baking galore

Happy Friday the 13th!

I have found that when Brett is gone, I cook. This is bad for my waist but good for you who get new recipes and good for my friends who enjoy the tasty treats. Last weekend while he was away at drills I whipped up a batch of pumpkin spice muffins. Recipe courtesy of The Pioneer Woman. Since I knew I wanted to share them with the other Liquid Kids volunteers on Sunday I made mine in a mini-muffin pan and just reduced the cooking time. Without the cream-cheese frosting they are a great breakfast. I am sure they would be fantastic with it as well and might just have to try it when I whip up another batch with remaining pumpkin and milk I have. Hope you enjoy and stay tuned because tomorrow Bek and I are hosting a cake-pop party and I am sure there will be many stories and photos from that coming soon.

Muffin Ingredients:
• 1 cup All-purpose Flour
• 1/2 cups Sugar
• 2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1/2 t Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Butter - cut into pieces
• 1 cup Pumpkin Puree
• 1/2 cups Evaporated Milk
• 1 Egg
• 1-1/2 teaspoons Vanilla

Topping
• 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg

Frosting
• 1/2 cups Soften Butter
• 4 oz Cream Cheese
• 1/2 lb Powdered Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoons Vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins.

Sift flour, sugar baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until it is fully incorporated. In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkins, evaporated milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mix and fold gently until mixture is just combined.

Pour into a muffin pan 1/2-2/3 full. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon/sugar/nutmeg mixture over each unbaked muffin.

Bake for 18 minutes if doing minis, 25 for regular size. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes then remove to cooling rack. Ice with cream cheese frosting.

(To make the frosting, mix all the ingredients on high until soft and whipped.)

roasted garlic bread and black bean soup

Wow, it has been way to long since I last posted. Life has been busy, and unfortunately, the blog got pushed down on the list. Apparently, my husband posted a link to this blog on his facebook, so I guess I had better get it update.

So what have I been cooking lately? I am still on my bread kick. Last week I made a half recipe and stirred some roasted garlic cloves in while mixing it up. I then let it rise for about an hour before splitting it in half and placing in two loaf pans. Let that rise for a couple more hours and baked it for some roasted garlic bread. Very good with the soups we have been eating during the cold weather.

One of my favorite soups right now is a creamy black bean soup. I usually make it in the Crockpot so I have dinner ready when I get home from work, but it would be just as easy to make on the stove.

Black Bean Soup

INGREDIENTS
4 cups chicken stock
3 cans black beans – divided
1 can of corn or 1-2 cups frozen corn
1 (16oz) jar of salsa
1 small onion - chopped
1½ tsp cumin
1½ cups cooked chicken – shredded or cut into bit size pieces
Shredded cheese, sour cream, avocado, diced onion, lime (optional for topping)

DIRECTIONS
Dump the stock, 2 cans of beans, corn, salsa, onion, and cumin into the Crockpot.
Cook on high for 6-8 hours or low for 4-5 hours.
Blend the soup until it becomes creamy. I have an immersion blender but if you don’t then just use a traditional blender in batches.
Added the 3rd can of beans and chicken, and let them heat with the soup for a minute.
Serve topped with whatever suits your fancy.

I leave you with a picture of some sweet rolls Brett made for me the other morning using the bread dough.

fresh bread in 5 minutes a day

I have been putting off writing this post because I wanted to have more pictures to go with it. I guess I will just make do with what I have, plus I am sure that bread will be the focus of many more posts to come. Here are my bread adventures from the past few weeks. Check the post below for the actual master recipe.

I was listening to The Splendid Table the other day and they did an article on this new cookbook "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day." I am not being over dramatic when I say that this has changed my life. My husband and I have literally eaten fresh bread, in some form or the other, 5 or 6 days a week. On The Splendid Table, they gave the master bread recipe, which is a basic bread dough that you can keep in your fridge up to two weeks and just cut off a chunk every time you want to cook some bread. The cookbook apparently has many other bread recipes that follow that same two-week storage format.

The first couple of days we just made fresh loaves of bread but pretty quickly, I started to figure out what all I could do with this endless supply of dough.

A couple of morning I have rolled out a ball and sprinkled it with some cinnamon and brown sugar then rolled it up and sliced it to make sweet rolls. I just let them warm up on top the stove while I get ready. Pop them in the over 15 minutes before we are ready for breakfast and we get to enjoy fresh sweet rolls any day of the week. To make them even richer put them in a sided pan like a loaf or cake pan and drizzle some melted butter over them before baking - amazing!

One day after work, I made some broccoli cheese soup and bread bowls in less than an hour. We have also rolled the bread out into pizza crust, baked in muffin tins for dinner rolls, and fried a little for a quick fry-bread.

my first loaf

focaccia bread with tomatoes, onions, garlic, parmesan, and some herbs

we made bagels!

5 minute bread

Five-Minute Artisan Bread

From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007). Copyright 2007 by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.

Serves 4

* 1-1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (about 1-1/2 packets)
* 1-1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
* 3 cups warm water
* 6-1/2 cups unbleached flour, plus extra for dusting dough
* Cornmeal

In a large plastic resealable container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm (about 100 degrees) water. Using a large spoon, stir in flour, mixing until mixture is uniformly moist with no dry patches. Do not knead. Dough will be wet and loose enough to conform to shape of plastic container. Cover, but not with an airtight lid.

Let dough rise at room temperature, until dough begins to flatten on top or collapse, at least 2 hours and up to 5 hours. (At this point, dough can be refrigerated up to 2 weeks; refrigerated dough is easier to work with than room-temperature dough, so the authors recommend that first-time bakers refrigerate dough overnight or at least 3 hours.)

When ready to bake, sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel. Place a broiler pan on bottom rack of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and preheat oven to 450 degrees, preheating baking stone for at least 20 minutes.

Sprinkle a little flour on dough and on your hands. Pull dough up and, using a serrated knife, cut off a grapefruit-size piece (about 1 pound). Working for 30 to 60 seconds (and adding flour as needed to prevent dough from sticking to hands; most dusting flour will fall off, it's not intended to be incorporated into dough), turn dough in hands, gently stretching surface of dough, rotating ball a quarter-turn as you go, creating a rounded top and a bunched bottom. *Touch it as little a possible because you want to keep as much air in it as you can.

Place shaped dough on prepared pizza peel and let rest, uncovered, for 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it in lidded container. (Even one day's storage improves flavor and texture of bread. Dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in airtight containers and defrosted overnight in refrigerator prior to baking day.) Dust dough with flour.

Using a serrated knife, slash top of dough in three parallel, 1/4-inch deep cuts (or in a tic-tac-toe pattern). Slide dough onto preheated baking stone. Pour 1 cup hot tap water into broiler pan and quickly close oven door to trap steam. Bake until crust is well-browned and firm to the touch, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven to a wire rack and cool completely.

popovers

Today marks 6 months of Brett and I being married. I thought it would be fun to make something special for breakfast and stumbled across a recipe for popovers. Being me, I then had to go brows for a couple more recipes to compare before starting the cooking process. The recipe I ended up using if from Allrecipes.com but with a couple of twists on my part (of course). They sell popover pans but since I don’t have any I just used large muffin tins. If you have a popover pan by all means, use it instead.

INGREDIENTS
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Grease a 6-cup muffin tin. I sprayed mine with pam.
2. In a medium bowl beat eggs slightly, Beat in flour, milk and salt until just smooth; being careful not to overbeat.
3. Put a dab of butter in the bottom of each muffin tin and set the pan in the oven to preheat for a moment before filling with batter. Be careful because your butter will burn if you leave it in the oven to long.
4. Remove pan from oven and fill cups ½ - ¾ full.
5. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. Decrease oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes more or until dark brown. (Mine took 17 more minutes) Immediately remove from cups and serve piping hot.

I added about ¼ t onion powder and ½ t Italian seasoning to the flour before mixing in. These popovers turned out perfect and were amazing just by themselves.

A couple of recipes I found make a sweeter version by adding some vanilla and sugar to the mix and then spreading the popover with jam or dipping in cinnamon an sugar. I hope to try that soon and will report on how they turn out.