Watermelon Gazpacho

It's been forever since we've had time or inclination to put up any new recipes. But this isn't the first time we've made watermelon gazpacho, so I thought it was high time I blog this sucker. Maybe we'll get back into posting our recipes here.

Ingredients for the Soup

• 2 lbs of seedless watermelon, roughly chopped.
• Three medium tomatoes, stem bits removed, roughly chopped.
• 3c of crusty bread, crusts removed, rough chop
• A cucumber, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1/2c water
• 1/4c basil
• 1/4c mint
• 1/4c cilantro
• 1/4c olive oil
• 1 shallot, roughly chopped
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1.5 tsp salt
• Somewhere between 1/2 and 1 tsp of adobo seasoning (or just 1/2 tsp of cumin)

Ingredients for the Basil Oil

• Didn't realize we were going to get fancy, did you?
• 1/4c basil
• 1/4 olive oil
• Salt  & pepper to taste

Garnish

• Some little bits of cubed tomato, watermelon, avocado, and/or feta.

This is a pretty easy recipe, and the results are fantastic. So basically, blend together the basil oil ingredients in a blender, then set aside and rinse out the blender (doesn't need to be totally clean). Toss all of the soup ingredients into a bowl and let them sit for a little while (5, 10 minutes) and then blend those, too (in batches if you have to). Set in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes, then adjust seasonings.

To serve, pour some soup in a bowl and top with the garnishes and drizzle with basil oil. If you want to be really fancy, you could serve this as a shooter, actually, or you could put a pile of the garnishes in the center of a plate and pour some soup around it. But we weren't as concerned about that.

Thoughts: This is remarkably easy. It's good for summer, since it's like 97 degrees out and who wants to cook? And it's refreshing. I guess it took a little while to put together, bit if you make a smaller portion it wouldn't have to take very long. Honestly, you could skip the basil oil and just use some basil in the garnish. That would also mean you can dirty fewer dishes, and you can just toss ingredients into the blender as you go.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Swedish Meatballs

Ingredients

• 8oz ground pork
• 12oz ground beef
• 2 slices sandwich bread
• 1/3c milk
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped finely
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 5tbsp butter
• scant 1/4c flour
• 2c beef stock
• sour cream

Saute the onion in a tablespoon of butter until translucent and starting to brown a bit, about 5-8 minutes. Meanwhile, in the bowl of a food processor, add the bread (torn up) and the milk so that it can soak. You can also add the salt, cardamom, and nutmeg right now.

When the onions are done sauteing, add to the milk/bread mixture and toss the meat in there and the egg. Pulse the mixture until it comes together. You will probably need a spoon to kind of turn the mixture every so often between pulses.

Melt the remaining 4 tbsp butter in a wide saute pan (you can reuse the one you used for the onions). Form the meatballs to be about 1-2tbsp in size, placing them in the butter as you go. Keep the heat low-ish so that they sizzle a little but don't splatter. Also you don't want to burn the butter. Don't crowd the pan, you're going to have to do a couple batches. Turn the meatballs as they cook until they're pretty well browned. You don't need to cook them through at this stage. When you're done, fish them out and put them aside on a plate or cookie sheet and continue cooking the other batches until you've done all of them.

When the meatballs are done, set aside. In the pan, add the flour and whisk around in the remaining grease. Then add the beef stock and continue to whisk as you bring it to a simmer, scraping up the bottom of the pan.

When the gravy comes to a simmer, re-add all of the meatballs. Turn heat to low and cover the pan to cook for another 8-10 minutes. Then you can add sour cream to the gravy (if you're feeling decadent) - go for about 1/3c, tops, though.

Serve with mashed potatoes, black pepper, and lingonberry jam.

Thoughts: Nailed it. We really wanted comfort food tonight, and I think we did it. This is probably our most successful meatball recipe yet, also. This makes enough to feed about 4, but we made it for 2 with a lot of leftovers, as it should be.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Naan

We were making Chicken Tikka Masala (from Cook's magazine - awesome recipe!) and needed something to go with it. So instead of rice, we went for naan.

Ingredients

• 2 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2c warm water
• 2.5-3c flour (until the dough is about right so it doesn't stick to absolutely everything - we did about 2.5c then used an extra 1/2c for kneading
• 1tsp salt
• garlic powder (we used like 1/2-1tsp), or any other flavorings you might want
• 1/4c vegetable oil
• 1/3c greek yogurt (we used nonfat and it worked perfectly)
• 1 egg

Combine water, sugar, and yeast. Set aside. Combine all the other ingredients except the flour, then add the water/yeast/sugar mixture. Mix well, then add about 2.5c flour and fold together with a wooden spoon or your hands or whatever. Turn out onto a counter and knead for 3 minutes, adding as much flour as necessary to make this possible. Grease the bowl you were using originally and toss the dough back in there. Let it rise for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Now, without punching the whole thing down, grab a chunk of dough (as large as you want to make the naan - about 3" diameter will make about a 6" naan) and press / roll it out to about 1/4" thick. Spray a frying pan with cooking spray (you REALLY don't want too much oil here!) and heat until just smoking, then add the naan. You can kind of start the pan heating while you roll out the naan. Anyway, once the naan is on the pan, turn it to low and cook for 3-4 minutes, then flip it and do the same. You can flip it early if you think the naan is getting browned a little early - it will depend on how hot your stove is. If you flip it TOO early, you can always re-brown that side (we did this several times). Repeat with the remaining dough. sprinkle with salt as they come off the pan.

Thoughts: The texture of these was really great. I think they could have used a bit more salt, personally, and I think Claire agrees with me on that. In the future, it would be cool to add chopped chives or something. But otherwise, these turned out great. I would do this again.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Oyster Stuffing

I'm getting tired of blogging these, but this is important.

Ingredients

• Cubed loaf of french bread, left out for a couple days so it's really stale.
• 6 slices of bacon
• 6 shallots, chopped fine
• 4 ribs of celery, chopped
• 1 lb of oysters, shucked (liquor reserved)
• 1c chicken stock
• 1/4c port
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh sage
• 1/2 tsp tobasco
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• salt and pepper

In a dutch oven, cook the bacon until crisp. Remove from the pan and chop into little bits. Add the shallots and celery to the pan and stir, adding the bacon when that's ready. When the veg are cooked through (about 10 minutes), add the oyster liquor, stock, port, thyme, sage, tobasco, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil, then add the oysters and bread cubes. Take off the heat and cover the pot. Leave for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 400.

After the 10 minutes are up, put the stuffing in the oven covered for 20 minutes, then remove the lid and cook another 20 minutes. Serve!

Thoughts: We shortened the cook time because of the altitude, so this could go up to 30 minutes then another 30. This was our first time making oyster stuffing, but it was AWESOME. Would make again.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Tres Leches Bread Pudding

This recipe requires you to do a little math. I recommend you check out the original bread pudding recipe I posted here to get an idea of how bread pudding works. I tweaked the bake time for this. The main difference is that I replaced some milk with evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk.

Ingredients

• Stale bread, torn or cut into smallish (1" or 1.5" pieces) - bagels work, too
• Eggs
• Sweetened Condensed Milk
• Evaporated Milk
• Whole Milk
• Vanilla
• Sugar
• salt

Preheat oven to 375. Add bread into a casserole pan. Now you have to make the custard. You need the following ratios: 4oz dairy (which is 1/2c milk), 1 egg, .5tsp vanilla, 2tsp sugar. So, for example, one can of sweetened condensed milk is about 15oz. Evaporated milk comes in 5oz cans. That's 20oz total. Add another 1/2c milk, and you have 24oz., so you add 6 eggs, 4tbsp sugar, 3tsp vanilla. Add a pinch of salt, too. If this math is too hard, just do:

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 can evaporated
• 1/2c milk
• 6 eggs
• 4tbsp sugar
• 3tsp vanilla
• 1/2tsp salt

Anyway, whisk those ingredients together thoroughly and pour over the bread. You want it to be pretty well soaked. Here's the secret. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then pack down the bread with a spatula or something similar. Let it go another 5 minutes or so and pack down again. You want the bread packed quite densely and quite soaked in custard.

Cover the pan in tin foil. Bake for 30 minutes, then take the foil off and bake for another 15 minutes. Make sure it's set (you want it to look slightly damp, but not "wet" - it's a custard, so it shouldn't be completely dry.) Let sit 10 minutes.

While that's baking, you can make the brandy sauce. You can kind of add your own flavors to this, too. Do what seems right. Rum might be good.

• 1c sugar
• 2/3c water
• 1/3c brandy
• 2tbsp grand marnier
• vanilla bean or cinnamon stick, if you have it (or similar)

To a pan, add 1c sugar and about 2/3c water and vanilla / cinnamon (if using). Boil over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and sauce is slightly thickened, about 5 or 10 minutes? Then take it off the heat and add the brandy and grand marnier.

When the bread pudding is done sitting for 10 minutes, poke holes in it with a chopstick or fork or something. Pour the brandy sauce over the top and serve with whipped cream.

Thoughts: I think I've done something really smart here. Judging by the reaction, this was something of a hit. I only regret that when I put the bread pudding together, I didn't poke holes in the bread pudding and pour the sauce over - I more or less put it on individual servings. I think that in the future I want the brandy sauce to really soak into the dessert. Also, I had so much bread that I needed a LOT of whole milk. I used only 1 can of the sweetened condensed milk and 1 can of evaporated milk, but I could have doubled that and used less whole milk - this would have given it a stronger "tres leches" flavor. But I think we have a winner.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Rosh Hashana Challah

We noticed we didn't have even ONE challah recipe up.  If you leave out the raisins (and just braid it like normal) this is practically the same as my father's recipe for the best challah ever, I think.

Ingredients

• 1c warm water
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 1tsp sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg white
• 3tbsp oil
• 1/3c honey
• 4 to 4.5c flour
• 1.5tsp salt
• about 1/2c raisins, plumped in boiling water
• poppy seeds

In a mixing bowl (or, in our case, in the bowl of your kitchenaid) add the water, yeast, and sugar and stir.  Let that sit for 10 minutes or so to proof and make sure the yeast isn't dead.  Now add the yolks, oil, honey, and salt and about 2c of flour.  Using the dough hook (or your hands or whatever) mix to combine, then add flour by the half cup until the dough pulls away from the sides after kneading for a few minutes.  We wound up using about 4c of flour total.  You'll have to scrape the sides of the bowl down with a spatula a few times.

Now set the dough aside to rise in a warm and humid environment until doubled, about 2 hours.  Make sure you give it the full rise.  When it's done, either braid as usual or, for Rosh Hashana, divide the dough in half.  Working with one half at a time, roll the dough out (on a well floured surface) into a long strip - about 24" long by 6-8" wide.  Lay half the raisins along the middle of the strip.  Working on a long side of the strip, roll the dough up into a single long snake with the raisins trapped in the middle.  Pinch the ends of the dough shut and fold the long strip into a U shape, then twist the two dangling arms together.  It will look kind of like a cruller, I guess?  Do the same with the other piece of dough and the rest of the raisins.  Now place the two twists in a pie pan.  You want to arrange them like two interlocking C's - the idea is to have the bulky fold in the center and the tails twisting around in the same direction.  Like a yin-yang, if that makes more sense.

Set the dough back in a humid environment to rise for another hour.  Just before the hour is up, preheat the oven to 350.  Mix the egg white with some water (about 1:1) and whisk together.  When the hour is up and the oven preheated, brush the challah with the egg wash and sprinkle liberally with poppy seeds.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until it's done (and sounds slightly hollow when tapped, etc).

Thoughts: the dough was very easy to work with.  Despite using the kitchenaid and kneading the hell out of the dough, the gluten really relaxed.  I think this may have to do with two things: 1) we mixed all the wet ingredients before adding the flour.  This meant that the fat was allowed to coat the flour particles when it was mixed together, so less gluten was allowed to develop.  2) we let it rise for a full 2 hours rather than just an hour or whatever, so that probably helped.  Arranging the dough was actually pretty easy.  The final texture was perfectly cakey, and the flavor was fantastic.  This was wildly successful.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Baked Doughnuts

Cribbed from 101 Recipes Blog, but don't let that fool you.  As doughnuts, these were terrible.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3c warm milk
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 2tbsp butter
• 2/3c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 4.5c flour
• 1tsp salt
• nutmeg

In bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, nutmeg, sugar, and yeast.  Add the eggs, melted butter, and some of the milk without stirring.  Begin to bring the dough together, stirring, adding more milk as needed to get a soft dough.  You want it to be just a little more hydrated than you'd think - it's easier to add more flour later than to add more liquid if you didn't start with enough, in my experience.  Knead the dough for 5 minutes or so.

Cover the dough and let it rise for an hour.  Preheat oven to 475.  Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, punch down, and roll out to about 1/2" thick.  With a doughnut cutter, cut out doughnuts and place them on baking sheets.  Or cut out circles with a cookie cutter and punch a hole in them with your fingers.  But once you're done, cover and let rise for 45 minutes to an hour.

When they're done, toss the doughnuts into the oven for 8-10 minutes.  Take them out when they're a little underdone?

Thoughts: These were just like bread.  There wasn't any cakeyness, and I guess that's to be expected from a recipe that is basically a bread dough.  These did not make good doughnuts at all, though they made excellent bread pudding later.

Disaster Index: 5/10

Bread Pudding

I know that I had a french toast recipe, but this is slightly different.

Ingredients

• Dense-ish bread, chopped into 1" cubes (ish).
• Egg Mixture
• 1 egg
• 1/2c milk (I use skim)
• 1tbsp brown sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Vanilla extract
• Cinnamon & nutmeg to taste

Preheat the oven to 300.  Make as many servings of the egg mixture as you need.  So if you are making one serving, it's one egg, 1/2c milk, etc.  If you need two, double that.  Just whisk all the ingredients together.  Then add the bread to the mixture, add cinnamon & nutmeg, and toss to coat everything evenly.  What you want to see is that MOST but not ALL of the egg mixture has soaked into the bread.  

Pour the bread into an appropriately sized (well greased) pan - you want a depth of about 2" of bread.  If you're making single servings, you can use ramekins, too.  I usually add a layer of parchment paper at the bottom so that it doesn't stick.  Anyway, pour everything into the cake pan / ramekins / whatever, and cover with foil.  Bake at 300 for about 20-30 minutes (ramekins get 20 min, larger gets 30), then remove the foil, increase heat to 375, and go for another 10-15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Thoughts: I've been making this for a while, but I always forget what temperatures I set the oven at and for how long, so I thought I'd write it down so I can remember.  This works pretty darn well.  Another thing you can do (if you're eating the bread pudding immediately) is chop bananas or some other fruit in with the bread before you cook it.  I'm not 100% sure how this will impact the liquidyness of the bread pudding if you use berries, but I'd imagine it would work pretty well with bananas or apples.  Not sure how well this would work with a really crusty bread like French.  I'd stay away from that - you want something a little denser for this.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Almost No-Knead Bread

This is a Cook's recipe with our modifications.

Perfect bread.

Ingredients

• 3c unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4tsp yeast
• 1.5tsp salt
• 3/4c + 2tbsp lukewarm water
• 1/4c + 2tbsp dogfishhead 90 minute IPA or similar?
• 1tbsp white vinegar

Whisk together the dry ingredients, then add the wet.  Stir together until you have a dough.  Then cover it and let it sit for 10 hours.  Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead 10-15 times.  It's a wet dough, so do the best you can.  Then form it into a ball by gathering all the corners together on one side to create a smooth surface on the other side of the dough ball.  Turn the dough onto the counter, pucker side down, to create a smooth dome on top, and move dough around in a circle to seal the corners together on the underside of the dough.  Now move the dough to a shallow skillet lined with parchment.  Let it sit another 2 hours.  After 1.5 hours, put the dutch oven (covered) in the oven and preheat to 500 degrees.  When the dough is done with the second rise, take the dutch oven out of the oven.  Slash the bread once across the top - about 1/2" to 3/4" deep.  Insert the bread and parchment into the dutch oven (using the parchment to transfer it to the dutch oven), cover, and return to the oven.  Set the dutch oven to 425.  After 30 minutes, remove the lid and cook for another 25 to 30 minutes, then remove from the oven and take the bread out of the dutch oven to cool.

Thoughts: This was a fantastic loaf of bread.  The crust was perfect, and the crumb was about perfect as well.  Really rich flavor. I might consider trying this with bread flour?  Or possibly make an herbed bread with rosemary?  It's a thought.  The oven spring wasn't as incredible as I had thought, though maybe if I let it sit 18 hours instead of 10 we'd have more to report from that.  Still.  One of our best loaves so far.  Side note: the crust texture suffered after a few days.  It went from super crispy and chewy to just kind of limply chewy.  Toasting it helped, but after about 2 days neither of us were sure we'd eat it untoasted.  Not that this was a big problem, but something to consider.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Sopa de Ajo

Garlic soup. Who knew?



Ingredients

• Olive oil
  
• 1/4 lb stale bread, cut into 1/2" cubes (we used 1/2 loaf of "french bread" that really didn't have a very thick crust at all)
  
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1/2tsp Spanish smoked paprika (available through Penzy's)
  
• 4-6c chicken stock (or veg)
  
• poached eggs for each serving
  

In a pot, toss in the bread and drizzle with olive oil. Cook lightly until the bread is lightly brown or you think you're going to damage the pot, whichever comes first. Yeah. Then throw in the garlic, paprika, and maybe a pinch of salt. Toss that around thoroughly, then add the stock. Add enough stock that you don't just have a pile of soggy bread, but there's actually soup. I think that it depends on the density of your bread. Anyway, we used about 6c stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, poach an egg for each serving you're planning. When you're ready to serve, ladle the soup into a bowl. Dust with some additional paprika and black pepper, and top with the poached egg.

This has a great flavor. Simple recipe, but this is really delicious. The one weird thing? Texture. Possibly this is the result of our bread selection, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it makes me wonder two things: (1) are we supposed to make like a panade, or are the pieces of bread supposed to stay mostly whole? (2) are we using too much bread and too little soup? That said, I would definitely make this again. The whole thing was just fantastic. You don't even need to serve it with the egg if you don't want.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cornbread

This is a good cornbread recipe. I tried it out on all these poets who will probably eat anything and tell me it's good because, y'know, poets. LIARS. But it was actually awesome.


Ingredients

• 2c corn meal
  
• 1c flour
  
• 4tsp baking powder
  
• 3/4tsp salt
  
• 6tbsp butter
  
• 1/4c sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2c milk
  

Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Add the butter, softened, and the eggs and milk. Whisk thoroughly. Pour into something with 64 square inches, like a 9" round cast-iron pan, or a 9" other round thing, or an 8x8 square pan. Or make a double batch and pour it into a 9x13 pan, like I did.

ANYWAY, bake it at 450 for about 30 minutes, then turn it to 350 and bake it until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean, about another 10 or 15 minutes in our oven.

Thoughts: This was really good. We were worried that the middle wasn't done because it was really soft even though a knife came out clean. Let it cool a little bit and you'll be rewarded for your patience. Awesome.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - this is really a turning point in our corn-bread career, I think.

Another Artisan Bread

Um, interesting.

Ingredients

• 2c white flour
  
• 1c wheat flour
  
• about 1/4c wheat germ
  
• 1.5tsp salt
  
• 1/4tsp yeast
  
• 1c water plus a little - maybe as much as an extra 1/4c?
  

Combine all the dry ingredients, then add the water and mix. I made the dough really moist, so it's not really something I could stir with my hands - I had to use a spatula. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and let sit for about 16 hours. After the time passes, pour the risen dough out onto a very well floured counter and sprinkle liberally with flour. Fold it around as best you can - I used a spatula so it wouldn't stick to my hands and so I could keep it off the counter. It was actually kind of fun. Then I put it in a bread pan and covered again with cling wrap for 2 hours to rise again. At 1.5 hours, preheat the oven to 500, then bake the bread until it sounds hollow - about 40 or 50 minutes.

Thoughts: This was easy to make, if time consuming. The loaf is a little heavy - it maybe didn't rise all that well? So that needs some work. I attribute it to not having a preheated baking dish - it needs to really be on something like a pizza stone so that it starts out hot through the whole thing. As it was, the top baked before the middle, so it didn't get all that much spring. Even so, the flavor of this loaf is really good. I would definitely make this again, but maybe the next time I'll add more flour so it's less wet (only after the 16 hour rise) and then use a pizza peel and put it on the pizza stone at 500.

Disaster Index: 1/10

The Fat Elvis Sandwich

Okay, so we changed one ingredient.

Ingredients

• 2 slices of bread (we used whole grain, you're supposed to use Hawaiian.)
  
• 3 slices thick cut bacon, cooked and patted dry
  
• peanut butter
  
• 1 banana, sliced and grilled (possibly in bacon fat) until caramelized on both sides.
  

Cook bacon and banana as instructed above. Put peanut butter on the sandwich, followed by bacon and then bananas. Put the sandwich back on the griddle and toast lightly. Serve.

Thoughts: Not much needs to be said about this. Claire put a lot of peanut butter on, which, she evinced, drowned out the bacon flavor too much. In the future, she would use more bacon (or less peanut butter). I thought it could use a spot of jelly or possibly honey, though that might be fixed by using hawaiian bread.

Also this was FANTASTIC. Although I would say it has an artery disaster index of more like 3-7/10, depending on how you make it / whether you fry EVERYTHING in bacon fat (including the sandwich) or nothing.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Corn Bread Stuffing

Ingredients

• ~3c cornbread, crumbled
  
• 2tbsp butter
  
• 3/4c chopped celery
  
• 1 small onion, chopped
  
• 1 tbsp garlic
  
• 2c chicken stock (or vegetable stock, buhhh)
  
• 2 eggs, beaten
  
• herbs and seasonings - we used rosemary, salt, and pepper, but we didn't have any sage.
  

Preheat oven to 350. Toss the celery, onion, garlic, and butter into a pan and saute until softened, 8 minutes or so. In the mean time, crumble the cornbread into a bowl. To that, add the chicken stock, eggs, and herbs. When the vegetables are done, let them cool to the point where they won't cook the eggs, and then stir them into the cornbread/stock mixture. Spread this mixture out in a 9x13 baking dish. Bake for somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour, depending on how wet the stuffing is.

Thoughts: while the taste was great, there was WAY too much liquid. I would cut the liquid by 1/2, possibly more. It's better to be adding liquid if it's too dry than trying to cook off excess in the oven. Otherwise, the flavor was delicious. I would make this again if we had a ton of leftover cornbread.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Honey Wheat Bread

One of the best breads we've made.
Ingredients

• 3/4c skim milk
  
• 1/2c half-and-half (or, anyway, use something of equivalent milk-fat to these proportions)
  
• 1/4c honey
  
• 3tsp yeast (one packet plus a little)
  
• 1/2tsp salt
  
• 1tbsp butter, melted
  
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• 1c unbleached all-purpose white flour
  
• 2 or 2.5c wheat flour
  

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In a saucepan, combine the milk and half and half and proceed to scald the milk (wait until it starts to really froth up as it boils). Let it cool until you can stick a finger in it for about 3 seconds without jerking your hand away in pain. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir together, then turn out onto a well-floured counter and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, adding wheat flour as necessary so that the dough is JUST sticky enough that it doesn't QUITE stick to your hands / the counter. Spray with PAM and let it rise in a warm place for an hour. It will about double (or else your yeast was dead). Again on a floured surface, press dough down, dimpling it with your fingers, into a thick sheet, then fold in thirds. Dimple again with your fingers, then fold in thirds the other way. Do this one more time. Now pull all the edges of the dough into the top center and pinch together. Turn dough ball upside-down, so you have a really smooth surface on top and so the bottom is all pinched. Put on a baking sheet, spray with some PAM, and cover, letting rise in a warm place for another hour. Preheat oven to 375 (we let our dough rise on top of the warm stove as it preheated). Bake until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped and the color is a deep chocolate brown, about 40-45 min.

Thoughts: First of all, the crust on this bread was fantastic. Not too thick, not too thin, and just the right amount of resistance. The flavor was rich without being too heavy. In fact, the dough had a lot of rise and had a really nice texture. In addition to being some of the best TASTING bread we've made, it was also among the best LOOKING loaves. We'll definitely make this one again.

As a note of some interest: why do we scald the milk? I read in the Tasajara Bread Book (the bible of bread making) that milk contains enzymes that impede the action of yeast, and that you should scald milk before using it in bread to denature the enzymes. I had never done this before, and I don't exactly have a comparison of this bread WITH and WITHOUT scalded milk to see whether this is true. But this bread was so good, why risk it? The recipe on which this is based has powdered milk (in fact, a lot of bread recipes do) which would already have denatured the enzymes. So maybe there's something to this. Unfortunately, I don't actually OWN the Tasajara Bread Book, so I can't check my facts. I was just reading a copy in the bookstore. Hm.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pumpkin Bread

I made this up based on a few recipes, but it is fantastic. Special thanks go to Cooks Illustrated for the method and general ratios.

Ingredients

• 2c unbleached all purpose white flour
  
• 1.5tsp baking powder
  
• 1tsp baking soda
  
• .5tsp salt (possibly +.25tsp more)
  
• 3/4c white (granulated) sugar
  
• 1/4c dark brown sugar
  
• 1 small pumpkin - peeled, seeded, and baked until soft. About 1.5c total.
  
• 1/4c buttermilk
  
• 1tsp vanilla
  
• 3tbsp butter, softened
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• spices - cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and allspice will get you on the right path. We did it "until it looked right" and tasted the batter after mixing, then adjusted.
  

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spice, brown sugar, and 1/4c of white sugar in a bowl. Set aside. Put the rest of the sugar in a stand mixer with the rest of the butter and cream together, about 5 minutes. While that's going, take the roasted pumpkin and mash together with the vanilla and buttermilk. We used a fork.

When the butter and sugar is creamy (about five minutes?) or until you're sick of waiting because your stand mixer was built in the early 70's, set the mixer to low speed and add one egg at a time to the butter / sugar mixture, giving plenty of time to beat afterward. Now make sure the blender is very low and add 1/2 of the flour mixture, followed by 1/3 of the pumpkin, then 1/2 of what's left of the flour, the second third of the pumpkin (half of what's left), and then the rest of the flour followed by the rest of the pumpkin. Taste and see if it needs anything. We added .25tsp salt and some spice.

Pour into a 9x5 bread pan (WELL greased - maybe floured, as well) and bake at 350 for 55 minutes. Actually ours took more like an hour and a half. Anyway definitely don't peak at it until about 50 minutes. Take it out when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Thoughts: fantastic! It was actually pretty easy to make. The mixing method (creaming together the ingredients) apparently prevents overmixing, so you don't have to do the standard quickbread mixing method. It does this by coating the flour in fat, so that not all the gluten can develop when you mix it. Anyway, with the extra .25tsp salt this was just right - not too sweet, not too salty, just really flavorful. It could stand up to chocolate chips or raisins, but we wanted to just get the standard recipe first. This would probably make pretty good muffins, too. The bread is very moist. Also, don't worry if the batter seems kind of... fiber-y. The fiber breaks down during baking, and you're left with a really smooth, delicious bread. If you decide to make this but use canned pumpkin, you may need to adjust the liquids somewhat. Just off the top of my head (though you'd kind of have to see what it looks like) I would guess that with canned pumpkin you'd use 2tsp baking powder, .5tsp soda, and no buttermilk.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Strawberry Bread

Unusual and unique. Not what we expected at all, but definitely worth it.

Ingredients

• 1c chopped strawberries (I don't know, but I'd imagine it's more like 1.5c un-chopped?)
  
• 1.5c white flour
  
• 1/2 granulated sugar plus a teaspoon
  
• 1.5tsp cinnamon
  
• 1/2tsp salt
  
• 1/2tsp baking soda
  
• 1/4tsp baking powder
  
• 2 eggs, beaten
  
• 1/2c vegetable oil
  
• brown sugar for crumbling on top
  

Preheat oven to 350. In a bowl, combine the strawberries and the teaspoon of granulated sugar and toss. In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda and powder, and cinnamon. Add the eggs and oil to the strawberries and stir around, then add to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Pour into a lightly greased and floured 9x5" bread pan. Crumble some brown sugar on top (optional). Bake about 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (so long as you don't pierce a strawberry). Could take as few as 40 minutes, depending on the rack in the oven and whether or not you, like I, have a pizza stone in the oven all the time.

Thoughts: Claire and I were surprised by the dark whole-wheat flavor of this bread even when we used white flour. I mean, the bread turns pretty dark brown and has kind of a caramel, nutty flavor. Weird. What caused that? Was it the egg? Hm. Anyway, this version isn't too sweet. The original recipe we stole this from (by someone named Ellen Rainey who posted to allrecipes) used double the sugar and no baking powder. I can see why some people might prefer more sugar, but I actually like it this way. And then if you want it sweeter you can drizzle a slice with some honey. Overall, this recipe surprised us. Really delicious, though.

Future variations: cut down on the cinnamon and add some vanilla instead. Add other berries, particularly blueberries. Bake in a bundt pan?

Disaster Index: 1/10

Tomato and Cannellini Panade

Based on a recipe from the kitchn blog. Very similar to ribollita.

Ingredients

• 1 onion, diced
  
• 2tbsp minced garlic
  
• 28oz can of diced tomatoes in juice
  
• 1c chicken broth (or vegetable)
  
• 1tbsp brown sugar
  
• 1 bay leaf
  
• pinch of anise
  
• 1tsp oregano
  
• 1tsp thyme
  
• 3-5 slices of good, crusty bread, cubed
  
• 16oz can cannellini beans, rinsed
  
• 1/2c parmesan
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  

Saute the onion in olive oil (with a pinch of salt) until translucent. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant - 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes & juices, and the broth along with the brown sugar, bay leaf, and anise. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Fish out the bay leaf and add the bread and beans. Stir for about 5 minutes, until the bread is mushy. Add a little more broth (1/4 to 1/2c) if needed, and stir some more. The goal is to get something only a LITTLE soupy - the bread soaks up most of the soup, so it's more of a stew. After you've adjusted this to taste, stir in the cheese and see if it doesn't need more salt or some pepper. Serve!

Thoughts: pretty great, but Claire and I agree that it could use some sort of greens. Maybe some frozen spinach? It would be a cinch to toss 5-10oz of frozen chopped spinach. On the plus side, it's a simple recipe and it's easy to adapt to be veg friendly. It's really quite good - I think I prefer it to ribollita texturally, even if they're pretty similar. It's kind of comfort-food. I would definitely make this again, just maybe with some modifications.

Disaster Index: 2/10 - with spinach I'd say a 1/10.

Brioche

Yes.

Ingredients

• 2tbsp honey
  
• 2.25tsp yeast
  
• 1c whole milk
  
• 4tbsp olive oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2tsp salt
  
• about 4.5c flour, plus or minus.
  
• 2tbsp lavender
  
• Chocolate chips
  
• Glaze:
  
  
  
  • 1 egg yolk
    
  • 1tbsp milk
    
  • 1tbsp sugar
    
  
  

Mix together the dough ingredients (including the lavender) but exclude the chocolate chips. When it's starting to come together, turn it out onto a WELL floured counter and knead for about 5 minutes. Put it back into a bowl and toss together with some olive oil. Cover and set in a warm, humid place to rise (a microwave with a cup of boiling water makes a great rising chamber). Rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Take out the dough and punch down. Divide into twelfths (I cut it in half twice to get fourths, and then divided each of those fourths in three to get twelfths). For each ball of dough, press your thumbs into one side and pull taught the other side (so you get a nice rounded surface), folding the edges into the center. Once one side is nice and taught, take a few chocolate chips (8-12) and put them together on the non-taught side. Pull the dough from the edges of the disc and pinch over the chocolate. The idea is basically to have a nice round ball enclosing a pouch of chocolate chips. The bottom of the dough (the non-taught side) doesn't need to look pretty.

Do this with each ball of dough and set on a baking sheet. Cover with a towel to rise for another 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 while you wait. Also, mix together all the glaze ingredients.

When the final rise is done, brush each bun with the glaze. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until nice and golden brown on top.

Thoughts: Claire was unsure about the olive oil, but I really liked the interesting flavor it imparted. Maybe - MAYBE next time we'll use a neutral oil. The chocolate we used was Guittard, and it was pretty great. Very vanilla-y, which complemented the aromatic qualities of the lavender and olive oil. The original recipe used only 1tsp of yeast and had an initial rise of 12-20 hours. I'll be honest - I think I like my way better. Anyway, these were JUST delicious. They don't require anything else. Just eat them plain. As a note: the recipe says to reheat them you should bake them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Sounds kind of excessive to me, but we might find out.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Panettone

A first attempt at an Italian Christmas bread. Still not as good as my father's. This recipe has weird measurements because it's scaled down...

Ingredients

• 1 28oz tomato can, cleaned and empty.
  
• 4/3c flour
  
• 1/3c raisins (preferably a mixture of dark and light)
  
• 1.5tsp yeast
  
• 1/6c lukewarm water plus a little
  
• 1/3 stick of butter
  
• 1 egg
  
• a little less than 2tbsp sugar (1/9c, to be exact)
  
• 1/3tsp salt
  
• 1/3tsp vanilla (YOU figure out how to measure this)
  
• 1/2tsp anise seed
  
• zest of one orange
  

Combine everything in a bowl. Stir together with a spatula and add a little flour until the consistency is a really sticky dough (still a little wet). Force it into the WELL GREASED tomato can and set to rise for about 1.5 hours. Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes. Take it out and let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes, then invert the can to turn it out. Usually served in wedges, but I like just the round slices you get by doing it cross-wise.

Thoughts: Claire was skeptical but she really liked it. I didn't have candied citron (which is normally an ingredient) and I used only dark raisins. Also could have used some anise extract. Generally it was quite good. It comes out KIND OF like Swedish limpa bread, but much lighter. We're probably going to try this recipe again eventually, but not until I finish the panettone my father made for me when I was last in Janesville.

Disaster Index: 2/10 - getting there. Worth repeating.