For people who love crusty bread!

December 16, 2009 at 7:28 pm (Baking, Bread, Cooking with bloggers, Recipes, Sourdough)

I love blogs. Blogs are wonderful for escapism. You visit a cooking blog and it is like you are hanging out with a talented friend who shares a common interest with you. Lately, one of my favorite hangouts is Macheesmo. Nick posts something on his blog six days a week! If he doesn’t have a recipe to share, he is sharing a tip, doing a round up of his favorite blogs or reviewing a cookbook. He posts plenty of pictures and everything he makes looks delicious. Last week, Nick shared a discovery he made with his favorite no knead bread recipe. After reading his post, I couldn’t get this bread out of my head. The technique was pure genius. He took his regular no knead bread recipe and when it came time to shape the bread, he formed it into a rectangle instead of a loaf. Just before baking the bread, he scored the dough into rough squares so that the loaf resembles a rustic looking set of pull-apart rolls. The difference is that these rolls are not light, buttery and fluffy, they are serious bread. When you eat these, you have to use your teeth! That probably doesn’t sound good, but it is very good. These rolls are enveloped in crunchy chewy crust, but the crumb is still like a good piece of artisinal bread. So… if you are the kind of person who loves the crust on a homemade boule, but you crave more of it, this is your bread!

The dough was wonderful to work with. I used my starter instead of yeast.  I mixed the dough and let it sit on the counter for around nineteen hours. I formed the dough into a rectangle. The combination of using starter instead of yeast and a cold house made it so my dough had to proof longer than expected, about five hours instead of two. But look how nice and puffy it got.

I had only one problem with Nick’s recipe, he instructed to bake the bread for 35 minutes, mine was done somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes and it started to burn a little by the time I discovered my bread was done. But look how pretty it turned out!

When you pull a roll off of the loaf, you can see the gorgeous texture:

Cut one in half and it is full of holes

I am going to definitely add this recipe to my rotation of breads I bake on a regular basis. It was so easy and the results are so perfect. The flavor was rich and complex and there was a nice sour tanginess. My boyfriend declared “these rolls kick butt!” I think that translates into, “Thank you Nick for the marvelous dinner rolls”. :grin:

I am sending these crusty rustic rolls to YeastSpotting. Please click on the link to see some other amazing homemade breads and sweets.

Sourdough rustic no knead rolls

2 cups unbleached white flour

2 cups stone ground whole wheat flour

1/3 cup active liquid sourdough starter

2 tsp kosher salt

2 ¼ cups lukewarm water

Cornmeal and extra flour for dusting

In a very large bowl, Mix together both kinds of flour, sourdough starter, salt and water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand out on your kitchen counter for at least 12 hours, up to 19 hours.

Flour your work surface liberally. Turn the dough out onto the surface, form it into a rectangle and then fold it up like you are folding a letter. Repeat this process a couple of times being careful not to deflate the dough too much. Flatten the dough into a rough large rectangle a couple of inches thick. Transfer the dough to a peel that has been liberally dusted with cornmeal. Cover the dough with a clean dishtowel. Let proof up to five hours. The dough should be very puffy and if you poke it with your finger, the hole should spring back very slowly.

A half hour before you think you’ll be ready to bake, place a pizza stone in the oven. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees, F.

Right before you are ready to bake, score the bread four times lengthwise and four times crosswise to form sixteen square rolls. Be careful not to cut all the way through the rolls, they need to be attached. Place a pie pan full of water onto the lower rack of the oven and then transfer the dough to the heated pizza stone. Bake the bread for 20 – 25 minutes. The bread should be browned and sound hollow when tapped from the bottom. Cool the bread completely before serving.

9 Comments

Muir Glen Tomatoes: Product Review and a Giveaway!

December 2, 2009 at 1:22 am (Chicken, Contest, Corporate whore, Eat Healthy!, Eat your fruit & Veggies, Entree, Healthy Habits, Italian food, Recipes, What's for dinner)

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by the nice folks at Muir Glen tomatoes. They offered me a free sample of their 2009 Reserve Tomatoes to review on my blog. The nice folks at Muir Glen, are really nice folks: they also offered to let me give away the same nice box of goodies to one of my lucky readers. (I’ll give you more details at the end of this post).

When I was corresponding with the representative from Muir Glen, I tried to appear really casual. You know, really savvy and cool. I let her know that by sending me and my readers freebies, she was not guaranteed a good review! Little did she know  the reality of the situation:  I use their tomatoes every time I cook (so she was almost guaranteed a good review, in fact, I was trembling with anticipation about receiving this kit!). I came across their products years ago and in my opinion, the canned tomatoes are the best on the market. They taste good. They don’t taste like the can they come in. Not only do they have tomatoes of exceptional flavor, but the tomatoes are organic which is important to me. Why? Because not only am I concerned about the pesticide residues in my food and in the environment, but tomatoes have been one of those foods that have been genetically modified quite often in the past. Although there is no proof (yet) that GMO foods are harmful to us, I have a gut feeling that I should avoid them. Certified organic foods cannot contain GMOs. After the box arrived, I started pouring through the materials included in the shipment. I learned that the high quality of the tomatoes has to do with careful handling from the farm to the can. I also learned that these tomatoes are grown in California which for me, makes them a local food (yeah!).

Now, let’s talk about the box I received in the mail. It is gorgeous! You get a wooden crate filled with goodies.

Inside the box is a packet talking about the two cans of Reserve tomatoes included within. There are also two recipe cards. Now… I was promised recipe cards and at first I was a little disappointed because I saw only two recipe cards and I didn’t yet realize what the book underneath these materials was.

It turns out that the book is a gorgeous cookbook, with all of the information about how they grow and package the tomatoes, but…it includes 50 pages of delicious sounding recipes with full color photos of the food. This is a gorgeous book, and in my opinion. it is  worth as much as the tomatoes themselves if not more. After perusing this book, I decided I would use the four cans of tomatoes to make two of the recipes from the book so that you can get an idea of what the recipes are like.

Below the books, nestled away, were the four cans of tomatoes. There were the two cans of reserve tomatoes: Yolo Red diced tomatoes and Brigade whole tomatoes. Also included were Fire Roasted tomatoes and Adobo Seasoned tomatoes.

I used the reserve tomatoes to make Braised Tuscan Chicken with Fennel and White Beans. Upon opening the cans of tomatoes, I took a taste of each. I was disappointed with my choice in recipes for a minute, because the Yolo Red tomatoes where so sweet and delicious, they would have been wonderful used in something fresher such as a bruschetta or in a salsa. (If you win my contest, take note of that). The Brigade tomatoes had good acidity and tasted like they would be perfect for this slow braise. The only surprise I had, happened when I poured the Brigade tomatoes out of the can. If memory serves me right, a 15 oz can of tomatoes usually includes about 5 or 6 tomatoes. When I poured, three perfectly gorgeous round tomatoes popped out of the can. I had to laugh, I guess they didn’t want to smash them, so they only include enough tomatoes to not get smashed in transit. Luckily, the can of diced Yolo Reds where packed full, making it so that I had plenty of tomatoes for the recipe. The braised chicken came out delicious. The sauce begged for bread to sop it up and was loaded with chunks of vegetables and beans and a hint of herbs, the tomato flavor was outstanding. The chicken was falling off the bone tender. I’ll be making this chicken dish again!

The next day, anxious to taste the Adobo seasoned tomatoes, I decided to make the vegetarian chili recipe. I tasted the tomatoes upon opening the cans. The fire roasted tomatoes are familiar to me. They have a good roasted tomato flavor with a hint of smoke from the charred tomato skins you see floating among the diced tomatoes. I tasted the Adobo Seasoned tomatoes. The flavor was strange and familiar at the same time. I had to taste again before I realized that it is a light version of the super hot adobo sauce you find in a can of chipotle with adobo sauce. It is like they added just a hint of chipotle to their tomatoes. I had a really good feeling about cooking with these!! The chili turned out to be a smash hit. I followed the recipe exactly, using the prescribed amount of jalapeno and chili powder even though I knew that half my tomatoes had a good kick already. The chili came out spicy with a hint of that good chipotle flavor. It was wonderful. I’ll be looking for the Adobo Spiced tomatoes at my grocery store, I can think of many recipes that would be improved by using them.

So… you are probably wondering how you can get a box of these tomatoes and recipes for yourself.  Please leave a comment on my blog between now and Monday December 7th. I’ll hold a random drawing and one lucky Delectable Tidbits reader will receive a Reserve kit from Muir Glen.  Unfortunately, Muir Glen can only ship the reserve kit to people in the U.S., Sorry.

If you are not the winner, you can still get a Reserve kit. Muir Glen has these Reserve kits available for $7.00 at this link. By my calculation, that price barely covers the cost of the tomatoes much less the shipping and you get a crate to recycle for storing CDs and the cookbook and… Muir Glen will donate money to the charity Chefs Collaborative each time we buy a reserve kit. They are donating $2 for every Reserve kit they sell and $1 for each person who becomes a fan on their Facebook page (My friend Kevin is laughing at me right now because I am anti-Facebook, but hey, it’s for a good cause! So stop laughing Kevin!)

So, all of my friends and lurkers, leave me a comment.  Good luck everyone!!

33 Comments

Biscuits: the forgiving bread product

December 1, 2009 at 9:00 pm (Baking, Bread, Recipes, Sourdough)

Unmarried, childless and middle-aged. Therefore, expected to be a Thanksgiving guest in my parents home instead of the host of a Thanksgiving event. I love being with them but once I get home, I need to have a personal Thanksgiving dinner of my own devising. Tuesday was Thanksgiving again for me. I made my favorite turkey breast recipe (there would only be two of us so we didn’t need the whole bird), stuffing with pecans subbed in for the fussier chestnuts, maple glazed sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, steamed brussels sprouts and green peas (two very pedestrian vegetables to cut through the richness of the meal). It was a three-hour whirlwind cooking experience and in the middle of it, I realized there was no bread. I meant to buy rolls, but I forgot. I didn’t realize my error in time, so I couldn’t make bread. Once I thought about what to do, realized I had something good in my repertoire that I could toss together between making the sweet potatoes and finishing the rest of the cooking: sourdough biscuits.

As luck would have it, I did plan to make a sourdough loaf the next day for turkey sandwiches, so Herbert was happily bubbling away on the counter. I made sourdough biscuits a couple of times before, but I always made them with whole wheat pastry flour and I always had buttermilk on hand. I was nearly out of pastry flour and I was certainly missing the buttermilk. There was no way I could leave to go to the store. What do I do when I have no buttermilk but need to make a recipe that requires it? I substitute plain nonfat yogurt diluted with nonfat milk. You see, buttermilk hasn’t been real buttermilk for years now. Instead of being the liquid that is leftover as a byproduct of making butter, it is now a cultured milk product similar to yogurt or kefir, but not as thick. I love using buttermilk in recipes. It makes things tender, flavorful and fluffy, but a mixture of yogurt and milk makes a good stand in.

The resulting biscuits were everything I needed. They were quick to prepare. They were flaky and tender. Because I used mostly white flour, they also carried the yogurt/sourdough flavors well. My boyfriend could not stop eating these biscuits and he could not stop talking about how delicious they were. To me, that is the best praise of all. Now that I happened onto this new method for making biscuits, I think I will revise the recipe for good.

These biscuits go to YeastSpotting, showcasing the best bread on the internet every week!

Oh… and before I forget… I have the opportunity to give away a Reserve kit of Muir Glen Tomatoes this week. If you are interested in my contest, click here and drop a comment on the Muir Glen Tomato Giveaway post.

 

 

Sourdough biscuits redux

Adapted from the Golden sourdough biscuits recipe on Recipe finder

½ cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup cold unsalted butter

1 cup well fed sourdough starter

¼ cup nonfat plain yogurt

¼ cup nonfat milk

2 tbsp melted butter for brushing the muffins

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees f.

In a large bowl, combine the whole wheat pastry flour, white flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Using a pastry-cutter cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Don’t let the butter get too warm, you want the cold butter chunks to stay pretty solid to help with the flakiness of the finished biscuits. Mix together yogurt and milk. Mix with a whisk or fork until smooth. Mix the sourdough starter into the yogurt mixture. Add the yogurt mixture to the flour mixture. Using a silicone spatula, mix the dough until well combined.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface. Knead the dough a dozen times. Pat the dough into a 1“ thick round. Cut the dough with a 2 1/2” biscuit cutter. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or butter the cookie sheet. Place the biscuits close together on the lined sheet. If there are dough scraps, gently press them together, form a ball and pat it out to 1” thickness again. Cut more biscuits. If I have enough scraps left for one more biscuit, I usually just squash it out into one last free form biscuit. Just don’t over knead the dough while you work with the scraps.

Bake the biscuits for 12 – 15 minutes until golden browned. Remove from the oven and brush the biscuits with melted butter. Allow them to cool before serving.

3 Comments

How to destroy a fairly clean kitchen in under 60 seconds

November 19, 2009 at 9:45 pm (Baking, Eat Healthy!, Recipes, Snacks, Sourdough)

You would think after the seeded bread I made last week that I would be done with seeds. But… nooooooo! I have a problem with a short memory span. You see, I felt annoyed that I spilled seeds all over the kitchen when I was baking the bread. I then became more annoyed when seeds spilled all over my oven and I burned them. Seeds spilled everywhere when I cut into the loaf and each time I cut into it thereafter. Maximum annoyance. I cleaned up all of these seeds, but somehow, they kept reappearing. They found nooks and crannies to inhabit. Some of them thought the microwave was a nice spot to sit under. Some of them got on the floor and became world travelers showing up in bathrooms and bedrooms. My counters looked clean to me but I kept finding seeds in the grout of the tiles.

I wanted to make the seeded bread again this week and just skip making something new for YeastSpotting. (It was so good that I didn’t care what price I’d pay for another loaf). The problem is that we never finished the first loaf and I kept waiting for it to be eaten before committing a full day to a loaf of bread. Thursday showed up, no bread. I was looking in a cabinet and spied a box of our favorite crackers. These are really special crackers. Made of Spelt and covered in seeds, they are delicious! I came to the realization that they are an extravagance. We have been paying $6.89 for an 8 oz container of these crackers which we can easily polish off in a week. After figuring this out, it has been on my to do list to bake crackers. Today was the day.

The first thing I did was decide on the seeds. I thought an exotic mixture would be nice. I would mix sesame, poppy, fennel and for a little kick, brown mustard seeds. The brown mustard seeds come in a small Ziploc plastic bag. I opened the bag to measure out the seeds, something slipped and about a tablespoon of mustard seeds went flying, over the counters, onto the floor, into crevices, into my clothes (so that I could easily help them become world travelers). I took a deep breath. Gave up on immediate containment and proceeded with the recipe. My next error was to believe I could get the seeds to stick to the crackers without anything to bind them to the surface of the cracker. I somehow thought I could sprinkle the seed mixture on and then push the seeds into the surface of the cracker. Since I have the muscle tone of Napolean Dynamite’s brother Kip, that did not work out well. If I kept the fully baked crackers horizontal, the seeds stayed put, as soon as I moved them or tilted them in any way: disaster! So when I transcribe the recipe for you, I am going to tell you to make an egg wash to stick the seeds on. I have not tested it, but it worked for the bread last week so I’m hoping it will be fine.

I enjoyed these crackers as a light lunch today, (held horizontally to keep the seeds on), topped with a fine quality aged cheddar and Fuji apple slices. The crackers taste like flaky whole grain pie crust with the savory bite of the seed blend. They went so well with the cheese and fruit!

I am submitting these sourdough crackers to this week’s YeastSpotting event. Click on the link to see what everyone baked this week!

Seeded Sourdough Crackers

Crackers:

1 ½ cups stone ground whole wheat flour

½ cup rye flour

1 tsp salt

4 tbsp flax seeds

¼ cup cold butter

2 tbsp olive oil

1 cup active sourdough starter

Topping:

4 tsp sesame seeds

2 tsp fennel seeds

2 tsp brown mustard seeds

2 tsp poppy seeds

*Egg wash made with an egg yolk beaten with 2 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, F.

In a large bowl, stir together whole wheat flour, rye flour, salt and flax seeds. Using a pastry cutter, cut cold butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse corn meal. Make a well in the flour mixture. Pour in the oil and sourdough starter. Mix with a silicone spatula until well combined. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and lightly knead to make sure all the flour and liquid is mixed well. Do not over knead, you just want to make sure everything is combined. Form dough into a ball, flatten and roll out to 1/8” thick. Using a 2” round cookie cutter, cut dough into circles. Transfer crackers to two parchment lined cookie sheets as you cut crackers. Using a fork, pierce the crackers three times. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with seeds. You will have lots of scraps. When you are done cutting the first round of crackers, gather the scraps and carefully press them back into a ball (do not over work the dough), flatten dough and roll out to 1/8”, proceed with cutting more crackers and topping them with seeds. You can do this with the scraps a couple of times until most of the dough is used up. Once all of the crackers have been cut and seeded, transfer the cookie sheets to the hot oven. Bake for 13 – 15 minutes until browned, rotating the sheets from the upper to the lower racks of your oven halfway during baking for even browning. Remove crackers from the oven and transfer to racks to cool completely before enjoying.

*I did not brush an egg wash onto the crackers. The pictures are a sham! The seeds did not stick to the crackers. I have not tested an egg wash on this recipe, but this method worked for the bread I baked last week. It should work fine.

21 Comments

I really shouldn’t have…but I did!

November 12, 2009 at 5:38 pm (Bad for you, Baking, Bread, Recipes, Sourdough)

Marmalade Cheese Braid2

I was supposed to only bake a regular bread today. It would have been a good idea to leave it at that. If you page back through my blog you will see why I am gaining weight again. It’s been a cake fest around here for weeks. Today, my intentions started out good. I would bake a nice sourdough loaf with an assortment of seeds attached to it’s crust. Simple but good. Then… I found a recipe I shouldn’t have found. Unfortunately, I realized it would use up the cream cheese, left over from last week’s carrot cake, (that was only destined to go bad). I noticed that I had just enough butter left for it. I decided it could use some jam too. I had a number of excuses to cause unrest in my household.

It all started yesterday. My boyfriend who has had a difficult time gaining weight in the past has put on a few pounds lately and… his face broke out. Due to this troubling turn of events, He had that intervention kind of talk with me. He let me know that he did not want me baking sweets for awhile. He explained the health benfits for both him and me. He told me it was my choice, but if if I did make sweets of any kind, I would have to eat them alone. This conversation was after the conversation last week about reducing the amount of sugar in the things I bake. He does not want to eat so much sugar.

Marmalade Cheese Braid1

Well somehow in my baking fervor today, I thought it would be ok to bake a cheese filled sweet braid if I only used honey and not much of it. I would do a direct substitution of honey for sugar in the bread and then reduce the sweetener from ½ a cup of sugar to a scant 2 tablespoons of honey in the cheese filling. I had it all planned. I was so virtuous. How could anyone be angry if I made a lightly sweet bread? But then… I saw the orange marmalade, you know, real orange marmalade made from bitter Seville oranges. That elixir of bitter fruit and sweet sticky sugar. I knew I had to use it! Which makes me wonder, is this the way criminals justify their thinking…society (in this case the other member of this household) sets guidelines and then the criminal element flaunts those guidelines? Well… it was just too good of an idea to let go of and I was already lost at this point.

As it turns out this Danish is a knock out! The whole thing has a subtle flavor of honey and is not very sweet. When the marmalade hits your tongue, there is a burst of sweet and bitter. It is so good! My boyfriend politely ate a few bites, admitted it was stupendous and then sat there a pillar of self control. I however, polished off two pieces of my own and half of his. I am such a rebel!

I am submitting this dangerous snack food to YeastSpotting, the weekly baking event for those who love bread.

Marmalade Cheese Braid3

I had a couple of problems converting the King Arthur recipe to sourdough today – read on as I explain and give you measurements….

Marmalade and Cheese-Filled Sweet Braid

Adapted from King Arthur Cheese-Filled Sweet Braid recipe

Dough:
1 ½ cups active sourdough starter
¼ cup water
½ cup lukewarm nonfat milk
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ¼ tsp salt
¼ cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, beaten
3 ¼ cups unbleached white flour plus up to a cup if needed

Filling:
6 oz cream cheese
2 tbsp honey
3 tbsp unbleached white flour
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp vanilla
½ cup orange marmalade (the kind made from seville oranges)

Glaze:
Egg yolk mixed with 1 tbsp water

Dough:
Combine all of the ingredients, mix well and then knead by hand until you have made a soft smooth dough, about 10 minutes. I had to mix in an additional ½ to 1 cup of flour. The dough started out too wet and sticky. I added the flour a tablespoon at a time as I kneaded. Now that I have reread the original recipe, I realize I added twice the butter in error. I will keep the recipe modified because the bread came out really good (I guess due to so much fat!). When you are done kneading, form the dough into a tight ball, transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and allow it to rise until it is puffy (not necessarily doubled in bulk) about an hour and a half.

Filling:
Using a mixer, mix all of the filling ingredients except for the marmalade together, beating until it is smooth. If you do this ahead of time while the dough it rising, refrigerate the filling until you are ready to use it.

Assembly:
Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface. Cut the dough in half. Working one at a time, roll the dough into a 12”x 8” rectangle. Transfer the rectangle to a parchment lined cookie sheet. Spread half the marmalade down the length of the rectangle. Spread half of the cheese filling over the marmalade down the length of the rectangle. Cut 1” strips from each side of the filling  out to the edges of the dough (I found this blog post that shows the cuts). Fold an inch of the dough at each end over the filling then fold the strips at an angle across the filling, alternating from side to side. Repeat the process for the second round of dough. (The bread can be left as a straight braid or you can form a circle). Allow the braids to rise, covered until they are almost doubled in size, this took nearly three hours in my cool kitchen.

Baking:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Brush the loaves with the egg mixture right before putting them in the oven. Bake 35 – 40 minutes. You may have to rotate the sheets from the upper to the lower rack during baking if they are browning unevenly.

Cool completely before serving.

3 Comments

Soylent Green is… people!!!!!!!!

November 7, 2009 at 6:51 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Recipes, Sourdough)

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

No, no, no! I mean… pancakes are waffles. That’s it…pancakes are waffles. Phew! I’m so relieved! I bet you are too.

See:

Wheat and Rice Waffle

That is a waffle made with my wonderful wheat and rice cakes recipe. It is featured here with fresh pineapple, yogurt and real maple syrup!

Now I know that you are all way more savvy than I am, and you probably have figured out the whole pancakes are waffles thing a long time ago, but here is why I was so confused. Every recipe I have tried for waffles makes a really thick batter. So thick that my waffles always came sort of soft and soggy. Not like the crispy waffles you get at the local diner. Even the sourdough waffle recipe I tried suffered from thick batteritis. Since the batter was always really thick, I thought that waffle batter had to be thicker than pancake batter. It also seemed to me that the waffle batter had way more fat and sugar in it. To add to my confusion, I remember seeing a Good Eats episode on Food Network where Alton Brown explained the importance of plenty of fat and sugar in waffle batter.

I have to thank my best friend R. for showing me the way to good waffles. We were talking and she mentioned that she made some “kick ass” sourdough waffles. I asked for the recipe and she sent me an email entitled “fabulous waffles” which contained a recipe that would change my concept of waffles. You make a sponge the night before with your sourdough. The next day you are supposed to remove ½ cup of the sponge and save it as your next sourdough project. R. does not. She just adds the rest of the ingredients and gets an extra waffle out of the deal. The batter was super wet. Even a little wetter than some of my pancake batters. The waffle iron has to be really hot so that it can steam out all of that liquid but then, you are left with waffles that have a crisp exterior and a soft center. Just perfect. These waffles were an epiphany for me.

After making sourdough pizza last night, I meant to start a sponge for sourdough waffles for this morning and I forgot. We still wanted (no, needed) waffles this morning and I had a lot of buttermilk leftover from something I made last week, so I decided to make my wheat and rice pancake recipe and try it out as waffles. I made the waffle iron nice and hot and they came out perfect. The flavor and texture were wonderful. Now I want to try all of my pancake recipes as waffles.

Here is a list of possible candidates if you want to experiment with me:

Blueberry corn cakes (although this is a thick batter so it may be problematic)

Carrot cake pancakes

Oatmeal pancakes (again, these could be way too thick)

Orange sourdough pancakes

Pumpkin pancakes

And…I have an amazing recipe for gingerbread pancakes that I haven’t made in a long time and I have yet to blog about, but those gingerbread pancakes would make really interesting waffles. Let me know if you have any other great pancake recipes to try out as waffles.

Here is the recipe for those amazing Sourdough Waffles. My friend got them from a web site somewhere that credited them to Theresa B. by way of South shore B and B in Alaska. Here is my interpretation of R’s version of the waffles:

½ cup active sourdough starter

2 tbsp sugar

2 cups warm water

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp canola oil

1 tsp baking soda

The night before, mix starter, sugar, water and pastry flour in a large bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave out overnight.

The next morning, mix in eggs, salt oil and baking soda. Allow the mixture at least 5 minutes to rise.

Preheat your waffle iron to one of the hottest settings. Cook waffles according to your waffle iron’s instructions.

Waffles can be kept in a warm oven as they are cooked so that all waffles will be warm when you serve them.

7 Comments

Braided bread 2.0

November 5, 2009 at 6:19 pm (Baking, Bread, Eat Healthy!, Recipes, Sourdough, Vintage Cookbooks)

BraidedBread3

When I stumbled upon Google books for the first time, I thought it was a dumb idea because I could get free recipes without having to buy books. How are the authors of these books supposed to make any money I thought. However, after spending hours thumbing through cookbook samples just on a search for sourdough, I found my Amazon wish list growing by a bit more than I wanted it to. Therefore, I have decided Google books is an evil and effective marketing tool! Do not. I repeat. Do not go to Google books. You’ll be sorry!

One book that made its way from my Google search to my Amazon wish list to my home (in less than a week) was an amazing book published in the 80’s called Great Whole Grain Breads by Beatrice Ojakangas. This unassuming cookbook has no photographs besides the one on the cover. It is filled, instead, cover to cover with recipes and practical bread baking advice. An inventive baker, Mrs. Ojakangas was baking no knead breads back in the 80s long before the craze hit the Internet (and long before the Internet).

The book is not heavy on purely whole grain bread. Most recipes include a mixture of white flour as well as whole grains in order to give the breads a lighter texture. Being of Finnish extraction, the author knows her rye breads and includes many variations on rye. As well as traditional loaves there are many interesting and quirky recipes such as stir and pour breads which are even simpler than the no knead bread recipes she also provides. There are vegetable breads, cheese breads, fruited breads and coffee breads. Since the book relies on small charming illustrations instead of photos, it is packed cover to cover with recipes.

BraidedBread2

After reading the book as if it were a novel and placing book marks on dozens of recipes, I became obsessed with a recipe that appears in the photo on the cover. It is for Wheat Germ and Sesame Six-Strand Bread. I don’t own commercial yeast but I do own a sometimes temperamental sourdough starter which I stubbornly insist on baking all of my bread with. If you have been following my blog, you already know that I screwed up this recipe last week. Although it was under proofed the flavor was really good and we ate the bread anyway. I decided it was worth it to try again. This week I got it right. I added an extra half cup of starter and let the bread rise all day. The bread was perfect. It was not light and airy like the challah it resembles. The inner texture of the bread was soft more like a multigrain sandwich bread. The crust was crisp and then…there is the outer layer of wheat germ and sesame, nutty and crunchy. Just delicious! The bread was good on its own, but we enjoyed it with olive oil for dipping, salad with a homemade creamy balsamic dressing and chicken that was roasted with olive oil and lemons. This bread was the perfect bread to dip in oil, in salad dressing and in the pan juices from the chicken. It melded perfectly with anything fatty. It is a gorgeous bread for enjoying with food.

BraidedBread4

After succeeding with this bread, I am now very excited to keep exploring this book. I have way too many cookbooks but I don’t feel bad about adding this one to my collection. It is the kind of book that will be used constantly and I predict it will become dog eared in a few months. If you love to bake bread, I seriously recommend this book to you.

I’m sending this bread off to YeastSpotting. Please click on the link to see other wonderful bread baking adventures.

Wheat Germ and Sesame Six-Strand Braid

Adapted for sourdough from Great Whole Grain Breads by Beatrice Ojakangas

1 ½ cups active sourdough starter

½ cup room temperature water

1 tbsp evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar

1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp salt

1 egg

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups + 2 tsp (if needed) unbleached white flour

Glaze:

1 egg yolk beaten with 2 tbsp water

¼ cup (or more) wheat germ

2 tbsp (or more) sesame seeds

In a large mixing bowl, combine starter, water and sugar. Let stand a few minutes. Mix in beaten egg, butter and salt. Mix in whole wheat and 2 cups of white flour gradually. Mix with a rubber spatula until a dough forms. Cover and let the dough rest 15 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a board and begin to knead. The dough should be stiff and not very sticky. I needed to add a little more flour to get to this consistency. Add more unbleached white flour one teaspoon at a time until you get a stiffer dough. Continue to knead the dough for up to ten minutes until it is soft and springy. You should be able to stretch it without breaking it (window pane test). Let the dough rest while you wash, dry and oil the mixing bowl. Return the dough to the bowl, cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and allow it to rise until doubled (about three hours on a cool day).

Turn the dough out onto a board and divide it into six equal parts (I weighed the dough to make sure each part was roughly the same). Roll each piece into a strand about 12 inches long by rolling between the palms of your hand and the board. Mix wheat germ and sesame seeds in a bowl Brush a dough strand with the egg yolk mixture and then sprinkle 1/6 of the wheat germ mixture onto the board and roll the dough in the wheat germ mixture to coat. Repeat for the remaining 5 strands.

To shape: Line up the six strands side by side. Start with the right outer strand. Pick up the strand and weave it under and over each successive strand until it ends up on the very far left side of the braid. Repeat, always starting with the far right strand, weaving under and then over each strand until it ends up on the left side. When you are done, pinch the braids down on the end of each loaf and compress the loaf lengthwise with both hands gently to make a long narrow loaf. Place a sheet of parchment onto a peel and dust it with corn meal. Gently transfer the loaf to the prepared peel. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and allow it to rise until doubled (3 to 4 hours in a cool kitchen).

Place a baking stone in the oven 15 minutes before you want to bake. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Transfer the loaf from the peel to the stone. It is ok if it sticks to the parchment. Bake the loaf for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden. Remove the parchment from the loaf and cool completely

14 Comments

Everyone needs cake

November 3, 2009 at 12:26 am (Baking, Recipes)

CarrotCake1

Your birthday is your own personal holiday. In honor of your holiday, you must have cake. I think it is a rule.

I feel very strongly about cake. I love cake with layers and frosting. Moist cake with light and airy frosting! The fancier the better. My boyfriend loves desserts that are fruit based. Give him a pie or a cobbler, a grunt or a tart and he is in seventh heaven. The buttery crust, a lightly sweet fruity filling. He is in love. The only dessert we agree on is carrot cake. I like it. He loves it.

I don’t know why I never made him a carrot cake before. There was the year I made him a chocolate carrot cake, but it looked like a Ding Dong and tasted unlike any carrot cake we’ve ever had. As a matter of fact, we could hardly detect the presence of the eponymous veggie at all. A real honest to goodness carrot cake never crossed my mind although I have watched this man decimate many a slice of carrot cake, leaving barely a crumb (but leaving a wasteland of frosting – his least favorite part of the cake).

I haven’t baked a birthday cake for my boyfriend in a long time. Each year, I always made sure he had cake, but not always from my own oven. This year, I wanted to bake for him. This delicious sounding recipe on Epicurious looked promising, but I had some concerns going in. Carrot cake seems healthy but in reality, it is loaded with fat and sugar. As a matter of fact, carrot cake can be one of the richest cakes available, although it seems like it shouldn’t be. Currently, I am watching my fat and he is watching his sugar. I was concerned about having a whole cake of this caliber available for two people to consume. Not wanting to ruin the cake with too many changes to the recipe, my fears were alleviated after reading the comments on the site. Most people were able to reduce the sugar in the cake and substitute apple sauce for over half of the oil without ruining the flavor or the texture of the cake. The only place changes didn’t seem appropriate to me was in regards to the frosting. The people who commented about the recipe thought the frosting wasn’t cloyingly sweet but disturbingly, they generally felt that the recipe was incorrect and did not make enough frosting. Unfortunately, the idea that there wasn’t enough frosting was their only error. But it was an error which resulted in making me be stingy with the frosting in the middle of the cake (thinking I would run out and not have enough to actually cover the outside of the cake). As it turns out, I had plenty of frosting left over. For us, this is no problem since it helped me excise more fat and sugar from the cake. When you make this cake (because I know you will) go hog wild with the frosting, it is delicious! I noticed that my boyfriend had no problem eating most of his frosting this time! Oh…one wonderful change I made to the recipe was to swap the walnuts my boyfriend can’t eat for pecans which he loves to eat. I folded them into the cake batter and then toasted more which I used to encrust the outside of the cake.

CarrotCake4

How did the cake turn out? Just lovely. The flavor is perfumed with a subtle hint of ginger. The frosting has the heady aroma of maple and when you take your last few bites, there is an earthy nutty crunch from the toasted pecans melting into that sweet maple cream. The cake was still very sweet but not intensely sweet like some carrot cakes can be. Altogether this recipe is a winner and I am sure we’ll have it again and again.

CarrotCake3

Carrot Cake with Maple-Cream Cheese Frosting

Adapted from Bon Apetit, September 1999

Cake:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar

½ cup brown sugar

¾ cup unsweetened applesauce

½ cup canola oil

4 large eggs

3 cups grated peeled carrots

1 ¼ cups coarsely chopped raw pecans

2 tbsp grated peeled ginger (or minced peeled ginger)

Frosting:

10 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

5 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature

2 ½ cups powdered sugar

¼ cup pure grade B maple syrup

1 to 1 ½ cups coarsely chopped pecans, toasted and cooled completely (for garnish)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, F. Butter two 9” diameter cake pans. Cut parchment paper in circles to fit the pans. Line the bottom of the pans with parchment. Butter and flour the parchment and the sides of the pan. Tap out the excess flour.

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl to blend. In a large bowl, whisk evaporated cane juice (or granulated sugar), brown sugar, applesauce and oil until well blended. Whisk eggs into the oil mixture one at a time. Add the flour mixture to the oil mixture and stir until just blended. Stir in carrots, pecans and ginger. Divide batter evenly between the two pans.

Bake cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes clean, about 40 minutes (ovens vary but you may want to check at 35 minutes, my cakes were a little too brown at 40 minutes). Cool cakes in pans 15 minutes. Turn them out onto wire racks, peel off parchment and let the cakes cool completely.

While the cakes are baking, start on the frosting: Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until it is light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar and beat at low speed until completely blended. Beat in maple syrup. Chill the frosting until it is firm enough to spread, at least 30 minutes.

Place one cake layer on a platter. Spread ¾ cup of frosting on the top of the cake. Top with the second layer. Spread remaining frosting over the entire cake. Work quickly because this frosting is soft and gets softer as it warms. Once the cake is completely frosted, press the toasted pecans into the sides of the cake, covering all exposed surface along the outside edge of the cake.

CarrotCake2

　

　

5 Comments

If life doesn’t give you lemons, use oranges instead

October 7, 2009 at 4:17 am (Baking, General Freak Out, Italian food, Recipes, Venting)

Oranges

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to my pity party. My name is Mimi and I will be your hostess as well as the special guest of honor. Today was a bad day. It was what you might call a really bad day.

I’ve been laid off since the end of May and I’ve mostly been enjoying the boredom free time. This blog has never gotten so much attention ever from me. I have plenty of time to cook. I should be happy right? Well, wrong! Everyday, I look for a job online. Most days I find nothing in my field of expertise within a 250 mile radius. I try to find something to apply for but most of the job leads are in communities I have never even wanted to visit much less live in. So I’m never very excited about my prospects. It’s driving me crazy. Sure there were a couple of near hits. There was the university that has two job openings that I’d be perfect for but never called me back. Then there was the publishing company who put me through five interviews only to forget to let me know whether or not they have made a hiring decision. Those things made my days so much more exciting. I read the news. I know there are other people in worse situations than me, but this long drawn out waiting game is grating on my every last nerve and today I sunk into a deep and unending funk. It was really bad.

This morning, after I played my fifteenth game of spider three decks solitaire, I decided to move my depressed ass to the couch to watch the Food Network. (This was before the manic crying incident later in the afternoon). Giada was on. There she was in all of her buxom roman porn star beauty… making leftovers. Well, what she was doing was really what I call chicken evolution. She was taking leftovers and making them into something else. She made soup out of an old rotisserie chicken, crostini out of day old bread and cake out of old simple syrup (leave it to a food network star to keep simple syrup in the fridge and consider it leftovers). As I sat transfixed by Giada’s bouncing cleavage and her literally glowing teeth, I realized she was making a really amazing cake. Although I’m not always excited about the regular food she makes, I trust Giada when it comes to sweets. She has a sweet tooth and you can tell she loves to bake. If Giada didn’t come from a Hollywood family who prizes their looks we would probably mistake Giada for Ina Garten ’cause you can tell Giada likes to bake and she likes to eat!

Back to that cake. It was called Lemon Mint Cake with Lemon Syrup. It had all of the prerequisite cake ingredients but the eggs were separated and the whites were made into a stiff meringue which was folded back into the cake to make it light and fluffy. The promise of this cake was that it would have a crispy exterior, a light and fluffy interior and then a dousing of intense flavor from the syrup. As Giada cut herself a slice, I could see that her cake would live up to that promise. It looked so delicious. She took a bite and made that awful orgasmic cat call she makes when she bites into something that is supposed to be good…. But the sound was…somehow different. Perhaps genuine? Did I hear correctly, a genuine sounding orgasmic moan coming out of Giada and a pleased happy look of real contentment on her face? Rewind! Yes… I believe it’s true. I have to have this cake!!

But…Although I have a little mint in the backyard still, I have no lemons. Just a bunch of old neglected oranges. I am way to depressed to haul my butt to the store. But, orange and mint sounds great. I looked at my Boyfriend who has been giving me the look all day that a love one gives you when they wonder if they should call the suicide hotline on your behalf. I tell him, “I want to make cake will you have some?” He looks at me with a little smile on his face because he knows that baking will make me happy. (He tries to make sure I don’t see him wondering when I will go back on Weight Watchers and lose the five pounds I have managed to gain back). He says “yes, I would love some cake”.

I made that cake and it made me very happy. The crisp exterior does yield to a soft interior. It is like biting into a cloud. The syrup was heady with the scent of oranges. The whole cake was redolent of orange with just a hint of mint. Scrumptious. If I were a more outgoing person, a small orgasmic sound would have escaped my lips.

Sometimes it is the little things that keep you going.

OrangeMintCake

Orange Mint Cake with Orange Syrup

Adapted from Lemon Mint Cake with Lemon Syrup by Giada De Laurentiis

Cake:

3 eggs at room temperature, separated

1 cup sugar, divided

¼ cup olive oil

1/8 tsp salt

2 ½ tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves

3 tbsp orange juice

1 tbsp orange zest

1 cup all purpose flour

Syrup:

1 cup sugar

¼ cup water

¾ cup orange juice

1 tbsp orange zest

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9” cake pan.

In a bowl, beat olive oil and ½ cup of the sugar. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating as they are added. Add mint, orange juice and orange zest. Add flour and beat until just combined. Set aside.

Place egg whites in a separate large bowl. Beat them until they form soft peaks. Add the other half cup of sugar and beat until the whites form stiff peaks.

Transfer ½ of the egg white mixture to the bowl with the cake batter. Carefully fold the whites into the cake batter. Add the other half of the whites and gently fold them into the batter until well combined, taking care not to deflate the egg whites. Spread the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake the cake 40 – 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Move the cake from the oven to a wire rack and let it cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the simple syrup: Combine the sugar, water, orange juice and orange zest in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer for five minutes. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool for at least twenty minutes.

To serve, spoon syrup generously over each slice of cake.

13 Comments

Decadent little turkey sandwiches

October 2, 2009 at 3:14 pm (Eat Healthy!, Recipes, What's for dinner)

Turkey Sandwich

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made rustic olive rolls and I made my delicious roasted turkey. You shouldn’t be surprised that I had sandwiches on my mind.

We love turkey sandwiches. There are so many good variations on the theme to be had all over, but I never seem to deviate from turkey and avocado on whole wheat when I make it at home. Last night I let my imagination go wild and the results were amazing! I just have to share!

One defining feature of a lot of restaurant sandwiches these days is Goop™ aka Secret Sauce™ aka Special Sauce™ . Yes kiddies, I have created GourmetGoop™ . You heard it right here. A special blend of the finest canola oil mayo and spices. GoumetGoop™ will probably make me famous one day, yes siree!

All nonsense aside, these sandwiches were smoky with a nice hint of blue cheese. Fresh tasting from the crispy lettuce, juicy tomato and creamy avocado. Chewy and flavorful from the homemade bread and turkey. Decadent and delicious. An absolute reward for some fun labor in the kitchen.

The following recipe is an approximation of ingredients used for one serving. Feel free to use more or less according to your taste:

Smoky blue cheese turkey sandwiches

Make GourmetGoop™ :

3 tbsp canola oil mayonnaise

3 – 4 cloves roasted garlic or raw garlic (see below)

¾ – 1 tsp smoked paprika

1 – 2 pinches cayenne powder

Generous amount of freshly ground black pepper

Use roasted garlic or if you don’t have any quick roast the garlic: Place garlic in a dry cast iron pan that has been heated over medium high heat. Turn the garlic occasionally to char on all sides for several minutes. When the garlic has softened, remove from pan, and cool. Peel the garlic and run it through a garlic press into a small bowl. Combine all of the remaining ingredients.

Assemble Sandwich:

1 rustic olive roll or substitute any chewy sandwich roll (French or ciabatta would be good)

GourmetGoop™ to taste

3-4 slices avocado

1 – 2 tsp crumbled blue cheese

2 – 3 generous slices of homemade roasted turkey or a generous serving of deli turkey

A thick slice of tomato

1 – 2 thinly sliced pieces of yellow or red onion

1 – 2 leaves red lettuce

Slice sandwich roll down the middle and spread both halves with GourmetGoop™ . On The top half of the bread, layer blue cheese then avocado then lettuce. On the bottom half of the bread, layer turkey, tomato and onions. Join the top and bottom of sandwich.

2 Comments

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