Tag: bread

What to eat during a pandemic?

I’ve made a lot of food during our stay-at-home “vacation” because we don’t eat out much. BP (before pandemic) I generally only cooked a few meals throughout the week to sustain us. Breakfast was usually quick and out the door and lunch were pretty much pb & j or leftovers at work or school for each of us. And most nights we didn’t eat together because of rehearsals and dance. Now I feel like I’m constantly in the kitchen cooking or cleaning it back up. I’ve made some good food though and we’ve enjoyed it together.  I follow Jaime Oliver on IG and have several of his cookbooks. I love his videos and his recipes but, I’ll admit, it’s also about the accent! We’ve made this bread recipe twice now and it is truly amazing. So easy, delicious and really just takes an afternoon.  Check out Jaime’s post to find many other wonderful recipes.

On Monday our senior walked across the stage in a staged version of what will come later; a video of everyone spliced together with speeches and everything. I’m very glad her high school chose to honor the students by hosting this as it took a lot of time and effort from staff.  It was surreal to walk with everyone masked up through the school keeping a good distance between families, as we traveled down the hall together  for the last time. We returned home after our “5 minute” ceremony to have cake and a little bubbly.  I made a buttermilk chocolate cake recipe that was so moist and flavorful. My husband who is not a lover of sweets or chocolate ate two pieces!  
{Buns in the Oven}
What are you cooking up?
Peaceful Reading…

Inspired food

(Fuji Mama 1-hour bread)

Last week I offered to make a meal for a theatre set designer and old friend who traveled from St. Paul, MN to come and help put his design into action and work with my husband.  Because we haven’t seen this old friend for awhile I offered to make him dinner so we could relax and talk together. I made a pasta sauce from one of my Giada cookbooks, a simple salad and this bread from Fuji Mama –Simple One Hour Homemade Bread. 

You see I’d forgotten to pick up a baguette to round out this Italian-inspired meal and I knew I needed bread or the meal would feel incomplete to our guest.  When I shared my concern with Groovy Girl, she said: “just make some bread!” What!? but of course, I know how to make bread and have many recipes to follow for wonderful crispy loaves yet they all take at least a couple of hours to create. I had less than 2 hours.  Her answer to this: “just Google it”. So simple!

After a quick search for fast homemade bread, I found Fuji Mama’s easy recipe and we loved it. It makes 2 peasant loaves that cook in 25 minutes. They were crusty on the outside and soft on the inside, the perfect combo. 

Here is Giada’s Bolognese Sauce that I tossed over fettuccine noodles. The meal was delicious, the conversation lively, and ended with another mutual friend’s treat of cookies. 

I’m short on time for everything I do this summer.  Two grad classes are keeping me seriously hopping.  The two books I’m reading to go along with each class are interesting, The Formative Five by Thomas R. Hoerr and Creative Schools by Ken Robinson, but the assignments cause me to think HARD for hours at a time-not my favorite summer activity.  I just want to be reading chapter books for school, hanging in my hammock, or cooking.

Peaceful Reading…

Craving Chickpeas…

{Source}
Happy December!

Last week I was craving spicy soup, which has nothing to do with Christmas or December but just my own odd taste buds.  I looked through recipes both online and in my massive stacks of books looking for just the right one. I found this one by Rachael Ray that looked interesting: Indian-spiced Chickpea, and this one, Morroccan Chickpea, from Good Foods, and then this, Chickpea Chili, from MyRecipes.  I ended up kind of making my own up loosely based on the last one except I did not have butternut squash on hand and I left out pimento-stuffed olives because seriously I couldn’t imagine that flavor with the soup I was craving. Once I settled on a recipe I found some friends to invite over to be my tasters.

I made a batch of brown rice, tossed up a fresh salad, and this rustic bread to break together. Oh and I had a couple of chicken breasts on hand and as other people love their protein I shredded it and left it as a topping to be tossed into the soup like the parsley and sour cream. They left quite full, smiling and with half a loaf of bread in their hands. Also they’d both done well at Spite and Malice and Taboo; games that we played.  It was a lovely winter night; cold outside, toasty on the inside.

I finished Maggie Stiefvater’s new book, All the Crooked Saints, tonight. She is a very imaginative writer and I think she casts a spell on each of her stories. This one, set in Colorado in 1962, is about the Soria family and their ability to collect pilgrims looking for miracles and it’s about radio waves, saints, and love.  I don’t understand how she weaves that altogether but she does. My Maggie favorites are The Scorpio Races and The Raven Boys series. Now I’m on to Choosing Civility by P.M. Forni and Carrying Albert Home by Homer Hickam.

Peaceful Reading…

Weekend Cooking; An Easy Green Product to Love

Every Saturday morning this summer my husband has been getting up at the crack of dawn to load up his van and goods from our kitchen to sell at our local farmer’s market.  He is steadfast and hardworking. We aren’t farmers though and the only reason he chose to do this is to do something with his church youth group-it was a way to earn money for their mission trip to W. VA.  Half way through the summer they had enough so each teen could go on the trip and their original fee was waived.  The market kept going though and now the earnings are just getting the youth group fun back in the green.

Handsome husband, Groovy Girl and youth group + customer
My husband learned last Spring how to grow a variety of different sprouts and those have sold well at the market.  I started making about 4-5 loaves of my Simple Pot Bread every week and they usually all sold.  When I first started experimenting with making multiple loaves I didn’t like wasting the saran wrap the recipe called for to cover the rising bread.  I tried using parchment paper and some rubber bands (FAIL-the rubber bands kept snapping off) and ended up in the grocery aisle searching for a solution. 
I found a funny looking product by Cover Mate; Stretch to Fit Food Covers.  They look like clear plastic shower caps!!  They work perfectly to cover bowls of dough, allowing it to rise and then I can use it again and again and again!  I dislike throwing things away and I love it when I find a positive solution. 
Weekend Cooking is sponsored by Beth Fish Reads.  Click to her link to find many more food-related posts.   She has a chicken wing recipe that my husband would love-maybe I should make it for him for all those early Saturday mornings he left me snoozing while he tip-toed out and to the market!
Have a peaceful week!
Peaceful Reading…

Weekend Cooking; Beautiful Bread

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Click over to check out her post where she shares two recipes from her grandparents. 

Bread is a life force at our house.  We toast it, we dunk it in soup, we make fat vegetarian sandwiches with it.  I love to bake it as well.  Not one person in our 5-member family doesn’t love bread.  My husband enjoys bread at dinner so if there isn’t any fresh baked he will just take sandwich bread and toast it, asking everyone “Who wants toast?”  Everyone will say “YES”, except for me-I only eat bread when its the good stuff.  Sometimes we have this wonderful sourdough from a local Bosnian bakery-ahhhh!  I can smell it toasting.  Can’t really-my nose is too stuffed up from this cold but I can mentally smell bread so deep is our connection.

Recently we’ve started rethinking, just maybe, we eat too much bread.  My husband is a runner and gets plenty of excercise, I do yoga and both our kids are active and thin but still we think cutting back could help our waistlines.  Groovy Girl, suffers from tummy aches, takes her lunch almost everyday (thankfully) and she relies on a sandwich as the main part of her lunch.  We’ve had to get creative on how to make her a healthy lunch without two pieces of bread as her main course. Any suggestions??

But for Easter we have to have bread what with family coming and all…

In the middle of this “bread heavy conversation” I knew I still had a bread recipe to try from Faith Durand’s cookbook, Not Your Mother’s Casseroles.   I’ve now made it four times, it is super easy and each time the loaves turn out very similar, which is a win for me.  If you are making a big Easter meal or need something to bring to a big Easter meal…this bread would be wonderful to share.  I made an extra loaf and I’m going to drop it off this morning in its own Easter basket for friends. 

Simple Pot Bread

Baking Dish: 5- or 6- inch Dutch oven or other stovetop-to-oven pot with a lid
Bake Time: 45 minutes

3 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
¾ tsp regular yeast or ½ tsp instant yeast
1 ¼ tsp salt
1 ½ cups water

1. Make the dough in the morning, before you eat breakfast or go to work. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. The dough will be sticky and wet; slightly goopy. Spray the dough lightly with nonstick cooking spray or drizzle with olive oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave it in the warmest spot in your kitchen. Let it rise for at least 6 hours, although up to 12 hours will be fine.

2. About 3 hours before dinner, lightly spray a work space with nonstick cooking spray or a little oil. By now the dough will have expanded into a wet, dimpled mass. Dump the whole thing out onto the oiled surface. Push it roughly into a ball and cover it again with a clean kitchen towel. Let it sit for 2 more hours. (this step could be skipped it needed but will add more air to your loaf)

3. When you’re ready to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the Dutch oven in the oven to get hot.

4. Pour or roll the dough into the hot pot. You may have to pry it or peel it off the countertop. [I used my nice silicone dough mat from Pampered Chef and it popped right off]  Cover the pot with the lid and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes to brown.

5. Remove the bread from the oven and immediately take it out of the pot, using potholders or a thick kitchen towel to handle it. If you have the time, let it cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing so it can set.

Adapted from Faith Durand’s Not Your Mother’s Casseroles (2010)

I don’t have a Dutch Oven-my mother says she’ll pass hers on to me when she’s done (which means dead) with it-that could be years but I just used my largest Corning Ware pot.  The bread came out square and it turned out beautiful.  There is something so delightful about fresh bread that makes it hard to give up.  I loved that step #2 gives me the opportunity to knead it a little.  I love watching the bread come together under my hands.  Adding the cold water to the flour mixture surprised me as the yeast doesn’t get to “proof” but it rises just fine. 

Yummy with fresh unsalted butter.
I served this to my book club on 4-18-2011 with bleu cheese crumbles.  We discussed The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls-the bleu cheese represented mold. 

None of the pictures do it justice-I think photographing food is hard but look the bread has airy holes in it. 
If you want to easily print the recipe off here it as a Google Doc…Simple Pot Bread (yes, the name cracks us up also).
Happy Easter!

Peaceful Reading…

Weekend Cooking; Bread Uprising

Potato Bread on its 2nd rise-looking plump and airy.

Last week I wrote about an Oooey Gooey Bread but I hadn’t made the bread yet.  After making it I had a revelation…I should generally test drive the recipes before sharing. Brilliant, I know.  The bread was good but it didn’t rise as much as I expected.  The recipe did make three loaves and I did share the love.  I took one to church and they ate the whole thing.  I took one to school and they ate the whole thing.  I have half a loaf still on my counter that we are whittling away at.  I enjoyed rolling out the dough and folding it but when I got to throwing down all that sugar into the middle  I couldn’t do it.  I changed it up, adding the cinnamon and  brown sugar but  just a little cane sugar.  This sugar mix worked for me.  The cinnamon was intensely wonderful.   I was only disappointed in the rise.  I love to watch the rise and this one didn’t do that-it was flat.  I’d love feedback on this if anyone has any clues. 

In last week’s post I mentioned another potato bread recipe (from Barefoot  Kitchen Witch) I was going to try and that one gave a good rise as well as a great kneading experience.  I even got my KitchenAid out with the dough hook (first time I used the dough hook) because her photos and commentary told me this would be good.  I generally just mix it myself with a wooden spoon or my hands but I liked watching it come together with the dough hook so I might be a new convert.  I don’t get my Kitchen Aid out much because it’s heavy and in a tight cupboard space.  This bread looked beautiful in the two different rising stages but once I put it in the pan it didn’t rise over the top as much as I expected.  I don’t know if it is the yeast or the cold, but my bread is not becoming airy and light, but dense is okay as long as the taste is good. I toasted two slices for breakfast and it was yummy.  I plan to try this recipe again.
 I made this Baked Penne with Broccoli and Smoked Mozzarrella from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe for dinner last night.  It was good but my kids didn’t like it.  I left the chicken out and it  tasted great (the smoked mozzarella was amazing) for my husband and I.  My kids are really in a disappointing eating phase. They eat tofu, endamame, sushi, Thai food but I make a simple baked pasta dish and they squirm.   They do not like things mixed up so much.  Groovy Girl separated the broccoli from the penne pasta.  It is so disconcerting.  Hmmm.



First loaf out of the oven and ready to toast.



Hope your cooking up something good. 

Weekend cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads-click on her name to see her reviews of several story book inspired cookbooks.  I would love the Mary Poppins Cook Book.

Happy Saturday.

I’ve been to a 4-H breakfast and two soccer games so far today and still have a speed theatre event to attend

Peaceful Reading…

Weekend Cooking/Bread-Making/Bread Givers

I’ve been writing my review of Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska.  I loved this book.  When you enjoy a book so much it’s difficult not to share every little thing about it.  One of the themes is resounding poverty; the Smolinsky family are poor-1920’s  poor.  They never  know where their next meal will come from.  The father studies the Torah and expects his family to work for him; to put food on the table.  The mother constantly has to beg the shopkeepers on the Lower West Side of NYC to give her credit so she can feed her family.  It begins like this:

I had just begun to peel the potatoes for dinner when my oldest sister came in, her eyes far away and very tired.  She dropped on the bench by the sink and turned her head to the wall.  One look at her, and I knew she had not yet found work.  I went on peeling the potatoes, but I no more knew what my hands were doing.  I felt only the dark hurt of her weary eyes. (1)

“We must dry our heads worrying for bread, while they bathe themselves in milk and soak in honey.”  (81)

Mother skimmed off the fat part of the potato soup, and carefully picked out all the little pieces of suet and fried onions for Father’s plate, and handed it to him.  “Woman!” Father frowned.  “Why have you no meat for my dinner this whole week?  With the hard brain work I do day and night, I can’t live on the flavour of onions!”  (81)

My quest for weekend cooking is to make some bread for this albeit fiction, yet starving family.  I can’t resist.  They need some good bread.  They need a whole pot of potato soup. 

My mom gave me this recipe for bread that uses potato water and I’ve been excited to try it.  Last time I made mashed potatoes I thought ahead and saved the water.

Ooey Gooey Bread (from Baking with the St. Paul Baking Club)
Makes 3 loaves

1 3/4 cups potato water or 1 3/4 cups water mixed with 2 tsp instant potato flakes
1 3/4 cups lowfat milk
8 T. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups honey [local, of course]
1 T. salt
1 cup rolled oats
2 pkgs active dry yeast
2/3 cup bran
6 T wheat germ
1 cup whole wheat flour
7 cups bread flour, about [I don’t buy bread flour so I double sift my KAF]
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 tsps cinnamon

Heat potato water, milk, and butter in a saucepan over low heat.  As it warms, add honey and salt.  When mixture comes to a boil, add rolled oats then remove from heat, and let cool to lukewarm.
Transfer to a large mixing bowl.  Stir in yeast and let stand for a few minutes until softened.  Add bran and wheat germ, and then beat in whole wheat and bread flour.  Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead [my favorite part] until elastic and springy.  The dough will be soft and sticky, but resist the urge to add to much extra flour.  Turn into a slightly oiled bowl, turning to coat, cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise until doubled, about 2 hours.
Mix together white sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
Turn dough out onto floured surface, and divide into three pieces.  Roll each piece into a 12-inch x 8-inch rectangle and sprinkle with 4 T. sugar mix.  Take a rectangle and fold the left third to the center and the right and the right third over that, as you’d fold a letter.  Rotate the dough 90 degrees, and roll out again into a rectangle, sprinkling with another 4 T. of sugar mix.  Fold as before.  Form dough into a loaf shape, and place seam side down in a greased loaf pan.  Repeat with remaining 2 pieces of dough.

Cover pans with a cloth, and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Remove from oven.  lightly cover with foil and bake for another 20 minutes or until loaf makes a hollow sound when removed from the pan and tapped on bottom.  Cool at least 15 minutes before slicing.

This will make a great Sunday morning bread but not the bread I was thinking of for the Smolinsky family.  That potato bread I found at The Barefoot Kitchen Witch’s website complete with play-by-play photos:  Potato Bread
I’m going to try her recipe as well-maybe tomorrow.

This post is part of Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.  She reviews $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook; Breakfast and Lunch, which seems like a really useful cookbook!

Happy Baking!
Read Bread Givers-you will enjoy it!

Peaceful Reading…