Greek Bread

Today I made Greek Bread
VERY VERY VERY yummy Greek Bread
Want the Recipe? You know you do.... first of all, its from www.cookingbread.com
But I will put it here too... Because I did change a few things to suite us a little better.



3/4 cup Crumpled Feta Cheese (drained and patted dry if it was packed in Brine)
3 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 TBSP sugar
3/4 cup Milk
1/4 cup Water
1 TBSP Olive Oil
1/4 cup Canned sliced Pitted Ripe Olives (drained
1 package (2 1/4 tsp) Active Dry Yeast
1 tsp Salt


In large bowl combine 1 1/2 cups flour, sugar, undissolved yeast, and salt.
Heat milk, water and oil until very warm (not boiling)
Stir into dry ingredients
Stir in Feta, Olives and enough remaining flour to form a soft dough
Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic (5 minutes)
Cover, let rest 10 minutes
Roll dough to 12 x 8 inch rectangle
Beginning at Short end, roll up tightly. Pinch seams and ends to seal
Place seam side down in a greased 9 x 5 inch Loaf pan
Cover, let rise in warm draft free place until doubled in size (45 minutes)
Bake 30-45 minutes or until Done in Oven preheated to 375 F
Remove from pan, Cool on wire rack
ENJOY!

Okay... So I didn't change too much, except that I added more cheese and olives... not to the dough, but when you roll it out in a rectangle, I added more olives and cheese then rolled it, cinnamon bun style. I also placed some grated Marble cheese in there too, since we love cheese
In the last 5 minutes of baking, I put a sprinkle of the grated Marble on top of the loaf too
I will definitely be making this one again very very soon!!! I also want to try different fillings instead of just the olives and Feta.
One more thing: I didn't just use the canned black olives, I cut up some of the green olives with the pimentos in it, so there was a lot of color in this loaf.... And I chopped the olives into pieces, not leaving them just sliced, as out of the can.

Crumbling the feta (which I'm not a huge fan of, unless it is cooked, like in this loaf)


Letting it rise in the warmest draft free place that I have... my oven


This is what it looked like straight out of the oven (it was literally straight out of the oven in this photo)


I could hardly wait to cut into this bread and try a piece. Doesn't it look Delicious? You should go make a loaf for yourself, its pretty easy thing to make! And it got me a "you are AMAZING!!!" and a giant smooch from the Boyfriend.




I also made Butternut Squash soup and baked a butternut Squash.... Tomorrow im gonna try my hand at the Acorn Squash and maybe takle the beets that I bought also... Who knows... Talk to you soon!

Addiction

I may have developed an addiction to looking up recipes online...
and then printing them off, and hardly ever making them... Well, I usually only print them off if I'm pretty sure I am going to make them... If I just think it looks delicious and good to try, but I can't see myself making it, then I just bookmark it. The Internet is way better than any cookbook. Well, i don't know if you can beat some of the old cookbooks my grandma has, BUT I would rather just look up recipes online than buy a bunch of different cookbooks.
I do have my own cookbook though. I bought a nice fake-leather journal a few years ago and I have been slowly adding to it. I only put in recipes that I have made and that I love. So in theory, when I'm really old, instead of being bothered by grand kids for recipes (like I do to my grandma) And not being able to remember them (like my grandma). I can just give them the book and Its even a little better. I would love to have something written by either of my grandmothers when they were my age, before bad memories and shaky hands made things hard to read.

Currently I am on a mission to find foods that I can make ahead on the weekends and freeze so we can eat actual homemade food during the week instead of ordering Pizza because we are to tired to even attempt to cook anything. Also, because freeze ahead meals tend to be made with simple ingredients that are pretty easy to find, and also pretty easy on the wallet.

I went to make some Cinnamon Swirl bread this morning, but then I realized we are almost out of flour (i have about 1 cup left)... Which means I am going grocery shopping as soon as the Dryer is done drying my Jeans.
Then I can tell you all about when I'm cooking/baking this weekend.

For now, I'll share a few pictures of a few experiments I did a while ago


These cookies (above) are not an experiment anymore, They are Double Chocolate Cookies... Which are actually Triple Chocolate or even Quadruple Chocolate depending on what you add... I will try and make them again and share the recipe at some point.... They are one of my favourite cookies to make

These are Chocolate Chip cookies. In the fall I went on a Cookie baking spree, and I think i made about 4 dozen cookies of each recipe i made... Which, If i remember correctly was 4 different cookie recipes.


On Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving... in October) My mom and I tried to make a Bikini Turkey... It tasted GREAT!... but the bikini tan lines didn't turn out so great... (below)
A Little while ago, I bought a 10 or 15 pound bag of Potatoes (it was on sale) and I needed to figure out what to do with them all before they went bad, So i used the super cool slicer thing that I adopted from my parent's kitchen, and made a sorta-scalloped potatoes... with Carrots (because those were on sale too)... It needed way more cheese, but it was still pretty yummy. Next time I'm going to make actual scalloped potatoes with the sauce and everything.... Or at the very least, add MORE cheese.


Well, that is it for now, I am thinking of experimenting with Beets or Squash next, so I will let you know how it goes.... I've never cooked either (except zucchini)

Happy Valentines Day

Ok, I normally hate this "holiday" even in a relationship, I kind of loathe Valentines Day. If you are in a relationship, Its supposed to be a big deal, and If you are Single, it just kind of serves to remind you that you are alone.... But I'm also, generally, a pretty bitter person... Even if I'm in Love.

However, I like pink things, and I bought myself a mini cake decorating kit this morning, so I made Vanilla Cupcakes, with Pink Buttercream Icing and Chocolate Hearts.
Which may or may not have been a product of talking about making Bailey's buttercream icing for St.Paddy's day all week long.
I used the Vanilla Cupcake (Fairy Cakes) recipe over at Joy of Baking, and they turned out AMAZING! I have actually never made cupcakes with anything other than box cake mix... These are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better... And I think that "so" needs a few more "o's" to emphasise how incredible these were.
I didn't do anything to change the cupcake recipe. However, next time I make these, I won't zest the whole large lemon, like it says to... Maybe a little lemon zest, but they taste more like lemon than Vanilla right now.




My cupcakes got a little round on the top, so i chopped the tops off, and we enjoyed them while I waited for the cupcakes to cool enough to put the icing on them.
I melted some chocolate (2 squares of semi-sweet) put it in a Ziploc bag, and piped some hearts onto parchment paper, then stuck it in the fridge... The "Love" didn't work out, I made it too big, and the chocolate wasn't piped thick enough.

For my Bailey's Buttercream, I used 1/2 cup of Butter, enough icing sugar to make it thick (3-4 cups), Pink gel food colouring, and about 5-6 TBSP of Baileys (the recipe i found called for only 2-3 TBSP, which didn't even give it any bailey's taste at all). Whipped it all up in my Stand mixer with the Whisk attachment and then into my brand new pipping bag with the larger star tip... and attacked the topless cupcakes.


Then stuck my chilled Chocolate Hearts and Voila: Vanilla Cupcakes with Bailey's Buttercream icing and Chocolate Hearts.
Sooooooo Pretty!

(JOY OF BAKING) Vanilla Cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted Butter, room temperature

2/3 cup granulated white Sugar

3 large Eggs

1 teaspoon pure Vanilla extract

Zest of 1 large Lemon (outer yellow skin)

1 1/2 cups all purpose Flour

1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup milk

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until set and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing. If you want flat topped cupcakes then slice off the dome of each cupcake, with a sharp knife, before frosting. If you want to pipe the frosting, I like to use a large Wilton 1M star decorating tip. Cupcakes are best eaten the same day they are made, but they can be covered and stored for a few days.

Pull Apart Bread

Yesterday, I woke up in a very Martha Stewart mood... I was cooking, cleaning, and baking... AND watching TV online (we hooked the computer up to the TV, so instead of watching everything on my little laptop screen, I can see from far away again)
I might've had a little help in the cooking/baking/cleaning too.... This is our little Dog.... Isn't he sweet??? and isn't my floor dirty? This pic is from the cleaning part of the morning, when we were moving furniture and sweeping dust out from under things... Its much better now!

I found a recipe for Pull Apart Cheesy Herb Bread.... But since I didn't have any fresh herbs, I changed the filling and made them Pull Apart Garlic Tomato Cheesy Bread.
It was really simple, And I might make some more today, Taking into account what I learned on this loaf. I also forgot to take a picture of it out of the oven before we ate the whole thing (It was that good!). So all you get was the before photos (sorry).

Ok, so getting on with it. I didn't add many "making of" photos since there are a ton of them at the blog where I found this recipe. And you should go check it out, because I have a list of things on her site that I want to try - This was at the top of my list.
A Little Bit of Everything - Pull Apart Cheesy Herb Bread

Although it seems a bit monotonous, since i haven't changed this recipe at all (apart from my filling) I will add it here. But all the credit should go to Green Girl at A Little Bit of Everything, and not me.

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 package dry yeast

1 1/2 cup lukewarm milk/water

4-6 oz cheddar cheese

fresh dill and parsley

1 egg for brushing

Cream yeast with a little of the milk. Once yeast has dissolved, add in rest of milk and mix to combine.
Slowly add flour, mixing until the dough comes clean from the side of the bowl (you might not need all 4 cups... mine only took 3 1/2 cups before it was a good dough.)
Place in a greased bowl and cover. Let rise at room temperature until doubled in size.
Once risen, divide into 10-12 balls and flatten them. (I got 12 balls, and i think next time, I will leave some out, because it was so packed that I couldn't "pull apart" my pull apart bread)
To make the filling shred the cheese and chop the herbs. Mix them. Place about 1-2 tbsp of the cheese-herb mixture on the flatten dough.

(My filling, i chopped a tomato, took out the middle, dried with paper towel, and then diced it in small pieces. I added a few cloves of minced garlic (I have this really cool garlic mincer that I got for Christmas a few years ago that works amazing). and some Parmesan cheese (not the real stuff... good ol' Kraft). I also had some grated cheese... Marble, because that is what I had in the fridge.

Above= my filling
Below = my filling on my flattened dough ball

Seal the pocket with a fork or with your fingers and place it in a greased loaf pan. Do the same with the rest. Leave again to rest at room temperature. When risen brush with egg wash and bake in preheated oven, at 375F, for about 35-40 minutes.
(I completely forgot to do the egg wash thing... oops)

I REALLY wish I had a competed picture for you too... because It was really pretty!!! And the combination of tomato and garlic and cheese really went well together! Would definitely be good for a pasta night. I also thing this would be great for a garlic bread, instead of just putting garlic butter on bread and serving it (garlic bread a la my mom)

Anyway, I definitely recommend trying this! It was delicious, and I think I am going to go make some more dough so We can have this for dinner again tonight.
Take Care!

Cinnamon Swirl Quick Bread

The roads outside are terrible. We are in the middle of a winter storm warning (up to 50cm by the end of today) which isn't that bad,... This is Canada after all, and its only February, so definitely expected. What made the roads so terrible, was that we were in a beautiful Chinook last week... On Saturday morning It was T-shirt weather outside, and all the snow we got in the last big storm was well on its way to being melted away... Lots of melting, followed by a very quick drop in temperature and then a snowfall warning, equals not good... All the ice on the roads is covered by a fresh coat of snow, and it seems like everyone drives like assholes whenever the weather changes again.
After being outside in that, And a very long day at the barn, I just wanted to come home and have some nice warm food. Too bad we ate all the stew yesterday, because today would've been a perfect Stew day.
So instead I found a Cinnamon Swirl Bread recipe from this Blog: Erica's Edibles. And had all the ingredients (pretty basic stuff... like the biscuits I made the other day), So I put them all together.
I didn't bother taking pictures of making the bread, because she has them on her blog, AND I was too lazy to clean my kitchen, so its a huge mess, and the lighting is crap, since Its winter and its dark.... Either way, here is my Cinnamon Swirl Quick Bread pictures:
JUST before I stuck it in the oven.... I swirled the top around a bit, so it looked a little more interesting.

Right out of the oven.... The house smells sooooooooo amazing right now!!!

Left it in the oven a teeeeeeeeeny bit too long... oops


Pretty AND delicious... and it has swirls in it too!!! I was a little apprehensive if it would or not.


This was such a huge hit... Definitely what I was looking for after this long and cold day... AND I don't know how much longer it is going to last, The boyfriend is on his 3rd piece already... and I will be too after we eat some dinner.

Take care, and Stay warm!!

Wine-y Stew

Yesterday, I made stew, and I'm calling it Wine-y Stew, because I was half inspired by Beouf Bourginon (or however the hell it is spelled) recipes that I was looking at online, because I was inspired by the movie "Julie & Julia"

So I marinated the beef overnight with about 1/2 a bottle of dry red wine and some spices (mostly Italian seasoning, because we had a lot of it). I also cut the stewing beef I had bought into smaller pieces so that I could actually eat it! (stupid wisdom teeth surgery)
In the morning, I started browning the meet. Which didn't really go as well as I planned. Mostly, it just got rid of all the liquid that the beef had soaked up. But I went with it, got the beef cooked, and poured all the liquid that came out into my giant pot (soon to be full of stew).

While the meat was "browning" I chopped up all my veggies... Carrots, Parsnips, Potatoes and half an onion. Those are all the veggies currently residing in my fridge, so they are what I used.... I kinda wanted something green in there, but I'll remember that for next time.
Then, everything into the pot, with a bunch of water and some more wine, and turned the stove on a medium/low temperature so my stew could stew
And stew it did... For about 6 hours, until we couldn't hold off eating it anymore... and even then, I left it on the stove at Low until about 4pm. It was delish!!! Especially with the biscuits I made the night before.
This is the only semi-decent shot I got of the stew in a bowl... We were busy playing GTA4 at the time, and I ALMOST forgot to even take a final photo of it.
Overall, it was a huge success! Except I wish we had more. Today would have been a perfect stew day... -30 Windchill for most of the day today... the roads were kind of treacherous, and getting to and from work was a little harrowing

Also, you are in for a treat, I am currently making Cinnamon Swirl Quick Bread, and I'm going to blog about it right away, or else I will forget to do that at all.... ALMOST forgot to do the stew one!

Biscuits

I love biscuits... However, I have yet to be successful in making ones that are better than the Pillsbury country biscuits...
But the ones I JUST finished making, come pretty close. And I'm pretty sure with a tiny bit of tweaking, that they would be better. They are defiantly prettier! And made all by myself, instead of opening a can and plopping them on a baking sheet... Although they are almost as fast to make from scratch... and with really simple ingredients
Two things I realized while I was making these beautiful biscuits:

• I don't own a pastry cutter, and I should get one... after all, it was one of my favourite kitchen tools, since it looks like a stirrup (and anything i can relate to horses, i like!)
• I also don't own a brush... I went to brush the tops of the biscuits with the egg and milk mixture and that is when it hit me...(after searching every cupboard and drawer) Why the hell don't we have a kitchen brush???

AND: Since the biscuits are nice and flaky, I can rip off little pieces and actually eat them (since I STILL can't open my jaw after surgery)


I used the biscuit recipe (and watched the biscuit video) over at the Joy of Baking (one of my most favourite sites)
This is my brand new rolling pin (because I didn't have one of these either, and when i went to walmart to pick up a few things for the Stew i am making tomorrow (stay tuned!), I splurged the $9.96 and got me a rollin' pin!
And the biscuit cutter set that my mom (err, i mean "Santa") put in my stocking at Christmas
AND my new pot holders I grabbed from Dollaramma, because i lost my old pink ones last time we moved, and I'm pretty sure that the boyfriend hated having to use pink potholders.
Life without a pastry cutter... Turned out that it wasn't as hard as i first imagined, but definatly easier with the cutter. (next Walmart splurge item, i do believe)
Aren't they pretty? I think that one in the middle looks a bit like a Shark (and more importantly, Bruce from Finding Nemo)

I'm not really sure what I will do differently next time I try these, maybe a little more butter in them, since they were a teeny bit dry, and maybe I wont brush the tops with the egg/milk (or in my case, improvise and slather with the wooden spoon dipped in the egg/milk mixture)... We shall see... They were so fast and easy to make, that it won't be hard to find an excuse to make these again... I'm pretty sure that I could even handle it after a long day at the barn when I'm exhausted.
OH, and one more thing, Since we are at a higher elevation here, I lowered the temperature in the oven from 400 F to 350 F .... old trick I learned from my Mom.... kind of ingrained in my head: she bakes almost everything at 350 F... Almost as if she has a fear of turning the oven higher than 400 F..... In some google-ing, I discovered that it might be a myth, but it's always worked for my mom, so it can't hurt... and my biscuits turned out amazing, so I'm sticking to it

January 2011 Daring Baker Challenge (FINALLY) -Biscuit Joconde Imprime/Entremet

After my Wisdom Tooth surgery... extraction of all 4, which were all severely impacted, I never expected to feel as crappy as I did, and for as long as I did... I actually still cannot open my jaw. I expected to be out of it for a few days, and then weak for about a week.... NOT out of it for nearly 2 weeks, and weak for who knows how long yet.
Since I am still off of work because of the teeth, I took advantage of being able to go home and visit my parents while my mom had a day off... And she was going to help me complete my February challenge, while I have the time to do it, before work gets crazy (because of making up for all the days i was off for the surgery). While I was waiting for her to wake up, I made my January challenge, for a few reasons: a)i really wanted to try the technique and i was bummed when i wasn't going to be able to do it on time, b)she had all the ingredients I needed, c)i had the time to do it
and so here it goes:

The January 2011 Daring Baker's Challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entrements dessert

Now, I know what you're thinking... "A WHAT?" And i honestly can't help you pronounce anything French... Basically, its a pretty sponge cake that you can wrap around another "cake" the "entremets" which is usually made of layers... the dessert should be free-standing, so the layers should be able to hold themselves up like mouses and gelee's and what have you.
My original plan (pre-surgery), was to make my "entremet" (inside cake) of Banoffee pie kind of style. However, my mom didn't have the essential ingredient condensed milk, so i had to figure out something different. We ended up filling it with a thick Vanilla pudding... but it wasn't so freestanding, and I would defiantly not recommend using pudding... I should have stuck to my idea of making chocolate mouse with the egg yolks i had left over from the sponge/paste layer.
I don't have any pictures of it cut, I saved it in the fridge for my parents to have on their anniversary tomorrow. Still unsure of how the pudding will work out.

My mom and I were surprised at exactly how easy this was to make, and we will defiantly be trying this again.


So, here are my pictures and the short description of what i did/what i learned. You can find the recipe on the Daring Kitchen website... defiantly download the pdf file if you can, It had amazing resources and helpful hints in there.
I chose to make the chocolate paste for 2 reasons... a)my mom didn't have any food colouring, but she had cocoa, and b)because it seemed like the easiest option... and Easy is always a good option when you don't really have any idea what you are making.

I drew the path through the paste with my fingers... next time i will probably use a pastry comb (if i can find one), or something that will make smaller squiggles than my fingers.
I made the sponge recipe first, just because that was the order they were in on the pdf file, and it was nerve racking... It didn't look right until the very end. I'm very glad that I stuck to my gut, and followed the directions as closely as possible... OH, 2 more things... We didn't have room in the freezer for the paste with my finger squiggles in it, so I just went outside (its January, i live in a giant freezer) and put it in my car for 20 minutes. AND I cut the paste recipe in half... and i still have more than enough.. But made the full sponge recipe, and it just barely covered. It worked out quite well to be honest.

Above is the sponge batter on top of my finger squiggles... Just before baking. and Below is after (and flipped over to show the pattern that became of said finger squiggles. I didn't have any trouble with the edges burning like a few people seemed to have on the forums. In fact, it turned out nearly perfect. AT least because i think i was expecting complete doom.


And then here is my finished pudding cake... We ended up tying a ribbon around it to try and get it to hold together at the seams, and I'm pretty sure it worked, I haven't asked my mom yet if there is vanilla pudding all over her fridge yet though.

Here is my finished product:

Again, I learned a TON from this challenge, and both me, and my mom will be making this again. It is much easier than it seems... even if i still can't pronounce it.

Groundhog Day

I completed the January Daring Baker Challenge, and it turned out WAY better than I expected... I will post pics and details once I get home from visiting my parents (and using their kitchen and ingredients for my daring baker challenges)
CANNOT wait to share it with you!
Also, I have completed the febuary challenge already, and can't wait to post that at the end of the month.
Happy Groundhog Day!
...i dont know what Balzac Billy predicted, but It doesnt really matter here in Canada, Winter will last 6 more weeks weather or not the groundhog says so... It will last more than 6 more weeks in actuality

Take Care

Happy Feburary

WILL DEFINATLY BE PARTICIPATING IN FEBRUARY'S DARING BAKER CHALLENGE!!!!

Mostly feel the need to report this, because I was so excited to do the January one, and then when I actually had time to do it, I felt like crap from the surgury. Which took me out for way longer (and way harder) than i ever excpected... I still cannot open my jaw, or chew food.
However, I already have part of the challenge completed, and cannot wait to share it with you all on the 27th.

Also, I would like to wish my person a very very very happy birthday!!!