Buttermilk Bulgur Bread
In case you've just crawled out from under a rock, somewhere, it's snowing. A lot. It's wonderful. I'm loving every foot of it - and yes, it's being measured in feet!
We've been eating well since this all began and have a few more fun meals coming up.
We had leftover Chicken Pot Pie for lunch today. It was the perfect winter lunch. And tonight, I'm making New England Clam Chowder - in Bread Bowls.
I was hunting through different bread books when I found this in the Bob's Red Mill Cook Book.
I've never made it before but it seemed like it would compliment clam chowder well.
Buttermilk Bulgur Bread
- 1 Tb Yeast, Active Dry
- 3 Tb Honey
- 1/2 cup Bulgur (ALA) from Hard Red Wheat
- 1/3 cup Unsalted Butter, melted
- 2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
- 2 Tb Cornmeal, Coarse Grind
- 1/4 cup Warm Water (110 degrees)
- 2 tsp Tomato Paste
- 1-1/2 cups Buttermilk, warmed
- 1/2 tsp Sea Salt
- 2 cups White Flour, Unbleached
Place yeast in a large bowl. Cover with warm water; let stand until yeast begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Add honey and tomato paste, and whisk until smooth. Stir in bulgur and buttermilk; let stand 20 minutes.
Stir the butter and salt into the bulgur mixture. Then stir in the whole wheat flour and about 1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour to make a stiff dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 15 minutes, adding more flour if necessary to keep dough from sticking. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, turn once to coat and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume (about 1-1/2 hours).
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; punch down and divide in half. Roll and pull each half until it resembles a loaf of French or Italian bread.
Sprinkle a baking sheet with coarse cornmeal and place the loaves on the sheet. Brush loaves lightly with water; cover loosely with a towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 45 minutes to an hour.
Preheat oven to 400F.
With a sharp knife, slash the surface of the loaves four or five times; brush again with water. Bake until crisp and hollow sounding when tapped with your finger, about 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
I made two individual bowl-sized boules and one large loaf. I really should have used two ovens for this, but I didn't. The loaves were a bit cramped on the stone. Oh well. They may look a bit weird, but they look and smell great!
They should eb perfect foir the clam chowder and Victor made a Cannoli Cake for dessert.
I'm loving this weather!
Chicken Pot Pie
Knowing for the past couple of days that the next storm of the century is imminent, I decided to plan. A little.
Disaster Planning is something I've been doing for years. And years. Fireman's son, for one, but then there was Uncle Sam's Yacht Club... how to feed 5000 sailors at General Quarters. Or all those hotels where we had to deal with fires, evacuations, storms, and power loss... How to feed a thousand hotel guests with no electricity. Or all the years in health care. Feeding patients and staff - and the general public - in case of earthquake or other disaster - natural or man-made.
Fortunately, there were only a few times in my career where we actually had to implement a disaster plan - and never for long. I was lucky. But like the Boy Scout I once was, I was always prepared.
The common thread in every plan was having supplies immediately accessible. I couldn't rely on getting a food delivery 24 hours after an earthquake. I needed to have food and supplies on-premise, menus and recipes available, and an action plan to prepare it all based on a hundred different variables; no electricity, no running water, gas but no electricity, water but no gas... you get the picture.
And that's something that's always in the back of my mind. In order for disaster planning to work, it really needs to be second nature. You just do it. We have a propane cooktop, so we can cook even if the electricity goes out. And if the electricity does go out? Uh... It's snowing outside. It's cold. Snow and a couple of ice chests will keep the perishables safe. We're set.
One thing we always have in the house is food. Real food. Ingredients. Flour, sugar, yeast, powdered milk. Coffee. Canned goods. A well-stocked freezer with vacuum-packed everything. (I love our FoodSaver!) Not to mention our legendary Spice Cabinet. For us, the foundation is there. We don't have to run to the grocery store and panic-buy our French Toast fixin's (milk, bread, and eggs). We already have them.
I had a hankerin' for a chicken pot pie tonight but knew it would take too long to make it from scratch after getting home from work today, so I cooked the chicken last night after dinner. Today, all I had to do was make the crust and filling and bake.
I don't really have a recipe for the Pot Pie. It's just something I make. But our friend Ann sent her recipe off to us and it's a pretty close approximation to what I did tonight. I added unpeeled, cubed potatoes and some celery and omitted the bell pepper. The broth was from the chicken I cooked last night, but canned or from a carton would work, too.
The crust is pure simplicity in a food processor.
Pie Dough
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup cold butter
- pinch salt
- 1/2 cup cold water
Add flour and salt to bowl of processor. Cut butter into chunks and pulse until crumbly. Add water and pulse about a dozen times.
At this point, the dough is pretty much all crumbs. Gather it up and press it into two disks - one larger for the bottom crust and one smaller for the top.
Roll out on floured board.
And here is Ann's recipe. It's pretty classic.
Nursie’s Pot Pie
Nursie said she originally got this from a pie crust box.
- 1/3 c butter
- 1/3 c flour
- 1 very small chopped onion (or to taste)
- 1/2 c chopped green pepper, leave this out if you want to
- 1 1/2 c broth, chicken for chicken pie, beef for beef pie, and I use veggie broth for pork pie
- 1/3 cup milk
- 2 c frozen mixed veggies
Cook the onion and green pepper in the butter for a bit, whisk in the flour and add the liquids, cook until thickened. I season with salt, pepper, herbes de Provence, but you can use what ever sounds good. A little celery seed isn’t a bad addition, and with beef I use garlic and mushrooms instead of the green pepper. Add 2-3 cups chopped leftover roast whatever and the vegetables. Mix well and dump into the pie crust.
Bake in a two crust pie at 425 for 30-40 minutes and enjoy.
No shit, this is delicious. You can use whatever veggies you have around including leftovers. It is a great end of the week and I don’t want to cook sorta dish. But it is good enough for company! Anyone want to come to dinner?
I made enough for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.
I think tomorrow night's snowbound dinner is going to be Clam Chowder in Bread Bowls. Depends on whether I can make a small enough bread bowl.
Bring on the snow.
I'm prepared.
Cassoulet and Apple Fig Coffee Cake
The Super Bowl is on TV. I hate to admit it but I'm really not all that interested this year. I'm not home for the first time in forever. We used to fly home for my father's birthday - which just happened to coincide with Super Bowl Sunday. A big party at my sister Eileen's house, lots of fun, food, laughter - and football pools. No matter what, it was the one time of the year we knew we would all be together. Pop's no longer with us and because we're flying home in a couple of months for my nieces wedding, we stayed east this year. Right off the bat, I'm feeling the blah's.
And there are two teams playing that I really could not care less about. Okay. Not totally true. I don't particularly want New Orleans to win, but I do want Indianapolis to lose. I opened a hotel in Indianapolis circa 1988. I pretty much dislike Indianapolis. A lot.
So while others are having their football parties, I'm catching it peripherally. It's on in the corner of the computer and it's on in the living room.
I decided to cook for the weather, not football tonight. I soaked a pound of black beans last night thinking I might make chili. The chili morphed into a cassoulet of sorts. Not a classic cassoulet by any means. More just a homey slow-baked bean stew.
Kinda Cassoulet
- 4 bacon slices, coarsely chopped
- 1 lb beef, cubed
- 1 lb pork, cubed
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tbsp herbs d'Provence
- 1/2 cup brandy
- 1 lb black beans, soaked over night and cooked
- 1 can diced tomatoes in juice
- 1 10-ounce package frozen baby lima beans, thawed
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
Preheat oven to 275°F.
Cook bacon in heavy large ovenproof pot until wilted. Add onions and garlic. Add meats and brown.
Add brandy and simmer until almost evaporated. Add tomato paste and heat through. Stir in beans with about 2 cups cooking liquid, tomatoes with juices, and spices. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to boil.
Cover pot and transfer to preheated oven and bake 2 hours.
I was going to make some beer bread but got sidetracked with a project I'm working on for a friend... so we had the last of the Pugliese I made last week. It worked.
And every dinner needs dessert, right?!? Well... we think so!
Victor made an Apple and Fig Coffee Cake. Not a coffee cake in the traditional sense of the word, but a cake with a cup of coffee in it!
Apple Fig Coffee Cake
- 1 Tbsp instant coffee
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 1/2 cups chopped figs
- 2 medium apples
- 2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
- 3/4 c packed brown sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 beaten egg
- 2 tbsp butter, melted
Dissolve coffee in boiling water. Cool. Peel, core, and shred the apples.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
Combine egg, apples, melted butter, and coffee. Add to dry ingredients, stirring just till moistened.
Put it into a greased 9x5x3 loaf pan. Bake at 350° for about an hour or until cake tests done.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.
I did stop what I was doing to watch The Who. Roger can't hit those high notes anymore, but he does a pretty good job for being 66. I was bummed that Pete Townsend didn't destroy his guitar at the end. Oh well.
And as long as I'm ranting... Wasn't the Super Bowl - once upon a time - where they ran really cool, innovative commercials? These things they've shown tonight are awful.
Picture Perfect Pizza
I have to laugh at the pizza commercial that says their frozen pizza is as good as delivery pizza.
Uh. Right.
I made hand-spun pizza for years. I made a hellava lot of pizzas for delivery. Not one of them was half as good as having that pie delivered to your table right out of the oven. It's great marketing that can convince someone that a mediocre product is as good as a mediocre product - and get them to buy it.
I've had a few frozen pizzas in my time that were reasonably good - for a frozen pizza - but nothing compares to a fresh-made and fresh-baked pizza.
In case you hadn't heard, it's snowing back here today. A perfect excuse to turn on the oven and bake a fresh pizza.
This was a team effort. Victor made the dough and the sauce, I put it together and baked it. We work well in the kitchen together.
We have a couple of pizza dough recipes we use. Today was BH&G New Cook Book. (Well... it was new in 1981 when Victor got it...)
Pizza Dough
- 1 1/2 cups warm water (100º to 105º)
- 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
- 4 cups “00” flour or unbleached all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
- 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
- olive oil for bowl
Sprinkle yeast over warm water in bowl of mixer fitted with dough hook. Let proof about 5 minutes.
Mix together flour and salt. Add to yeast mixture. Mix on low speed about 4 minutes or until dough forms a coarse ball. Stop mixer and cover bowl with a towel. Let dough rest about 5 minutes, then remove towel and continue mixing another 2 minutes or so.
Lightly oil a large bowl. Form dough into a ball, transfer to bowl and turn to lightly coat with oil. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature 30 minutes, then refrigerate overnight.
Punch down dough, re-roll, and return to bowl. Tightly cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours.
Divide dough into 2 pieces; shape pieces into balls and place on a lightly floured work surface. Loosely cover with a damp kitchen towel and let rise at warm room temperature until doubled, about 2 hours.
The pizza sauce was simply a can of tomato sauce, a splash of red wine, garlic, Greek oregano, salt, and pepper.
I topped it with cheese and homemade Italian sausage.
It was the exact size of the pizza stone. Luck or skill? If you voted luck, you would be right.
Pizza for lunch was just what the weatherman ordered, since it's been snowing now for about 20 hours non-stop - with more to come.
A good dinner tonight and another loaf of fresh bread tomorrow.
I love this weather!
Pane Pugliese and Lentilles du Puy
More bread. I just can't think of a better food right now. It's still a bazillion degrees below zero (or so it seems) and the only sensible thing is to stay indoors and heat the kitchen.
I've been making this particular bread for years. It may be one of the easiest, no-brainer-fool-proof breads in the world. And one of the absolute best-tasting.
Today, I really proved the fool-proof part.
Our neighbor across the street just had his gall bladder removed. Since he regularly comes over and plows our driveway when it snows, it is imperative that he regain his good health immediately. I thought fresh-baked bread and a no-fat lentil soup was just the thing to help him on the road to recovery.
This is a basic white-flour recipe. I pulled the biga out of the 'fridge (left over from the Pan Siciliano), got it mixed with the yeast and the water and - exactly 6 cups of flour. I needed 7 1/2. I don't think I've ever run out of flour before, but I have been doing a lot of bread-baking. I did another search to make sure there wasn't a 5 lb bag hiding somewhere. I have whole wheat flour, I have rye flour, I have graham flour, I have self-rising flour. There's even corn flour. No more white flour.
There was absolutely no way I was leaving the house. I added a cup and a half of whole wheat.
The dough came out great. Felt good, it had a great smell to it. Into a ball, into a bowl, and into the "proofing room" it went. (For those not in the know... I just open the heater vents in our powder room and it becomes the warmest and best environment for proofing bread.)
The recipe makes three good-sized loaves and I have generally been able to get them all to fit on one peel. Well... today, they seemed to have a bit more of a mind of their own than usual.
They got big. One was actually hanging off the side a bit.
I already planned to do two loaves in one oven and the third in the other, but as I was sliding the first loaf in, the second fell right off the peel and landed upside down halfway in the oven, laying across the heating element and the door.
Ooops!
I quickly slid the third loaf onto the butcher block and carefully picked up the fallen loaf. I got it into the bottom oven, slid the third one back onto the peel, and got it into the oven.
The loaf in the picture above is the one that fell. It came out pretty awesome. A bit misshapen, but awesome.
THAT is a forgiving loaf of bread.
Pane Pugliese
- 1 packet dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 3 cups water; room temp
- 1 cup biga
- 7 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp salt
Proof the yeast in the warm water. Add 1 1/2 c water and the biga, mix till blended. Add flour and salt, mix till dough comes together and pulls off the sides of the bowl. Knead 3-5 minutes in a mixer, longer by hand. Dough will be very soft and elastic. Let rise about 3 hours, shape into 2 small round loaves or 1 big flattish one. If you have baking stones, place loaves on baking peel or on baking sheets sprinkled corn meal. Let rise about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 450°, and 10 minutes before baking flour the loaf tops and dimple them with your fingers. Bake 50-60 minutes for big loaves, 30-35 minutes for small. Tap the loaves to test for doneness (hollow=done) and cool on a rack.
And the biga. I would imagine it could stay in the 'fridge and just keep adding to it as I used to do with my starters years ago.
Biga
- 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 1/4 cup water (room temperature)
- 3 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Stir the yeast into the warm water and let stand until creamy – about 10 minutes. Stir in the remaining water and then the flour, one cup at a time.
Mix with the paddle attachment on the mixer at the lowest speed about 2 minutes.
Remove to a slightly oiled bowl, cover, and let rise at cool room temperature for 6 to 24 hours. The starter will triple in volume and still be wet and sticky when ready. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
During all of this commotion, I was also making lentil soup. With French lentils. Lentilles du Puy. I'm brave. I'll pair Italian bread with French lentils. Fancy restaurants would charge an arm and a leg and call it fusion.
I call it getting my driveway plowed.
I made two versions of the soup. I added cooked sausage and chicken to ours after taking out half for our neighbor. (I wasn't being cheap. Gall bladder removal = low fat diet. Sausage is definitely not on his diet right now.)
The recipe is for making it all at once. I had a chicken breast in the 'fridge that needed cooking, so I cut it up and added it to the sausage when I cooked it. You can make it vegetarian simply by omitting the sausage/chicken.
Potage de lentille du Puy
- 1 onion, diced
- 6 carrots, chopped
- 6 celery stalks, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb French green lentils (or other lentils)
- 10 cups water
- 1 sm can tomato paste
- 2 tsp Herbs d'Provence
- 2 bay leaves
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 lb sausage, sliced
Brown sausage, onions, carrots, cekery, and garlic together in soup pot. When cooked reasonably well, add water, lentils, tomato paste and seasonings.
Bring to boil and then simmer uncovered until lentils are tender and soup has thickened slightly.
Check for seasoning and add additional salt and/or pepper, as desired.
We're not expecting any snow showers until next weekend.
Pane Bigio
Today was another bread-making day. Howling winds, pouring rain... No way was I stepping outside for anything. This was the perfect excuse to stay indoors.
Actually, I knew last night that I was baking bread today. There were 5 pounds of whole wheat flour sitting on the shelf telling me to get it together. I started going through Beard on Bread. Nothing was catching my eye. Nothing was screaming "Bake Me! Bake Me!" So I closed Mr Beard and grabbed my tattered copy of The Italian Baker by Carol Field to check out something Italian and whole wheat. For all of the great recipes in that book, I have to admit that I continually make the same few. I needed to get out of my rut.
I found a bread that sounded intriguing - Pan Bigio. Whole wheat, uses a biga - or starter - and makes two or three loaves. It sounded a lot like my absolute favorite Pane Pugliese except it's whole wheat. Sold.
I made my biga and let it sit out overnight.
Because there's about 4 hours of rising time with this dough, I started off bright and early this morning. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't going anywhere...
The biga makes about 2 1/2 cups or so and I only needed one for the bread, so I took what I needed and the rest went into the fridge for another day. It actually will only get better the older it gets - it's what gives sourdough its flavor.
Time to make the dough.
Pane Bigio
From The Italian Baker by Carol Field
Makes 2 large or 3 smaller round loaves
- 1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 2 1/2 cups water, room temperature
- 1 cup (250 grams) Biga
- Scant 2 cups (250 grams) whole-wheat flour, stone ground if possible
- 3 3/4 cups (500 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon salt (1 teaspoon more, optional)
To make Biga:
- 5 1/2 ounces / 150 grams all-purpose flour
- 3 1/2 ounces / 100 grams water
- 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
Mix together, cover and let sit on the counter for 6 to 24 hours to develop.
Dough:
Stir yeast into the warm water in a mixer bowl and let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Add 2 1/2 cups water and the biga and mix with the paddle until the water is chalky white and the biga is broken up. Add the flours and salt and mix until the dough comes together. You may need to add a bit more flour, up to 2 tablespoons, but the dough will never pull clean away from the side and bottom of the bowl. Change to the dough hook and knead 5 minutes at medium speed. Finish kneading the sticky, wet dough by hand on a well-floured surface, sprinkling the top with about 3 or 4 more tablespoons of flour.
First Rise: Place the dough in a lightly oiled large bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until tripled and full of large holes, about 3 hours. Do not punch down.
Shaping and Second Rise: Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and gently shape into 2 big flat rounds or 3 smaller ones, pulling tight on the surface of the dough with your cupped hands to make a taut loaf. Place the loaves, rough side up, on well-floured baking sheets, peels or parchment paper set on baking sheets. Cover with a towel and let rise until there are lots of aid bubbles under the surface, about 1 hour.
Baking: Thirty minutes before baking, heat the oven with baking stones in it to 450°F. You can also use a cast-iron or aluminuim griddle that is a least 3/8 inch thick or preheated heavy baking sheets. Dimple the tops of the loaves all over with your fingertips or knuckles and let rest for 10 to 15 mintues. Just before baking, sprinkle the stones or griddle with cornmeal. Gently invert the loaves onto the stones. The bread will look deflated when you initially put it in, but it will puff up like a big pillow in no time. Bake for 25 miutes, then shift the loaves to equalize baking. Bake for a total of 45 to 55 minutes, until the loaves are a deep golden brown. Cool on racks.
Mix, knead, and into the bowl it went.
This really is a wet and sticky dough. I had to resist adding more flour. Had I not read that it was supposed to be a wet and sticky dough, I'm sure I would have added way too much more.
But after mixing and kneading - even wet and sticky - it felt right. I knew this one was going to come out!
Three hours later we achieved a most fantastic dough.
It was loose, but it had body.
I made three loaves and let them rise right on the peel.
Into that 450° oven and 40 minutes later...
Three puffy pillows of bread.
There's a chicken and rice casserole in the oven and butter softening on the counter.
C'mon, dinnertime!
Pork Roast, Rye Bread, and an Apple Tart
I decided it was time to do something a tad bit different tonight - a bone-in pork roast!
It's been a while.
The seasonings were pretty basic - garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. The fun twist cam in the pan - red wine and lingonberry concentrate! (Thank you, Ikea!!) I poured about a cup of wine and a half-cup of the lingonberry concentrate in the pan and used it to baste the pork as it was cooking.
I quartered a couple of potatoes and added them to the pork roast pan about half-way through the cooking. The pan juices made a perfect sauce.
And because I was at the grocery store today... I picked up a bag of rye flour. Which, of course, meant I had to make a loaf of rye bread.
Actually, I made two loaves. James Beard, again.
Rye Bread
- 1 pkg active dry yeast
- 3 tbsp honey
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 cup warm milk combined with 1/2 cup warm water
- 2 tbsp softened butter
- 1 heaping tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp caraway seeds
- 2 1/2 cups rye flour
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (or more, if needed)
- 1/4 cup cornmeal
- 1 egg white beaten lightly with 2 tbsp water
Disolve the yeast and honey in the warm water and allow the mixture to proof for 4 or 5 minutes.
Combine the warm milk and warm water with the softened butter and add to the yeast mixture along with the salt and caraway seeds.
Add the flour, 1 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When you have addeed about 4 1/2 cups the dough will become difficult to stir and quite sticky, but continue to add the remaining flour a tablespoon at a time.
Scrape out the dough onto a floured board, and using a baker's scraper or a large metal spatula, scrape under the dough and fold the dough over. Continue to lift and fold, and with your free hand start pressing down and away from you on these folded areas, adding more flour as needed to dust your hands and to sprinkle the board.
After 2 or 3 minutes of this procedure you can eliminate the scraper.
Flour both hands and knead for about 10 minutes, until the dough is soft, velvety, and elastic.
Shape the dough into a ball and place in a well-buttered bowl, turning to coat with the butter. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm, draft-free area to double in bulk, which will take from 1 to 2 hours.
Punch down, turn out on a lightly floured board, and divide into two equal pieces.
Let the dough rest for 2 or 3 minutes, and then shape into two loaves, either free-form or for well-buttered 8 x 4 x 2-inch loaf pans.
If you are making free-form loaves allow them to rise, covered, on a buttered baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal until almost doubled in size, and then quickly invert them and brush with the egg and water mixture.
Otherwise, let the loaves rise, covered, in their pans until they have doubled in bulk and then brushing the tops with the egg white and water mixture.
Bake at 400° from 45 to 50 minutes or until the loaves sound hollow when tapped with the knuckles.
Cool thoroughly on racks before slicing.
Beard, like Julia Child, or many other cookbook writers, go into a lot of detail and tend to make things sound more complicated than they really are. This is a pretty easy bread to make.
And tasty, too!
Speaking of tasty...
Guess what Victor made for desert last night?!?
A bit of a free-form puff pastry with apples!
He rolled out a sheet of puff pastry, sauteed a couple of granny smith apples in butter, brown sugar and a bit of white sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. He sprinkled in a big teaspoon of flour to help thicken it all, and set it in the middle of the pastry, folded up the sides and into the oven it went - following the instructions on the puff pastry package.
Yumlicious!
Bean Soup and Beer Bread
Back in the Saddle, Again... Or, should I say, "back in the kitchen, again"?"
It seems that Victor has been doing a lot of cooking the past few weeks. It's been fun for both of us, but I must admit I do miss making my messes. Uh, er... I mean cooking.
Since it actually made it up to a balmy 22° today with only 40 mph winds, I thought soup and bread would be a good combination. I had soaked a bag of canary beans last night with no real idea of what I was going to do with them, so the frigid weather made up my mind for me.
The bread was my old standby...
Beer Bread
- 3 cups self-rising flour
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 12oz can/bottle beer
- 4 tbsp butter, melted
Mix flour, sugar, and beer. Place in buttered bread pan. Pour melted butter on top.
Bake at 350° for one hour.
The type of beer you use will really make a difference! Today, I used Ithaca Beer Co. "Partly Sunny" beer. It's a "wheat ale brewed with spices". Quite good.
I had a ham bone in the freezer, so out it came, along with everything else in the refrigerator. This was really a clean out the refrigerator soup!
Bean Soup
- 1 pound canary (or other) beans, soaked overnight
- 1 ham bone
- 4 quarts water
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 whole cloves
- 6 peppercorns
- pinch salt
- 6 carrots, sliced
- 4 stalks celery, chopped
- 2 heads belgian endive
- 1/2 carton grape tomatoes
- freshly-grated parmesan cheese
Put bean, bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, and ham bone in pot and add water to cover. Simmer until beans are almost done. Add carrots, celery, and whatever vegetables are in the 'fridge and have to be used up.
Simmer until vegetables are cooked and beans just begin to break down and thicken.
Serve with fresh-baked bread and parmesan cheese.
Simplicity.
Between the simmering soup and the baking bread, the house was totally warm and filled with tantilizing scents.
Tomorrow is supposed to bring more cold weather and some flurries.
Can't wait. <sigh>
Our Biannual Dinner with Linda and David
Twice a year we have dinner with our friends Linda and David. July at their house to celebrate Linda's and my birthday, and the week between Christmas and New Year for our holiday festivities. It's great. They love food just as much as we do. We all go over the top just a bit when figuring out what to cook - always something we wouldn't do unless they (or we) were coming to dinner. It's a lot of fun.
This year, we decided to do a prime rib and individual Yorkshire puddings. I was going to do Trevor's popovers, but changed my mind at the last minute. Actually, I chickened out. I hadn't made a popover or Yorkshire pudding in a bazillion years and didn't want to publicly screw them up.
We started with a 4-bone rib roast.
I don't remember the last time I did a prime rib other than at some hotel or another where I was working. I actually may have never cooked one at home before. And I did mention that there were only four of us, right?!?
The roast went into the oven and the hors d'oeuvres were started.
We started with a baked brie with roasted figs in a citrus glaze. This was an impulse buy at Wegmans when we were shopping for dinner items. Victor saw the figs and went wild. We then picked up a wedge of brie and a star was born. It looked like cheesecake with topping before it went inti the oven.
It was ridiculously good.
And we had crab on cucumber slices.
These were really good, too.
Crab Salad on Cucumber Rounds
- 8 ounces crabmeat
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 3 tbsp minced red onion
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme
- 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 cucumber, sliced
Mix first 5 ingredients together. Add salt and pepper, if desired.
Place on cucumber slaices. Top with paprika.
We also had a hot artichoke and spinach dip, but I missed getting a picture.
Artichoke and Spinach Dip
- 1 cans Artichoke Hearts, coarsely chopped
- 1 box frozen Spinach, thawed and drained
- 1/2 cup Shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup Mayonnaise
- 1 tsp Garlic Powder
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Mix ingredients well and transfer to shallow baking dish. Broil until bubbly and browned.
And Dauphine potatoes!
These are fun. One of the hotels I worked in years ago served these all the time. When I win the lottery I want a commercial kitchen in the house - with a real deep fat fryer!
This recipe comes from Gourmet Magazine.
Dauphine Potatoes
- 1 1/2 pounds russet (baking) potatoes (about 3)
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
- 1 teaspoon salt
- a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 large eggs
- vegetable oil for deep-frying the potatoes
- coarse salt for sprinkling the croquettes if desired
Bake the potatoes in a preheated 425°F. oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until they are soft, halve them lengthwise, and scoop the potato out of the shells with a spoon, reserving the shells for another use. Force the scooped-out potato through a ricer or a food mill fitted with the medium disk into a large bowl. (There should be about 2 cups riced potato.)
In a saucepan combine 1/2 cup water, the butter, the salt, and the nutmeg, bring the mixture to a boil, and stir in the flour all at once. Reduce the heat to moderate and beat the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes, or until the paste pulls away from the side of the pan and forms a ball. Remove the pan from the heat, add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition, and beat the mixture until it is smooth and shiny.
Add the potatoes and beat the mixture until it is combined well. The potato mixture may be prepared up to this point 1 day in advance and kept covered and chilled. In a deep fryer or large kettle heat 2 inches of the oil until it registers 340°F. on a deep-fat thermometer. Transfer the potato mixture to a large pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch star tip and pipe eight 2 1/2-inch lengths, cutting them with kitchen shears or a small knife, directly into the oil. Fry the croquettes, turning them with a slotted spoon, for 3 minutes, or until they are crisp, golden, and cooked through, transfer them as they are fried to paper towels to drain, and sprinkle them with the salt. Make more croquettes in batches with the remaining potato mixture and transfer the drained croquettes to a rack set in a jelly-roll pan (to prevent them from becoming soggy). The croquettes may be made 2 hours in advance, kept covered loosely with paper towels at room temperature, and reheated on the rack in a preheated 400°F. oven for 5 minutes, or until they are heated through and crisp. If not making the croquettes in advance, keep them warm in a preheated 300°F. oven.
The zucchini boats were just hollowed out zucchini with a carrot puree - cooked carrots, honey, dill, and S&P. Baked at 350° for 20 minutes.
A simple salad...
And the Yorkshire Puddings...
These were a lot of fun - and gave me the confidence to make the popovers relatively soon.
Yorkshire Puddings
- 4 large, fresh eggs, measured in a jug
- Equal quantity of milk to eggs
- Equal quantity of all purpose/plain flour to eggs
- Pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp beef drippings
- Heat oven to 450°.
- Pour the eggs and milk into a large mixing bowl and add the pinch of salt. Whisk thoroughly with an electric hand beater or hand whisk. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.
- Gradually sieve the same volume of flour (as the eggs) into the milk and egg mixture, again using an electric hand beater or hand-whisk to create a lump free batter resembling thick cream, if there are any lumps pass the batter through a fine sieve.
- Leave the batter to rest in the kitchen for a minimum of 30 minutes, longer if possible - up to several hours.
- Place 1 tsp drippings in a Yorkshire pudding tin or muffin tin and heat in the oven until the fat is smoking. Give the batter another good whisk adding 2 tbsps of cold water and fill a third of each section of the tin with batter and return quickly to the oven.
- Leave to cook until golden brown approx 20 minutes.
And then we had dessert.
Okay. I freely admit that I must have been on drugs when I made these. My thought process was to make 4 individual Baked Alaskas. Another thing I haven't made in 30 or so years. The key word to note here is individual. Right.
Chocolate Cake
- 2 cups sugar
- 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1-1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1-1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup grapeseed (or other neutral) oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup boiling water
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line sheetpan with parchment paper.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely.
I started off with what looked like a small cake round.
And then it just went out of control.
I drizzled Blood Orange Syrup on the cake because I needed an excuse to open the syrup we bought down in DC at Cowgirl Creamery.
That "small cake round" was really pretty big. It took a lot of ice cream to properly cover it.
And then the meringue.
Meringue
- 6 egg whites
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Whip egg whites until foamy. Add vanilla and cream of tartar.
Slowly add sugar and whip until still and glossy - about 5 minutes.
The final step is to brown the meringue in a hot oven. One could use a blow torch, but I don't have one.
We split two of them between four of us - and even that was too much! (Okay - I could have eaten a whole one myself, but I'm a dessert/ice cream pig. And another great thing is we now have more desserts just for us!)
I actually did learn a few lessons with this meal - especially the all-important portioning. I really did forget just how big those desserts would grow. I could have made them on cupcake bottoms and they probably would have been just right.
But we had a wonderful time - and that's the most important thing.
And now we get to think about what to get Linda for her birthday... July is not that far away!
Lentil Soup and Fresh-Baked Bread
It's raining outside. It started raining yesterday on our way home from North Jersey. It's been raining ever since. It's melted all of the snow. All of it.
But melted snow or not, it's still cold outside. Damp and cold. Perfect soup weather. And fresh-baked bread weather.
We had the perfect ham bone that just screamed for a pot of water and a couple of bay leaves. It's amazing how so little can give so much. Victor made the soup. I made the bread.
Quantities are mere estimates. Add more or less of something. It's soup. It's flexible.
Victor's Lentil Soup
Large Ham bone – most of the meat cut of and coarsely diced
Large pot of water
- 3 cups Lentils
- 4 stalks Celery, diced
- 4 Carrots, diced
- 1 Onion, chopped
- 2 Garlic Cloves, nimced
- 3-4 Bay Leaves
- S&P
- Tabasco – to taste
Boil the ham bone with the bay leaves a couple of hours.
Add remaining ingredients (except the saved coarsely diced ham).
Simmer, uncovered, until lentils are cooked through.
Add S&P and a generous few splashes of Tabasco.
Remove bone and bay leaves.
Puree about a third of the soup and return to the pot.
Add the reserved ham and heat through.
While the soup was simmering, I made a loaf of bread. I used the same recipe as a few days ago. I formed it into a loaf and after brushing with the egg white and water, I generously sprinkled on sesame seeds. This is a half-batch which makes one loaf:
French-Style Bread
Ingredients
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 2 tsp granulated sugar
- 1 cup warm water (l00° to 115°, approximately)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups all-purpose or hard-wheat flour
- yellow cornmeal
- 1 egg white, mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water
Directions
Combine the yeast with sugar and warm water in a large bowl and allow to proof. Mix the salt with the flour and add to the yeast mixture, a cup at a time, until you have a stiff dough. Remove to a lightly floured board and knead until no longer sticky, about 10 minutes, adding flour as necessary. Place in a buttered bowl and turn to coat the surface with butter. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1½ to 2 hours.
Punch down the dough. Turn out on a floured board and shape into a long, French bread-style loaf. Place on a baking sheet that has been sprinkled with the cornmeal but not buttered. Slash the top of the loaf diagonally in two or three places, and brush with the egg wash. Place in a cold oven, set the temperature at 400°, and bake 35 minutes, or until well browned and hollow sounding when the top is rapped.
This really is one of the easiest breads in the world to make. It's quick, easy, and foolproof.
So... Tomorrow we are actually going shopping together. Victor hasn't been up to the new Wegmans, yet. This could be dangerous.
We're specifically shopping for Tuesday dinner with Linda and David. Prime Rib au jus, Yorkshire Pudding (instead of the popovers!), Dauphine Potatoes, Stuffed Zucchini, and Baked Alaska for dessert. It's going to be fun, because I haven't made any of these things in quite a while.
The danger is the two of us in a grocery store together. We've been known to spend the GNP of a few small emerging countries when shopping together, which is why I usually shop alone. (Not that I don't keep the economy afloat by myself...) And we even have a gift card.
It's gonna be fun!
Mincemeat Pie
We were talking last night and Victor said he had never had a Mincemeat Pie. I was surprised. We've made mincemeat cookies in the past, but, looking back, I couldn't really recall making a pie.
I decided I had to rectify the situation today!
I had most of the ingredients, I just needed a couple of apples and the suet. Try finding suet out here in "afraid of fat" land. It's difficult enough trying to find lard! I wasn't about to drive all over hell and creation for 2 ounces of suet, so I substituted butter. Close enough.
I also went looking for a recipe and couldn't find one I liked, so I took the best of several and made one up.
And since we still had some lard in the 'fridge, I made a real pie crust - 1 part butter to to parts lard.
Perfect Flaky Pie Crust
- 15oz flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 6oz lard
- 3oz butter
- 1/4 cup ice water
Place flour and salt in food processor. Add lard and butter in small pieces. Pulse a few times until crumbly. Add ice water a bit at a time until it forms a ball.
Divide into two disks, one larger than the other, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least an hour.
Mincemeat Filling
- 2 apples, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup golden raisins
- 1 cup dark raisins
- 1 cup dried currants
- 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 oz shredded beef suet (1/2 cup) (or 4 oz butter)
- 1/2 cup brandy
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp minced lemon zest
- 2 tsp minced orange zest
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ginger
Blend together all mincemeat ingredients in large pan. Cook on low heat until thick. Cool, then refrigerate.
To assemble:
Preheat oven to 400°F.Place sheetpan in oven on middle rack.
Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface into a 13-inch round and fit into a 10-inch glass pie plate. Spoon mincemeat into shell.
Top with second crust and crimp edges. Cut steam holes in crust.
Bake until pastry is golden brown, 50 minutes to 1 hour.
The crust was melt-in-your-mouth-flaky. The filling was just tart enough and not too sweet. A hint of the brandy and a hint of the spices, but nothing overpowered anything else.
And the best thing about all of this is we haven't gained any weight. The weight loss has stopped, but we haven't gained anything.
If we can keep this up until January 1st.....
Oma's Christmas Stollen
OMG! You should smell this house right now! I have died and gone to Culinary Heaven!
I've said over and over that our baking has been the best, ever. And I'm here to say it, again. It's the best, ever!
I got the recipe from a friend several years ago and finally decided to make it last year.
The first stollen I made was horrible. I totally and completely screwed it up. Don't ask me how - I just did. I actually threw it all away and re-did it. It was really good the second time, but this year?!? Perfection! Absolute perfection. Oma guided my hand.
It started with the dough. It felt right from the beginning. Even though I'm a baker, there are a lot of things I've just never baked before, and Stollen was one of those things.
When you bake a lot, you learn how to touch and feel dough. It speaks to you - you just need to learn how to listen with your hands. Today it spoke and I listened. It said "be patient".
It takes a lot longer to rise than the breads I'm used to making. It also takes longer to knead. Of course, the breads I'm used to making don't have a pound and a half of butter in them! Patience.
I cut the recipe in half because 4 loaves is more than I really need to have in the house.
Oma's Christmas Stollen
This recipe is huge and makes 8 loaves (it freezes well – in Germany, it’s traditional to consume the last Christmas stollen on Easter) so feel free to cut it in half. It isn’t overly sweet and heavy and nasty like traditional fruitcakes – it’s more like a sweet bread, and the butter in the recipe makes it very flaky.
- 6 pounds flour
- 2 cups white sugar
- 7 oz fresh yeast (about 80 gr dry)
- 1 lb golden raisins
- 1 t almond extract
- 3 t salt
- 3 lb butter
- 1 quart whole milk
- 1 lb dark raisins
- 1 lb blanched almonds, ground finely (but not overly fine – you get it)
- 1/2 lb citron, chopped finely (as above) and floured
In a saucepan, heat the milk. Remove from heat and add butter, sugar and salt. When just warm, add yeast. Put into large mixing bowl and begin to add flour, about five pounds, mixing well after each addition. Stir in raisins, citron and almonds. Add almond extract. Mix well and knead on floured board (dough will be a little sticky – you’ll use probably half a pound of flour doing this, which accounts for the six pound total) until it’s very smooth and elastic (about 20 minutes). Put into a covered bowl and let it rise until doubled. Divide dough into 8 parts and flatten each piece into a circle and fold over *almost* in half – the bottom diameter will be larger than the top. Let rise again until doubled and bake at 350° for 35 minutes. When cool, dust heavily with powdered sugar.
The house really isn't all that warm this time of year, either. I let them rise for several hours, formed the loaves, and let them rise, again, for several hours.
They look beautiful, they smell beautiful, and I know they're going to taste beautiful.
This is our year. No question about it.
And I think I finally figured out why... It's because we decided we weren't going to go crazy and bake a bazillion cookies like we do every year.
Just by cutting back and coming up with fewer batches of everything, the stress went away. Once we decided it just didn't matter, it all fell into place.
There's a few things still planned for the next few days and the weekend. And when we get to them, we get to them.
'Tis the Season to be Jolly!
And we are.