Honey Mustard Bread

Not too long ago, I told you all about my red beans and rice adventures, and how after a few days, I craved replacing the rice with something a little more interesting and dynamic.  I (unsurprisingly) decided on bread (I'm so predictable sometimes) and wanted something a little sweet and savory!  Honey sounded like just the thing to add sweetness, and dijon mustard is the perfect compliment!

Round up your ingredients!
1 cup water
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 cups bread flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry Colman's mustard
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp active dry yeast

This 1.5 pound loaf does it's thing on the white bread cycle, and is delicious when fresh!

I would like to briefly talk about honey.  I admit to being a little bit of a food snob, but I would like to recommend buying the best quality honey that you can.  There has been more and more information coming to light that a surprising amount of grocery store honey is not actually honey, and due to the lack of laws and regulation around it, can be labeled "honey" when it's little more than sugar water.  The flavor difference between "honey" and real honey is remarkable, and will add something special to your honeyed treats!  Support local beekeepers and honey makers when you can, and they'll reward you with a delicious product.  For a little extra fun, get varieties like orange blossom or clover, which imparts the flavor of the plant the pollen was collected from!  So very cool.

My Husband Keeps Bringing Home Bananas

They're not even bunches - they're just random, single bananas, that he's not going to eat because they're already too brown, and that I'm not going to eat because GROSS, BANANAS.

Sooo, banana bread!  I gave away this particular loaf because I'm not going to eat bucketloads of banana bread, plus we had a friend going through a rough time with his wife in the hospital, so homemade bread sounded like something he needed.

1/3 cup milk
1 very ripe banana (peel 'em mash 'em)
1 egg
2 tbsp butter, softened
3 cups bread flour
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup walnuts (chop 'em)

Spread your walnuts on a baking sheet and put them in a 350 degree over, giving them a good flip (I just shimmy the baking sheet) at least once during the cooking.  Keep an eye on them, they burn very fast.  They should start to smell toasty, and that's all you need.  Put all the ingredients in your machine with the walnuts on top and let the white cycle do it's thing on this 1.5 pound loaf.

Warning: it makes your house smell like bananas.  EWW.

This is pretty tasty with strawberry jam spread all over it.  Plus, it's a substantial breakfast!  It really makes you happy for the rest of the day.

'Tato Bread! I Think It's Probably Healthy!

OK.  This weekend I was craving something hearty and substantial.  Something that was "healthier" than regular white bread (which is healthier if you make it yourself, really).  Something to use up some left over mini potatoes before they turned evil.

OMG they're even pretty colors

In to my life came (Po)Tato Bread.  It seems so many recipes call for you to use box/flake/fake potatoes for the sake of not having lumps or nutrition or potato in your bread, but box mashed potatoes are something I gave up not long after I finished college (right around the time I gave up Top Ramen and ironing board grilled cheese sandwiches, I might add).  Potatoes are hearty and delicious and just make you feel good - I was going to use real ones.

Obviously, this meant more work than my standard "chuck things in bread machine and nap for 3 hours" style of baking.  Let's get the unbearably difficult part out of the way:

3/4 cup water, brought to a boil in a saucepan (that water boils FAST, watch it!)
3/4 cup chopped potatoes - I didn't peel mine because peels have vitamins, and also the potatoes were tiny.  I would have laughed at myself peeling such tiny potatoes.

Boil your water, and put your potatoes in the boiling water.  Reduce heat, cover, simmer until you have tender potatoes.  Don't drain, and get to mashing.  When your tatoes are thoroughly mashed, add another 1/4 cup water, and enough milk to make a total of 1 and 1/2 cups milky mashed potato mix.  Some of your water has boiled off, so no, my math isn't crazy.  ;)

NOW BACK TO THE GOOD PART - chucking things in to the bread machine pre-nap!

To your machine, add
1 and 1/2 cup milky mashed potato
4 tsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups bread flour
1 cup wheat flour (healthy!)
3/4 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 tsp assorted dried spices - I used oregano, rosemary, and basil.  Use your favorites!
1 tsp active dry yeast

Stretch in anticipation of your nap, set the machine to the whole wheat cycle for your 1.5 pound loaf, and try to resist smelling the kitchen once all those spices and potatoes get going.

If you use the tricolor potatoes, be sure to admire those pretty purple and red flecks throughout the loaf!  I found this bread was hearty and tasty enough to stand alone, but my absolute favorite topping was a very seedy beer mustard straight from a brewery in England.  I actually had to stop myself before going through this precious jar in one loaf!  Man, THAT is a good combo!

Cheesy Bread

While waiting to see what my sourdough was going to do (and since that loaf was going to take a couple days anyway), I put something else in the bread machine because NEED BREAD RITE NAO.  It's not too complex but is packing plenty of flavor, and is very customizable depending on what kind of cheese you like/have/want.

2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1 egg
3 cups bread flour
1 and 1/3 cup shredded cheese (I like cheddar, but pick your favorite!)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast

Use the white bread cycle on your machine and select the 1.5 pound loaf.  And of course I'm sitting here typing this in front of Food Network, and the sight of fresh jalapenos being sliced makes me think they would be so delicious in this loaf.  I'm actually sad I didn't think about it until just now.  Remind me for next time!

Fail Issue: Identified

So, I've figured out why my loaf of bread was such a fail yesterday.  Last night I attempted a loaf of my usual sourdough - the one that works every single time.  It seems my sourdough starter has gone comatose.  I don't think it's dead, as it still smells right, and it still forms small bubbles when new flour and water is added, but it's not reacting and growing at the correct rate.

I'm a bit bummed at the moment, but I suppose this means that now I'll learn how to revive my starter, and then I can pass that info on to you all!  Off to do some research...

Fail Bread

Yesterday, I set out to do something NEW and EXCITING.  "Sourdough whole wheat bread sounds super-awesome!", I thought.

SAD FACE ALERT.

OMG so sad.

I don't know what happened, but the stupid thing didn't rise.  The recipe (which I'm not going to post, because LOOK AT THE PHOTO) told me to be patient, for it may take up to 4 hours for it to double, and 12 hours later I finally stuck it in the oven to see if it at least tasted good and if I should bother to try again.

Yeah.  We're not trying this one again.  Maybe I'll give the rest to someone I particularly dislike.

The Essence of Simplicity: White Bread

I've made my share of fancy loaves - mustard-flavored,veggie-based, saffron-infused, long-rising sourdoughs - but it doesn't always need to be that way.  Over the weekend, I felt strongly that I was ready to take it back to basics.  It doesn't get much simpler than a nice white bread, and before you think "but that's the unhealthiest of them all!" - this isn't the preservative-laden version that's so common on store shelves.  Real ingredients make real bread, albeit really simple bread.

1 cup milk
1/4 cup water
4 tsp olive oil
3 cups bread flour
3 and 1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast

As is my standard, this makes a 1.5 pound loaf, and is of course baked on the white bread cycle on your machine (what else would you use it for?).  It may originally look pretty dry when it's mixing up, but it quickly turns into the perfect ball of dough, and bakes in to a light and fluffy loaf.  It's a Wonder, when you think about it!  ;)

It's ok to make bread simple, and to just have something relatively plain (yet familiar) to enjoy in the simple ways we've become accustomed to throughout our lives.  Cold and hot sandwiches, breadcrumbs in meatloaf, toast, slathered in butter - you have a blank canvas and ideas from your childhood to work with!  A minor obsession of mine is the tuna melt.  I had one for dinner tonight and I'll probably have 3 more as the week goes on.  How's this for screen-licking goodness?

Back to Bread - Strawberry Bread with Chocolate

Most of the time I prefer savory bread.  Something I can put egg salad or grilled cheese on, or sop up the sauce after a good plate of pasta.  And really, with those descriptions I'm being generous - tearing off a big hunk of french bread and eating it plain is oh-so-good.

But "most of the time" does not equal "all of the time", and there are times when I want my dessert in bread form.  Hey, it requires even less work than cookies!  And with the inclusion of strawberry jam, we can pretend it's healthy.  ;)


2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup strawberry jam
1 egg
2 tbsp butter, cut
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups bread flour
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (I prefer Ghiradelli)
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (more Ghiradelli!  Also, the mini ones mean the chocolate is more spread out)

This is a 1.5 pound loaf, and it's baked on the regular ol' white bread cycle.  My machine has a signal after the first mix has ended at which you add additional ingredients, this is the ideal time to add the chocolate chips as the more they get worked up, the more likely they are the become a melty mess.  Which really doesn't sound terrible.

I haven't really been patient enough to figure out what the best way to eat this is, besides just eating it straight - butter makes everything better, but it's really not necessary here.  Perhaps if you're feeling crazy, Nutella?

In parting, have a moody emo chocolatey photo:

Sourdough Like You Mean It

A few days ago I showed you my mom's gift and shared my excitement to try and make my own sourdough.  There are the easy ways to do it where you put everything in the machine like you could with many other breads, but real sourdough flavor means time, and letting the natural yeast in the starter work for itself - not adding additional commercial yeast.  So when it came time to make mine, I let my machine do only the mixing, and time and I took over after that.  I admit, I slept for most of it - but 16 hours later, I had some GOOD bread!  You really don't even need the machine at all, I just wanted to save the time since I'm busy (lazy).

Let's start at the beginning.  Ingredients!

1 cup sourdough starter
3/4 cup warm water (cold slows down the yeast cultures, hot kills them)
2 and 2/3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt

Notice: no extra yeast!  Sourdough starter is alive and has all the yeast you need, though at its own pace.  It won't work as rapidly as a packet of yeast, so try to plan ahead when you want this bread!  You of course CAN add yeast if you're in a hurry, though I suspect the flavor won't develop completely.

Dough in a bowl

OK, mix your ingredients.  Remember, I'm busy or lazy, so I had my machine mix for me.  My machine's dough cycle also lets the dough rest and rise, but since I didn't want to leave it in the machine I removed it as soon as it was done mixing - about 30 minutes in.  When I removed it, I put the dough into a bowl that I had coated with a thin layer of olive oil - you'll realize why as soon as you pick up the dough.  It is the stickiest thing in the world and you will feel like a movie villain that has sour dough for hands.  Coating your hands in flour before picking up the dough probably would have been a good idea.  IN to the oiled bowl it goes!  I also put a sheet of plastic wrap over the dough (not tightly, it's going to grow), and then a cotton towel over that.  Pardon the low light in the pictures - this was at 9 o'clock at night.  I figured I needed a lot of time for it to rise and do its thing, so what time better than overnight for it to be left alone and for me to not poke it all day!

So that was at 9 on Friday night - take a look at what I found at 9 on Saturday morning!

Whoa!  First of all, the light is BETTER.  But more importantly, this about quadrupled in size.  Look on the side of the bowl - see all those bubbles along the sides?  That's what the whole loaf is doing.  The yeast in the sourdough is creating gasses and bubbles that get trapped in the dough, and cause it to poof up like that.  As such, this is going to collapse when we touch it, but that's ok!  We actually NEED to break those larger bubbles, so we're going to pop this out of the bowl and do a little punching.  FIRST, we'll put some flour on a board, and some flour on our hands, too.  Even with the oil in the bowl this will stick, which oughta tell you what you're up against!

 Get your dough out of the bowl and on to your floured surface (some will stick, and do the best you can) and PUNCH IT.  You're not trying to give it a concussion, you're just trying to point out that there's a SlugBug, ok?  Now it's all flat and all the big bubbles have popped out of it.  This doesn't look like a loaf of bread!  No, it doesn't - because that's not what it is, yet!  We're actually going to do this AGAIN!  Pick up your dough and pull it in to a ball, basically folding the edges inward and leaving a small, round, taut surface.  It's pretty.

Then it doesn't matter how pretty it is, because you're chucking it back in to the bowl to rise again.

I don't bother putting plastic wrap on this round, because it's not going to rise as far as it did the first time.  Also, it won't take as long to rise either - it'll take about half the time, if even that.  At least in my house, it's much warmer during the day than overnight (maybe 68 vs 55), so mine was ready to go 4 hours later.  Repeat the steps again - flop it on a floured board, pull it back in to that pretty ball, but some slits in the top, and throw it on a stone (or a baking sheet) in the oven!

I'm still getting used to the oven part of this.  I tend to start at 350, and when it starts to expand it get a light colored crust on it, I turn it up to 400 to get the golden color on it.  Maybe I should start at a higher temp, I don't know.  So far my method is working for me, so if someone introduces a better method, I'll try it then!  When all goes well, I get this:

It's not a tumah!  Even cutting slits in it, I still tend to get weird growth patterns with my bread, but that doesn't matter.  I'm not selling it, I'm not trying to impress anyone.  I have my own tasty, ugly bread, that's deliciously chewy in the middle and with a crunchy, crusty crust.

Aren't you drooling yet?  Make this already!

Mother's Day Goodies

We're celebrating Mother's Day tonight, which means I can finally show off my gift!

I made the photo big so you can see how blurry it is!  :D  But seriously, isn't it pretty?  I got the basket from Longaberger, who are kind of a big deal in the basket making world, and the craftsmanship on it is really beautiful.  Mom has collected these baskets for a while so I thought a new one would be nice!

Then I got crafty and made a basket liner out of linen, which I was nervous about working with at first because some friends had negative experiences with it, but I actually really enjoyed it!  It is definitely NOT wool, so going in not expecting it to be like something you normally knit with helped, and although it was a bit crisp and twiney as I was knitting it, it blocked beautifully and will only get more amazing the more it's used and washed and pushed around.  I am very seriously considering making some placemats for my home, or possibly even a wearable item like a skirt out of linen, but that's said while I firmly try to ignore the 100 skeins of yarn that I already own!

And wait, what else is in that basket?

BREEEEAAAADDDD!!!!!

I was very jealous and sad that I wasn't going to get to keep this loaf.  It baked up so pretty in the oven,  it smells incredible, plus I just had so much fun making it!  This was more fun with sourdough, and as I have a strong need (not a want - a NEED) to make another one for myself, the recipe will be coming soon.  The ingredients were nothing out of the ordinary - just flour, water, sourdough starter, and salt (yes really - only 4 ingredients!), but it was so cool letting it rise for hours and having it double in size, punching it down, and watching it do it again.  So very soon we'll go on a sourdough adventure once I get a loaf of this for myself.

In the meantime, off to deliver this to Mom!

Sourdough Bread - with OATMEAL

Before a recent cholesterol test, I asked a couple friends that are in better health if they had any tips for me.  I try to eat pretty well anyway, and am I huge fan of eating fish as often as possible as well as my leafy greens, but I'm still not exactly a saint with everything I eat (just ask any loaf of warm, fresh bread that's recently out of the machine, when there's only half of it left an hour later).  A friend recommended I up my uptake of oatmeal, which I know but I always seem to forget.  So I forgot that tip promptly, and a few days later as I was poking through bread recipes I discovered a sourdough loaf with oatmeal.  It sounded "healthy", but I was really pleased to discover that it was REALLY good!  The sourdough flavor was light and the loaf was pretty solid and somewhat dense.  I thought it was perfect for a turkey sandwich, PB&J, or even just grabbing a hunk of it and nomming it plain!


Ingredients:
3/4 cup of sourdough starter
3/4 cup milk
4 tsp butter - cut up so you don't get all your butter in one spot
3 cups bread flour
1 tbsp brown sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp active dry yeast

AND

1/3 cup of rolled oats (I like the Quaker ones in the cylinder)

The oats go on a baking sheet in a 350F oven for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they starting browning and smelling toasty (NOT burnt!).  In the meantime, throw the rest of the ingredients in the machine and prepare to set it to the regular white bread setting, at 1.5 pounds.  Add your toasted oats on top and start the machine!

Random question: have you ever spent WAY too much time trying to photograph a PB&J sandwich?

There's Beer in my Sourdough!

All this talk of San Francisco and we haven't done sourdough bread in a while!  We need to fix this!

There are so many recipes for sourdough that are not best suited for the bread machine, due to the fact that the dough really needs to rest for a while to spread that delightfully sour flavor throughout the loaf, and also because when you're using your sourdough as your yeast it REALLY needs more time to rise properly and become a proper loaf of bread.

But this knowledge had no bearing on the fact that I can be lazy, and I wanted sourdough bread in less than 4 hours.  So I searched, and pieced together a recipe that would use my starter, some beer (which is pretty much liquid starter, if you think about it), and a little more yeast to get it to rise in time in the machine.  I was so pleased with how it came out, that I actually ate it all before I could take a photo of it.  Oops.

In my machine, I added:


1 and 1/4 cups sourdough starter 
1/4 cup water 
1/2 cup beer (I used Blue Moon, as it was the least "flavored" beer I had on hand)
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp yeast

Keep some water nearby when it's first mixing to make sure it all mixes together properly, I actually added a bit too much and had wet dough (but it all baked well in the end).  I know that 3 cups of bread flour usually means it's a 1.5 pound loaf, but I'm still unsure whether sourdough counts as more flour so I called it a 2 pound to be safe.  I'm glad I did, that wet loaf really benefited from the extra few minutes of baking time.  The regular white bread cycle is all you need for this one, and in 4 hours you'll have delicious BREAD!

Beer bread goes well with cheese.  Or more beer.  I've noticed that the bread seems to taste more sour on subsequent days.  Is that how sourdough is supposed to work? 

Rosemary Bread

Before we head in to the weekend I wanted to squeeze in one more post, and I realized I haven't posted a recipe for bread in a while!  I baked this loaf up earlier in the week and am glad I did!  I've made this recipe once before but didn't get to taste it - I traded it to a friend in exchange for bourbon brownies.  Speaking of which - I ought to make her more bread...

But for now, this one is mine!

For a 1.5 pound loaf, put in your machine:
1 and 1/4 cup milk
4 tsp olive oil
a dash (or more) of hot sauce
3 cups bread flour
3 tbsp cornmeal
1tbsp sugar
1.5 tsp snipped fresh rosemary (half as much if using dried)
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp active dry yeast

This goes through the white bread cycle and a few hours later, you get this pretty loaf!

I thought the cornmeal in this bread made it really interesting.  Commonly you may see cornmeal on the bottom of a loaf that you bake on a baking sheet or oven stone - that helps keep the bread from sticking to whatever you're baking it on.  In this recipe, by mixing the cornmeal through out the bread, you get a nice toothy crunch in even the soft parts of the bread.  It gives it a sort of "rustic" texture that is so perfect for sopping up sauces or soups or a little bit of olive oil.

Hmm, I wonder how it would work as a sourdough...

Sourdough! I Feel So Advanced!

OK, so it's not the prettiest loaf in the world (the slashes on the top were centered when I cut them, obviously in the oven there was some weird growth pattern that occurred), but it's cool because it's sourdough!  I had resisted sourdough for a while, because a) I usually wanted sourdough TODAY but the starter wouldn't be ready until at least a week from now, and then instead of starting the starter for the next time I wanted sourdough, I got lazy, and b) the thought of creating something that had to ferment and grow and be alive just seemed...intimidating!  But finally I took the plunge and I'm glad I did, sourdough has been a very welcome addition to my life!  :D

The starter was simple enough.  Flour, sugar, water, and yeast in a bowl, sitting on the counter for days.  I later read that adding yeast to the starter was actually quite blasphemous when dealing with sourdough pros, but I am no sourdough pro so I was willing to take that risk.  Even if it has started out as just a continued strain of my commercial , Red Star yeast, I'm sure that with time it will evolve and pick up other strains from the air and my kitchen (that's what I've read it's supposed to do, anyway).

Alive and Well

I followed the directions for caring for my young starter, and stirred it 2 or 3 times a day for 5 days.  It had usually separated out in to a hunk of wet dough submerged in a yellow liquid, but the stirring always brought it back together until the next time.  Until the 6th day, when I COMPLETELY forgot and didn't stir or even look at my starter for the entire day.  When I remembered on day 7, I was greeted not by my familiar submerged lump of dough, but what seemed like a wet pancake batter.  Is this right?  DID I BREAK IT?!  Do I have to start all over??  I scoured the net for resources on what the heck my sourdough starter should look like (since my book only told me "use when it's ready" - what does "ready" look like?) and found this very cool article which was so helpful, and that even talked about strains of starter that have been around since the 1840s!  Somehow it didn't even occur to me that you could just keep replenishing it for so long and keep it alive!  I've bookmarked it for future sourdough reference.

As you can see from the starting picture, the starter worked!  My bread was (sorta) beautiful, and had that slightly sour taste that I love so much.  I've heard that you can get sourdough starter from other places to use, not least of all from San Francisco (very well known for their sourdough prowess), so that's something I will have to try and see how it compares to my starter.  Interestingly enough, starter from other places only maintains that place's character for a short period of time, before it takes on the yeast in the air from whatever new place it's in.  So sourdough starter from the same batch that now live on opposite ends of the country could be entirely different in a year or so.

Obviously I'm fascinated by this, since it makes me feel a bit like a mad scientist, so as I play with this bread more, expect future posts with sourdough recipes and general madness!

How Does One Fail with a Bread Machine? OR Sometimes I'm a Poor Planner OR the Ugliest Loaf in the World

The faint of heart should look away.

Bah!  Oh...ugh...make it stop!!  Gah, could that get ANY uglier?  It makes my head hurt.  This photo is actually being nice, and is hiding the ghastly pale color.  It looks like an undead loaf.

So last night, at 11 o'clock, I decided that I would load up the bread machine with an olive loaf recipe, and it would be ready for me all bright and sunshiney early when I got up.  I've done this before and have had great success, once I'm asleep I don't hear all the whirring and beeping that makes it sound like a a robot is eating a washing machine.

Surely you see where this is going.

Last night I had an IMPOSSIBLE time getting to sleep.  It was too warm, I had stayed up too late all weekend and couldn't get back in to going to bed before midnight, my brain was thinking about my crazy schedule this week, I was trying to position myself around the cat that had plonked herself right in the middle of the bed, not wanting to wake her up because then it's time to knock stuff off the tops of the dressers and jump on and off the bed like she's stuck in an endless loop.  Yeah yeah, my life is hard.  I know.

I tossed and turned, and at 3:15 in the morning, hear "wheer!  wheer! wheer! whirwhirwhirwhirwhirwhirwhirwhir".  Wuuuuuut.  Are you serious right now?  I can never hear it if I'm already asleep, but since I'm awake it is ALL I hear.  I try to tune it out.  I try to ignore it.  I try to pretend that it's not remarkably loud at 3:20 in the morning.  I flash forward to 10 minutes in my future, when the bread machine will tell me "hey! come! add! nuts! or! some! thing! now's! the! time! right! now! so! you! should! make! use! of! this! beep!"  Actually, those are all beeps, but the only reason I could think of that it beeps 20 times (yes REALLY) is that it thinks it's speaking English and is trying to talk to me.

I hate beeping.  I never set my snooze alarm for that very reason, because I HATE beeping.  Why would I create more beeping?  So I do exactly what you would do - I got up and unplugged it.  After 10 minutes of trying so hard to pretend that I could sleep through the racket - bread making was over for the night.  I was then kept up by wondering, what would happen to the loaf?  It had been roughly mixed, would it rise?  Since it would sit for another 3 hours before getting any more attention, would it rise TOO much?  Would I come in to the kitchen, only to be forced out by a living, breathing, angry lump of dough?  Should I not get it wet?  Should I not feed it after midnight?

I woke up to find a barely risen lump of pitiful dough, with not nearly enough gluten or air worked in to it.  Figuring I had already created a sad pathetic monster, the least I could do was bake it.  Let it believe that it was going to grow up to be a real, honest-to-goodness loaf of bread, and not a pathetic faildough.  I started the "bake only" setting and walked away, going back to bed.  I was tired, after that night!

An hour later, I finally dragged myself out of bed for good, still not having achieved much sleep, and looked in the machine.  It was so pale and awkward looking, that I was actually surprised to find a hard crust when I poked it.  I mean, it made sense - I had just baked it (I actually felt silly being so surprised).  I shook it out of the pan, taking no care to keep it pretty for pictures.  I cut in to it immediately.  If it were truly terrible, perhaps I could chuck it at something more interesting than itself.  Which wouldn't take much.  I mean, just LOOK at it!  I could chuck it at my kitchen floor and improve it, right?

Funny thing...

It's actually quite good.  I've already eaten half the loaf.

Banana Cinnamon Chip Bread

It came out good, which means I can share the recipe with you now!

I couldn't get the color in the photo quite right, it's actually an AMAZING orangey color from the cinnamon chips.  It's so cool looking!  Now, those of you that know me, know that I HATE bananas.  Hate hate hate, cannot eat them, they are the one food that I just can not stand.  However, the kneading action of my bread machine made it so there weren't any slimy chunks of bananas and they were spread evenly throughout the dough, leaving the sweetness behind without compromising the consistency of the bread.  I wasn't too thrilled about hand mashing the bananas, or how it smelled when it was in the mixing phase.  But then, I'm in the minority in my feelings on bananas, so let's move on!

For a 1.5 pound loaf:

1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (1 banana yielded this for me, and when it has some brown skin it's perfect for baking!)
1/2 cup Hershey's Cinnamon Chips (chocolate chips would also be amazing)
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
2 tbsp butter, cut in to pieces
1 cup bread flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tbsp brown sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 and 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

Select the whole wheat /whole grain cycle on your machine.
Note that I put the cinnamon chips in first - I did this because my whole wheat cycle preheats the the pan before it mixes, so it made my chips all melty before mixing.  There are no chips left, just the cinnamon sugary flavor throughout.   If you would prefer your chips to stay intact, you could put them in last (which is what the recipe called for in the first place), or put them in after your bread is partially kneaded.

I had a hard time finding the Hershey's Cinnamon Chips in stores, but finally had success from Amazon!  I had to order several bags of them, but I'm sure I can figure out what to do with them!  :D

Busy Sunday!

The title is a SLIGHT misnomer, as I technically have been a busy bee in the kitchen since I woke up, I only woke up at 11:30.  So take that for what you will.

As of right now, sourdough starter has been...started (it's already getting all bubbly and weird, it's very cool!), eggs are hardboiling, and I have banana cinnamon bread in the bread machine!  Once that comes out successfully, I'll post the recipe.  If it comes out as failbread, then that will be a blog entry too.  :D

Today I am also frogging the shawl on the left.  I still love the pattern (Transatlantic by Stephen West), but the color combo is not working up to be what I had hoped.  I really think the yellow needs to stand on its own, or at least in a way that it's the dominant color.  Plus I've had people ask when they see this combo "oh, do you like Harry Potter?"  No.  No I don't.  It's something that won't get worn so I'll reclaim the yarn for something else!  In the mean time, Transatlantic goes back in to my queue, and I'm back to shopping the stash.  I have some socks on the needles right now, but I'm not sure what to make next.  If history is any indicator, probably more socks.  :D

In conclusion, I leave you with this:

 

 LOL WUT.  I want to note that the ingredients also list "natural flavors", which it should be pointed out, are not very natural.

French Toast, and the Bread it Once Was

French Toast WEEKEND!!!  All of my photos of this event are kind of hilarious, as I tried to find a balance between not burning anything, taking photos, stuffing my face, and taking more photos.  Of the 10 photos I took, I'd say 2 are acceptable.  We won't even go in to "good".  I may as well take a moment up front and apologize for my haphazard use of capitol letters in French Toast.  For me it's like Chocolate or Where The Wild Things Are or The Queen; while I have an explanation, it's funnier to let you draw your own conclusions.

FRENCH TOAST!  I like mine to be savory - no maple syrup or added sugar for me.  Just one egg for every slice of bread, a splash of milk (which I actually forgot this time), a dipped piece of bread, thrown in to a buttery pan as you would a Grilled Cheese Sandwich.  Flip when the cooked side looks like the photo (or when it looks like it's edible to you), continuing to butter the pan as needed.  Top as you wish.  I realize my instructions are a bit...lacking, I think part of that is with FrenCh ToAst, I always feel like "I'm doin' it wrong", that it comes out great and just how I like, but that even a line cook at a diner would say "really?  THAT'S you technique?"  Whatever.

So - I haven't mentioned the best part yet.  What kind of bread am I using?  ORANGE CINNAMON BREAD!  Yep, last night as we tore in to this for the first time, I realized it would make for perfect breakfast tomorrow.  Also, just a small amount of orange made my whole house smell like citrus last night.  YUM!

Put things in your bread machine for a 1.5 pound loaf on the regular white bread cycle:

1/2 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup water
a quick squeeze from an orange (this was a tbsp at the most)
1 egg
3 tbsp butter - cut up
3 cups bread flour
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp orange zest
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon (I used my new fancy stuff from Penzeys!)
1 tsp active dry yeast

Orange zest - take your cheese grater with the small holes, and grate ONLY the orange color.  Once you hit the lighter color and then the white - you've gone too far.  That's the pith, and it's gross and bitter.  As you're zesting the orange peel it should be very aromatic and nice.  I ended up using 2 oranges for that much zest, don't be afraid if you can't get it all in one!

Even if you don't make FRencH TOAST with it, it's still amazing by itself.  Yum, bread.

Cucumber Dill Bread

You may know by now that I am a big fan of fancy food and interesting recipes, but sometimes you just want something simple and tasty and nice for dinner.

So I spread some cream cheese on some cucumber dill bread, and put smoked salmon on top of that, with just a sprinkle of dill.  Not pictured - the piece of salmon that has about 2 whole tablespoons of dill on it because I forgot my dried dill doesn't have a shaker top before sprinkling.  headdesk

Make bread!

3/4 cup peeled and shredded cucumber (this is essentially 1 cucumber)
1/3 cup sour cream (drain any extra water that has separated out)
3 cups bread flour
2 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp dried dill (or 2 tsp fresh dill, snipped)
1 tsp active dry yeast

 *between 1 tbsp and 1/4 cup water  (I'll explain shortly)

 Add all ingredients to the machine in the order listed except the water.  In shredding the cucumber, you may have noticed that it has lots of water in it already.  The original recipe called for me to drain all cucumber liquid and to add 1/2 cup of water, but I would much rather keep the fresh flavorful water that just came from the fresh cucumber!  Why would I replace that with unflavored boring water?

OK!  I'm getting distracted.  You've added your ingredients, yes?  Turn on your basic white cycle for the 1.5 lb loaf, and WAIT.  Wait until it all starts to mix together, with your extra water nearby, and wait to see what it needs from you.  If the dough stays dry and won't stick to itself, won't make a nice smooth ball (which it probably won't, unless that cucumber was packing a lot of water), slowly add water, a tablespoon at a time, until you get the right texture.  Try not to get overambitious and add a whole bunch of water at once, that's how I ended up with a soggy, doughy loaf the first time around.

Now wait some more  - wait for your bread to bake, and enjoy!

Chocolate Moose Cookies, omnomnomnom

Last night was KNIT NIGHT!  So as I stood in the grocery store, overwhelmed and questioning what to bring, I thought "oh screw it, I'll just go home and bake cookies".  (No, it doesn't make sense to me either.)  I considered calling these "Calamity Cookies", as me trying to complete cookies in a half hour resulted in a whole lot of racket and general destruction in my kitchen, but figured that "Chocolate Moose Cookies" was more descriptive and easier to recall when you file it away, and really any thing I make could have the "calamity" modifier.  Ahem.

Note:  These do not contain moose.  They contain muesli, which I just sound like an idiot when I try to say that so we're substituting with "moose".  Try saying muesli 5 times in a row.  It doesn't even sound like a word any more, does it?!  You'll ask yourself "is muesli a delicious blend of oats, nuts, and dried fruits?  Or is it not even real??!"  Then you'll find something better to do.

OK!  It is tim to be series.  (that would make my husband laugh, but he doesn't read my blog - so that is truly a joke with no audience)



Let's preheat to 375 and get our ingredients working: 



It looks like darkness has befallen my cookie dough, LOL.



1/2 cup softened butter (that's a whole stick)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla (or 1/2 tsp of double-strength vanilla)

1 egg - removed completely from the shell (terrible Worst Cooks in America joke)

You're going to cream these things together with your mixer.  Then you'll beat in the dry ingredients:

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking SODA

1/2 tsp salt

I mixed the dry ingredients together first and added them sloooowly so as not to create a whole wheat flour cloud in my kitchen.

Then turn off your mixer, add:

6 oz chocolate chips
1 cup muesli

It will look like there are too many "additional goods" for the dough, and that's probably true, but you can get it all in there!  Stir in until you have a nice, even mixture.  Now, put your thumb and your pointer finger together like you're making the "ok" sign - the dough that you put on the cookie sheet should be in balls about that size.  Be sure to space them well - those balls will flatten out and spread during baking.  This recipe made approximately 18 cookies so you can do 9 on a cookie sheet twice (I'm not going in to more math than that).

Get your cookies in the oven and bake for 10-13 minutes (at least be sure to check them at 10).  Remove and put on a wire rack to cool.

Wrap them in foil and rush them to Knit Night as quickly as you can, forgetting to pick up your mom in the process.