Gingham Apron

Slacker.

That is me.

In my defense I've felt like total crap since Sunday (the 10th) when I made the double batch of tortillas and fail bread.  I landed myself in the ER on Wednesday, which is a rather aggravating story all on its own.  Since then I've been on a liquid diet.  Today David permitted me to have oatmeal that he made for breakfast.  Clearly I'm in no shape to want to cook or bake.  That would be the ultimate torture.  Watching my family eat is bad enough, and David's smart remark about last night being pizza night didn't help matters.  I finally snapped.. expletives, tossing a dish towel, and slamming my bedroom door were involved.  There's a good chance I should apologize to David for my behavior.  

Since I won't be doing any cooking or baking in the next few days this leave me the chance to scrub and organize the kitchen better.  I also have a curtain rod and new curtains for the living room that I got the day I started feeling bad.  I may or may not blog and photograph my progress on it just to keep myself in the habit.  :P

No pictures, please.

I have some.  On my camera.  Not near me.  I'm too lazy to get it and edit the pictures.  I know they're worth 1,000 words but I'll just let you deal with words anyhow.  ;)  

I've now managed to make tortillas twice.  The first time I was convinced I needed a tortilla press, and even went to Target to look for one.  Luckily it turned out to be rather flimsy and I decided against it.  Tonight I made a double batch of tortillas for my family as well as both of David's brothers and the youngest brother's girlfriend (Hi Kelly).  I think I've finally "gotten it" when it comes to rolling out the tortillas.  My circle making skills are improving.  I wonder if this will help in pie crust rolling, because my prior attempts have been pitiful.  

Super Simple Tortilla Recipe (as cut and pasted to me by Stacy from her friend Ronnie)

2 cups flour, 

1/4 cup shortening (I use butter) 

2/3 cup warm water 

1/2 tsp salt

Cut the shortening into flour.  Add water, salt, and flour.  Let rest 20 minutes.  Cut into equal size pieces (I just grab chunks off the ball of dough myself) and roll out until fairly thin.  Heat up a frying pan and cook until each side is starting to look a little dry (that's really the best way I can describe it, much longer and it starts turning more into a tortilla chip).  

When they come out, put on a plate and cover with a clean towel so they stay warm and soft as you finish.

Fin.

I did have a fail today though.  I was giving the bread from Stacy's page a go again and while the taste of it turned out perfectly, the removal from my new Pyrex loaf pan did not go over so well.  It actually just stuck to the pan and Kelly helped me yank it out of the pan.  A good 1/4 of it remained stuck in the pan.  I suppose the upside here is that the only thing that remains of it is the top.  The rest has been consumed due to drive-by nibbling.  Not that I suspect it will last much longer anyhow.  One day I will get it all right and have a perfect loaf of bread that I cut with precision.  ;)

Om Nom Nom Nom!

I have mentioned I'm not so good at cutting straight, and today it took over half the loaf of bread before I managed to correct the lopsided cuts I had made.  Luckily poor cutting skills do not cause a sandwich to be less delicious.  The girls and I had avocado and cheese sandwiches on the homemade bread.  Nomnomnom!

 

Best.Sandwich.Ever!

 

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Last night I made the soaker and biga (and accidentally used vanilla rice milk).  Today I continued on with my bread making efforts.  Though I did fail to take the biga out of the fridge, so I was set back almost 3 hours while I waited for it to reach room temperature and rise a little.   I now have "Don't forget the Biga!!" written on my handy little white board that is on my fridge.  =P

Last time when it came time to making the dough into a loaf and putting it in the pan mine literally just oozed flat into the pan.  

 

Not this time!!  Success!  =D 

I popped the bread into my oven that I let warm up a little bit, and stuck it in to rise (and to make counter space since David cooked some curry for dinner).  Just before we started dinner I got up the courage to make a slice on the top of the bread.  Last time I could hardly get the plastic wrap off the top before it started to go flat.  

I failed to set my timer and at one point in the middle of dinner I jumped up and ran to the over to yank out the bread.  It looked burnt, and it was as hard as a rock.  I of course wasted no time in IM'ing Stacy to tell her I let it bake a smidge too long.  I was told to let it sit for the 1 hour before cutting it.  As noted in my last post I'm stubborn, add to that impatient .... it took all my will power to NOT touch the damn bread.  

I went back after getting my girls into bed and my bread was not as hard as a rock anymore.  Clearly I don't even have a basic concept of bread making.  =P  

 

 

 

So despite my vanilla milk flub, and letting it bake a little too long, I have some decent bread.  Now to learn the skill of cutting uniform slices of bread.  O_O

And since I said I would .... 

Stacy, 

I was wrong.  You were correct.  Using the scale worked out far better than attempting to use measurements.  I will name my scale in your honor.  ;) 

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread from Little Blue Hen

I admit it, I'm stubborn...

I had attempted a whole wheat bread recipe from my friend Stacy's blog the other day, and it turned out horrid.  It fell, it was a gooey wreck, and it tasted funny.  Yes, I committed a baking cardinal sin and tried to improvise (sugar instead of honey or molasses), but regardless the bread was not going to turn out.

Currently I have a soaker and biga all made up and doing their thing.  I added some vital wheat gluten to the flour in hopes that this will cure my falling problem.  Though I do have one new problem and that is after I had my soaker going I realized my rice milk is vanilla rice milk.  *head desk*  Hopefully the molasses will offset this error of mine.  Though in theory it should not impact the way the bread rises.  *fingers crossed* 

Stacy told me in no uncertain terms that measuring was not the way to go and that using a scale is the best route for baking.  This is where my stubbornness comes in.  I somewhat refused to believe this.  I've baked just fine in the past with my measuring cups.  So did my grandma for that matter.  

 

I caved today.  I snagged the scale at Target and came home and started up the soaker and did the biga after dinner.  So far both have already turned out better than the last time around.  I may end up bowing before Stacy and begging for forgiveness for my stubborn ways after I bake up the bread tomorrow.  :P

Chili and Cornbread

I love crock-pot meals.  Yeah there's some prep work involved, but it's so much easier than hovering over a stove in the evening.  I do check periodically to make sure there's enough liquid or to give it a quick stir, but that's it after the prep work.  The other nice part is that I can run errands and even if I'm cutting my time close to dinner I don't have to worry.  There's also the bonus of the house slowly smelling wonderful as the day progresses.  The cornbread is a little more involved, but not much.  Though the amount I make lasts for a few days so it's totally worth it.  :D 

 

Recipes...

Chili

1 pound browned hamburger

1 can black beans, rinsed

1 can kidney beans, rinsed

1 cup pearled barley

1/2 onion, chopped

~3 cups tomato soup (I use Imagine Organic) 

Chili Powder 

You may notice no measure on the chili powder.  I've never measured it any time in the last year or more.  I dump some in, stir and then smell it.  I just add it until it smells like chili to me.  Sometimes I add a little extra cumin, and a dash of each paprika and cayenne.  

Mix everything into your crock pot, and start cooking.

Crock pot times will likely vary.  I use a 3 quart crock pot, and on high it cooks in about 4 hours.  So low should take 6-8.  I like my beans falling apart though.

Cornbread

1 1/2 cups fat free milk

1 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 cups corn meal

2 cups flour (I used soft white wheat)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil (I use canola or olive oil)

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

In a large mixing bowl add the milk, buttermilk, and corn meal.  Let it sit for a little bit to soften, about 5-10 minutes.  Then add in everything else and mix until combined.  Pour into a lightly oiled 13x9 pan.  Bake for about 35 minutes.  The top should be turning golden and a knife in the middle will come out clean.

Banana Blueberry Bread

I'd been meaning to make banana bread for days, and one of the recipes I looked at had blueberries in it.  I have a huge thing of frozen blueberries I got for my youngest thinking she could eat them since she loves blueberries.  She looked like Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka after that and I decided that fresh berries were much easier to deal with.  So I've wanted to make blueberry muffins, but this is close enough.  

 

Recipe...

2 cups flour (I used soft white wheat I milled)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butte, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup frozen blueberries

1 teaspoon vanilla 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream butter and sugar together.  Add everything else in and mix.  Pour into a lightly greased loaf pan and bake for about 60 minutes or until a knife inserted into the thickest part comes out clean.  

Note:  If you're using a stand mixer you may want to add blueberries in by hand after since the frozen berries and the mixing paddle don't get along.  I didn't so I had my mixer jumping all over breaking the berries up.  It still tastes fine though.

An Apple a Day..

Or about four in my case... drives the blues away.  ;) 

Yeah I know that's not how it goes, but just humor me here.  Today was not a fantastic day.  My dreams of becoming a minivan mom were quashed by David with a few words..... "I was thinking" followed closely by "gas mileage".  When you drive a Prius nothing that could carry an extra passenger or two will have comparable fuel efficiency.  I don't need to research a thing to know this.  

So in my pouting on the way home I decided I would bake.  I came home and promptly churned out some fresh flour from both the soft and hard wheat berries.  I found an acceptable pity party item with my google-fu.... apple crisp.  Sugar?  Check.  Fruit?  Check?  Smells amazing while cooking?  Check.  

 

Recipe.. 

4 medium apples peeled, cored, and sliced

1/4 cup water

3/4 cup flour (I used soft white wheat)

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup softened butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees 

Place apples in a pan, square or 13x9, whichever you prefer.  I used a square pan and halfheartedly attempted to layer my slices nicely.  Pour the water OVER the apples.

Mix the flour, salt, sugar, cinnamon and softened butter until it's crumbly then put it on top of the apples.  I moved my apples around a bit to let the sugar mix get down between them.  Bake for 35-45 minutes until the apples are soft.

And for the record aside from the apple crisp I did have a few high points to my day.  I got a new battery and keyboard pannel put in my laptop, had a caramel macchiato (with extra caramel), and In-n-Out burger with my family.  So I guess the day was really a wash, the apple crisp of course was the final step in evening it out. ;)

Accidental Polenta

I put some corn through my grain mill in hopes of making some fresh corn meal for corn bread tomorrow.  Well I ended up with something more towards flour than coarse cornmeal.  I decided to try and make corn tortillas only to find it was too much like cornmeal for it.  So I had a bowl of corn mush in my Kitchenaid mixing bowl and no clue what to do.  I tossed a little in the frying pan anyhow and then when I flipped it realized it was like polenta.  I added spices, cheese and some olive oil to the mix and now I'm sitting here dipping my accidental polenta into ranch dressing like they're huge chips.

It's the first day of the year and my first cooking fail of the year.  It's good though when what seems like a fail turns out okay in the end.  There are some changes I will make but I think I found my homemade polenta base.  :D