Apple Cranberry Bundt Cake

This is a riff on an old family recipe, from my Great-Grandma Susie. She raised her family in a small home in the Alabama swamps. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to spend much time down South, but from the stories that I hear, it was a rare day when you wouldn't find an apple cake waiting on her sideboard for unexpected company. Her cake recipe makes a rich, smooth cake that keeps moist for over a week (thanks to a generous helping of chopped apples and oil).

Today's version included applesauce in lieu of half of the oil (to lighten it up just a smidge), a little extra brown sugar to make things extra sticky, and a few handfuls of fresh cranberries. Topped with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and a dollop of whipped cream, this was a holiday winner! I served this cake after our formal Christmas Eve dinner with family.

Apple Cranberry Bundt Cake
Serves 12-20

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 tbsp lemon juice
3-4 medium apples (cored, sliced and chopped)
2 cups fresh cranberries*

(These can be washed and thrown in whole, or chopped if you prefer your berries to have a little less bite.)

Preheat your oven to 350.

Grease and flour a large bundt cake pan and set aside. (This is an extremely sticky cake - be generous with the greasing and the flouring!)

In a large bowl, whisk together all your dry ingredients.

In a 2 cup measuring cup, measure out your applesauce, oil, eggs and vanilla. Add enough lemon juice to equal 2 cups of liquid, about 3 tbsp.

Add your wet ingredients to your dry ones and stir to combine. This batter is thick, and that is ok. Just mix it up. Fold in your fruit, making sure it is evening distributed.

Spoon your finished batter into your prepare bundt pan, and smooth out the top.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, use a spatula to loosen the sides, and carefully flip the cake out onto a cooling rack to cool completely. If you're lucky, the cake will have cleanly slid out of the pan. If you're even more lucky, there will still be a small amount of cake stuck to the inside of the pan. Scoop it out with a rubber scraper, eat the evidence, and sift a generous amount of powdered sugar onto the finished cake before serving. Nobody will ever know the difference!

Top each slice with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

Pasta with Béchamel and Peas

Fancy name, eh? My daughter hangs out with Grandma, Grandpa, and her favorite cousin every week. One of their favorite dinners on "Grandma Days" is Grandpa's pasta with white sauce and peas. He keeps jars of Alfredo sauce on hand, just for this dish, and the kids eat it up!

Today was a really long day, and the kids were total troopers. (We hit up the aquarium after school. Coming home, I made a few wrong turns, and ended up stretching a 20 minute drive into nearly 90 minutes. Ouch.) I decided to make something I knew the kids would love, but it had to be QUICK. Quicker than frozen pizza. I already had some leftover (plain) pasta in the fridge, so this came together in about 5 minutes. Easy peasy! (Heh. See what I did there?)

(Oh, and about that name? My daughter asked me to please add this to our dinner rotation...so I told her she had to learn the proper name if she wanted me to remember what I made. No doubt this isn't a real béchamel, but...whatevs. It's cute to see a 6 year old asking for béchamel!)

I learned the recipe for this white sauce from my father when I was about 12. He, in turn, learned it from his grandmother. It's fool-proof, and easily customizable. Add cream cheese and rock shrimp, and you have an incredible dip. More cheese, and it's a great mac and cheese. Less cheese, and it could be a simple topping for poached eggs. This can also be used in white lasagnas, or over vegetables. Oh, and a classic béchamel would also have nutmeg in it, just a pinch.

LoLo's Pasta with Béchamel and Peas
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
1 pound pasta (cooked, drained and set aside)
4 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup flour
approximately 2 cups milk (I use skim, but nearly anything will work. Even evaporated, from a can!)
1 cup shredded cheese
3 cups frozen peas
Salt, Pepper to Taste


In a sauce pan, combine your knob of butter and flour over medium low heat. Whisk it as the butter melts - you need it to be lump free. It should be runny enough to not just clump up in your whisk. Add more butter if necessary.

Let your butter and flour cook for about 1 minute, until it starts to get slightly golden brown, and slowly whisk in your milk. Just a bit at a time, then let it cook. You want the consistency to be like melted ice cream, or just a bit thicker. The flour thickens as it cooks, so make sure you take your time, and keep whisking!

When the sauce is the right consistency, whisk in your shredded cheddar cheese and stir until melted. Add your frozen peas, heat through, and taste. Depending on your cheese, you may or may not need the salt, pepper, nutmeg, etc. (This is where you can make the sauce your own - White pepper is nice here, because it won't put black flecks in your sauce. Cayenne pepper would surprise people, too!) Pour all of your sauce over your pasta and fold to combine.

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Dessert Soup with Tong Yuen

 

After a long day of sick kids, cancelled plans and one truly awful dinner (made by yours truly), Lo Gung and I both deserved something tasty (and filling..since dinner was so nasty). This is what came to mind. I had a few sweet potatoes in the refrigerator, and some ginger that was only getting spicier by the day. Sweet potato dessert soup (fan syu tong seui) is kind of a perennial staple around here. However, I am an absolute sucker for anything involving glutinous rice flour, so I got fancy and threw a few fresh tong yuen into the mix. The result was tasty, satisfying…and almost made us both forget about the long day we had just survived.

 

Aunt LoLo’s Sweet Potato Dessert Soup with Tong Yuen

Makes 2-4 servings

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1” pieces (fan syu)

3-4” knob of ginger, peeled and cut into 1/2” chunks (geung) (fyi – ginger is super easy to peel – scrape it with a spoon)

1 lime-sized chunk of Chinese rock sugar (bing tong)

1/2 of a dried satsuma peel (chaang pei)

15-20  plain glutinous rice dumplings (tong  yuhn) (recipe here) (to make 15-20 dumplings, you will need approximately 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour and less than 1/4 cup water)

Water (4 rice bowls full)

 

1. Put your water, ginger and satsuma skin into a medium sauce pan, cover, and bring to a boil.

2. Add your chopped sweet potato, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until potatoes are almost fork tender.

3. Meanwhile, prepare your tong yuen. When the sweet potatoes are about 2 minutes from being done, drop your tong yuen into the simmering water. Continue to cook until the tong yuen float, then add your rock sugar and stir to melt. Taste the broth, and add more sugar if necessary.

 

Enjoy!

Banana Bars

Well, hi there. This is a recipe that was a STAPLE in Myrnie’s repertoire a few years ago. Babies, and lactose intolerance, came between her and her beloved banana bars…but we are bringing them BACK. The recipe comes from her mother-in-law’s kitchen, and is just a simple, straightforward banana bar. These are dense and sweet and excellent cold.

 

I made these a few days ago and had to adapt to what I had in my fridge – a little vanilla yogurt to replace the sour cream I didn’t have, with an extra banana thrown in to finish out the “wet ingredients.” However, these are much better if made following the ingredients listed below.

 

 

Debbie’s Banana Bars:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Prepare your pan. (I used a half-size jelly roll pan, lined with a silicone baking mat. A 9x13, greased and floured, would give you thicker bars, but fewer of them.)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed bananas

Sour Cream Frosting (recipe to follow)

 

In a bowl, whisk or sift together your flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

 

In the large bowl of your electric mixer, cream together your butter and sugar. Then add eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Beat to combine. Stir in the mashed bananas. Add your flour mixture, and stir to combine.

 

Dump into your prepared pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the pan comes out dough free.  Cool and frost.

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
2 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 - 4 cups powdered sugar

 

Whip together cream cheese and butter. Add vanilla and enough powdered sugar to make the icing hold a peak.

Honey White Cinnamon Chip Bread

This bread is one of my most favorite creations of late. It is sweet, and spicy, and yummy enough to slice up and eat as-is for breakfast.

 

You start by making these cinnamon chips ahead of time. They need to be completely cool and broken up before you can move on to the bread part of your day, so I make a big batch once every few weeks, and store them in a Mason jar in the cupboard.

 

Mix up a batch of your favorite bread, and knead in 1/3-1/2 cup of cinnamon chips. Allow to rise as usual, shape into a loaf, and bake.

 

Oh, and FYI? Sugar is hydroscopic…meaning that it sucks water out of its surroundings. (That’s the reason you can dump sugar on slice strawberries, and come back to a bowl full of smooshy berries and cups of juice.) Your bread dough will be able to handle a little extra flour, since it will get wetter as it rises.

 

Now, if you don’t have a favorite bread recipe, or are not sure it’s going to work in this instance, I’ll help you out.

 

Aunt LoLo’s Honey White Cinnamon Chip Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups warm water

1 tbsp. yeast

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tsp. salt

6-7 cups flour (or 3 cups whole wheat and 3-4 cups white flour)

1/3-1/2 cup cinnamon chips

 

 

In the bowl of your mixer, combine your water, yeast and honey. When you can see your yeast foaming, add the olive oil, salt and  6 cups of flour. Add more flour, gradually, until the dough is pulling  away from the sides of the dough. Dump in your cinnamon chips and continue to knead until the chips are mixed in. Add more flour if you need it.

 

Remove your dough from the mixing bowl, spray the bowl with cooking spray, and put the dough back in. Turn to coat, cover with a damp towel, and place in a warm, draft-free area to rise.  When the dough has doubled in size, and can hold a dent when you poke it with two fingers, it is ready to divide. Divide in half.

 

To form your loaf, take one piece of the dough and pat, stretch and poke it into a long oblong (like a pizza crust) then roll it up tightly to form a loaf. Pinch the seam together, and tuck the ends under. Place it in a greased 9x5 loaf pan, and repeat with the other loaf. Allow to rise until the loaves are a little less than double their original size. While the loaves are rising in their pans, preheat your oven to 350. Bake for 30-38 minutes, or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it.*  Remove from the pan as soon as possible, and cool on a wire rack.

 

*Yes, you’ll need to pop a hot loaf out of a hot pan to tap on it, but it’s totally worth it. Nothing’s worse than cutting open your cooled bread and finding dough in the middle. The best way to do this is to pull one loaf pan out of the oven and shut the oven. Hold the pan with one hot-padded hand, and flip the bread into the other hot-padded hand. Set down the pan, remove the hot pad from that hand, and use your finger nail to tap the bottom of the bread. If it doesn’t sound hollow, pop the bread back into the pan, and stick it back in the oven. The whole process should take about 30 seconds, so the bread doesn’t cool down too much.

A New (Old) Apple Cake

My son celebrated his birthday in December, and for his party with his friends I made his (new) favorite cake - an apple cake. The recipe originally came from my Great-Grandma Susie. Story is that, should you happen to find yourself in her front room during the autumn or winter, more likely than not you'd find yourself in the company of this particular cake. The secret, I believe, is that the cake is heavy handed on the oil...meaning that you have a cake that is as delicious, squishy and moist on Sunday evening as it was on the Monday before. Brilliant, right? It's almost a cross between a pudding, a bread and a cake.

I found two copies of the recipe - the one I copied from my grandmother's recipe files, and the one that my great-aunt published in their church cookbook 30 years ago. For the first run through, I made the cake as my grandmother taught me. However, with 3 cups of flour, two cups of sugar and 1 1/2 cups of oil...it was a bit of a once-a-year-treat. Since I had already made it that way once (for a party at church), I decided to put a bit of a LoLo spin on it. The results were delicious and, for some of the guests who sampled both cakes, actually preferrable! My version is by no means a diet version, but certainly less oil-some than the original. It is perfect plain, for breakfast, or topped with a dollop of Cool Whip. (I can't break tradition, guys - sorry! It was always Cool Whip at Grandma's house.)

Aunt LoLo's Fresh Apple Cake

Serves 12-15

Ingredients:

3 cups AP flour (unsifted)

2 cups white sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon (Saigon, please!)

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup oil

1 cup apple juice

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

4 medium sized apples, cored and chopped. (I used two Granny Smith - tart- and two Cortland - sweet. Peels on, please. No need to be fussy!)

Preheat your oven to 325F.

Grease a 12-cup Bundt pan well. Really, really, really well. Some of the cake will still stick...but don't let that discourage you. Just do your best!

In a LARGE bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, salt).

In a 2 cup measuring cup, pour in 1/2 cup oil and then 1 cup apple juice. (You could, of course, do this in two steps - but I'm trying to save you time here!) Pour that into your dry ingredients. In the same cup, crack two eggs and whisk them lightly. Dump them into the flour bowl. Squeeze in your vanilla (one short squeeze is about right) and your lemon juice (one long squeeze). (Just trying to keep it real here!).

Stir that all together. I like using a spatula, so I can make sure all of the flour is mixed in. Fold in your apples.

Give it a taste. Yummy? Great! Now spoon it into your prepared Bundt pan. (Trust me - if you try to pour it, your arm will get tired and fall off, and your cake will end up all over the counter. This is definitely a spooning operation.) (Heh.)

Put your cake into the oven and set a timer for an hour. It won't be done after an hour - it will take closer to an hour and a half - but you really don't want to leave the kitchen for that last half hour, as this is not an exact science. The cake is done when a toothpick stuck into the deepest part comes out batter-free. A few crumbs are ok. You don't want this cake to get dry!

Enjoy with just a dollop of Whipped Cream...or not, as the case may be.

Aunt May's Quick French Bread

Two years of perseverance have finally paid off!!!! Two years ago, we passed New Years with my husband's family. On New Year's Eve, we all gathered at the home of his Aunt May and enjoyed a smorgasbord of soups and her homemade french bread. I'd never tasted anything like it - the insides were slightly tangy and chewy. The crust, though, was what hooked me - I'd never tried homemade french bread with a chewy crust. I'm not a huge fan of crunchy bread crusts...if I wanted to be covered in crumbs while I eat my dinner, I'd eat a bowl of confetti!

I begged her for the recipe, and to my joy, she agreed! She wrote out the recipe for me that night, and brought it along with her the next day when the whole family went bowling.

Only problem? I didn't go. I had a toddler with me, and said toddler needed a nap. Little did I know, that would be my only chance to get that piece of paper.

I tried writing to Aunt May's daughter, but that was no good - she'd been trying to get the recipe for quite a while as well, and had never found the recipe, her mother, a piece of paper and a pen in the same room. D'oh!

Fast forward to last night. We had Christmas dinner at Aunt May's house. It was delicious - turkey, sweet potatoes, funeral potatoes, salad, rolls and the most amazing short-ribs. (I asked - all of the recipes came from Aunt May's daughter...who I'll begin hounding shortly. Those ribs were amazing!) (Note - The turkey was sheer GENIUS. I've heard, of course, that you can make a more moist, flavorful bird by rubbing butter under the skin. This recipe expounded on that greasy goodness by replacing the butter with BACON. That's right - the entire bird was covered in bacon, under the skin. We decided to call it a "burkey". You're welcome.)

I hit Aunt May up for the French Bread recipe again...and finally hit the jackpot! While I was furiously scribbling it down, in case she changed her mind, she told me the background on the bread - it's the recipe she used in college. She used the recipe for years, but unfortunately...it was lost during one of her moves. Luckily, several years later, she met up with an old college friend for lunch and that friend gushed about how she still used the french bread recipe Aunt May had shared with her in college. Aunt May replied, "That's great! Now.....could you give it back to me?"

It's now carefully written on a neon orange notecard, taped into Aunt May's labrinthian recipe notebook.

And now...it's here, too. Enjoy!

(Note - Aunt May gave me a few pointers - she always uses exactly 6 cups of flour total...but she lives in Utah, and the climate doesn't change much. In my own home, in Connecticut, I imagine I'll need to experiment with the flour amounts as the seasons change. Also, when the recipe says to mix and rest, 5 times, using a spoon, she simply leaves the whole mixture in her Bosch mixer and turns it on every 10 minutes.)

Quick French Bread

(From Aunt May)

Mix and let stand to proof yeast, in the bowl of your mixer:
1/2 cup warm water
2 pkg yeast
1 pinch sugar

Mix and add to the yeast mixture:
2 cups hot water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1/3 cup melted shortening

Add 3 cups of flour and mix well in mixer. Add another 3 cups of flour and mix with a spoon.
Rest 10 minutes. Mix again with a spoon. Rest 10 minutes. Repeat this process a total of five times.

Divide the dough in half and roll out on a floured board, making sure the bread is approximately as long as a cookie sheet. Roll it out so that the loaf is long as thin (again, long as a cookie sheet) and place your two loaves on a cookie sheet. Brush the sides and tops of your loaves with a beaten egg white and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Allow to rise, uncovered, for 60 minutes. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Great-Grandma Susie's Apple Cake

My friends...I canNOT believe I haven't shared this recipe with you yet! This is an old family favorite, from my great-grandmother. She was a humble woman, living in backwoods Alabama. What they ate they mostly raised themselves. They were frugal. They were gracious.

The story is that this apple cake could usually be found on Grandma Susie's sideboard, just waiting for a hungry child after school, or a friend who stopped by for a chat. (Because, down south, nobody stops by for a chat without having a bite to eat! My mother used to time her visits to "chat" for right after Great-Aunt Velma pulled her chicken n' biscuits out of the oven. Heh.)

Without further ado....

Great-Grandma Susie's Apple Cake
Makes 1 10-cup bundt cake

Ingredients:
3 cups unsifted flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup oil
2 eggs, beaten
2 tsp. vanilla
3 Tbsp. artificial lemon juice (or 1 Tbsp. real)
3-4 cups firm apples, chopped (3 large apples)

Grease a 10-cup bundt cake pan and set aside. Preheat your oven to 350.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, eggs, vanilla and lemon juice.

Gently mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in the apples.

Bake until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. (Approximately 75 minutes for a bundt cake.)

This is a rather rich cake, so we usually serve it in small slices, with a dollop of whipped cream.

Easy Peasy Cheesy Chili Dip

This dip is great for a party, or a cold afternoon, or...anytime you really just need something to dunk your Wheat Thins in.

(*Note - while the bowl above IS lovely, please do not leave your crackers stuck into the dip for any long period of time. They melted. Thank you.)

LoLo's Easy Peasy Cheesy Chili Dip
Adapted from the memory of a similar dip her grandmother served at a family gathering 10 years ago...so she's sure it came from a women's magazine somewhere

In a microwave safe bowl, combine 1 can chili** and 8 oz. cream cheese*.

Microwave for about 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds, or until the cheese is almost melted and the chili is heated through. Stir to combine thoroughly.

Serve with crackers.

Can be kept in a teeny-tiny crockpot during the party to keep warm.

*You can substitute Velveeta cheese for the cream cheese for a truly tailgate-esque experience.

**I used Cattle Drive Chicken Chili.

Grandma Mary's Jell-O Salad

Grandma had so many different Jell-O salads...but this is the first one I found in my recipe files.

Grandma Mary’s Jell-O Salad

3 small boxes jello, 4 cups boiling water. Mix until jell-o is dissolved. Add 1 can matching pie filling. Mix well. When jell-o starts to gel, add 1 tub of cool whip and mix together.

(Methinks I took this recipe verbatim from a phone call.)

Natural Cranberry Sauce

My family has been making this cranberry sauce for...gosh...a very long time. Since 1990, I think. We were living away from family, and decided to do something "different" for our holiday meal. The paper was running a series of "Native American" recipes, and THAT is what we'd do for our special holiday meal! Nothing but natural, baby!

The wild rice was dry, the roast duck inedible, and the pumpkin soup a massive FAIL with the four of us in the 10-and-under crowd. But the cranberry sauce? It was fantastic, and so dead-easy.

Since I can't tell you how much to make, because I don't know how many you're serving, here's the basic gist of what we do.

Put fresh, washed, cranberries in a saucepan. Pour in maple syrup (real, please!) to almost cover the berries. Now turn the stove on medium-lowish and cook to a simmer, covered. The berries will start to pop (causing pain and a lot of annoying stains if the pan isn't covered!) and the natural pectin in the berries will make this sauce set when it cools. Cook until thick and saucy, perhaps 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

And that's it!

Nana's Apple Pie Filling

On an Autumn Day in 2006, I was introduced to the wonders of Home Canning. I had never attempted this domestic marathon by myself, but Wonder Woman's mother in law invited me along for a day of Apple Pie Filling. We brought all the jars we had, plus lemon juice and corn starch, and hunkered down for the long haul.

The recipe itself isn't difficult - simmer a syrup for about 20 minutes until it thickens, fill clean jars with peeled and cored apples, cover with syrup and process in a hot water bath for about 25 minutes. If I had to pick the point where our day got "difficult" it was when we decided that we would quadruple the recipe. That makes nearly anything difficult!

Some notes, before the recipe:
A handcrank style apple peeler makes this a much easier process.
I processed my jars in two batches in the largest pasta pot I've got, lined with a tea towel. A standard canning pot, with a rack, would have been much easier to manage!
Canning tongs are, I believe, necessary. I have no idea how I would have removed the finished jars from the boiling water otherwise.

Oh, and you can change the spices to whatever you like in apple pie. Go wild! I have used these apples in both pies and Danishes...both are delicious!

Now, by popular demand (and sweet permission from Nana herself), I give you....


.....Home Canned Apple Pie Filling

Peel, core, and slice about 7 lbs of apples.
Pack in jars.
Mix syrup:
10c. water
4 1/2 c. sugar
1 c. corn starch
3 T. lemon juice
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. salt

Boil until it is thick and pour over packed apples.

Process in a water bath for 25 minutes.

Makes about 7 quarts.

Grandma's Festive Fruit Cake

(This is part of a series of Grandma Myrnie's recipes.)
(The Betty Crocker Date Bar Mix is no longer being sold. This is my plea to cyber-space: can anyone come up with a recipe to replicate this one?? Grandma was all about "taking help from the store" and this recipe is from the Date Bar mix box.)

1 pkg Betty Crocker Date Bar Mix
2/3 cup hot water
3 eggs
1/4 cup flour
3/4 t baking powder
2 T light molasses
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmet
1/4 t allspice
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup raisins
1 package (8 oz) candied whole cherries
Glaze (see below)

Heat oven to 325. Grease and flour 6 cup ring mold. In large bowl, stir together date filling from date bar mix and water. Mix in crumbly mix, eggs, flour, baking powder, molasses, and spices thoroughly. Fold in nuts, raisins and cherries. Spoon into mold. Bake about 1 hour or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool thoroughly. Wrap and refrigerate. Before serving, drizzle with Glaze and, if desired, decorate with candied cherries.

Glaze:
Blend 1/2 cup confectioners sugar, 1 T water and 1/2 drops green food colour.

Note: Bake 1 hour 20 minutes if using 9x5x3 loaf pan.

White N' Wheat Bread

This is our every-day bread recipe. Since a loaf pan is small, it makes small sandwiches but the wheat is so filling that it's OK! The whole process takes me about 6 hours, but there are only about 10 minutes of hands-on time in the beginning, and then an occasional punch-down or roll-out. So if you have half an hour to watch this mix up in the Kitchen Aid in the morning, and plan on being around later for punching and rolling, you can have fresh bread!

I grind my own wheat flour, since we have so much of it from the cannery. I figure if I'm going to store the stuff, I should know how to use it for at least one or two recipes so we're not stuck eating boiled wheat! I use our Vita-Mix to grind the wheat berries- 2 cups of berries, grind for 1 minute and tap to get everything out that fell into the spigot, and then grind again for a minute. It's not a very "fine" flour, but it works well enough for bread.

I've posted a similar recipe before, for Simple Bread, but this recipe has my own changes. I added olive oil to make a smoother dough, and a softer/moister loaf. It's amazing what a glug of olive oil can do. I'm sure you could substitute almost any fat, but I like the olive oil with the nutty wheat. I've tried this with ALL wheat flour, and it turns out so dense that while everyone says it's good, I notice I'm the only one eating it. So, I scaled back to half and half white and wheat, and my whole family requests it- I figure ANY additional fiber is good, right?

The keys to making this really good:

• Let it mix a long time before you add more flour, and add flour a little at a time so as much flour can have a long mixing time as possible. When the dough gets stiffer, it just doesn't get as much kneading action in the machine, so mix a lot while it's thin.

• You want the dough as moist as possible. Add flour just until it's manageable.

• Let this rise! You could get by with 1 rising in the bowl, but two makes such a nice loaf. And if you don't have time to bake, just keep punching it down when it's doubled. An overnight rise in the refrigerator is even better. You won't believe what a soft, smooth, dough you'll get.
  

• Oil the dough well- I noticed that while my dough rises nicely in the bowl, the piece I gave my daughter to knead got left on the counter and NEVER rose. So make sure it has a thin coating all the way around. (I've never heard this anywhere else though, so maybe I'm just making things up...)

White N' Wheat Bread

Ingredients:
2 cups very hot water
1 heaping Tablespoon yeast
2 heaping Tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil (a "glug")
3 cups all-purpose white flour
2-3 cups wheat flour

• Put first three ingredients in mixer bowl, and let proof 10 minutes.
• Add salt, olive oil, and 3 cups white flour. Mix with dough hook 10 minutes on low-medium speed. You'll see dough start to pull away from side of bowl in strings that snap.
• Add wheat flour a half cup at a time, mixing a few minutes after each addition. Mix until dough completely pulls away from side of bowl. It should still be moist and slightly sticky when you turn off the mixer.
• On a well-floured board, knead dough just until it stops trying to stick to your hands. Keep pulling in flour from the board edge to just dust the kneading space.
• Drizzle mixer bowl with olive oil and use your hand to spread it around. Put the dough back in, and spin then flip and spin again to completely coat dough ball with oil. If it's not oiled, it won't rise properly!
  
• Cover bowl with a thin, damp, towel. I use a spray bottle to mist it.
  
• Let rise till doubled- when you poke your fingers in, the indent should stay and not spring back much at all. Punch down, and rise again.
• Punch down a second time and cut in half. Using your knuckles, push a dough half into a rectangle the width of your loaf pan, and then roll tightly jelly-roll style. Pinch end to seal, and place seal-side down on the counter. Pull dough on ends to cover the edges, and seal on the bottom. Repeat with the other half of the dough, and put in loaf pans. Cover with damp towel again and let rise until it reaches the top of the pan. I like to set them next to the my oven vent and set the oven to preheat- the heat helps it rise quickly, and makes sure that my oven is good and hot when the bread gets in there.
• Bake at 350 for 25 minutes- to test, tip a loaf out of its pan and tap the bottom. It should sound hollow.
  

French Bread

I began making bread in earnest over the summer, right around the same time that my husband's family came to visit. We were a few stops after their visit to my husband's aunt, where they enjoyed a few AMAZING bread recipes. Nana was so excited about them that she phoned her sister the day they arrived here, to get the recipes for me. It's taken me until now to try this bread recipe, but it's fantastic! I've decided to stand up and pay attention whenever I come across a Utah bread recipe from now on. They really know how to do bread down there!

This makes two good-sized loaves, with a shattering crust and a crumb dense enough to spread thick with butter or make a sandwich. The crust is softer the next day, and the whole loaf satisfyingly chewy. It only lasted two days in our kitchen, so I can't say what would happen on the 3rd day.

The recipe is written for a stand mixer- I used my small Kitchen Aid, with the dough hook attachment. With six cups of flour, it seemed ALMOST too big for the bowl- the dough kept wanting to wind its way up to the top of the machine. Make sure and watch that it doesn't envelope the mixer, and keep a table knife handy to cut the dough back and push it down in between mixings.

French Bread

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups very warm water
2 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon salt
2 Tablespoon oil
6 cups flour, divided
2 Tablespoons yeast

1. Mix in Kitchen Aid all ingredients except flour and yeast.
   
2. Add 3 cups flour and mix well.
3. Add yeast, and the rest of the flour. Mix well.
4. Let rest 10 minutes, and mix again.
5. Repeat step 4 five times.
6. Roll dough into 2 rectangles and roll up like a cinnamon roll loaf. Place on cornmeal-coated cookie sheet and let rise 30 minutes.
7. Gash top with a sharp knife and brush with egg white.
8. Bake 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
   

Mild, Tomatoey, Chili

Is tomatoey a word? You know what I mean. Ordinarily I wouldn't post a recipe like this- I made it up last night, trying to doctor up the weekly pot of beans. Turned out as a mild, almost sweet chili (the tomato sauce matched with the pinto beans to make something very different than kidney-bean chili.) BUT, Ernie has eaten 4 servings of these beans now, which marks the first time she has ever polished off a bowl of beans and asked for more. Amazing! So, if you want a spicy, hearty chili- doctor this up. Use kidney beans, add chuck meat, add chilies, etc.

If you want a 3-year-old to eat her fiber-filled beans- cook it up! I'm guessing if your kid likes ketchup, they'll like these beans (especially if you let them tear up a thick homemade tortilla and start out by dipping it in the beans.) (As a side note, beans and rice both contain partial proteins that, oddly enough, exactly match to form a complete protein like you'd find in meat.)

Ernie's Chili
3 cups pinto beans, soaked and cooked
Stir in:
2 cans tomato sauce
1/2 an onion, diced
2-3 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper

Let simmer, taking care to stir and keep the beans from sticking and burning. Serve over rice, topped with a little cheese (but not on Ernie's bowl).

Grandma Mary's Magic Cobbler

We like to double this and make in a 9x13 pan, to serve 8. It's delicious with most soft fruits- strawberry/rhubarb, canned pears, blueberries, etc. When it's browned on top, it's done- it will set up as it cools. Serve hot, about 15 minutes after you take it out of the oven, with Cool Whip, ice cream, or whipped cream. The batter turns to a "boiled dumpling" kind of consistency- it's my favorite cobbler!

Personal tip: eat the leftovers for breakfast, cold. It's delicious!

Serves 4. (Really. No one wants to eat less than a quarter of the pan!)

Grandma Mary's Magic Cobbler

Melt 2 Tablespoons butter or margarine in a baking dish, to cover bottom and sides. Make a thin batter of:
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
Pinch of salt

Mix and pour into buttered dish. Over batter, spread 4 cups of peaches (fresh or canned). Bake at 375 degrees about 45 minutes. The batter will rise through the fruit and form a delicious brown crust. Cherries, apricots, or blackberries may be used.