Category: Recipes
Tuesday, Aug 4, 2009 | Recipes |
This long weekend, I did some serious baking. We baked bread, made a large batch of a master baking mix (for future biscuits, pancakes, and muffins), and these whole wheat dinner rolls, which could also be used as hamburger buns. They’re so good, I’ve marked the recipe in my book like this: *fabulous! The kids ate three apiece hot out of the oven, and Albus said that if we were selling these, and someone bought one, they would take one bite and tell everyone else to come and try some too. The recipe comes from my MCC More with Less cookbook, and makes four dozen large rolls.
Whole Wheat Rolls
In a large basin, dissolve 4 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in 3/4 cup lukewarm water. Once dissolved (about five minutes), add 3 cups warm water, 1 cup dry milk powder, 1/2 cup oil, 2 eggs, 1/3 cup honey, and 2 teaspoons salt. Have ready 6 cups white flour, 4 cups whole wheat flour. Add 5 cups of flour and beat thoroughly with electric mixer (or by hand). Stir in an additional 3 cups of flour, then knead in the rest (adding more as needed). I use local hard bread flour. Knead till smooth and elastic. Oil dough/bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled (about two hours). Punch down and shape into dinner rolls on greased trays. I placed twelve buns on each tray. Cover, let rise (an hour or two), and bake 20-25 minutes at 375 degrees.
We’ve frozen those we won’t be eating fresh. Enjoy!
Friday, Jul 10, 2009 | Recipes |
Yesterday, our awesome contractor fixed our back porch, and built these brand spanking new steps, with railings included, so we no longer have to worry about CJ crawling off the side of the concrete bohemoth that stood here previously.
In other news, I whipped up some pretty tasty picnic food for our pre-soccer-in-the-park meal tonight. On the menu: tortillas stuffed with home-cooked mexican red beans and grated mozzarella, baked till melty and crispy, halved into finger food, with yogurt for dipping, and a topper of avocado (not local, nope, never), halved grape tomatoes, grated carrot, and Lettuce; and a totally homemade chicken salad scooped into Lettuce boats; because The Lettuce will not defeat me, no, we will eat it, every crisp insipid crunching raw leaf. (The kids chose our CSA box this week: strawberries and peas paired with heaps of Lettuce; on the vegetatian consumption scales, clearly the most coveted must be balanced out by the most prolific).
I didn’t follow a recipe, but the chicken salad was pretty delicious (if she does say so herself). Here’s how it happened: Boiled a whole chicken yesterday (the last of my Nina chickens); we ate some of the broth in a soup last night, froze the rest. Pulled the meat off the bones this aft, and chopped it, not finely, added chopped green onion and fresh basil, mayonnaise, salt and pepper and paprika, cider vinegar, and a pile of smushed tortilla chips. I suspect that curry powder would be a successful addition, but kept the flavours very simple for our outdoor outing.
Saturday, Jun 27, 2009 | Recipes |
Baked these cookies with Fooey on one of the hottest afternoons so far this summer. Because they’re made with peanut butter, I’ve been waiting till school’s out to try the recipe (what’s the point of whipping up a huge batch of non-lunch-box-friendly treats?). Due to the weird and wonderful hotscotch world of Facebook, I acquired this recipe via my Facebook friend, Laura, who is actually the childhood friend of my real-life friend and neighbour, Nina; Laura got the recipe from Nina’s mom, Bonnie, and dug out the recipe and posted it on her Facebook account; I’d asked Nina for the recipe several years ago after eating them at a birthday party, but neither of us followed through. So I was pretty excited to discover Bonnie’s recipe within my grasp. Laura’s recipe noted Nina’s substitutions, but came without any directions, which I’ve added. Bonnie doubles it. Here’s the recipe:
Bonnie’s cookies
1 cup lard (or butter; or peanut butter), creamed with 1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar (Bonnie uses 2 cups). Add in 2 eggs beaten with 1 teaspoon vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together 1 and 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Combine with wet ingredients. Then using your very strongest arm, add in 3 cups of oats, and 1 cup of smarties or other bright coloured round candy, or chocolate chips. I ended up kneading the oats and smarties into the stiff batter. Place by tablespoons onto tray. Bake at 375 for … well, here is where the controversy sets in. 8 minutes if you want them gooey and soft, like Bonnie makes them (remove from the oven before they look remotely baked). I baked them 10 minutes and they were much harder, but transportable, and still soft on the inside. But not like Bonnie’s, I was informed by Nina, who tested them in our backyard yesterday.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, Jun 2, 2009 | Baking, Recipes |
Tutorial: Quick-Rising Bread (adapted from Joy of Cooking)
I always double this recipe and make four loaves, but you need a big basin to make that amount all at once. So, below is the two-loaf version.
In a large bowl, dissolve 2 and 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast in 1/4 cup warm water (slightly warmer than body temperature; to test, you should be able to stick your finger into the water comfortably). Use 2 and 1/2 teaspoons if you’re making whole wheat bread. Let sit for about five minutes.
Stir, and add: 2 tablespoons sweetener (honey or sugar or even maple syrup); 1 tablespoon salt; 2 tablespoons oil or melted butter or shortening; 2 cups warm water; 3 cups hard bread flour, whole wheat or white. I definitely recommend using hard flour, which is meant specifically for bread-making. At this point, you can also substitute 1-2 cups of the bread flour with dry, grainy additions, such as flax seed or flax meal, oats, millet, wheat germ or bran, sunflower seeds, ground seeds, or really anything your tastebuds desire. Raisins or other sticky dried fruits should be lightly dusted with flour before adding. Start by experimenting with a smaller amount. Joy of Cooking recommends using these in quantities no larger than 25 percent of the weight of the flour (which, to me, sounds like huh? So I just play around with the amounts).
Stir, stir, stir, then begin adding the last 3 plus cups of bread flour. I recommend using some hard white flour even if you’re making whole wheat bread; the loaves will be lighter and will rise more. Add this portion of flour by half cups, kneading to mix. I knead in the bowl, on the floor (as Apple-Apple is demonstrating in the photo). You want your dough not to be sticky, but also to remain moist. This can take some trial and error. Don’t keep stuffing more flour in just because you can or because the recipe suggests you should (as I’ve made the mistake in the past). A moist dough will rise better (not damp or wet). When you’ve kneaded to satisfaction and your dough feels silky and encorporated (ten minutes, more or less), lightly oil the surface of the dough, turn it in the bowl (I use the same bowl; saves on dishwashing), cover with a damp towel, and set somewhere warmish, not drafty, to rise.
Let rise one or two hours. Grease two loaf pans. Punch down dough, cut into two equal pieces, roll each with your hands into a loaf shape and place, seam down, into the pans. Cover and let rise another one to two hours.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. You can add a pan of hot water to your oven to add moisture while baking (sometimes I do; sometimes I don’t). You can also brush the loaves with butter or egg-wash or milk (again, I don’t bother). Pop loaves in at this crazy high temp for ten minutes, (don’t wander off!), then turn down to 350 and continue baking for approximately 30 minutes (slightly less in my oven, but you’ll have to play around with yours). To check that your bread is done, slip the loaf out of the pan and look at the bottom–you can rap it with your knuckles, too: bread is sturdy; it doesn’t mind. If the bottom is a bit pale, pop it back in the pan, and into the oven for a few more minutes.
When done, remove from pans and cool on racks. Or eat immediately with butter melting into soft warm squishy slices (be warned: bread is hard to slice when it’s hot). If you make more than you’ll eat in a day or two, freeze the extra. Fresh-made bread stales quickly.
Enjoy! And let me know your results …
Friday, Feb 20, 2009 | Recipes |
My Grandma King turns 90 on March 1, and in her honour I’m posting her Sugar Cookie recipe. She was a wonderful baker, and baked many of my birthday cakes growing up–always angel food with strawberry or chocolate frosting. We never lived near her, but when we visited we must have baked together often, because those memories have remained most clear.
Since I grew up eating these sugar cookies, I didn’t realize until adulthood that they are quite unique. I’ve never found a similar recipe in a standard cookbook. I was once told that Grandma managed a restaurant before her marriage, and that these were the cookies served there: in Archbold, Ohio.
About five years ago, I telephoned to request the recipe, so this comes directly from her. As she now suffers from Alzheimers, this recipe, and its provenance, is especially precious. I used to make these cookies for playgroup, where they became known as “muffin-top cookies” because that’s exactly what they taste like. In fact, I was inspired to make them today on request from a little playgroup fellow who might be visiting this afternoon; considering I haven’t made them for a year or so, it was the first thing he asked when he saw me last time: “Do you have any of those sugar cookies?” I think that’s a pretty good endorsement.
The cookies are delicate and cakey and crumbly and must be watched closely in the oven, lest the bottoms burn. They are also difficult to replicate, and I’ve had the occasional flop, without being able to pinpoint why. I’m pretty sure Grandma’s never flopped. The ones I baked today with Fooey turned out very well indeed, though they still aren’t exactly like Grandma’s. The recipe below is half the size she gave me, and enough for our family (she estimated half would make about 3 dozen cookies). I don’t find these cookies keep well, so eat them up while they’re fresh.
Grandma King’s Sugar Cookies
Beat together 1 1/2 cups white sugar, 2 eggs, and 1 cup of canola oil. Add 1 cup of buttermilk, or substitute 1 cup of milk soured with 1 tbsp white vinegar (let the mixture sit for 10-15 mins. before adding). Beat together well with 1 1/2 tsp vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together 3 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. (Optional: add 2 tsp baker’s unsweetened cocoa powder). Add dry to wet, and beat together till smooth.
Place rack in middle of oven. Heat to 450 degrees. Spoon one tablespoon of batter per cookie onto lightly greased tray. Leave room because they spread a bit. Bake for FOUR minutes. Watch closely. Cool briefly on tray, scrape off with a sharp spatula, cool additionally on racks.
Note: Today, we added the unsweetened cocoa powder, partly because Fooey wanted a chocolate cookie, and this is not a batter to which you can successfully add chocolate chips, and partly because I used a part-whole-wheat flour and wanted to hide the graininess. Grandma only ever used pure-white flour, which makes a pure-white cookie with a golden bottom. But the chocolate proved to be a nice addition.
Tuesday, Jan 20, 2009 | Recipes |
Baking with Fooey this morning. Listening to the radio. Turning my back on cynicism and doubt for at least a few hours, because even though the man cannot possibly, even if assisted by miracles, live up to the hype, these moments are rare and can only be celebrated in the moment. That’s why rituals actually matter: punctuation marks in the run-on sentences of life. Change. Hope. Imagine the best.
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Now. Two recipes. Both are very good and worth posting. First, the banana muffin recipe that Fooey and I are making this morning; this is a dairy-free recipe, and my guess is it could be made quite successfully with any flour. Second, the hugely successful chickpea recipe which EVERYONE ate and enjoyed last night (the meal made out of the recipe, not the actual recipe, for those of you literal-minded seven-year-olds questioning your mother’s every grammatical slip-up).
Banana Muffins (adapted from Annabel Karmel’s The Toddler CookBook)
Makes 20 large muffins, more or less. Line muffins pans with muffin liners (or grease tins, if you prefer). Preheat oven to 350. Have child squash two ripe bananas in a bowl. In another bowl, have child mix two eggs with 2/3 cup brown sugar, and 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Add mashed bananas and 1/2 cup vegetable oil and mix thoroughly. In another bowl, have child sift 1 and 1/3 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/8 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon, and (optional) 1 tbls. unsweetened cocoa powder. Mix dry with wet, and (optional) 1/2 cup or more chocolate chips. Spoon into prepared pans and bake 18 minutes.
Baby CJ just ate and destroyed one of these, and I will post a pic on the blog opposite.
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Chickpeas with Pork (adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking)
Soak several cups of dried chickpeas overnight. Boil up the next morning, adding salt once the chickpeas have softened (could be hours). In another large cooking pot, fry up 2 lbs pork sausage (or other meat), adding oil if needed. Add and saute: 1 chopped onion, five minced cloves garlic, 2 inches (or so) minced ginger root, 1/2 tsp. ground cardamon, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp. cumin seeds, 1 tbsp ground cumin, 1 tbsp ground coriander, 1 tsp. turmeric. When everything’s nicely sauteed, add 2 cups (or more) canned or fresh or pureed tomatoes; add the chickpeas (the amount can really vary, to taste), and some of their cooking water; add six finely chopped potatoes. Season with 1 tbsp salt, or to taste. Add more chickpea water if needed. Cover and cook till potatoes are soft and flavours combined (25-40 mins). Add 1 cup of frozen peas and cook a couple more minutes. Optional: add 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper. Serve over rice.
Note: The recipe could easily be made meat-free. Other veggies could be added, too. I apologize for not giving exact measurements for the chickpeas, but I cooked up about five cups (dry), and eyeballed the amount added to the stew.
Seriously, this recipe got unanimously rave reviews. It looks like a lot of spices, but don’t be afraid of the amounts.
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And, now, to turn on the tele for a dose of collective joy.
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This long weekend, I did some serious baking. We baked bread, made a large batch of a master baking mix (for future biscuits, pancakes, and muffins), and these whole wheat dinner rolls, which could also be used as hamburger buns. They’re so good, I’ve marked the recipe in my book like this: *fabulous! The kids ate three apiece hot out of the oven, and Albus said that if we were selling these, and someone bought one, they would take one bite and tell everyone else to come and try some too. The recipe comes from my MCC More with Less cookbook, and makes four dozen large rolls.
