boogaj

Soup by Trader Joe's, bread by me

I know there has been a lot of talk about Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and I have to say that it is totally worth it!  I've posted before about my success with the basic recipe, but I had to post again since I am finding out just how awesome this concept is.

First of all, this time I didn't bring out my stand mixer -- instead I just put all the ingredients in a bowl and gave it a good stir with a wooden spoon.  This is the same bowl I'm using to store the dough in my fridge, so there is really nothing (except a wooden spoon!) to clean up.  Easy, right?

So I made a loaf of bread to have with dinner on Tuesday, and I wanted something different for Thursday.  I had some yummy cremini mushrooms -- I am *so* on a mushroom kick -- and cooked them up with some tomatoes to have over pasta, so I decided to make an Italian style herbed bread.  Sounds fancy?  Well, really all I did was take a hunk of the dough out of the bowl, roll it out, smear on a little olive oil, sprinkle on parmesan cheese and Italian herbs and rolled it up.  I left it to rise a bit on the radiator and popped it in the oven.  Fresh bread for dinner and it literally took me 5 minutes!

Once thing I love about all of this is there is usually a little bit of bread left over from dinner which I can stick in the toaster oven and have with lunch the next day.  Yeah!

Bread & Paper

I did finally take a photo of the last little bit of bread I made from the big bowl of dough -- more on this dough can be found in my previous post.  I took the small bit of dough, squished it flat and sprinkled some Parmesan cheese & Italian herbs on top.  Then I popped it in the oven so I could have it for lunch.  Very tasty -- and the oven spring was great even 2 weeks after I made the dough.  Here's the inside:

I was planning on making up another batch of dough yesterday, but got sidetracked.  I'll get to it today hopefully and try to remember to take photos.

I've also been cutting paper:

I've been meaning to do some papercutting, or Scherenschnitte, since someone mentioned it in a comment on my blog back in 2005!  (Yes -- Elizabeth (no link) left a comment to this post way back when!)  I've checked out a few books, done some research on the web, but hadn't actually *done* any papercutting.  Why? I have no idea, other than I was busy with other things, I suppose.

Enter Amy and her amazing Mailorder -- or eMailorder in this case.  It's so funny, because Jan was just doing some papercutting and I was going to get my act together and do some myself, but that weekend got away from me.  So I guess it was fate -- and I was just waiting for Amy to come along with issue #8!

It was super easy, fun, quick and the results are really great!  I mounted the heart on a blank card and the girl on a sheet of cardstock so I could perhaps frame it.

I see more Scherenschnitte (& home baked bread) in my future!

Baking Bread -- the easy way!

I've been obsessed with making good bread for years and I've found a few recipes that are good, but none of them are particularly easy or --  more importantly -- quick.  So when I saw this book, I knew I had to give it a try.

The book is Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg, and I have to say that I'm loving it!  The concept here is simple -- you make a large batch of dough, stick it in the fridge, and slice off a chunk of it whenever you want fresh bread.  The basic dough keeps for 14 days and is easy to mix up (no kneading!)   It uses only very basic ingredients and you can do a lot with it.  I made a batch of the basic dough and we have had fresh baked bread with dinner 3 times this past week. 

The book also includes some other dough recipes and then expands on these so that you can use the dough to make all kinds of different loaves.  I'm looking forward to trying one of the richer breads -- like the brioche -- soon.

What I like most about it is that I can make a family sized loaf.  There are only three of us, so I hate to make a huge loaf that goes stale before we can use it all.  And I also love that you only mix up the dough once every week or so.  Taking out all the ingredients and then cleaning up afterward takes most of the time in baking.

I wish I had some bread to show you, but I'm afraid it doesn't stick around for more than about 30 minutes after it comes out of the oven!

Baking in '08

2007 ended with plenty of baking due to the holidays.  Maddie and I managed to make these a couple of days before Christmas and they were quite tasty.  I used Martha Stewart's recipe from the holiday cookie booklet that came out in '06 I believe, but I think this is the same recipe.

I love making cookies and baking bread, but I don't do it as often as I should.  I'm trying to get away from processed food as much as possible, so instead of buying cookies and other sweets at the grocery, I'm going to try to make treats for my family so I know what is going into them, how they are made and can adjust them to make them more healthy.  This will surely help me to accomplish another of my 2008 goal  too -- buy less packaging.  Instead of a box, plastic wrapper and plastic tray -- the packaging used for most foods -- I'll simply put my cookies in a glass jar.  Better for us, better for the environment.

I already made a batch of cookies this year -- Oatmeal Raisin cookies from my new go to cookbook -- Essentials of Baking from Williams-Sonoma.  I can't seem to get enough of this cookbook.  Looking back thruogh the archives, I realize that I haven't even posted about the scones I made using the recipe in this book.  I've made them twice now, substituting different dried fruits and they are *so* good (much better than those dry, stale things that Starbucks sells!)

I also received an awesome gift for Christmas that will help me with my goal of baking more in 2008 -- this super cool Cuisinart Brick Oven.  I've already used it about 5 times for various things and it works like a dream.  Tonight we make homemade pizza in it for the first time.  I'm excited!

More baking posts are sure to come in the near future!

Thanksgiving Baking

Yesterday was pie baking day -- my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's is 2 pumpkin pies and one pecan pie.  I made them completely from scratch and I have to say that making the crust isn't really that difficult -- especially if you have a food processor.  The pumpkin pies did take about 30 minutes longer to cook than Martha said they would, but the pecan pie was ready to come out of the oven after 60 minutes, just as she said.  I just pulled both recipes off the Martha Stewart website because I was a bit lazy.

Then at about 8pm I lost my mind and decided that since I had been baking all day anyway, I should just make cinnamon rolls from scratch too.  I made the dough, let it rise, rolled it out, filled it, shaped it and put it in a pan in the fridge overnight and baked them and glazed them this morning.  It really wasn't all that difficult and I'm wondering why I don't do this more often. 

I used what is quickly becoming my favorite baking book for the recipe -- Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking.  I just changed things up a bit (2X the cinnamon filling, 2X the glaze, only cut into 12 instead of 16 pieces, etc.)  This is the cookbook I used as the basis for the awesome cherry white chocolate scones I made a while back.  Williams-Sonoma has excellent cookbooks!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it!

Apple Pie

The other day when we were at the library, Maddie told me that she wanted to make a pie.  So we headed on over to the cookbook section and I grabbed The Joy of Cooking: All About Pies and Tarts.   She decided on apple pie -- perfect since apples are in season!  We headed out to pick some up yesterday and I searched through my other cookbooks since I can never follow a recipe outright.

I ended up pretty much using a combo of the pie crust from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook and the recipe for Apple Pie I from The Joy of Cooking: All About Pies and Tarts.  Maddie helped me decorate it with Dala horse cut outs and we popped it in the oven:

Of course the filling leaked out in places -- I'm no professional.  I think you could count the number of pies I've made on one hand.  However, using the food processor for making the crust has converted me.  And homemade crust is so much better than store bought!  I see more pies in my future!

Oh, by the way, Maddie didn't care for the pie.  There were tears.  I think she was so excited to have it since she helped me make it that it was really a let down for her.  She's a bit picky when it comes to sweets, so I'm not surprised.  Poor kid!

Green Tea Cookies -- Yum!

Well, we finally finished up that batch of chocolate chip cookies, so last night I made some of the Green Tea Sweets that I was telling you about.  They are very much like a matcha flavored shortbread, but much less fussy to make.  The butter and egg yolks gives them a very rich flavor which is lightened considerably by the fresh green tea flavor.

One note on my cookies -- I didn't have a cute little leaf cookie cutter, so I used what I had.  I needed something small-ish and without a lot of apendages that could lead to overcooked cookie parts.  The cookie cutters I ended up using are probably twice as large as what I needed.  This was confirmed when I only got a bakers dozen out of the recipe instead of the 25 cookies it is supposed to yield.  I just cooked them a bit longer -- maybe 5 minutes -- and all was well.  I like the crispier edges though, so I'll pick up a small cookie cutter before I make these again.

They were quick and easy to make and I highly recommend them!  The recipe is here at Lovescool.

Green Tea Sweets!

I've been wanting a recipe for Matcha Cookies for ages -- probably since I first saw the lovely (yet expensive) cookies from Lovescool / Amai Bakery.  I've been reading this blog for a good long time and have been quite tempted to purchase the Tea Sweets. 

Now I am excited to say that Kelli has posted the recipe for the Green Tea Sweets!!  It's right here.  And I even have matcha powder in the cupboard.  Oh!  If only I hadn't just baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies last night, I'd be whipping these up this afternoon!!

Comfort Food

It's been a difficult week for me -- when you have clinical depression sometimes things that aren't that awful hit you harder than you would like.  I work hard to keep my life structured and secure and for the most part I am able to keep things in check.  This week caught me off guard although I'd been preparing my self for it since November.

Back in November I posted about a rough week, well one of the reasons that week was difficult was becuase it was announced that the company my husband works for was being bought out.  Now, this isn't a terrible thing -- but there was the chance that his job would disappear.  Well, this week that was confirmed.  Happy Birthday to me!  (My birthday is Sunday.)  I know that this isn't a bad thing.  We have lots of notice (his job is still there until April and the company actually told them they could job hunt during work hours) and I'm pretty crazy about saving money, so we have a nest egg.  And my husband will have no trouble finding a job -- he's so smart and good.  (Really!  Go read him!) 

But I'm a little stressed out anyway -- and I have a feeling that a bit of it has to do with my upcoming birthday.  I don't know why that would bother me either -- I love my 30's so much more than any other time in my life.  I'm so happy now and love my jobs  -- which include homeschooling my brilliant, funny daughter.

I'm neurotic.  I know it.  I try to deal with it.  How?  by baking bread, of course!

Yes, I finally decided to give the no knead bread that everyone has been talking about a try.  I have a lovely cast iron LeCruset pot that my mom got for me a couple of years ago and it worked beautifully.  (I've also been eating massive amount of chocolate -- thank goodness V-Day was last week!)

And I've been stitching:

I'm a good way through part 2 of the mystery sampler. 

So, I'm fine -- just crazy. 

Brown Sugar Cookies

I have subscribed to many different food and cooking magazines over the years, but I don't think any of them has been as informative as Cook's Illustrated.  I learn something new in every issue (this month -- how to store fresh ginger*) and often see some recipes that I want to try out.

Yesterday I received the March / April issue and was fascinated by the "Brown Sugar Cookies" recipe.  It actually uses browned butter -- a technique new to me, at least where cookies are concerned.  So this afternoon I had to give it a try. 

Sure they look innocent enough laying there, but I tell you -- these things are incredible!  They are so rich and chewy (the good crispy edge/chewy middle kind of thing) that I almost can't stand it.  The browned butter taste really comes though and makes them extra special.  I will be making these again and again!

* oh -- you store the ginger unwrapped in the refrigerator.

Whole Grain Baking

An especially nice gift that I received over the holidays was a copy of the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Book.  I love to bake, but as I read more about nutrition, I want to make healthier things for myself and my family.  Using whole grains is something I'm definitely trying to do more of.

This cookbook seriously has a recipe for just about every baked good and there aren't a lot of fancy ingredients that you need (a problem I've had with the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook).  So when I was at the grocery and the desire for banana bread hit, I knew that I'd probably be okay if all I picked up was some bananas.  As luck would have it, I had all the other necessary ingredients in my cabinets and fridge!

As it turned out, there was a variation for the banana bread recipe that made Chocolate chip banana muffins and I was all over that -- shorter cooking time and it inculded chocolate.  Come on! 

I would give this recipe 5 stars -- it was easy and tasty with a pleasantly crunchy top and moist crumb and Maddie is downstairs devouring a muffin as we speak.  I'm eager to try out more whole grain recipes from this book, so I'm sure you'll be seeing more food photos on the blog in the coming months!

Lesson in baking bread

I love making bread from scratch but it takes a lot of time and I hadn't done it in a while.  For a couple years (yes, years) I've had it in my mind that I wanted to come up with a recipe for monkey bread -- you know, the cinnamon bread that you usually make by cutting up refridgerated biscuit dough and rolling it in cinnamon sugar and throwing it in a pan to bake as a loaf.  Well, I wanted *real* bread -- not some nasty refridgerated biscuits.  So Maddie and I pulled out 5 or 6 of my baking cookbooks and scoured them for suitable recipes.

I finally settled on using the basic dinner roll dough from Essentials of Baking.  This is a Williams-Sonoma cookbook and I've had great luck in the past with the recipes I've made from many of their cookbooks, so I was hopeful. 

Maddie read the instructions and I mixed things up.  We left the dough to rise and Maddie checked on it after about 1 1/2 hours -- she was amazed!  I think she is at a good age for an introduction to the magic of yeast! 

Then came the improvisation.  I cut up the dough into about 30ish chunks and I dipped them in melted butter.  Then Maddie rolled them in cinnamon sugar -- maybe 1 tsp cinnamon to 2-3 Tbsp of sugar?  We had to refill the cinnamon sugar bowl a couple times during the process and thing got a little unscientific.  The whole loaf took 1/4 cup of melted butter though -- we didn't run out of that.

As Maddie coated them, she threw them into a bundt pan -- gotta love the classic bundt pan!  And then we left it to rise while the oven pre-heated (about 20 minutes).  Bake at 375 for about 35 minutes and once cool, turn out onto a pretty plate!

It is quite yummy and would actually be suitable as a coffee cake.  (I'm eating some as I drink my coffee right now!)  It's sweet and buttery and I'll definitely make it again.

Lemon and Blueberry Bread with Lemon Glaze

One of my favorite cookbook authors is Beth Hensperger (is it weird that I have favorite cookbook authors?)  And last week when I thought I was getting sick, I bought an entire bag of lemons knowing that I would want extra so that I could make some lemon bread.  At first I looked in my new favorite baking book (Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook), but Martha's recipe requires cognac (?!?) and something else I didn't have and it made two (?!?) loaves. 

Enter Bread for Breakfast and Hensperger's recipe for Lemon and Blueberry Bread with Lemon Glaze.  Quick, easy and delicious.  It made one loaf and I had all the ingredients -- hurrah!  You can kinda see how the glaze sinks in to the bread in the slice:

Great stuff -- even Maddie likes it!

So ~ Many ~ Books

Books have been piling up and I thought I should share them with you.  .  .

52 Projects by Jeffrey Yamaguchi -- I've been seeing this book around many of my favorite blogs and I decided that I must have it.  It's subtitled "Random Acts of Everyday Creativity" and it's filled with 52 projects that you can use to kick start your creativity.  Paging through the book already has me excited!  I'm sure I'll be posting about the projects as I start to work my way through the book.

Super Crafty -- I think I mentioned that Pete bought this for me for Valentines Day.  Let me give you an idea of the projects that I plan to try from this book -- "Super Sock Monkeys" (can you believe I never made a sock monkey before?), "Magnets Galore + Inspiration Board", stuff from the section on shrink plastic (a whole section on shrinky dinks!) and the "Superstar Luggage Tag".  Of course I'm sure I'll give each of these projects my own twist.    I have to say that this book is packed with great jumping off points -- such as the section on vinyl, which is packed with tips.  In fact, there's info on everything from sewing to block printing.  Really a great resource to have around.

Complete Craft by Katherine Sorrell -- Great out of print book that I was lucky enough to find for a song on Alibris.  Really great book!  The crafts covered are unusual and while they produce beautiful sophisticated results, they are presented in a no nonsense way.  You get the feeling that you could do any of them!  Crafts covered include:  screen printing, silk painting, felt making, paper making, cyanotype, mosaic, acrylic molding, gilding and many more.

Betty Crocker's Cooky Book -- I just had to get this one.  I remember making cookies from my Mom's Betty Crocker Cookbook when I was little -- oooh!  found a picture of hers online:

So anyway, I'm loving the vintage pictures and old fashioned recipes in this cookbook.  And there is just about every cookie recipe imaginable included in this book too!

The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion -- A birthday gift from Pete.  I love baking and I love books on baking.  This is a winner of the James Beard Award and it's truly a comprehensive baking reference.  Tips, advice and recipes -- my god, the recipes!  If it's not in this book, I don't know where you'll find it.  When I go to bake something, I love to have 3 or 4 recipes that I can look at as a jumping off point and that makes this a great addition to my cookbook library. 

So that's some of the books that have been coming my way.  And I haven't even started to tell you about the library book sale books.  I'm almost finished with Wicked, so I'll be talking more about those soon!

I distract you once again with chocolate. . .

The best laid plans. . .   I had planned to make the brownies from my new favorite cookbook -- Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook -- but when I went to the grocery, they didn't have any semisweet Scharffenberger baking chocolate.  They did however, have some bittersweet baking chocolate -- all the better in my opinion -- but I wasn't sure how it would translate in the recipe.  Baking is such a funny thing.

I grabbed the chocolate anyway, figuring that Scharffenberger was sure to have some recipes on their website and they didn't let me down!  I choose to make John's Favorite Brownies despite the fact that I didn't have a double boiler.  I just threw a pyrex bowl on top of a saucepan and it worked just fine.

These brownies are super rich and I would highly recommend them!

(You didn't want to see my progress on pseudo-melody anyway, did you?  It really does pretty much look like it did a couple days ago despite my furious knitting.)

Blueberry Crisp

Pete is beginning to wonder what's gotten in to me.  I've been cooking and baking -- something I rarely find time for.  Last night it was Pad Thai for dinner and for dessert, blueberry crisp.

Blueberries are coming into season and were super cheap at the grocery, so I bought a quart.  I couldn't find a blueberry crisp recipe that had all the elements that I wanted, so I made one up on the fly with ingredients I had on hand.  Here's the recipe:

Julie's Blueberry Crisp

1 Qt Blueberries
1 Tbsp Tapioca
2 Tbsp Orange Juice

1/2 C Whole Wheat Flour
3/4 C Old Fashioned Oats
1/2 C Butter
1 C Brown Sugar
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Salt

Preheat oven to 375.  Grease 8 X 8 pan.  Combine first 3 ingredients and put in pan.  Mix the remaining ingredients with a pastry blender until crumbly.  Pour on top of blueberry mixture.

Bake for 40 min or until top is golden brown.  Serve with vanilla icecream, if desired.

That's it!  Super quick and easy.  And the husband gave it a thumb's up.  It was so yummy that I'm planning to have it for lunch today.

Sunday Morning Scones

Yesterday Theresa & I had a great time visiting The Fold and ended the evening with a wonderful dinner with our husbands.  So it was a good morning for being lazy.  Instead of making Pete go out and forage for breakfast as he usually does on Sunday mornings, I decided to mix up some scones.  I got some great King Arthur Flour scone mixes from Elaine in trade a while back, and they are really easy and good!

But enough about baked goods, I really need to tell you about The Fold!  It was so much better than I ever expected.  Tons of fiber (even things like yak and bison?!?) in lots of colors.  A good selection of spindles, niddy noddies & lots of wheels.  And a whole bunch of nice yarns (which we didn't really have a chance to look at because we were so taken with the fiber!) 

I already started to spin up one of my purchases -- some blue merino/kid mohair.  I don't think I've ever spun Merino before, so it took a little getting used to, but I really like it.  It isn't a solid blue. . .

It's a little bit darker than it looks in the picture.  After I ply up some of it I'll post pictures.

And one last thing -- Deanna, from my knitting guild, wanted me to mention the Heartland Knitting Retreat that she is putting together.  Annie Modesitt is one of the featured teachers!  And Deanna taught the workshop on needle felting at our guild meeting in May which was a lot of fun.  The retreat is in December and there is more info at her website.

Tomorrow I will show off my latest Black Sheep Bags design -- the Carroll Bag -- named after my mom.

Sugar Cookies & Pizza

Yesterday I got the baking bug and decided that I needed to make sugar cookies and homemade pizza -- yum!  Maddie and I made the cookies -- she put the blue sugar on all the blue cookies.  While doing this she turned to me and said -- This is the best day of my whole life! -- The things she says!

Anyway, the cookies are from this book:

It's the Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies recipe from Mary Engelbreit'S Cookies, and I've made them so many times! 

Then it was time for pizza.  I used the basic pizza dough recipe from The Pizza & Pasta Cookbook(which appears to be out of print!)  I mixed up the dough before starting the cookies so that it would have time to rise.  The rising seemed to fascinate Maddie  :)

Here it is after a rise, punch down, short kneading and a little rest.  (You need to let it rest or you won't be able to flatten it out -- it will keep springing back on you.)

Then I let everyone top their own pizza.  I bought pizza sauce, cheese, pine nuts (my favorite!), pre-cooked chicken. . . you get the idea.  Here's Pete's in the oven --

I did use a pizza stone, which seemed to give the pizza a nice crust.  And here is Pete enjoying his.

No big plans for the weekend, so I hope to get some sewing and possibly some spinning done.  Stay tuned!

** Oh yeah, and the Opal Royal goes to Natalie who was the first person to email me.