If You're Going to Wing It, You Better Have Feathers.

i love cooking. until recently, the only thing you might catch me baking was cookies and the occasional bread item, but those instances were rare. i believe i've mentioned this before: i hate measuring. i hate being confined by almost anything in life; recipes and measuring cups are no exception. i love the freedom that comes with cooking-- there is no exact science to making a skillet meal or cooking pasta. you can add nearly anything you want to an enchilada or a salad, even a salad dressing. substitutes and eyeballed amounts don't have the tendency to ruin meals the same way they can kill a baked good.

today i made a whole wheat soda bread. some things to note about whole wheat: it soaks in much more water than regular flour and it is STICKY. if you don't put in enough flour, there is no hope for your poor hands. another downside to not adding enough flour: your cook time will increase and you may not realize it, resulting in a deflated, gooey center. and not the good kind of gooey! whole wheat does, however, make delicious breads. and healthy ones! so it's well worth the trial and errors :)

while the whole wheat bread was baking i ventured into scones. the recipe wasn't nearly as difficult as i imagined it had to be given the flavors, textures, and colors you find in scones. 

i spoke too soon.

here's where my cooking instincts got the best of me.

i like substitutions. and i make them relatively freely in my meals. however, if there's one thing i've learned about baking that i SHOULD have remembered here, it's that you shouldn't substitute the first time you make a recipe. the scones called for golden raisins. we don't have golden raisins in the house, but we do have a GIANT bag of frozen berries. i've seen and eaten some delicious berry scones. "why not berry instead of raisin? it can't possibly be that different."

i accounted for the wetness of berries v. the wetness of raisins and let the berries thaw out, squished out some of the juice, and added a little more flour.

what i didn't account for was this:

as i stirred the berries in, ever so gently, i watched my dough turn violet. and i laughed, a lot, at my foolishness and conceit to think i could simply substitute my own ingredients into a recipe that has been tried, tested, and perfected by a professional bread maker. silly, silly me.

but i pressed forward and scooped heaping mounds of awkwardly shaped dough onto a baking sheet. these certainly didn't look like the round, beautifully cut, clean edged scones the book pictures. heck, they weren't even white anymore. 

but i am a diva, and the show must go on. 

so into the oven the scones went. they took a little longer to cook than the recipe called for (i assume because they were a a bit more moist). while they were baking E looked into the oven and casually noted how they looked like giant purple cookies.

scones are supposed to rise and look like biscuits. 

my heart broke just a little, but i simply shook my head and braced for my first major bread failure since the commencement of my yeasty journey.

and then, magic:

the diva wins!!!!

if you're going to wing it, you better have feathers. a boa totally counts.

Le Baguette

we've had a busy few days over here! my baking has caught the attention of some very demanding visitors-- ants. so i've been cleaning and scrubbing like a mad woman! our washing machine was finally repaired after nearly 2 months, so i've been catching up on that also, and E has been at work longer than usual, so our nights have been centered more or less around spending as much time together as we can before we hit the sheets.

i'm about a day behind on bread, but i plan to get back on track (and hopefully even ahead!) tomorrow and saturday between trick or treating and pumpkin carving!

i'm almost done with the basic breads section in the book. there are a handful of recipes that have some ingredients we don't keep on hand that will have to wait! skipping those has propelled me intooooooo

french breads!!!!!! almost every bread in this section requires a day long head start, and the few that don't need the extra time require extra work instead. and then we have croissants that require both work AND time. i'm a bit nervous, but definitely excited. this section will give me a chance to use some of my fresh herbs that are growing proudly out in my garden :)

my first attempt will be the easiest from my estimation-- a baguette. it starts off similar to a sourdough bread, but the wait isn't nearly as long (my sourdough attempt is going on nearly a month in the making so far!!!!). you start the dough the night before

let it sit overnight, when it starts to rise and look like this:

mix in the rest of the ingredients, let it rise, bang the air out (literally, all you do its hit the bowl on the counter, relatively gently, and the whole thing deflates), roll into a log, cut some slits in the top, and bake it!

easy, huh!?! and a great treat to serve up with some marvelous meatloaf and mashed sweet potatoes! yummmmmmmmmmm!

another great treat? adorable hippo babies.

Mo Monay Mo Problems....

i think that song is a total joke. if you have more money and proper money management habits, you will have LESS problems. what you may have more of is relatives coming out of the woodwork trying to get some of your fundage. but that's not a real problem. that's a "get caller id" problem.

every night i make a lunch for my husband to take to work the next day. and every night i sort of groan at the thought of having to get up to do it. i've been cooking, cleaning, crafting, planning, chasing, teaching, learning, and organizing all day. all i want is to relax, but my rest is inevitably broken up by the lunch-making.

i also want to make sure that i'm packing him a variety of nutritious, filling, energy packed foods. sometimes i get a little overwhelmed trying to pick the right combination of things.

that's a little compulsive, i know.

once i finish making his lunch (and i always do. he hasn't had to buy a lunch once in the 2 months i've been here) i feel a sense of relief. it's done, he has a great lunch for the next day, and i know we're saving a boatload of money. in times like these, with student loans like ours, that's so important.

i'm sure what i'm about to post is not new news for a lot of people. in fact, many of you might be able to one up me on money saving tactics. but here are a few of our food things that have worked for us and made it possible to reduce our food bill each month by over 30%.

*we reuse ziploc bags that haven't touched any raw/perishable food--namely we reuse our freezer bags, which i will get to next
*i buy meat in bulk and then wrap appropriate portion sizes individually and then freeze. for us that means 2 chicken breasts or thighs, 3 drumsticks, 1lb of ground meat, and fish gets wrapped individually. we wrap each "set" in saran wrap, then foil, then into large freezer bags. each bag is labeled with the type of meat in it. you can thaw under running water, the microwave, or in your refrigerator 2 days before you need the meat.
*we buy entire chickens. this is probably one of our biggest money savers. one entire chicken can feed us for a week when portions of it are mixed in to other meals and it costs less than $5. shredded chicken can go into enchiladas, pasta dishes, salads, macaroni and cheese, casseroles, soups, you name it. it can also be made into sandwich meat-- chicken salad sandwich, shredded chicken tossed in bbq sauce, dipped in buffalo wing sauce, etc. you can cook the whole in a crock pot, roaster, your oven, a smoker, a rotisserie, you name it.
*for meat, find ways to make use of less common, tougher or cheaper meats. chicken thighs are outrageously cheap. bone-in meat is also cheaper. tougher cuts are cheaper. for all of those things a little extra work (or cutting) leaves them just as delicious as their easier, more processed counterparts. tough beef doesn't even need more work-- it needs less!! find a great crockpot recipe. throw it all in the pot in the am, dinner is ready by the pm. amazing!
*buy in season. people have been talking about this for quite some time. look for fruits and veggies that cost less than $1 a pound. if you aren't sure exactly what produce you're looking at, write it down and go home and google it. find some recipes. expand your repertoire. right now squashed and sweet potatoes are in season. those are DELICIOUS, versatile foods. sweet potatoes can be made into breads and muffins. squash can turn into soup. both can be mixed in and baked with mac and cheese.
*go meatless. find a meatless dish at least once a week. focus your dish on lentils or beans or just pasta and sauce. meat is expensive. beans, especially dried beans, are so cheap it's insane. lentil soup is a great, filling, healthy meal. another plus side to eating less meat: less cholesterol intake. cholesterol comes from meat, so eating less meat could help your health!!
*once every 2 or 3 months, have a "clear the cabinets" month. use up EVERYTHING you possibly can in your pantry, freezer, and refrigerator. you might make it over a week before you have to go for your grocery run. that's a week of food you just bought yourself. for our family that would be about $70 every 2-3 months. that's $3-400 a year. warn your family that the meals might be a bit odd!
*save your discards. healthy veggie ends, peels, skins, and shells make amazing compost or the beginnings of an amazing homemade stock. you can also save meat bones for stock. just keep it all in a ziploc bag. as you cut up and use foods, take your bag, toss them in, and put the bag back in the freezer. when your bag is nice and full, make a 3:1 ratio of water to veggies, put it all in a stock pot, and simmer it down to half of the original water. hello delicious, homemade, low sodium stock.

i know that these things might not work for some people. i certainly don't expect everyone to have an intimate relationship with their kitchen. i kissed my pans as they came out of storage for heaven's sake. that can't be healthy! but if you can use even one or two of these ideas, that's awesome, and i'm glad i could help.

if you have other money saving thoughts about food, throw 'em in here!!!

Pepper Poppers

bread catch up! i cannot tell you how either of these breads tasted-- i gave them away the same day they were baked. i can tell you that the batch bread was the softest, smoothest dough i have made to date and i could have played with it forever.

batch bread

whole wheat pan bread

so, the bug finally hit and left me today. that's right, hit and left all in one day, due mostly to my wonderful husband letting me sleep through literally half of what is normally my waking hours.

his one request as repayment for taking over maternal and paternal duties was some tuna melts. i was a little nervous that the smell of tuna might not go over so well with me yet and we have some veggies we need to use up, so i made these instead!

pepper poppers

10 petite bell peppers, halved and de-seeded (mushrooms or jalapenos would also be good for this!)

1-1.5oz goat cheese

1 tbsp mayo

1/4c parmesan cheese

1 sprig thyme

1 tsp garlic

1 tsp black pepper

3 pieces of bacon

2 tbsp white wine

ready?

put the bacon and the bell peppers into one pan on medium heat, bell peppers skin side up. you don't need any oil, the bacon fat will take care of that for you!!

cook the bacon until it's crispy; flip the peppers over when they have a nice dark brown/black skin, like this:

once the skins are that great color on the other side of the peppers, transfer them to a paper towel to drain, skin side up. 

once your pan is emptied of foods, you'll still have some bacon grease in there. add the 2 tbsp of wine to it, scrape all of the char and goodies off the bottom of the pan, and let the alcohol cook off for about 2-3 minutes. take it off the heat and set it aside.

in a bowl, mix together the cheeses, mayo, pepper, thyme, garlic, crumbled bacon and the bacon grease/wine mixture. 

line a pan with foil, turn your broiler on high, and set all of your peppers, skin side down, on to the foil. scoop little bits (about a tsp) of the cheese mix on to your peppers.

put the peppers under the broiler until the cheese starts to bubble, 3-5 minutes depending on your broiler.

take them out and enjoy!!

Black and Bleu

i went through an intense bleu cheese phase in my life. there was nothing bleu cheese could not improve--sandwiches, wraps, chicken, stuffed mushrooms, my credit score.

that phase was followed by feta, then goat's cheese. right now i'm in a laughing cow phase. 

don't judge me, those things spread like magic.

during this phase i managed to find a bunch of black'n'bleu foods--burgers, sausages and chicken wings were the main ones. generally it was bleu cheese and a dark meat or dark peppery spices. always delicious.

there is a recipe for stilton and bacon bread. 

stilton is a specialty bleu cheese that is only made in a few towns in england.

die and go to heaven bread. nevereatanotherbreadinyourlife bread. 

i didn't buy stilton for this because its status as a bleu cheese already makes it a bit more costly and its status as a specialty blue cheese puts it out of the price range of an army family.

i bought castello blue cheese instead, which you can find at walmart. maybe not the best cheese ever, but it's going into bread paired with bacon. this cannot fail.

this bread will take 2 days to finish. ready? here we go

blue cheese and bacon bread

day 1:

1/2c warm water

3/4c white flour

2 tsp yeast

mix all of those into a bowl, cover and let sit in a warm spot overnight. by the next morning it should smell a little sour and beery--not rotten, mind you, but a bit like sourdough bread.

yours may look more or less wet than this. 

i recommend it be more on the wet side

day 2:

1 1/2c warm water

3 1/4c white flour

2 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

6-7 pieces bacon, cooked then crumbled

2-3oz crumbled blue cheese

add JUST THE WATER AND YEAST to the mix you made last night. let it sit and soak in for a minute or two, then start stirring mixture until it is no longer hard or clumpy. add the flour and salt, mix well. take it out and knead it for about 5-10 minutes, until it's smooth, a bit sticky, elastic, and moist. put the dough into a well greased bowl, cover and let sit in a warm place for 30 minutes.

this would be a great time to cook your bacon-- it provides a warm stove to put your dough on and 30 minutes is the perfect amount of time to cook all the bacon and get it on towels to drain and cool off.

take out your dough and divide it into two portions. knead the blue cheese into one of the portions:

chop up the bacon and knead it into the second portion of dough:

now knead the two together. i know, i know, "why not just knead it all in to one ball of dough at the same time??" i suppose you could, but doing each separately ensures that your crisp, somewhat sharp bacon won't attack and break down your cheese and it means that each bit of this bread will have a special mixed texture and separate tastes that will hit your tongue at different times.

once you've got the two well combined with one another, roll the dough into a log of sorts and put it into a well greased bread pan. let it rise for about an hour in a warm place.

cook your bread at 400 until golden brown.

now tell me that doesn't look delicious. 

you could obviously eat this bread alone with no regrets. but i was thinking some great toppers for this would be some thinly sliced peaches or peach jam or figs; it would also be an amazing nest for a little birdie or a great sandwich bread for some nice spicy lunch meat. E loves shredded chicken doused in buffalo wing sauce and garlic with a little bit of mozzarella. this would be an awesome bread for that sandwich too.

if it survives until lunch time, that is ;)

Got A Whale of A Tale to Tell Ya Lads

a whale of a tale or twooooooooooo, bout the flappin fish and the girls i've loved on nights like this with the moon above, a whale of a tale and it's all true, i swear by my tattoo!

aaaah disney! while i don't have any tales about flappin fish or girls i've been in love with, i do have a tattoo and i swear by it that this post is all truth. ;)

first, the breads i've made since the beer bread. a milk loaf and what is called a cottage loaf. i think the thing that separates the cottage loaf from just plain ole bread is its shape; however, it is an exceptionally delicious bread. i have not tried the milk bread-- it is nicely wrapped and waiting patiently for a home because we have 2 loaves sliced in the freezer and 2 in the refrigerator. so people who do us favors are now going to get bread as repayment.

cottage loaf

milk loaf

the men of the house are doing better, but are not completely well yet. it's starting to take its toll on me (selfish, eh? they're sick and i'm the one whining. so typical!!), so when dinner time rolled around, all i wanted was a quick fix. 

solution? open faced tuna melts.

what you need to feed 2 people:

2 cans tuna

1 tbsp mayo

1/2 tbsp mustard

1/2 tbsp old bay or black pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

all the veggies you want, diced, sliced, julienned, whatever size you're comfy with

a good melty cheese-- cheddar, swiss, mozzarella, etc

bread 

cut up and start sauteing your veggies (you can skip this step if you like fresh veggie crunch)

mix all of other ingredients, save the cheese, in a bowl, set aside.

if you have a super cute helper to 

mix the tuna, use them!!!!

once your veggies are nice and soft (or still cold and crisp!), mix them into your tuna. 

turn the broiler on HIGH

grab your bread. i don't know how much you'll need, but i used the beer bread for its thinness and we needed 9 pieces that were about 3-4 inches long.

mound some tuna on to your bread slices, top it with some thin slices of your cheese, put them on a cookie sheet and under your broiler.

cook them until the cheese is bubbling--it will only take a few minutes, so watch carefully if you don't know what your broiler is capable of!!. take them out and enjoy!

In Heaven, There Is No Beer, That's Why We Drink It Here...

i'm cruising along quite nicely in my loafy endeavors--here's the bread i made on monday, a crusty cob

it was pretty darn tasty. it had a bit of a crunch to the crust (i suppose that's where it got the first part of its name) and reminded me of a french loaf, but a bit less sweet. pretty good, pretty basic. i sliced it up and threw it into a ziploc bag in the freezer. hello sandwich bread!

let me tell a short story:

my husband loves beer. not necessarily for the purpose of getting drunk--he loves the taste of beer and loves trying different beers. i think some of his favorite memories from colorado involve beer flights and tastings of locally brewed ales. 

when he was out getting my anniversary present, he almost bought me the book "artisan bread in five minutes a day" (also, might i add, a fabulous blog). he ended up choosing the book i'm currently using because while flipping through, he saw a recipe for beer bread. that made his decision quite simple. if there is a bread that contains beer, he wants it.

so naturally once i decided to start baking nearly a loaf a day he inquired where in the plan the beer bread would fall. i told him i would make it as soon as i had both beer and whole wheat flour (we had neither in the house on the sunday we were discussing this). yesterday afternoon he arrived home from work with whole wheat flour a regional beer from pennsylvania:

how could i resist? :)

here's the recipe and a few pictures!

1 1/4c beer of your preference (a decent beer, no natty lights here!)

1 1/2 tbsp, or 2 packets, active dry yeast

1/2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp butter

1 2/3c white flour

1 1/2c whole wheat flour

warm up the beer then dissolve the sugar into it (there will be brief fizzing)

add the yeast (more fizz) and let it get nice and foamy

mix in the butter, then the whole wheat flour (1/2c at a time), then the salt, then the white flour (1/2c at a time again) until a dough has formed.

tip the dough out of the bowl on to a lightly floured counter and start kneading. knead for 5 minutes, until the dough is nice and smooth.

put the dough in a greased bowl in a warm spot to rest for 2 hours.

tip the dough back on to the floured surface, shape it into a ball and put it on a greased baking sheet. cut criss-cross slits across the top with a sharp knife, then back to the warm place to rise for one more hour.

bake at 400 for about 30 minutes.

as far as notes about this bread, i thought it was a beautifully colored dough. it was easy to knead and smelled pretty good. it has a nice crust, and here's something i didn't expect-- and haven't seen until this loaf: it rose outward. 

the whole loaf is incredibly puffy, which makes sense given the yeast in the beer and the addition of more yeast. but instead of puffing up really high, it puffed out really wide. so we have a rather short, wide loaf of yummy bread. i'm trying to figure out exactly what we'll end up using this for. my guess? i'll unfreeze it and broil it with cheese on top or toast it up to use as dippers for a party. either way, it's going to be delicious. and E is quite happy!

for now i cut off a slice, cut it in half and made a thin meatloaf sandwich out of it. meatloaf+beer(bread) in the middle of an army school day=winner.

by the by, both boys are doing much better!!! turns out jp has his bottom two eye teeth breaking though his gums, so i'm sure that was not helping his sickly state. hopefully this will be the worst we get of the flu season, but if it's not, i'll have plenty of comfort food on hand :)

I Would Do Anything For Love....

yesterday morning i woke up to my son yelling. not atypical, he yells a lot in the morning for me to come get him. but this yelling was continuous until i went in and found him sitting in his crib, tears streaming out of his eyes, his face filled with snot from the nose down. this is one of those moments where the strength of your stomach is really tested. 

i passed the test and spent my morning fighting him to get the snot out of his nose and off of his face and trying to keep him from wiping his drippings all over our couches and blankets. i was even a good mommy and still let him play with all of the pots and pans. i just resolved to wash everything at the end of the night.

i texted E about all the cute sickness related things jp was doing--snoring, drooling, screaming at the snot sucker, climbing onto the oven... that one might not have anything to do with being sick...

E called me around 4 when he was on his way home from work (don't be jealous of his 4 o'clock departure, he goes in at 5am and has to go back at 5 pm!) and told me that whatever jp had he also had coming on and would need medicine and an early turn in after dinner.

what better time for some nice, heavy comfort food than when both of your men are sick and will be going to bed early? 

i should mention before i put this recipe up that i don't generally eat meat. i am not at all a strict vegetarian, and i don't frankly care so much about animals. i choose my mostly meatless lifestyle because 1) i don't like the texture and taste of almost all meats, save fish, 2) vegetarianism is a healthier lifestyle when carried out appropriately, 3) i would prefer to not support a market that is lending a helping hand to the creation of antibiotic resistant strains of diseases, and 4) americans consume ENTIRELY too much protein!! the suggested serving of protein for the average adult female is 50g--you can get that in one 5oz serving of chicken. you can get your ENTIRE day's worth of protein from one chicken breast. the main part of your dinner. think of all the other sources of protein you take in at all the other meals!!! that's a lot of protein that you don't need! unless you're a body builder. then by all means, have a dinner of meat with a side of meat, topped with meat. :) ok, off the high horse, back to the ground!

tonight wasn't a special night. we weren't celebrating anything. no major events, no happy victories. but both E and jp were exhausted and zombie-like by the time dinner rolled around, so both of them sat quietly at the table and ate dinner. jp actually laid his head down on his high chair for a while. i decided that instead of making myself a second meatless entree, i would just sit with them, eat the meat, and enjoy this rare moment of total compliance :) i could have fed them cat food and neither would have noticed. glorious.

leanne's marvelous meatloaf

1lb ground beef (85/15 or fattier. you need fat for meatloaf)

3/4c breadcrumbs (or crushed chex mix for you gluten-freers)

1/4c finely chopped, almost minced, veggies of your choice

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp garlic salt

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tsp your favorite grill dry seasoning, or a hot spice (cayenne, chili powder, etc)

1 egg+milk to make 2/3c

preheat to 375

mix it all together REALLY REALLY well, with your hands. if it's still pretty wet and not really sticking together, add more breadcrumbs/chex mix. if it's one giant clump of hardness, add a tad more milk. either way you're going to end up with this sucker baking in a ring of its own fat. quite a sight to behold.

put the mixture in a well greased bread pan. i used a 9x5 and it was a bit too big. 

bake until the edges start turning dark dark brown, approx 1-1.5 hours depending on your oven, pan size, and pan location in your oven.

* veggie ideas-- i used  red, yellow, and orange petite bell peppers and mushrooms. other good ones? corn, tomatoes, mushroom varieties, large bell peppers, spicy peppers, shredded carrots, apples, green beans (WELL DRAINED if you use the canned ones), broccoli, etc. bear in mind that you could load this loaf down with a ton more veggies than the recipe calls for if you wanted to. it's really up to you, just keep an eye on the texture. well, keep a hand on the texture!! :)

i also made bacon gravy (go big or go home!!)

this is enough for about 3-4 servings

6 slices bacon

flour

cook the bacon until it gets crispy. you need the fat in the pan

once all the bacon is cooked, set it on paper towels to drain and grab your flour and a whisk.

sprinkle about a tablespoon of flour in to the fat while whisking, heat at medium-low. break all the flour up and see how thick your gravy is. add flour a tbsp at a time until it's just a little thinner than you would like and let the gravy simmer while you break all the bacon into bits. add it back in to the gravy and let it simmer for another minute or two. pour it over slices of meatloaf. die and go to heaven.

the boys were sleeping by 8. that might have something to do with the benadryl they both got, but i'm going to attribute it to a food coma :)

Corn sheaf bread

the book, 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood, asks the reader/baker to start with this bread before making any other in the book. going through the recipe, i thought that was a strange request because it is a VERY standard, basic bread recipe--water, flour, salt, yeast, olive oil. what makes this bread unique is that it's sort of art--you have to sculpt the bread into what eventually becomes a corn sheaf.

i make soft pretzels for my husband routinely, so this didn't seem like it would be any great challenge, but i obliged, smugly, to the author and made the dough (by hand instead of in my mixer, might i add!).

after letting it do its initial rest, i took it out to begin rolling. 

this is when i realized exactly what he meant by "If you can make a cornsheaf, you can make anything in this book."

this dough was not exactly agreeable with the process. it wanted nothing more than to bounce right back to the shape it started in--giant clump. i understood that he did not mean the dough was tricky or that the process would be confusing. it was simply time consuming and physically tedious. 

my confidence was quickly stripped and i told my husband that i didn't think i would make it through this bread. i should mention that we went kayaking yesterday, and the very muscles you need to roll out the required 20-30 quarter inch logs for this bread are the same muscles that you need to kayak. i was already sore and those muscles needed a break!!

i have a tendency to get excited about things at their inception and then lose interest within a few days. weeks if the object is lucky! i was so excited about this bread, but once i realized how (literally) painstaking this process was going to be, i nearly gave up.

but my husband encouraged me and i told myself this would be only an hour or two of my life and the reward would be worth it. so i continued.

it was in fact worth it.

maybe not the most AMAZING corn sheaf shaped bread ever, but for a first try, i would say not bad!! E is certainly impressed, and i must admit, i am too. this will be a fun bread to eat, and it has me looking forward to the other fun flavors and shapes i'll be introducing to my bread arsenal over the coming months!

i won't be putting the recipe up for this, but i hope it inspires you to try some new shapes with your breads! it's got me thinking!

Yeast Infection!

let's talk about my husband.

is anyone concerned about where this is going? yeast infection, husband?

it's our anniversary today.

more concern?

he got me this book:

100 different bread recipes. only downside to this book at all is that it uses compressed fresh yeast in every recipe, so i'll have to learn to convert or find some compressed fresh yeast. not a problem at all.

we ran out of bread yesterday when i used the last of the loaf for our picnic lunch that we had today in the park we went kayaking and walking in. 

so today when we got home i started with my usual amish white bread, but i decided to stray from the standard recipe a little. i used 1/2c sugar and 2 tsp salt. not really a big deal, although this dough was stickier than normal. that could be because i didn't add as much flour, but i don't really know. i don't keep track of the amount o flour any more as much as i do the texture.

so i have a saltier batch of bread. it still makes 2 loaves worth and i still only have one loaf pan. i've always used the other half to make rolls. 

i took some inspiration from my new book and made a braid. 

i know, real evel knievel, right? i'm a dare devil, what can i say?

anyway, this got me thinking. i'm definitely in a bread phase of life right now. we go through bread like crazy between my birds' nests and E's lunches. and my amazing husband just got me an incredible book with a lot of ideas that i think would probably get us into any holiday party this fall once word gets out that we're bringing homemade, fresh out of the oven bread. i'm all for worming our way into popularity.

in addition to just loving bread, i'm also trying to gain weight right now (unheard of in an obese nation, i'm well aware. but winter is coming! i need a layer of fat to keep me warm!! :) but seriously, you need some energy reserve when you're chasing a kiddo) and we're sticking to a pretty tight budget as we prepare for seasons to come. buying some basic baking essentials (flour, sugar, yeast, butter) in bulk will provide us with artisan breads that will cost less than a loaf of horrible, chemical ridden supermarket bread. that's worth it.

i'm going to make all of the breads by valentine's day. since i got the book on our anniversary, valentine's day seems like a good place to end.

i won't share EVERY single bread with you, but i will share. and that will be the majority of what i'll be talking about for the next few months: bread.

My Warhead Exploded

my first attempt at sourdough bread was a bust. it didn't rise and wasn't nearly sour enough, which from what i can gather online, means that there aren't enough yeasty buddies hanging out in my starter yet. i don't really know what that means any more than you do, but i'm going to keep feeding my starter in my fridge and hope that the next time around goes better.

in the mean time, while fixing my fantasy football team on yahoo (half of my roster has been injured on one of my leagues. that's almost impossible to fix. i know i should be much more concerned that these guys are out for the season, but they still get paid. if i can't fix this team, i get no glory. unacceptable.) i saw a blurp about a pasta frittata. i looked at the recipe and decided it was WAAAAAAAY to involved for me and had too many ingredients. when an ingredient list takes up almost as many lines as the directions, i'm out.

but i googled around and ended up taking some of our leftover pasta and mixing it with some eggs and cheese and got this:

my only real complaint was that it was super thin, but that worked to my advantage the next day. i'll get to that!

here is how this became... well, this...

note! this only serves 2 people, maybe 3!

1.5c cooked pasta+veggies (preferably a thin pasta, not the spirals or bow ties or macaroni or wagon wheels, etc)

5 eggs

.5c parmesan cheese

salt/pepper to taste

preheat to 350

crack your eggs into a bowl, whisk them until they're fluffy, or for those of you who can't tell when eggs are fluffy, whisk them until they are uniformly yellow. you shouldn't have big blobs of egg white. small blobs are fine.

whisk in your parmesan cheese

add in all your pasta and veggies

pour into a greased glass dish-- if you want thin, use a 9x13. for thicker frittata goodness, use a 9 inch square/8 inch round or smaller glass dish.

throw the dish into the oven and let it cook until set, about 25 minutes. you'll know it's set when it doesn't jiggle at all in the center any more.

cut it up and serve!

some ideas:
*you can pour marinara sauce on top, or hot sauce, or salsa, or ketchup, or really any sauce that sounds delicious to you. you could also just load some more cheese on it. deliciooooooouuuussss
*you can also use another kind of cheese-- think mozzarella, cheddar, monterey jack, any of those yummy shredded cheeses in a bag.
*our cooked pasta already had peppers, onion, mushroom, garlic, a little bacon and some chicken. vegetables are really up to you. hot peppers, sweet ones, onion, cooked potatoes or carrots, peas, mushrooms, corn, mashed squash, broccoli, spinach, asparagus, the list goes on and on. check out your local farmer's market and make it a seasonal night!
*fresh herbs and meat (or lack of meats) are also options. thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley, chives, sage, you name it! as far as meats, make sure they're cooked through before they go in the oven! bacon, sausage, ground turkey/beef/chicken, chicken, ham chunks, whatever!
*for a vegetarian version (a lacto ova vegetarian obviously) throw some beans in! be forewarned though, they might sink to the bottom :)

the reason i said the thinness ended up working for us is another thought- i put 2 slices of the frittata atop one another and slathered some laughing cow cheese on a slice of the amish bread and made an egg sandwich for my husband for breakfast the next day. big hit! so easy! double duty! less work! winner!

I Get My Amish From Amish'R'Us

our childhoods (my sister and mine) are filled with memories we have repressed and memories that we couldn't get rid of if we had lobotomies. our parents are what you might call eccentric. or drinkers. either word is appropriate.

i also believe that we have memories so hilarious and off the wall that they are worth writing books about. history books. to be used in classrooms. psychology classrooms.

one year, while driving through amish country in indiana at an ungodly hour of the morning, we saw a few amish families at the rest stop. they were in the bathroom. no big deal, amish people on the road gotta pee too, and i can't imagine quilters and bread makers want "indecent exposure" on their permanent record.

but then they went outside.

and loaded into a conversion van.

now, it's about 6 am. we have been on the road for a solid 2.5 hours. there are 3 children under the age of 13 and one mom.

"mom, why are those amish people driving in a van!? i thought that wasn't allowed??" "where do you think they got the van? how did they make contact with real people? what did they pay with?" "mom, do you think they run the a/c??" "MOM!!! DO YOU THINK THERE ARE ACTUAL HORSES IN THEIR FRONT OF THE VAN INSTEAD OF AN ENGINE!?!!" "WHY ARE THEY IN A VAN?!!?!!?!?!!"

my mother's exhausted response lives in infamy in our family.

"i don't know, they're a different brand of amish!"

a. different. brand.

like from amish mart? or carson pierre amish? tj-mish?

maybe it's not as funny if you aren't in a complete state of delirium. or pre-pubescent.

but the first time i made this bread all i could think about was amish'r'us.

until i tasted it. then all i could think was lkdjfuerb;asdjfnsdmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

it's pretty delicious. and vegan. impressive, eh?

you'll neeeeeeeeeeeed

1/3c white sugar
1c hot water
1 package active yeast (or 2 and 1/4 teaspoons)
2tbl vegetable oil
1tsp salt
3c flour

take your warm water and gently dissolve the sugar into it by stirring slowly and softly-- you don't want to cool the water down too much. if you have a stand mixer, do this in your mixing bowl. once the sugar is dissolved, add the yeast and give it one quick, soft stir to make sure the yeast is mixed into the water. then let it sit.

you're looking for the mixture to get foamy, like this:

  

once that happens, you can turn on your mixer with a dough hook, whip out a hand beater with a dough hook, or grab your trusty spatula/wooden spoon! mix in your veggie oil and salt first, then your flour, a cup at a time.

people will tell you to add flour and mix until your dough is "elastic and sticky". what does that mean? i had no idea and was actually doing it wrong the first few times. whoops!

you want the dough to be moist. if you're adding so much flour that you can pick it up out of the bowl and none of it sticks to you, the bowl, or the counter you're kneading on, you've added too much flour. conversely, if you don't add enough flour, you will have a dough that is simultaneously falling apart and sticking to EVERYTHING. it is gross. you will cry.

so take your dough out to knead it on a lightly floured surface, with floured hands. add more flour or water as needed to make a dough that is firm, slightly elastic, still looks moist, is just a tad sticky, and feels like everything has been well mixed. after making this bread a few times, you will get a feel for what it should be in terms of texture.

the good news is that even if you do end up adding too much or little flour, the flavor won't necessarily be affected. you may end up with a super dense bread (which, again, isn't necessarily bad. it's like a bread shaped bagel) or a bread that doesn't rise very well... sooooo... flatbread that tastes a little watered down. nothing a little cheese on top can't fix!

ok, so your kneaded bread should look similar, but maybe not exactly like, this:

once it does, put it into a well oiled bowl. you can spray a glass or metal (though glass is preferable) bowl with cooking spray, or you can dump about 2 tablespoons of oil into the bottom and use a spatula to spread it out. you want the ENTIRE inside of the bowl covered with oil, and possibly the rim as well. cover it with a dish towel or plastic wrap, put it into a warm place.

warm place recommendations: on top of the refrigerator, a sunny part of your house (if it's warm in your house), on top of a running dryer (but if you do this, be SURE to cover the bowl tightly so that dust doesn't get into your dough. gross), into a warm oven (turn your oven on fur just a few minutes--if the door is too hot for you to touch, then the oven is too hot, let some hot air out for a minute or two), or on a stove next to a simmering pot of chicken stock:

 

you are waiting until your dough rises and at least doubles in size, which could take upward of an hour depending on how warm your warm spot is. check on it after about 20 minutes. if it's not puffing up at all, your definition of warm is wrong. go warmer :)

mine took about 40 minutes to nearly triple in size:

 

now, notice that it's still moist looking, and smooth. that's great. it's also going to be fluffy and airy. so punch it down, take it out, knead it a little, and put it into a WELL OILED/GREASED 9x5 bread pan. cover it again, put it back in your warm place, and let it go until the dough has risen over the edge of your bread pan. then put it into a 350 degree oven for about 25-30 minutes, until you get a nice golden brown color, like this:

you can let it get even darker if you like nice dark crust. i like all of my bread as soft as it can be, so i tend to JUST barely cook bread all the way through.

i also made a double batch of bread in this one and made some rolls to use for sandwiches in my husband's lunch. he loves them. 

go make some too!!! i want to see your brand of amish bread!!!!