French Bread

I also took a stab at French baguettes yesterday with beautiful results. Mark Bitterman's "How to Cook Everything" is my source for this recipe (and for the ravioli dough and filling I spent the evening on yesterday).

Winning White Bread

I have been on a quest since the new year (2012) to make homemade bread for my family simply so I know what is going into their bodies. Experiments included 100% whole wheat, white and wheat blends, food processor and kitchen aid methods, boules, loaves, and more. Here is the winning white bread recipe. I will be making another loaf again today as the one I baked yesterday is half gone already! I'm also going to try making the dough ahead and freezing for future use. I will keep you posted.

Craig's White Bread makes 1 loaf Ingredients: 1 cup + 2 tbsp warm water (105°-115°) 1 tsp sugar 2¼ tsp or 1 packet yeast 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp salt 3½ cup all-purpose flour

Directions:

1. Warm the bowl of your KitchenAid mixer under the kitchen faucet while using a thermometer to mix the hot/cold water to the right temperature (105°-115°). In your 2-cup measuring cup combine the 1 cup + 2 tablespoons warm water, 1 teaspoon sugar, and thoroughly dissolve the 2¼ teaspoons yeast in it, set aside.
2. Meanwhile, sift-measure the flour and add to the bowl along with the salt. Mix well with the standard paddle, replace the paddle with the dough hook.
3. Add the 1 tablespoon oil to the yeast mixture, (which should have a 'head' of bubbles on it by now, if not discard and start over) and pour the whole thing into the bowl on top of the flour mixture.
4. Using the dough hook, mix on speed 2 until the dough balls up and cleans the bowl. help it along with a soft spatula if you want. Be patient here, as it will look too dry for the first 5 minutes or so, but will eventually incorporate all the flour and probably need more flour added, so wait at least 5 minutes without adding any liquid.
5. Knead on speed 2 or 3 for 10 minutes or more, adding flour a tablespoon at a time as necessary to keep too much of the dough from sticking on the bottom of the bowl. Take steps to keep the dough wrapped around the dough hook and getting pulled like taffy, rather than balled-up and rolling around in-between the dough hook and the bowl.
6. When finished kneading, remove the dough from the bowl, knead by hand a few turns and form into a ball, place in an oiled bowl (1-2 teaspoons oil in the bottom of a bowl) and turn to coat the ball with oil. cover with a towel and place in a warm place (80°-85°) to rise until size-doubled (45 minutes to 1 hour).
7. When finished rising, dump the dough out of the bowl and knead by hand for 20 turns or so. Form into a loaf, a place in a 9"x5" bread pan. Let rise in a warm place again until it is 1" to 1¼" over the top of the pan (45 minutes to no more than 1 hour) cover loosely with plastic wrap to keep the dough moist. I raise my loaves on top of the stove while it is pre-heating.
8. Bake in a pre-heated 375° oven for 35 minutes.
9. Remove from oven and cool pretty-much completely before cutting (if you can wait!).

I HAVE BEEN COOKING! JUST SLACKING ON THE BLOGGING

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I posted on this blog! I do have lots of pictures and recipes to share, from campfire patty melts to yesterday's bread extravaganza - stay tuned for some yummy posts!

Losing my touch?

Well, Friday I put a hunk of beef in the crockpot in preparation for BBQ Beef Sammies for supper, but when I went to shred it up in the evening, I realized I had it on "warm" instead of "low" all day. :( So we had chef salad and I finished cooking the beef late into the night. THEN, I proceeded to leave it out on the counter all night forgetting to put it in the fridge after cooling. Yesterday, I defrosted chicken and beef to make fajitas, but our tattoo appointment took longer than anticipated so we ended up going to Red Robin for burgers between Todd's and my time under the needle.

What to do for supper today????

Funnel Cakes

Despite our delicious supper and a few strong cocktails, we set about making funnel cakes since the oil was ready after the tortilla chip endeavor. Check out sexy, Alton Brown's recipe! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/funnel-cake-recipe/index.html

Tortillas!

Todd was on his knees he liked the tortilla chips so much! I had some corn tortillas left from a failed attempt at enchiladas and decided to fry them up and season them for dipping in the guac. I definitely made up for the too-lemony hollandaise sauce this morning! Yum............and Old Bay Seasoning was a perfect choice.

Amazing Chicken

Amelia dubbed this dish "Amazing Chicken." We saw Rachael Ray do a version of this on T.V. recently and this is what we came up with today:

Chicken

pound chicken breasts out thin and bread with a crumb mixture of plain breadcrumbs, zest of one lemon, a bunch of parmesan cheese, black pepper (we did the classic flour, eggs, breadcrumb process) shallow fry the chicken and keep warm in the oven if you have to do it in batches. fry the remaining breadcrumbs in the hot oil and set aside.

Salad Component-serve piled up on top of the hot fried chicken

toss arugula, red cabbage, sliced scallions with the following lemon viniagrette: zest of one lemon, juice of two lemons (use the zest from the second lemon in the breadcrumbs for the chicken), a tablespoon or two honey, large squirt spicy brown mustard, 2-3 cloves garlic smashed up with salt, black pepper-whisk it all together with olive oil. I like to toss these types of greens an hour or so in advance to give the dressing a chance to penetrate the lettuces.