Wheat Bread

Today was bread baking day (again) and I have to tell you–warm weather made such a difference! The rise went a bit faster than they have been lately, and my loaves really turned out beautifully. This first photo depicts a tip I gleaned from Smitten Kitchen–dust your loaves with flour before setting them for their second rise, so they won’t stick to the plastic wrap! I’ve had a few tops of loaves lose their beautiful domed shape because they’ve been pulled by the wrap, and this fixes that problem beautifully.

I did have one kitchen conundrum here–I forgot to add the salt. It really does make a big difference in the flavor. These are still delicious, but the flavor’s are much better with a bit of salt. Oh well!

This recipe has been adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Here’s what you need for some plain-jane wheat bread.

3 to 3 1/2 c. bread flour (white)
1 T active dry yeast (or just one package–I added a bit more for a little more lift. Since I buy yeast in bulk from the Harvest Market nearby, I can just measure out whatever I want. Your typical envelope of yeast contains 2 1/4 tsp, which is 3/4 tsp shy of a tablespoon. Look, I can do fractions!)
1 3/4 c water
1/3 c packed brown sugar (I like dark, but use what you’ve got!)
3 T butter (they say “or margarine or shortening, but who are we kidding?)
1 1/4 tsp of salt (I should highlight this)
2 c whole wheat flour

Put a wee saucepan on a burner on med/med low, and add butter, chopped up (watch your fingers–that’s a kitchen accident I’m not repeating, and neither should you). As it’s slowly melting, add sugar, water, and salt. Allow to just warm up until the butter’s almost melted. You don’t want the mixture any warmer than 130 degrees or you’ll cook the yeast. A kitchen thermometer is handy to tell (you want it over 110) the temperature until you’ve done this enough times to know by feel.

Put 2 c of bread flour and the yeast in your mixing bowl. Add water mixture, and turn to low (using the paddle) for thirty seconds. Scrape down, and crank to high for three minutes.

At this point I swap out the paddle for the dough hook, but you can do it by hand. Add the 2 c of wheat flour, and mix in. Add enough of the bread flour to make a stable dough. I do this while the dough hook kneads–I used nearly the total amount with just a couple minutes of knead time. If you’re doing this by hand, it’s 6-8 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic. Put into an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled in bulk 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Mine rose substantially in just under an hour, since it’s finally over 65 today, and because I added that bit of extra yeast.

Punch down, turn out, and split into two pieces. Shape into a loaf, and place in a greased loaf pan. Sprinkle with flour, cover, and let rise a half hour to 45 minutes. If your loaves rise too much more than double, the crust will get all striated and you run the risk of collapse. So be on the lookout! Typically mine rise just under double, because I fear the collapsed loaf, and I’m impatient. But these two were beauties–they rose just over the edge of the pan.

Preheat oven to 375, and bake 35-40 minutes or until they sound hollow when tapped. Carefully take the loaves out of the pans to cool. It’s better for the crust.

Again, bread’s easy to make once you’ve tried it, and there’s nothing like the smell of baking loaves. As you can see, I didn’t wait until even after the picture was taken to snag a piece. Yum.

BBQ in the oven

We received this set of barbecue sauces last Christmas from one of Mr. Pea’s cousins. They’re from Stonewall Kitchen (so is this picture, incidentally), which is known for it’s tasty treats from Maine. The other night I used the Maple Chipotle sauce on chicken breasts that I then just popped into a 350-degree oven for a half an hour or so. They were boneless and skinless–the kind that easily dries out when baked–but they were delicious! The sweetness of the maple is really only a hint in the sauce. It’s really, really good, and the chicken stayed incredibly moist. I’ve yet to try the Vidalia Fig (I actually have two bottles of that, so I’d better start using it!) but I’m sure it’s also tasty. In case you’re curious, I sauteed some onions and garlic in a butter/olive oil combination, added 1 c. of brown rice, toasted it, and then added 2 1/2 c. water and let simmer for 45 minutes for a side dish. It would have been better with chicken broth, but with a little salt and pepper it wasn’t bad. But the chicken–and Stonewall’s sauce, in particular–were clearly the stars!

Mock Bolognese

I intended to use the nice ground beef I’d bought for burgers, but, as often happens, I craved pasta when the time came to make dinner. Lacking all the proper ingredients for a proper bolognese, I made this mock bolognese sauce. What you see here is actually the leftovers, packaged for lunch; when I finished making dinner, I wasn’t up for photography–I was hungry!

Anyway, the sauce was delicious, and I highly recommend making it.

You’ll need:
One onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 lb. ground beef (we had 85% lean–normally I’d get 90%)
1 28-oz. can of whole tomatoes (bolognese usually has crushed, but this was what I had)
salt and pepper
oregano
1/2 c. milk

Start by browning the meat in a deep, wide skillet. When it’s about done, add onions and cook, stirring often, until they’re beginning to get transluscent, five or six minutes. Add the garlic, and cook for a minute or so. Add the can of tomatoes (don’t drain them or anything–it all goes in) and break them up with a wooden spoon or whatever you’re using here. Add s&p and a dash of oregano. Bring to a simmer, and let simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally. After the hour is up, add the milk. I know, it sounds weird, but it’s delicous. Bring back up to a simmer, and cook for 15-20 minutes more. In the meantime, make some pasta. What you see here is a combination of the odds and ends in our pantry–a little gemelli, a little rigatoni. This’ll sauce about a pound, unless you’re hungry and can’t stop eating the sauce. In that case, it’ll cover, um, less. It reheats really well, so it makes for some tasty lunches.  It’s also just a good base sauce–you can add carrots (my original bolognese recipe calls for diced carrots with the onions, but I had none this time), red pepper flakes, mushrooms, whatever floats your boat.

I seem to have disappeared!

I’ve not blogged the last several days, I know. We had a wedding this weekend, and I’ve had Sweet Pea stuff to do, and tonight we got take out–the list goes on and on. I did a little baking on Saturday, but have I taken a photo? Noooo. But here, I’ll fill you in, anyway. I made almond squares. I like almond squares when I have a craving for almond flavor but no actual almonds. They’re just a little cake, chopped into, well, squares. I doctored a recipe my grandma gave me–hers calls for a whole stick of butter in a wee 8″ pan, so I tried to find a way to make it without so much butter. First, butter up an 8″ square pan, and turn the oven onto 350 degrees.

You’ll need:

1/2 stick of butter, melted (1/4 c.)

1 c sugar

1 c flour

1/4 c milk

1 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 eggs, beaten

pinch of salt

Mix all these things together. Pour into the pan. Bake for a half hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool and cut into squares. Easy and tasty!

Honey Oatmeal Wheat Bread

Ahoy, friendly readers. We ran out of bread again recently, which meant it was time to bake some loaves. This time I took an allrecipes recipe I’ve made a number of times and doctored it up to be my own. It’s a very delicious, very moist, slightly sweet loaf that makes fantastic toast.

You’ll need:
2 c boiling water
1 c oats
2 T butter
scant 2 t salt
1/4 c honey
1/4 c brown sugar (you can cut this down if you like your bread less sweet)
1 pkg (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
1/2 c warm water
3-4 c bread flour
1 c wheat flour

Start with your oats, sugar, honey, butter, and salt in your mixing bowl. Add boiling water, stir, and let sit an hour to soften up the oats.

In a small bowl, add yeast, and pour water over. Allow to sit 10 minutes until frothy.

Add yeast mixture to oats, and begin adding flour. You can stir in the first 2 or 3 cups of it, including the wheat flour. After that, you need either more elbow grease or a stand mixer. I opt for the mixer. Add flour by the half-cup and allow the mixer to knead the dough (or do it by hand) for several minutes, until dough begins to clear the sides of the bowl and/or is smooth and elastic. The original recipe called for only 4 total cups of flour, which left me with a really sticky dough. I prefer at least five, and occasionally more for a little hand kneading at the end. Making bread, you see, eventually becomes a really intuitive process, and it can be kind of hard to articulate the details of it

Anyway, put dough in an oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk, 60-90 minutes. I put mine on top of the dishwasher while it ran. Nice and toasty. Then, punch dough down, divide in half, and shape into loaves. Place loaves in greased loaf pans (8.5 x 4 or 9 x 5 are good), and dust with flour. Cover with plastic wrap. The flour allows the dough to rise and not stick to the plastic; I’ve lost too many pretty tops of loaves when they stuck. Allow to rise 40-60 minutes, until again doubled in bulk. Preheat oven to 375, and bake for 30 minutes. Once you make your own bread, you’ll have a hard time ever going back to store-bought. It’s far more tasty to do it yourself, and cheaper, to boot.

Summer Greens

Here are our seedlings! I bought Mr. Pea this book for his birthday last year after he’d talked about wanting to start a vegetable garden. So far, the process it details is working like a charm. The book has you create a special soil blend, and will eventually result in a special garden box in the yard. In the front are little lettuce seedlings; to the right, green beans; and to the left, zucchini. Tasty. These will go in the yard box, and I’ll grow some tomatoes in some pots on the porch. Seeing how rainy, windy and gross it is today certainly makes me wish for summer.

Ridiculously Tasty Cupcakes

I bake most Fridays. It’s the only day of the week (besides the weekend) that I don’t have to go into either office, so I like to take an hour or so and make something sweet. This past Friday I made Amy Sedaris’ vanilla cupcakes. If you haven’t browsed through her 2006 book I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, you don’t know what you’re missing. Amy’s a hoot, and she’s crafty, and she likes to cook. She’s a girl after my own heart. Ever see her on Letterman? It’s hilarious. Anyway, she sells cupcakes and cheeseballs, and in this book was generous enough to share recipes for both. I made a half-batch of cupcakes. There was a minor kitchen incident in the process wherein I almost killed a whole stick of butter, but I digress.

Yesterday I went looking for frosting recipes. People, this is the best chocolate frosting I have tasted. It’s fudgy and rich, and doesn’t taste like confectioner’s sugar with a little cocoa. I modified a recipe I found on allrecipes to make it. It tastes kind of like the chocolate that goes on top of donuts. Can’t go wrong there.

So bake up your favorite cupcake, and give this frosting a go.

You’ll need

Just over 2 1/2 T of butter, softened
1/4 c of cocoa
tiniest bit of salt
1 1/2 T boiling (or really hot) water
3/4 c confectioner’s sugar.

Cream butter. Add the cocoa, salt and water, beating until smooth. Add sugar and beat until spreadable. Easy as pie, and you’ll want to lick the bowl clean.

Rice and Beans

Last night I looked around the ol’ fridge, pantry and freezer and thought that really, this time I’d reached the end of cooking possibilities. There were lots of odds and ends, but nothing that seemed to create an actual meal. Then I remembered I had a can of black beans waaaay in the back of the pantry, and that I’d bought a brick of extra sharp cheddar, and that I had tortillas. I was in business. I made black beans a yellow, Mexican-inspired rice. I went over to the Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood (their slogan is “Mexican Food Made By Real Mexicans,” I kid you not) and got some proper salsa and chips. And Horchata, those tasty fruit sodas. Pina for me, Mandarina for Mr. Pea. I made quesadillas to go with, and we had ourselves a nice little feast.

So to make the rice, you need:
olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1-3 cloves of garlic, depending on how much you like it, minced
1 c long grain rice
pinch of turmeric
bigger pinch cumin
little pinch cayenne (I’m a sissy)
2 c vegetable or chicken broth (I had one last bouillion cube I used)

Put just under a tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan and warm over medium-high heat. Add onions and sprinkle with salt; stirring occasionally, cook until transluscentish, about 3 or 5 minutes. Then add the garlic, another minute. Then add your rice, and let it toast up a minute or two. Then add your spices, cooking just a few seconds. Then, finally, add the broth. Bring it to a boil (stir so it won’t stick), and then turn it to low, covering it. About twenty minutes later, tasty rice.

For the beans:
olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
One can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 c water
pinch oregano
a couple good spoonfulls of tasty salsa

We follow the same procedure here. Get a pan, add oil, heat, add onion and a little salt, cook until transluscentish, add garlic, cook thirty seconds. Then you add your beans, and stir them around, cooking a minute or so. I had this on high heat, since I was impatient Then add the water and oregano. Bring to a boil, turn to medium-low, and cover. Five or so minutes later, add salsa, and let simmer several minutes more. Tasty! They’d be good in a burrito, too, I’d bet.

And then some days I’m lazy.

I realized yesterday that we had very little food that actually combined to make anything in the house.  I do have stuff to make black beans and rice, and even tortillas, but since Mr. Pea wasn’t going to be home until late, I didn’t think the tortilla part would really make it until then.  So I ordered some tasty Thai take out.  Feeling a headache coming on, I ordered it at 7 and retired to the couch to watch the Sox.  The lady who took my order said it would be an hour, and asked if I’d rather pick it up. I said no (my Flintstone-mobile–ie, my feet–were in no mood for the mile walk), and waited.  And waited.  And at 8:20, I called.  The woman explains that the driver was not in tonight, and that the cook would take it over soon.  A few more minutes, she requests.  Fine, says I.  I eat some goldfish, watch some tv, and wait.  At 9, still no food, and I’m about out of fish. I call back to cancel the order, and she hollers that he’d just left!  Just wait! And ten minutes later, he finally shows up.  He actually arrives at the same time as Mr. Pea returned, so that worked out well.  But really, two hours for take out?  If she’d told me they’d likely be busy and an hour was a hopeful estimate, I’d have told her to forget it.  If she’d been honest when I said “A few more minutes, or a half hour?” I’d have been relieved!  All’s well that ends well, but the lesson is learned.  When feeling lazy, sometimes you’re better off with cereal.

Cooking Sources

I like to make a bunch of new things every week, and that means I have to look at a lot of sources to find recipes! Sometimes I make this recipes exactly as written; other times, I just use them for inspiration.

One of my favorite sources is Cook’s Illustrated, a no-frills magazine that is put out by the PBS series (that I adore) America’s Test Kitchen. Free of advertising, each issue is packed with recipes that explain the trial and error process of creating them, lots of product and gadget tips, and other useful info. I love this magazine (photo is from Amazon, incidentally–I didn’t take it).

We also subscribe at the Pea household to Everyday Foods, a product of the Martha Stewart juggernaut. What I like about this magazine is that it focuses on things you can make without a good deal of unusual ingredients–stuff you might easily have on hand–and things that can be made on a weeknight. Good for recipes, good for inspiration.

I am also an avid fan of food blogs. Some of my favorites are listed in the sidebar, which I really ought to update. What I like about food blogs is that you get more than just the recipe–you also get detailed patter. Helpful suggestions about what works and what didn’t, substitutions that can be made, that sort of information is very helpful to the cook on the fly!

I like Allrecipes.com for the same reason. Not only can I search by ingredient (handy when you only have a few things in the pantry), I can read zillions of reviews that discuss improvements, variations, recipe problems, and so on. I really like that feature, and it’s saved me some hassle in the few years I’ve used it.

I also have a stash of cookbooks, and backissues of Cooking Light, which essentially clutter the cubby in my china chest. I like to read them almost as much as novels, and the sad thing is, I certainly have more time for brief recipe reviews than entire chapters these days

What do you like to read for cooking tips or inspiration?