I don't knead it anymore

About four years ago the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, had a series of concerts featuring up-and-coming artists. One of them was baritone Thomas Meglioranza. We enjoyed his concert and I started reading his blog where he tells us about his concerts, what he eats and what he cooks.

One of the recipes he raved about was bread that is easy and spectacular. It has flour, a lot of water, salt, and a bit of yeast. You mix (without kneading) the ingredients together and let it rise for 18 hours. Then you form it into a ball, let it rise again, then cook it in a Dutch oven that you've had in the oven while you've preheated it to 450°.

The result is supposed to be a loaf that "is incredible, a fine-bakery quality, European-style boule."

I gave it a try. I wasn't convinced. The dough, batter almost, was probably too wet. It kind of soaked into the towel it was sitting on for the second rising and didn't dump into the hot casserole. I guess it deflated way too much on the way to the pot and ended up a flat, tough loaf.

I was discouraged and never got around to trying it again.

A couple of weeks ago Duck Duck Gray Duck blogged the recipe. I got inspired to try it again.

I had better luck this time but I still think I need to adjust something. The loaf still ended up flatter than I hoped for. For the second rising you're supposed to form the dough into a ball. It was so soft there was no way that it would maintain a "ball" shape. It stayed flat.

But at least this time the dough didn't soak into the towel and easily went into the Dutch oven. The result was a flatish loaf that tastes very nice. And has a crisp crust.

Here's the batter dough after the first rising:

Here it is, formed in a "ball," ready to rise the second time:

Dumped into the much-too-large Dutch oven (the recipe says to use a 6 to 8 quart Dutch oven, which I did...I'll try our 4 quart one next time):

The baked loaf:

The inside of the flat loaf:

I wonder what I should try next time. A little less water? A smaller Dutch oven? (Yes.) Well, those are about the only adjustments possible. Wish me luck.

The recipe came from The New York Times and the accompanying article tells you about the theory of the process.

I hope everyone out there will give it a try and will tell me what I can do to make it even better.

The cranberries are nestled all snug in their bowl

I just made the cranberry sauce for Christmas dinner from a recipe Karen sent in 1996.

1½ cups sugar

¾ cup water

3 whole cloves

3 whole allspice

2 (3-inch) cinnamon sticks

1 (12 oz.) bag cranberries

Zest 1 orange

Bring sugar, water, cloves, allspice and cinnamon sticks to a boil in a 4-quart saucepan. Cook, stirring, until syrup is clear, about 3 minutes. Add cranberries and cook until they just begin to pop, about 5 minutes. (Do not overcook the cranberries; the little pop when you eat them is fun.)

Remove from heat, add orange zest and cool.  Keep in refrigerator at least 3 days before using. Makes 2 1/2 cups relish.

[I cook longer than "until they just begin to pop." You'd have a lot of uncooked berries if you stopped that soon, wouldn't you?]

The chain is going down to a steeping ball that is holding the cloves and allspice. This keeps us from having a surprising little extra crunch.

Making Butter

I recently expressed regret at not trying the butter my first grade class churned. I was such a picky eater. In a comment, Poss suggested that a KitchenAid mixer might be used to make butter.

Well, duh!

I did a simple Google search and found many web sites that explain how to use a mixer to make butter. You essentially make whipped cream and don't stop when you reach the proper stiffness for whipped cream.

Jerry and I went to Trader Joe's for some cream. Their whipping cream wasn't just cream. It has carrageenan to do something like stabilize the finished whipped cream or something. We didn't want stable whipped cream, we wanted butter.

So we headed over to Jimbo's. They had whipping cream that is simply cream. We got a couple of pints and came home and put them on the counter. Apparently you want your cream at room temperature. Ideally, you want it to have gone sour for more flavor but we were in a hurry. Maybe the sour version will happen some day.

I made my first batch of butter today.

I whipped the cream beyond stiff peaks. Moments after the cream reaches the stiff peaks stage, the foam suddenly disappears. You've got a bowl full of butter and buttermilk.

This will come a no surprise to most of you: I made a YouTube video of the process. My subscribers are hungry for new content from me. Here it is:

I forgot to add salt. I like salted butter on my toast. But our first slice of toast was tasty.

We got almost a pound of butter out of that quart of cream. Yum!

You crack me up!

I shouldn't read the New York Times' food articles. I don't look for them but when they show up in the list of most popular stories, I just have to check them out. This time it was Parmesan Cream Crackers. I made them tonight and they are tasty.

I should have rolled them out thinner and baked them longer. They're a bit soft. But that's not going to stop us from eating them. Once again we have a rich snack.

I need to learn how to roll the dough into a nice rectangle. I guess I could have rolled it out and cut the irregular edges off and rolled out the edge pieces again. (The article says that additional working of the dough makes them flakier.)

My first batch of crackers:
I should have scored them into smaller crackers. But then I would just eat a larger number of them.

An advantage to making these crackers with the Parmigiano-Reggiano we get at Costco is that I can cut off chunks and scarf them down while preparing the crackers. I can eat that stuff all day and not get tired of it.

Parmesan Cream Crackers

Time: About 20 minutes

1 cup all-purpose flour, more as needed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup finely grated fresh Parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup cream or half-and-half, more as needed
Coarse salt, pepper, sesame or poppy seeds, minced garlic or whatever you like for sprinkling (optional)

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly dust with flour. Put flour, salt, cheese and butter in bowl of a food processor. Pulse until flour and butter are combined. Add about 1/4 cup cream or half-and-half and let machine run for a bit; continue to add liquid a teaspoon at a time, until mixture holds together but is not sticky.

2. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until 1/2-inch thick or even thinner, adding flour as needed. Transfer sheet of dough to prepared baking sheet (drape it over rolling pin to make it easier). Score lightly with a sharp knife, pizza cutter or a pastry wheel if you want to break crackers into squares or rectangles later on. Sprinkle with salt or other topping if you like.

3. Bake until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Cool on a rack; serve warm or at room temperature or store in a tin for a few days.

Yield: About 4 servings.

I'm not sure how thin they meant to say to roll out the dough. Half of an inch is definitely not right. Mine were about 1/8 inch and they were still too thick.

Crack and cheese

Recently, one of the items in the list of the most-E-Mailed stories from the New York Times caught my eye. It was their food blogger's quest for the best macaroni and cheese recipe. The one she settled on as the best is Martha Stewart's "Perfect Macaroni and Cheese."

Last night was nobody's birthday but we decided that we'd try it out.

It's the cheesiest! It has about 12 ounces of cheeses. (We halved the recipe.) According to the NY Times blogger, this stuff is nicknamed "Martha's crack-and-cheese" because it is so addictive.

The Crack-and-Cheese fresh from the oven:

And on our plates:
You'll notice we had some wine with supper. Because of this, after supper I took a nap from about 7:00 till I went to bed around 11:00. Then I slept through the night. It doesn't take much wine to put me out.

Jerry said the mac-n-cheese is "rich." He says that when people want just a sliver of a cheesecake because it is so rich he has no trouble eating a large helping. So you know this mac-n-cheese is rich.

But it's not going to be part of our birthday celebrations. We'll stick with our traditional mac-n-cheese recipes. In the meantime, we'll have to try some of the runners-up in the mac-n-cheese quest.

Speaking of Martha Stewart, she sure does live a charmed life. In a recent posting on The Martha Blog, she told us how convenient it was that she "happened to be in the Tampa area" for a book signing one Saturday and the Super Bowl was played there the next day. "Gee, since we're in the area, why don't we just drop in and watch the game?" So she watched the game from the 50-yard line right behind the Steelers. Too bad they put up some sort of screens around the half-time show so she didn't get to see Bruce Springsteen. But she tells us that he sounded good.

I never have such good luck.

And what's more, baby, I can cook!

Every Friday, Jerry and I have scrambled eggs for supper. We usually have toast and sausage patties with them. We've been using the double boiler method from Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here for the Food" for cooking the eggs for a long time. I was using a stainless steel mixing bowl on a sauce pan. When the eggs were cooked they'd leave a very tough coat of dried eggs on the bowl. It would always take a lot of effort to clean the bowl. And a lot of the eggs went to waste!

What I needed was a non-stick bowl.

One day we were at the kitchen shop in our local mall that was holding a quitting business sale. One of the things they had was a Nordic Ware nonstick double boiler insert! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Now we get to eat all of our eggs and cleanup is easy!

One Friday after a tough day at work I was not looking forward to cooking our eggs. I was beat. Somehow Jerry must have known because he was all set to fix the eggs, breakfast patties and toast. He had recently gotten a bunch of herbs and spices from Penzeys Spices and was going to try something new. He added some Fox Point Seasoning to the eggs. I was in heaven! Not only did I not have to cook but I got to eat a delicious new dish.

I try to remember to add Fox Point when I cook the eggs. I remembered tonight. Here they are:
This is:

• Six eggs
• 4 tbs. half and half
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. Fox Point

Remember, if the eggs look done in the pan, they'll be over-done on the plate. They were about right when I stopped to take the picture and they got a bit more done looking by the time I got them on the plate. Oops!

Jerry cooked us some potatoes and onions. Mmmmmm!

The eggs were cooked on our new Fagor portable induction burner. Induction cooking is supposed to be the most energy efficient way to cook. Almost all of the energy it uses goes into heat in the pan. Gas and electric stoves heat the air and that heats the pan and a lot of the heat just misses the pan. So maybe we're using a little less energy now. In any case we have a new gadget!

Those wacky Amish!

Ten days ago one of our neighbors gave us a recipe and ziploc bag with a cup of starter for Amish Friendship Bread. Along with it she gave us a chunk of the cake she had just made. It isn't bread and it certainly isn't Amish. One of the ingredients is a box of instant vanilla pudding. (Do the Amish eat instant pudding?)

As the Wikipedia article on the recipe suggests, this is basically a chain letter with an ziploc attachment.

The recipe has us "mush the bag" of starter every day and feed it on the sixth day. On the tenth day (today!) we're to feed the starter again, measure out four new ziploc bags of it, and bake the bread with what's left of the starter. Bake we did! We're then to give the recipe and a bag of the starter to four of our friends. That's friendship for you!

It's a pleasant coffee cake. It certainly is not worth the trouble.

But we're each taking two bags of the starter and pieces of the cake to work tomorrow and foisting them upon unsuspecting colleagues. If anybody offers some to you, make up an excuse and pass it up (tell them that you have to wash your hair).

Amish Friendship Bread and bag of starter for the next victim

Birthday Dinner

Poss asked what we had for birthday dinner. Silly girl, we had what we always have for birthday dinner! Mac 'n' Cheese and Brownies! Yum!

Macaroni, Tomato and Smoked Cheese
(from Betty Crocker's Pasta Cookbook from the General Mills' Christmas CARE package)
2 cups Béchamel Sauce (below)
1 package (7 ounces) elbow macaroni (2 cups)
1 can (14 ½ ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 cup shredded smoked Gouda or Swiss cheese (4 ounces)

Heat oven to 350º. Grease 1 ½-quart casserole. Prepare Béchamel sauce as directed. Cook and drain macaroni as directed on package.

Heat tomatoes to boiling in 2-quart saucepan; reduce heat to medium. Cook uncovered 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until liquid has evaporated. Stir cheese into Béchamel sauce until melted. Stir in tomatoes.

Mix sauce and pasta. Pour into casserole. Bake uncovered about 30 minutes or until bubbly and light brown.


Béchamel Sauce
2 tablespoons butter, margarine or spread
2 cups skim milk
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons butter-flavored sprinkles

Heat margarine in 1 ½-quart saucepan over medium heat until melted and bubbly. Shake milk, flour, salt and pepper in tightly covered container. Gradually stir into margarine. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in butter-flavored sprinkles.

Some comments: It takes us a lot longer than 8 minutes to reduce the tomatoes. We don't bother with the butter-flavored sprinkles. I guess they're there to have butter flavor without the fat.



The Best Fudge Brownies Ever
(from King Arthur All-Purpose Flour bag)
1 cup (8 ounces) butter
2 ¼ cups sugar
1 ¼ cups Dutch-process cocoa
½ teaspoon salt (1 teaspoon if unsalted butter)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 ½ cups (6 ¼ ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 cups (12-ounce bag) chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350º. Lightly grease 9 x 13-inch pan.

In a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl, or in a saucepan set over low heat, melt the butter, then add the sugar and stir to combine. Return the mixture to the heat (or microwave) briefly, just till it's hot, but not bubbling. It'll become shiny looking as you stir it. Heating the butter and sugar a second time will dissolve more of the sugar, which will yield a shiny top crust on your brownies. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl.

Stir in the cocoa, salt, baking powder, and vanilla. Add the eggs, beating till smooth; then add the flour and chips, beating till well combined. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the brownies for 28 to 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out dry (though it may have a few crumbs clinging to it). The brownies should feel set both on the edges, and in the center. Remove them from the oven, and after 5 minutes loosen the edges with a table knife; this helps prevent the brownies from sinking in the center as they cool. Cool completely before cutting and serving. Yield: 2 dozen brownies.

More comments: We use Costco extra large eggs. Maybe that's what makes it so that it takes lots longer than the 30 minutes to finish cooking. Or maybe a wooden toothpick isn't the right cake tester.

What to do with PB2?

When I visited New Mexico last summer, Pegbert gave me a jar of PB2. It's peanut meal with only a little of the fat left. They say to mix some of the powder with water for a low-fat version of peanut butter. Or, they say, you can mix it with jelly and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with less fat.

Yum?

I couldn't bring myself to doing either of the suggested things with the product. So it just languished in the pantry waiting for an application that seems more appealing.

Finally I came up with the idea!

I had gotten some natural peanut butter (only peanuts and salt) from Costco. This peanut butter, being natural, is runny. This stuff is very runny. Very, very runny. If you tried to eat an open-faced peanut butter sandwich on warm toast you would need to have a bib and a drop cloth. It would run off the bread. Even if it had been stored in the refrigerator.

My idea was to mix some PB2 into the Costco peanut butter. I figured that the peanut meal would soak up some of the excess oil from the peanut butter and thicken it up. My idea worked!

I put this peanut butter in little 1 oz. soufflé cups I get from Smart & Final (your smaller, faster warehouse store). For the lunch I take to work, Jerry gives me a bagel, a 1 oz. cup of peanut butter, some fruit, and a soft drink. It would be too much to ask him to smear some peanut butter from a large jar on my bagel because the bagel is frozen and assembling my lunch as it is is enough for him to do.

So I use the soufflé cups and contribute to the solid waste stream. (How much does my use of this plastic contribute to the carbon footprint of my lunch, you ask? I don't know but it surely is a lot less than if I drove my car to a restaurant. And I bring my apple cores and banana peels and orange rinds and put them in my compost bin. So I remove a lot of stuff from the solid waste stream!)

This fortified peanut butter sometimes causes some major "Got Milk?" moments. I sometimes get too much PB2 in it and it sticks to the roof of my mouth big time.

For your time wasting needs, I made a movie of what the peanut butter looks like before and after the application of PB2. Watch it if you dare! Sorry. (It started out with the title "What to do with PB2?" but for some reason that doesn't show up.)




(Does everybody watch each movie bloggers insert into their posts? I hope you find the time for this one...I made it myself!)

Hello. I'm Charles E. and I'm an alcoholic

Well, maybe not an alcoholic but I do drink a beer every three or four months (that makes me a borderline alcoholic, doesn't it?). Tonight was one of those times!

A few years ago, we went to a kitchen store in search of an Aerobie® AeroPress™ Coffee & Espresso Maker (I'll have to tell of my experiences with that sometime). We found the AeroPress and also found another turtle for our collection. They had a Lagerhead Black & Tan Turtle. I didn't read the card it was attached to so I didn't know what it was supposed to be. It was an unusual turtle and that's enough for me so I got it.
The owner of the store asked if I like black and tans. I had no idea what he was asking but figured it had to do with the turtle. I told him we collect turtles.

When we got it home I finally read the instructions on the card and was intrigued. Imagine, two beers of different densities could be put in one glass and not mix! I had to try it out.

Background information: After our little ceremony for Dad at the cemetery we had dinner where Mom had a Guinness Stout in memory of Dad. She let me try it. Yum! (Why do I start with strong flavors? Espresso before regular coffee. Guinness before Bud (well, I still don't drink Bud). Wagner before Mozart.)

I was ready to put the turtle to use and make the Black and Tans.

Tonight we had pizza and beer.

The pizza was good. The beer was good.

Black and Tan
1 Bottle Henninger beer
1 Can Murphy's Draught Style Stout

Pour one-half bottle of the Henninger into a pint glass. Let it chug to make a head. Place the Lagerhead Turtle on the rim of the glass. Gently pour half of the Murphy's stout over the turtle's shell. Repeat with other glass.

Amazingly, the two beers don't mix. The stout is less dense and floats on top. Such a gimmick!

We used these beers because we were got them at Trader Joe's. TJ's didn't have Guinness. I hope the Guinness company isn't too mad at me for putting Murphy's in their glasses.

Otay!

Tonight we had buckwheat pancakes.

First, you have to turn your buckwheat groats into flour:
Don't they look good?
They were!

Fluffy Buckwheat Pancakes
From The Pancake Handbook, Ten Speed Press

½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup buckwheat flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1½ teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg, separated
1 cup buttermilk
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons butter, melted

In a large bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, buckwheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolk, buttermilk, water, and butter. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once, stirring just to blend. In a small bowl, beat the egg white with a whisk until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or heavy skillet over medium-high heat (375°F on an electric griddle). Portion ¼-cup measures of batter onto the hot griddle, spacing them apart. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until bubbles cover the surface of the pancakes, and their undersides are lightly browned. Gently turn them over and cook for about 2 minutes more, until the other sides are browned.


Usually, Jerry don't need no stinkin' recipe for pancakes. His pancakes are great and aren't quite this complicated.

By the way, we used recently milled whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose. They were good and better for us to boot!

HBtJ!

Tonight we feasted on macaroni and cheese and brownies! Yum! If you're looking for a low-fat meal plan just put down your mouse and slowly go back the way you came...this is not where you want to be.




Baked Macaroni and Cheese
From The "Best-of-All" Cook Book

8-ounce package macaroni
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1½ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon paprika
2½ cups milk
1 cup (¼ pound) grated cheese
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Cook macaroni as directed on package, rinse and drain. Start oven at moderately hot (400 degrees F.). Butter 2-quart baking dish. Melt butter in large saucepan, stir flour in smoothly, adding salt, pepper, mustard, and paprika. When well blended, add milk slowly, stirring constantly over low heat until mixture thickens and boils. Add cheese and Worcestershire sauce, and stir until cheese has melted. Add drained macaroni and pour into prepared baking dish. Bake in moderately hot oven 20 minutes or until top is browned. Makes 6 generous servings.

Some comments: I cook over higher heat than "low heat." I want to eat sometime tonight. Crosse & Blackwell Genuine Worcester Sauce is "suitable for vegetarians." A quarter pound of cheese? Please! Use more. I was hungry and didn't let it get terribly brown but it was nice and creamy. Half a tablespoon of salt is too much for me. Six generous servings!? It's more like two generous servings tonight and two small servings for leftovers in this house!

The recipe for the brownies came from the back of the baking chocolate package. You've already got that in your pantry.

Yum!