of homemade cookies. I did this more often when my children were young, but they are grown now. Still, once in a while, I will bake some homemade cookies, and one of my favorite recipes is one that came from two different recipes I had used over the years. Both recipes had things I loved, so I took what I liked best from both, changed what I didn’t like, added another ingredient I liked but neither recipe had, and came up with a whole new recipe, my Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts.

https://learnfromyesterday.com In my recipe, I adjusted ingredients to my preferences for a cookie. Although my recipe is sweet, it is not overly sweet. If you add in semi-sweet chocolate chips and sweetened coconut, you don’t need to overdo the sugar by adding in too much or both brown and white sugar. I reduced the amount of chocolate chips as well, and it was more than enough. Also, if you are going to add chopped walnuts to a cookie with coconut and chocolate chips, you need more flour to hold the whole cookie together. Baking soda and salt are common ingredients in cookie recipes, but I prefer to use as little as possible. In the end, what’s important is the overall taste of the cookie, and my Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts are delicious and a family favorite!

https://learnfromyesterday.comCoconut Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts

1/2 cup unsalted butter softened
3/4 cups sugar 1 egg
3/4 teaspoon coconut extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

https://learnfromyesterday.comhttps://learnfromyesterday.comPreheat oven to 375 degrees. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper, if preferred. With a mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, egg, and coconut extract. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in another bowl. Add your dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and blend together. Then with a spoon, add in your chocolate chips, coconut, and walnuts, blending all the ingredients together.

https://learnfromyesterday.com Once blended together, take enough to make about a one inch ball of dough. Place the balls on a prepared cookie sheet about two inches apart. I use parchment paper on my cookie sheets for a quicker clean-up process, but you do not need to do this. When you have a full cookie sheet ready, place it in the oven and bake at 375 degrees for 11 to 13 minutes or until they turn a light golden brown. When ready, set on a cooling rack. My cookies took 12 minutes to bake. This recipes makes about 28 cookies.

https://learnfromyesterday.com My Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts are delicious and so full of flavor! I love the flavors of coconut with chocolate and walnuts. The flavor in this cookie is the best and will remind you of warm cookies and milk from your childhood, only better. What a great feeling to have! Warm cookies remind me of home and family, and for me, that’s the best feeling ever. So try these cookies and see what they remind you of or make a new memory with those you love, and enjoy!

Delicious Homemade Crusty Bread

By Jodee Weiland

When making a meal like pasta, stew, or soup, it’s always great to have a crusty bread to serve with it. So many dishes are enhanced by adding crusty bread to your meal, but especially if your crusty bread is homemade. My Delicious Homemade Crusty Bread is not only delicious to eat with a great meal, but if done right, it’s great by itself straight from the oven. https://learnfromyesterday.com My father used to love to break off a crusty piece of bread from the loaf and have it with a little cheese and a glass of red wine. He thought this was a great snack any time and honestly, I can’t disagree! He always chose a hard imported provolone and if he had it on hand, he would add a slice of hard Italian salami. But many times, he chose to have just the slice of fresh crusty bread! My Delicious Homemade Crusty Bread is the type of bread my father would have loved, crusty on the outside and a light airy bread on the inside!

https://learnfromyesterday.com Delicious Homemade Crusty Bread

3 and 1/2 cups bread flour (the last 1/4 cup or less to be added as needed)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 and 1/2 cups warm water (1/2 cup of this will be for the yeast mixture)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Prepare the baking sheet by misting olive oil over the baking sheet lightly. Then in a small mixing bowl, mix 1 teaspoon of active dry yeast and a pinch of sugar with 1/2 cup of warm water that is water that is warm to the touch, about 100 degrees. Stir this and let it rest for about 10 minutes until it becomes foamy.

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Then in a large mixing bowl, gradually blend together the flour, salt, sugar, yeast and water mixture, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and remaining water as you begin to work this with your hands into dough. At first, you may blend the ingredients with a spoon, but as it thickens you will work it with your hands. Once your dough is all blended, continue to work the dough with your hands and begin to knead the dough for about 8 to 10 minutes. Do this on a flat surface, where you will add flour as you go to the surface to keep your dough from sticking.

https://learnfromyesterday.com https://learnfromyesterday.com https://learnfromyesterday.com Once done, place your ball of dough into a bowl, smoothing a touch of olive oil over the dough and over the sides of the bowl.  Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and then with a clean towel over that for about 30 to 40 minutes or longer and let it rest.  It should double in size.https://learnfromyesterday.com https://learnfromyesterday.com https://learnfromyesterday.com

Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it again before shaping into two long narrow loaves. Place your loaves on the prepared baking sheet and cover loosely with the plastic wrap from the bowl and a towel while it sits.  Once again, it should double in size.  Then with a sharp knife cut (1/4 inch deep) slits diagonally across the top of the loaf.  Put the bread into the preheated oven and bake at 375 degrees for 25 to 35 minutes.  My bread took about 30 minutes to bake.  Allow bread to cool briefly before cutting and serving, although in my family, they start cutting or breaking off pieces as soon as it cools just enough to be able to touch. https://learnfromyesterday.com My Delicious Homemade Crusty Bread is so good with its crusty outside and a light airy bread on the inside. This bread is the perfect complement to any meal, but with the fall coming, it will be a great side for soups, stews, and other hearty meals. You can always eat it on its own like my dad did, but no matter how you choose to eat this bread you will always come back for more. We love this bread, especially fresh from the oven. Give it a try, and enjoy!

Delicious Berry Berry Vanilla Nonfat Frozen Yogurt

By Jodee Weiland

I love homemade nonfat frozen yogurt and enjoy coming up with new flavor combinations. Since I had recently frozen some fresh blueberries and had some fresh ripe strawberries, I decided that combining the two would make an awesome tasting nonfat frozen yogurt. I just needed to let the blueberries thaw slightly to puree them with the fresh strawberries. That’s how I came to make my Delicious Berry Berry Vanilla Nonfat Frozen Yogurt!

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Making frozen yogurt with my automatic frozen yogurt-ice cream and sorbet maker, makes this whole process very easy. The one thing I did differently this time, besides changing my fruit choices, was to use almond milk in place of fat-free milk. I wanted to change it up a little more. Then I just put together my ingredients, set up the machine with my pre-frozen bowl from the freezer, poured in my mixture, and let the machine do its job for the next 25 to 30 minutes. What could be easier than that? Making up new flavors of frozen yogurt was never easier than this, and I’m loving it!

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Delicious Berry Berry Vanilla Nonfat Frozen Yogurt

2 cups nonfat Greek yogurt
1/3 cup sugar (or the appropriate equivalent of non-sugar sweetener)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup almond milk
1 cup fresh blueberries frozen and pureed (thaw slightly)
3/4 cup fresh strawberries cut up
Miniature dark chocolate chips to sprinkle on top (optional)

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Puree the slightly thawed frozen blueberries with the cut up fresh strawberries in a blender. Then blend together the yogurt, sugar, vanilla, and almond milk in a mixing bowl with a hand mixer on medium speed until the sugar is dissolved, about one to two minutes. Once done, blend the berry mixture puree into the yogurt mixture with the hand mixer on low for about one minute. Following the directions of your yogurt/ice cream maker, turn it on and slowly pour in the blended yogurt and berry mixture. Once it is all in the yogurt maker, let the mixture thicken into your creamy frozen yogurt as the machine works its magic, usually about thirty minutes. When ready, scoop the frozen yogurt into serving dishes, putting any leftover frozen yogurt into a freezer storage container and freeze for later.

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My Delicious Berry Berry Vanilla Nonfat Frozen Yogurt is a flavorful and healthy frozen treat that will cool off a hot day pleasantly! This nonfat frozen yogurt makes a tasty dessert choice during the warmer weather, but is so good tasting, you’ll be making it long into the fall as well. For a little something extra, sprinkle some miniature dark chocolate chips on top. Give it a try sometime soon, and enjoy!