my weakness...bread

I don't even remember if i've talked about this, but a whiiiiiiile back i went to two classes held by King Arthur Flour. They taught me how to make bread, and pie crust. WELL i have yet to tackle the pie crust (missing the pie pan...yes it's an excuse). but i have tackled bread twice.

You all saw my first attempt and now i've done a new one.

No-Knead Crusty White Bread

OMG EASY!!!!!! and so delicious i'm trying to stop myself from eating Joe's. The hardest part is waiting the hours upon hours for the dough to rise. BUT if you make the dough before bed it will be ready for morning.

Here is how i see you doing this

1) make dough. put in fridge over night to rise

2)with 1.5-2 hours before needing to walk out the door. get dough ready for the pre-oven rise (40-50 min).

3) put in oven for 30-40 minutes (until brown in color).... EAT EAT EAT!

OR save for dinner that night. This dough lasts for a week or more! How great. it starts to turn to sourdough bread.

*I made the dough last sunday and this morning i made french toast with some of the loaves i made yesterday. nothing like making french toast with your own bread! I swear this is the easiest thing ever (or else i wouldn't be doing it)!

**I tried to add raisins...nothing like crusty raisin bread RIGHT. I would recommend soaking the raisins a bit to increase the juicy factor.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour*
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast

Directions

*The flour/liquid ratio is important in this recipe. If you measure flour by sprinkling it into your measuring cup, then gently sweeping off the excess, use 7 1/2 cups. If you measure flour by dipping your cup into the canister, then sweeping off the excess, use 6 1/2 cups. Most accurate of all, and guaranteed to give you the best results, if you measure flour by weight, use 32 ounces.

1) Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl, or a large (6-quart), food-safe plastic bucket. For first-timers, "lukewarm" means about 105°F, but don't stress over getting the temperatures exact here. Comfortably warm is fine; "OUCH, that's hot!" is not. Yeast is a living thing; treat it nicely.

2) Mix and stir everything together to make a very sticky, rough dough. If you have a stand mixer, beat at medium speed with the beater blade for 30 to 60 seconds. If you don't have a mixer, just stir-stir-stir with a big spoon or dough whisk till everything is combined.

3) Next, you're going to let the dough rise. If you've made the dough in a plastic bucket, you're all set — just let it stay there, covering the bucket with a lid or plastic wrap; a shower cap actually works well here. If you've made the dough in a bowl that's not at least 6-quart capacity, transfer it to a large bowl; it's going to rise a lot. There's no need to grease the bowl, though you can if you like; it makes it a bit easier to get the dough out when it's time to bake bread.

4) Cover the bowl or bucket, and let the dough rise at room temperature for 2 hours. Then refrigerate it for at least 2 hours, or for up to about 7 days. (If you're pressed for time, skip the room-temperature rise, and stick it right into the fridge). The longer you keep it in the fridge, the tangier it'll get; if you chill it for 7 days, it will taste like sourdough. Over the course of the first day or so, it'll rise, then fall. That's OK; that's what it's supposed to do.

5) When you're ready to make bread, sprinkle the top of the dough with flour; this will make it easier to grab a hunk. Grease your hands, and pull off about 1/4 to 1/3 of the dough — a 14-ounce to 19-ounce piece, if you have a scale. It'll be about the size of a softball, or a large grapefruit.

6) Plop the sticky dough onto a floured work surface, and round it into a ball, or a longer log. Don't fuss around trying to make it perfect; just do the best you can.

7) Place the dough on a piece of parchment (if you're going to use a baking stone); or onto a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Sift a light coating of flour over the top; this will help keep the dough moist as it rests before baking.

8) Let the dough rise for about 45 to 60 minutes. It won't appear to rise upwards that much; rather, it'll seem to settle and expand. Preheat your oven (and baking stone, if you're using one) to 450°F while the dough rests. Place a shallow pan on the lowest oven rack, and have 1 cup of hot water ready to go.

9) When you're ready to bake, take a sharp knife and slash the bread 2 or 3 times, making a cut about 1/2" deep. The bread may deflate a bit; that's OK, it'll pick right up in the hot oven.

10) Place the bread in the oven, and carefully pour the 1 cup hot water into the shallow pan on the rack beneath. It'll bubble and steam; close the oven door quickly.

11) Bake the bread for 25 to 35 minutes, until it's a deep, golden brown.

12) Remove the bread from the oven, and cool it on a rack. Store leftover bread in a plastic bag at room temperature.

13) Yield: 3 or 4 loaves, depending on size.

heart heathy pumpy pumpkin bread

After i got over how RIDICULOUSLY hard it was to cut a sugar pumpkin (swear to god i was going to lose a finger or hand and sweat all over the thing) and Joe was late for work trying to help me do this....i got down to business on roasting the pumpkin to then make the faaaaabulous pumpkin bread.

So far most of my recipes are taken from allrecipes.com with modifications either recommended by other people or stuff i think would be yummy in it. I made this one because with all the bread J and I are consuming in the breakfast department i wanted something that was good for us, but also had some substantial substance that i could eat this with peanut butter and feel full for a while. I made this as bread (because i don't have muffin tins), but this would also be great in muffin cups to make portion control less of an issue.

here she be:

1 small sugar pumpkin, seeded (about 15 oz---if you go for the canned version)

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup oats

3/4 cup white sugar (agave nectar would be great in this...but i don't know the conversion)

• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup apple sauce
• 3 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. Split pumpkin in half. Remove seeds and strings. Place on baking sheet, cut side down. Cover with foil and bake in preheated oven until tender, about 90 minutes. Remove pumpkin pulp and puree in blender. Measure out 2 cups pumpkin puree; set aside.
3. In a large bowl, stir together flour, oats, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together 2 cups pumpkin puree, apple sauce and eggs. Stir pumpkin mixture into flour mixture until smooth. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

This bread is full of spices...in a good way it's spicey. You may want to decrease the nutmeg, clove and allspice. I liked it like this though.

red quinoa salad

When my brother came for a visit a month or so ago he came with a container of quinoa he and Rachel had been carrying across the country. They were planning to eat it, but never got the chance. Instead they refused to bring back where it came from and left this delightful treat with me. I have cooked quinoa a couple of times and have been trying to find something i liked with it. I think i've finally made a quinoa dish i can be proud to share. I heard somewhere that if your meal is colorful it is pretty darn healthy.

In my salad i had
2 handfulls of raisins
1 or so cup of corn
handful of raw unsalted sunflower seeds
half an onion chopped into small edible pieces
shallot diced
2 cloves of garlic diced
arugula
4 handfuls of grape tomatoes cut in half
tablespoon of parsley (wish i had it fresh though)

1 cup of uncooked quinoa---1 cup to 2 cups of water (broth is best)

I put the salad together adding oil and red wine vinegar as a seasoning (i would also add lemon juice, but i didn't have any). Salt and pepper
Plate the salad and put the quinoa on top in the center.

ENJOY...beware it's very stinky!

Zest up your life!

Remember how i made those cookies out of new york magazine once. Yes that was the beginning of a few disasters in the kitchen. I tried again. This time i decided tea would be okay. This receipe KNOCKED my socks off!

super easy and not only does it smell good, but it just makes your insides warm and fuzzy!
I forgot to take a picture of me making it...but here is how i felt



ginger citrus tea

4 cups water

1/8 cinny stick

5oz FRESH ginger

1/4 lemon peel ZESTED in strips

1/4 cut FRESH lemon juice (1 1/2 lemon)

1/3 cup honey

1/4 bunch FRESH mint

boil water and cin

peel and roughly chop ginger, add to pot with lemon and juice

cover and simmer 30 min

add honey stir, simmer 20 more min

pour over mint- strain and stir

BAM!

http://nymag.com/restaurants/recipes/inseason/62242/

um i have no excuse

Yeah...i have no idea what to say about why i haven't been writing. So how about i just get it back on track and write a bit today and a bit over the next little while before...i hope...life gets busy again.

I've been cooking, baking whatever you want to call it. The thing is i haven't taken a lot of photos mainly because i keep forgetting durning the heat of it all. But here are a few things i've done

1) Cranberry Chutney....then i made it into a preserve, but was so paranoid about killing us with botulism i made us eat it in a week and didn't see how long it could last in a jar.

2) spaghetti squash pasta...yes it was ROCKIN'

3)heart healthy pumpkin bread (with my own roasted pumpkin)

4)gingerbread

5)zested up my life with ginger citrus tea

6)BREAD BREAD BREAD

7) brought out the ancient grains---quinoa

8)pizzaz pizza!

9)corny corn bread

10) oink oink pork loin

phew. obviously i've made more than this because more than 10 meals have occurred in this house since i last wrote, but seriously, these are the ones worth mentioning.