Shortcut Turkey and Andouille Jambalaya

One of my current resolutions is to cook from the freezer and pantry. I've managed to accumulate all sorts of great food, so this shouldn't be such a painful task. Another goal of mine is to concentrate on recipes from my ever-growing cookbook collection. It's so easy to dial up a wonderful recipe on the internet that it's become somewhat of a crutch for me.

I had some Aidell's chicken andouille sausage in the freezer, and decided to look for a Cajun-inspired dish. Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything has a Jambalaya recipe, and one of the variations is Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya, also called "brown jambalaya." Sold!

n.o.e.'s notes:

Bittman's basic shrimp jambalaya recipe (red jambalaya) is found here. To make a brown jambalaya with chicken (turkey in my case) and sausage, you omit the ham, tomatoes, and shrimp, and add chicken and sausage and also increase the amount of stock. I made a few further changes to fit my ingredients, which also made the dish quicker to prepare:

- The recipe contemplates using uncooked sausage and chicken. My andouille was fully cooked and I also had cooked turkey pieces in the freezer.

- As written, the recipe serves 8. I decided to cut it in half. I used 6 oz. of the sausage (1/2 pack), which I cut into slices. The heaping cup of turkey scraps were bite-sized.

- I first cooked 1 cup each of onions and red bell peppers in olive oil with salt and pepper. My burner's medium-high was hotter than Mark Bittman's, though, because my veggies nearly burned in under 10 minutes of cooking.

- Next, I stirred in the 1 cup of rice, 1 T. garlic, 1/2 tsp cayenne, 1 tsp thyme, sausage and turkey over medium high heat for just a minute or two. Note that the linked recipe calls for par-boiled rice, but the book does not. I used uncooked white rice - medium grain. According to the book, you could use the same quantity of cooked brown rice, and I will try that some time.

- Then I poured in 3 c of chicken stock. At this point, the pot is supposed to simmer uncovered on medium for around 30 minutes. Although I turned my burner a bit lower than medium, it still cooked pretty fast. The stock was mostly absorbed in around 15 mintues. I covered it and let it rest for about 15 minutes. I took that opportunity to make up a big salad.

the verdict:

We loved this quick, easy and tasty dish. It made a perfect weeknight dinner. Sticking to the recipe and using uncooked andouille and chicken would be even better, as the sausage would flavor the vegetables and the chicken would absorb the flavors as it cooked. I think chicken thighs would be perfect in this recipe.

I used the recommended amount of cayenne pepper, and for us the jambalaya had a nice kick, but it wasn't too spicy as to be distracting. If you are sensitive to spicy food, however, I'd say to reduce the cayenne.

I would serve this to company in a heartbeat; the best part is that it could be made ahead.

My bayou-born husband gave this recipe his stamp of approval!

{Adventures in Yeast} #5 - KA Oatmeal Honey Bread

I love how much oatmeal is in the ingredient list of the this King Arthur Oatmeal Honey bread - this is a true oatmeal bread! I baked this bread twice. The first time - about two weeks ago - I had trouble getting it to rise, even though my yeast-magician husband came by and tucked it under the covers with great care! It ended up dense and a bit undercooked (it did reach the specified internal temperature of 190 degrees). The flavor was so good that on a snowy afternoon in March (yes, snow in March. In Atlanta!) I gave it another try to see if I'd have any better luck the second time around.

I surmised that my problem with the first loaf was that I didn't mix/knead it enough and that I used softened butter when I probably should have melted it (the recipe doesn't specify). I also wanted to make sure I put it in my warmest spot to rise - the first time I'd put it in my medium-warm spot.

On the second go around, I kneaded it for several minutes until it seemed to have the right "springy" quality. It rose very well, doubling in about 2 hours. The second rise was a lot slower. I gave it a good long while, but the bread maxed out at 1" over the pan's rim, rather than the 1 1/2" the recipe was aiming for (but a bit higher than the first time). I finally decided to just bake it. This time I left it in the oven for a few extra minutes, until the thermometer registered 200 degrees. It still turned out moist and dense inside, but it was an improvement over the first loaf. The crust has a nice crunch, and, again, it tastes fantastic as toast.

The reviews on the KA site show that others have had problems with this bread's rising. I guess I could add some vital wheat gluten (I have a new package that I haven't tried yet), but I'd have to figure out how. Since I'm such a new bread baker, I don't know where and how things go wrong, or really how to fix them. Mostly I'm amazed every time a bread does rise and turn out well!

the verdict:

Despite the dense super-moist state of the bread, it had great flavor. It makes unbeatable toast. Although I would like it to have risen more (as the recipe seems to have expected) and have a slightly more open crumb, I'm not going to forget about this bread - it's one of my husband's favorites!

{TWD} Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake

Back in 1981 when I started my first full time job, one of my co-workers brought in a home-made cake for a birthday celebration. It was my first exposure to one of those "made with baby food plums" cakes. I ate it, and it was pretty good, but I regarded the concept of baby food in my cake as akin to an alien invasion. I stopped being so wierded-out by baby food when I had children and dealt with those little jars several times a day. Well, OK, baby food meat was still totally awful to even contemplate, but I realized the fruit was pretty yummy.

This week's cake is kinda like that plum baby food cake. A prominent entry in the ingredients list is: prunes. Now prunes continue to have odd associations for me despite the efforts of the prune industry to rebrand them as "dried plums" and despite the fact that they really are dried plums. Technically they aren't any different or worse than the previously-avoided baby food plums. But I had serious qualms about the prunes until this cake was baked, cut, and tasted. And then, my word, it didn't really matter what was in there, that cake was fabulous!

n.o.e.'s notes:

-I lightly toasted walnuts my walnuts before grinding them.

- Grand Marnier cognac was my choice instead of armagnac, mostly because I had it on the shelf and I didn't have armagnac (nor had I ever heard of it). I was talking with the liquor store guy after I made the cake and he said that Americans don't seem to have a taste for Armagnac so he doesn't carry it. He added that it was very similar to cognac. A little internet research shows that there are similarities and differences, as you can read here!

- This was a great recipe for me to use up odds and ends of chocolate in my drawer - in both the cake and the glaze I mixed a bit of semisweet in with the bittersweet chocolate.

- The prunes I used were very fresh and soft. They even looked like plums inside - they were still purple. (I've become a big fan of baked plums since making the Dimply Plum Cake about a million times.) I cut the prunes pretty small, but I might cut them even smaller next time and make sure they mooshed a lot when they were cooking.

- It was a little bit difficult to tell when the cake was done. Dorie says that a knife should come out "streaky." At one point I tested, and the knife seemed streaky, but the cake just didn't look quite done. I could tell it was moist enough that I wouldn't have to worry about drying it out, so I left it in the oven for several more minutes. At that point the knife was still streaky, but more clean than streaked. After cutting it I realized that it could have taken even a few more minutes in the oven, but it was great the way it was.

the verdict:

- I served this at book group and my testers were wild about this cake. One pronounced: "That's restaurant-worthy!" which I thought was fitting since Dorie riffed this recipe from a restaurant's signature dessert. I had no trouble splitting this cake up for everyone to take home. I kept that one wedge to photograph the next day.

The orange notes from the liqueur - and the zest - really came through. It was a nice orange + chocolate combination; just a little fruity and a lot of chocolate intensity.

The prunes gave fantastic texture to the cake without being really discernible, thank goodness. One of my testers called it "fudgy," which is a perfect description.

This is a grown-up, elegant cake. It's a perfect dessert for entertaining or a dessert buffet. It can be sliced very slender, and is rich enough to satisfy. It looks delightful standing up on the plate with that slick of chocolate on top.

This cake is definitely one that I will make again. My heartiest thanks to LyB of And then I do the dishes- for choosing this fabulous dessert for the TWD group to bake. If you'd like to bake this yourself, it's pages 279-281 of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours, or hop by and see LyB's post where you will find it online.

Just a few of the dishes this cake generated!

I am currently away from home and all traces of the internet. Before I left I scheduled this to post first thing Tuesday morning, and if I didn't make a mistake that's when it posted! [edit: well, I did make a mistake and this posted for a few hours on Sunday a.m. I took it off and rescheduled it for Tuesday, but I know it was in everyone's Google readers since Sunday - sorry!] If you leave me a comment, I'll try to come visit your blog when I return this weekend!

Kale and Collards Miniera

I found this recipe for greens in my big yellow Gourmet Cookbook. It is a Brazilian recipe, and is simple as can be (3 ingredients, including salt!) Gourmet says "this is a great way to work collards and other hearty greens into your weeknight culinary repertoire" and I agree!

Although the recipe's title is for collards, the intro says that in Brazil (where the recipe originated) it is used for kale. I had both kinds of greens in my fridge from a recent farm box order, so I used a mixture of kale and collards.

For this recipe, the greens are cut into very thin ribbons (Gourmet helpfully informs us that, "an old folktale says a woman isn't ready for marriage until she knows how to shred the greens just right.")

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I've found the easiest (and really fun) way to remove the center ribs from large leafy greens is to hold each leaf by the stem vertically in the air with one hand, and slice along each side of the stem with sweeping downward slashes of the knife.

- To get ribbons, the leaves are supposed to be rolled like a cigar and then sliced thinly crosswise. I've never actually rolled a cigar, so I just rolled as neatly as I could. The ribbons weren't that difficult to slice. But then again, I'm not trying to qualify as a Brazilian bride.

- I used a combination of Niman's Ranch bacon and Broadbent black pepper crusted bacon. These bacons are not as strong and smoky as Benton bacon, and I had them in the freezer.

the verdict:

This is a great easy recipe for greens. We really loved these, and as long as you don't mind a little bacon, this is a superb side dish. It's suited to the last minute (and doesn't take much more than that) but you could make it a bit earlier and let it rest in the pan, reheating it at serving time.

If you read all the comments about this recipe on Epicurious, you can see all kinds of things that people have added. I prepared this just as written in the cookbook (didn't even read the online version until I looked for the link for this post). I thought about adding garlic or red pepper flakes, but wanted to experience it just as it was. And it is an amazing recipe with just 3 ingredients: greens, bacon and salt!

Ultimate "Chicken" "Noodle" Soup

Meatballs? Yes please! I have never met a meatball that I haven't liked. Swedish meatballs from IKEA? I've bought them by the bagful. Meatballs made with grape jelly (those mainstays of Junior League cookbooks) served at cocktail parties? I'll be standing right there at the chafing dish. My mother's spaghetti and meatballs? This is what I'd likely consume at my 'last meal.'

I do have a problem with meatballs, though. They are a pain in the neck to make. I really dislike browning a big pile of meatballs on top of the stove. For spaghetti and meatballs, I try for the brown-on-6-side approach. They end up looking like oversized dice, rather than balls, but they still taste amazing. Because of the high "bother factor", I make meatballs rarely. (I should probably try baking my meatballs in the oven, but I really like the taste they get from browning in a skillet with olive oil)

Why all this meatball talk in a post about chicken noodle soup? Good question! Tyler Florence featured this soup on his Rainy Saturday episode of Tyler's Ultimate, and he presented it as the ultimate chicken noodle soup. Now I'll bet there are lots of grannies out there who would wag their fingers about this soup passing for chicken noodle. It has a chicken broth for a base, but the "chicken" is chicken meatballs and the "noodle" is tortellini. Really, this is an Italian Wedding soup without the spinach.

No matter what it's called, when I watched the episode with this soup, I decided to brave the meatball experience to try the recipe.

n.o.e.'s notes:

I cooked this soup the same week that I watched this episode, and even took notes, but when the time came to prepare the recipe I couldn't find my notes and didn't remember some of the steps and tips. Here are the things I learned from making this recipe (a lot of meatball-making tips!):

- The most important thing is to be sure to use fresh - raw - sausage. The comments section of the online recipe is filled with tales of meatball woes, and many of the people used the fully cooked sausages, which do not work with this recipe. If you want to use those cooked sausages, just slice them and add them to the soup (you will save the meatball-making hassle, but the flavor will suffer a bit, imo).

- I couldn't find raw chicken apple sausage (the flavor Tyler used), so I purchased chicken Italian sausage - which was fine b/c of the tortellini and parmesan gave it a slight Italian flavor. (Shredded basil could be added to the soup at the end to further empasize the Italian aspect.) I found the sausage at Whole Foods, used 5 links, .8 lb total, and removed the casings.

- I don't think it would be very difficult to start with ground chicken and add some spices to make homemade bulk sausage.

- There's a mysterious lack of direction in the recipe. You use half the garlic for the broth part and then it doesn't say what you do with the other half. I put it in with the meat.

- I thought the food processor was unnecessary for the meatballs - and I just hate washing it when I don't need to use it! In fact, as the recipe is written, the mixture ends up overprocessed by the time the parsley is chopped. The next time I would either: 1. chop the parsley and mix the meatballs by hand instead of in the fp. Or 2. put the onions and parsley in, process, then add the other ingredients just to incorporate.

- Because the meatball mixture was kind of wet I added some panko crumbs. Crumbled bread would work also.

- I took Tyler's tip to use a 1 tsp disher to form the meatballs. (When I make my bigger meatballs for spaghetti, I roll them between my palms. This mixture was a lot wetter than meatballs I usually make.)

- These meatballs were so small that I couldn't give them the six-sided dice browning treatment. Instead, it was more like browning on 5 or even 4 sides. They went into the frying pan as adorable little balls and came out with funny angles and flat places.

- I used a 9 oz pkg of Whole Wheat Tortellini from Monterey Pasta Company, in Classic Italian Cheese flavor. This is my favorite brand of the pre-made pastas - it comes in a refrigerator case but I when I buy it I always throw it right in my freezer until I'm ready to use it. I always have a couple of packages of these in the freezer for those "desperation dinners!"

- Half the broth was my homemade turkey stock. Because my stock was so strong, I didn't want to use it for all the soup's liquid. I filled in with purchased chicken broth.

- I added "hot salt" (a salt blended with hot red peppers) to the broth and the meat mixture. I also added ground black pepper, which is not in the recipe.

- Tyler served this soup with grilled cheese sandwiches and brownies for lunch. Whoa, that's a lot of food for lunch! We enjoyed the soup with a salad and bread for dinner.

the verdict:

This was tasty soup! Making and browning the meatballs was a bit of a bother, but luckily we got enough servings out of the soup to make more than two dinners for the two of us. To be honest, a good part of the great flavor was from the homemade turkey stock I used.

My biggest beef with this "ultimate" chicken noodle soup is that your really can't call it that. It isn't chicken noodle - not from the perspective of the chicken or the noodles. It is, however, a really good soup that features meatballs and tortellini - and "ultimately" that's a good thing.

I'm submitting this to to Tyler Florence Fridays, a group devoted to exploring Tyler's recipes on a weekly basis. Stop by and see what the Tyleristas are cooking up!

February m.o.m. - Cranberry Zucchini muffins

Several weeks ago I dug around in my cookbooks and online in a fruitless hunt for a cranberry muffin recipe that was oil-based and wasn't orange flavored. (My mother's cranberry-orange bread recipe, which I grew up on and love, calls for shortening. I just don't bake with shortening if I can avoid it, and I haven't taken the time to convert her recipe. I'm afraid other cranberry-orange recipes would fall short of the mark set by her classic.)

I ended up depleting my stash of cranberries by baking a some cranberry coffeecakes (which I loved). Of course right after I used up my last fresh cranberries I saw some enticing Zucchini and Cranberry muffins (a recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook) on two of my favorite blogs: The Food Librarian and Meet Me in the Kitchen. The muffins looked so good, and met all my criteria. I wasn't too optimistic about finding cranberries in February, but I checked around at a few stores, and, lo and behold! I was able to locate frozen cranberries at Fresh Market. I scooped up a few bags and was ready for February's Muffin of the Month (m.o.m.) for my mom!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe at either (or both) of the blogs linked above.

- I love any recipe with shredded zucchini that doesn't make me squeeze the moisture out! Seriously, is there really a worse job in the kitchen? Well, squeezing frozen spinach is a bit worse.

- I substituted 2/3 cup of white whole wheat flour for the all purpose flour.

- For oil, I used extra light tasting olive oil; I love baking with that oil, because it's a monounsaturated fat.

- I added 1/4 tsp lime juice to the liquids. Lemon would probably have been my first choice, but I had a cut lime in the fridge. Of course orange would be the classic, but I was looking for something different.

- Instead of extract I used vanilla paste. Although I usually substitute equal amounts, it might have been a little intense for this recipe.

- This was my first time using cranberries that were frozen when packaged. I've often put a bag of fresh cranberries in the freezer, but these seemed to fare better than mine, which sometimes get mushy - these were just about as crisp as fresh ones.

- I cut the cranberries in half because I love the way they look like little wagon wheels. Also, that size gives a nice hit of cranberry tartness.

- The muffins came together quickly. I spooned the batter into 10 individual silicone muffin cups (the recipe's stated yield). They rose nicely in the oven. I baked them at 360 degrees for about 27 minutes

- The sugar forms a crunchy sweet crust on the top of these muffins as they cook.

the verdict:

The muffins have a nice soft crumb and a lovely vanilla flavor. They're definitely a muffin, rather than a cake in disguise. Even so, they were just a little on the sweet side for my taste. I think I'd try to cut the sugar and increase the cranberries and the citrus presence - probably using lemon and lemon zest next time.

My mom loved these muffins just as they are!

{Adventures in Yeast} #8 - Five Grain and Walnut Bread

In honor of their one-year anniversary the Bread Baking Babes chose Carol Field’s Pane ai Cinque Cereali con Noci (Five-Grain Bread with Walnuts), adapted from The Italian Baker by Carol Field, for their February recipe. When I realized that I had all of the 5 flours in my baking drawer - oat, rye, brown rice, whole wheat, and all-purpose - I decided to try my hand at baking it (and thus be a "Buddy" of the BBB's this month!). You can (and I recommend that you do!) find the recipe and step-by-step photos at the host kitchen's site: My Kitchen in Half Cups.

There is something about bowls that I find irresistible. I have a wide assortment of sizes, colors, and silhouettes of bowls. A deep drawer filled with nests of mixing bowls. Cupboard shelves overflowing with serving bowls, cereal bowls, soup bowls, condiment bowls. And on and on.

All of my big bowls are stored up on the tops of my kitchen cabinets. While they are always visible, I tend to forget that they are up there. When I was getting ready to bake this bread, I looked up and saw the perfect dough-mixing bowl, a purple-glazed one that I found last year at an antique store in rural Central New York. As I stirred, I wondered how many other breads had been made with that bowl. I was having such a nice meditative time mixing this bread...

and then kneading it on the counter.

For the bulk rise I transferred the dough to an 8-cup glass measuring bowl because I love seeing the bubbles forming inside the dough, and the markings help me figure out when the dough has doubled. That bowl, an old Pyrex one, was owned by the original builders of the house we now live in. (When we bought the house from them, I also purchased some of the furniture and kitchenware.) I know that Kay was a marvelous baker, and I wondered if she ever made bread. More thoughts, following the rhythms of the dough.

As my bread was rising L. and her son J. arrived at my door. J is a very active and curious 18 year-old boy, and he and L. were fascinated by the bread. This was only my second real kneaded bread, so I was trying to pay attention/figure out the recipe while at the same time explaining bread-making, yeast, rising, etc. Also under consideration/discussion: cleanliness standards of canning factories, my computer, the radio controlled plane hanging from our rafters, the counter-mounted air switch for my garbage disposer... this was one very inquisitive teen! Not under discussion: this crazy food blogging habit of mine.

Somewhere in all that I forgot to check the recipe's baking temperature. I ended up popping the loaf into the oven at the oven's default setting - 350 degrees. About 15 minutes later I realized my mistake and turned it up to the specified 400 degrees. Aargh. Despite that, the loaf baked up well. I left it in the oven until it reached 195 in the center, which I think was around 55 minutes or an hour (mostly I relied on the temperature). I sort of wonder if my loaf would have had some oven spring if not for the oven-temp mix-up?

Even though this bread was oceans away from J.'s preferred bread flavor - Hawaiian sweet bread - I insisted he taste it. If you're going to hang around and watch the dough rise twice and bake in the oven you pretty much need to judge how it turns out, right? They also stayed long enough to see me prepare flambeed cognac-prunes for my (upcoming post on Tuesday) TWD chocolate cake! (To our collective disappointment, the cognac burned in demure little flamelets rather than in a giant fireball.) Anyway, I'm not sure if L. and J. really liked the bread, but they were polite enough to say they did.

I have no doubts, on the other hand, about the honesty of my book club. They have gotten used to giving me frank appraisals of my baking efforts, and for my part I've given up worrying about hectoring them for opinions - and even quotes. It turns out that this bread was an enormous hit at book club, where I served it with two kinds of cheese: goat cheese, and English five counties cheese. Even though there were three cakes there (this was our pre-Lenten bash, very important in a Catholic book group) - including the very sexy chocolate (prune) cake - the bread was just as big of a draw.

I loved it with the English cheese, some of the others enjoyed it with the goat cheese, and a few - like my husband - liked it plain so much that they didn't want to put any cheese on it at all! Just one person decided to save her carb allotment for cake(s) only.
The walnuts were indeed the star of the bread but not in a stand out, showy way. These are walnuts as I've never experienced them in baked goods. In sweet breads and quick breads, they tend to be quite separate in taste and texture. In this bread, while the walnuts was discernible in a quietly authoritative way, at the same time they blended with the well-knit tastes of the 5 flours. It's like the grains lent a wonderful supporting nest that the walnut flavor sort of settled into.

I will make this bread again and again, and I will always have a little thought for the first time I baked it, when I experienced the the extremes of contemplating life and having life appear on my doorstep with its often chaotic and distracting moments. Which are really the essence of living. As is bread!

{TWD} Caramel Crunch Bars

This week's TWD recipe is Caramel Crunch Bars, which are pretty much heaven for toffee lovers. A chocolate-laced butter base is covered with a chocolate layer and toffee bits. This recipe was straightforward and quick - and a gift of grace in that they involved no separated, whipped, or cooked egg parts. And no molten sugar, despite the "caramel" in their name!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The dough was buttery and not too sweet

- I got lazy in chopping my chocolate and I'm pretty sure the pieces were too big.

- Using the specified 9x13 pan made for a very thin base layer which was a pain to spread on the buttered foil. Whatever merits I might have earned from not over-mixing the dough in the mixer, I erased in pushing the dough all over the pan in an attempt to get an even layer.

- they were very bubbly when I took them out of the oven. I wanted to get a picture of the bubbles but they died down by the time I got the camera ready. I think I could have removed them a few minutes sooner.

- Spreading the chocolate for the topping went smoothly, and I pressed Heath "bits o brickle" into the chocolate.

- I was feeling reckless, so I cut the bars a bit bigger than specified.

- The base layer of my bars was very crumbly. I could not remove bars from the pan, or even pick one up, without parts of the bottom layer spalling off. There was not one bar that ended up nice and crisply cut.

- It seems like using a 9x9 pan might make for thicker, more manageable layers.

the verdict:

very buttery, very toffee-y, very buttery, very crunchy, very buttery, very crumbly, very buttery, very yummy.

And have I mentioned that they're buttery?

I served these at book group and everyone pretty much abandoned all restraint. The bars were a huge hit. I unloaded as many of the extra bars as I could onto other book group members; these are not something that I needed to have around the house! They are absolutely dangerous; I love toffee and these were like a baked elaboration on Heath bars. To me they were more toffee-like than caramel-like.

One thing that bothered me was that they were so crumbly. The large-ish chocolate chunks in the base layer only made the crumbling worse. Operation: Reduce Crumble would include the following steps -
1. Leave the chocolate out of the base layer and either add it to the topping or eliminate it altogether.
2. Try a shorter cooking time.
And
3. Bake them in a smaller pan - 9x9, 11x7, or 8x8 - so that both layers would be thicker.


A note:

I will be observing the season of Lent, which begins tomorrow, in a variety of ways, a few of which relate to this blog. From Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday (April 12) I will not be eating anything sweet. I've planned ahead as much as possible - by the end of today I will have finished making all five of the March TWD recipes (it's been a baking whirlwind around here in the days since the recipes were announced!) I will be posting each of the TWD selections for the appropriate week, and I plan to bake whichever recipe is chosen for April 7, but I may not actually taste it before I post.

In the past few years I've also made a practice of "giving up" some aspect of computer activity for Lent. This year I'll be giving up Google Reader and also general surfing of other cooking blogs. That's the reason that you'll see fewer of my comments in the coming weeks. My current plan is to try to "speak when spoken to;" if you comment on my blog, I'll visit you and return the favor. Also, if I participate in any roundup events (TFF, BBD, etc.) I will do my best to check the roundup post and perhaps come around and check out individual posts also.

As a final matter, during the first part of March I'll be traveling and will be out of range of computer reception. I'm hoping to schedule some blog posts from my endless backlog of draft posts, so that you'll have something to read in my absence.

{Adventures in Yeast} #7 - My First Kneaded Bread! Potato + 3 Wheat Flours

You can see a little piece of potato in the middle of the bread!

I couldn't be more excited about this bread if I made it myself. Wait - I did! This is my first honest-to-gosh bread that I made entirely by hand, stirring the dough with a wooden spoon and kneading it on the countertop! The first time I had to judge by the feel of the bread how much additional flour to knead in (about a cup).

And it turned out!!!

I've put a passel of sticky notes on the pages of my Fanny Farmer Baking Book. One recipe I marked was for "Potato-Broth Bread." It actually uses mashed potatoes in addition to the water that they are cooked in. According to the book,

"The starch in the mashed potatoes and potato water makes these loaves light, moist, and high."

This sounds like my kind of bread so I bookmarked the recipe.

As I was browsing through the yeasty-blogosphere this week I came across the announcement for this month's Bread Baking Day #17 - the theme is "Bread and Potatoes." I pushed the Fanny Farmer recipe to the top of my yeast list so I could participate. The theme's rules state that the bread must have potatoes; potato water alone isn't enough. I was glad that even though the cookbook calls this bread "Potato-Broth Bread" it does have actual potatoes.

Although the recipe is written for a white bread, I felt pretty sure that I could add some whole grain flour, so that's what I did. I also used instant yeast rather than active dry, and halved the recipe to bake one loaf rather than two. My adaptation of the recipe is below.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The potatoes in my cupboard were getting a little sprouty and a little soft. I'd read that they would firm up when cooked, and, sure enough, they did revive as I began to boil them, getting downright crunchy in the hot water. Of course they then softened as they were cooked through.

- I probably should have added some liquid when mashing the potatoes, because they were a bit lumpy. Some potato lumps came through to the finished bread, but they were very soft so didn't mar the taste of the loaf.

- In mixing the dough, I used about half KA all purpose flour and about a third KA White Whole Wheat. The remainder was Wheat Montana red whole wheat flour that I ground at a local market. It is a coarse grind, and gives a nice rough texture to the bread.

- I used about a cup of additional all purpose flour as I kneaded the dough.

- A large pyrex loaf pan was perfect for this bread.

- The bread rose very high - about 4 1/2 inches tall at the center.

the verdict:

The potato made for a tender and moist bread - yet at the same time it was somewhat hearty because of the whole wheat flours. It was fantastic toasted. My husband, the toast aficionado, said this is the best bread I've baked to date.

Needless to say, I'll be making this one again! Next time I think I'll increase the percentage of the red whole wheat flour.

requisite buttered toast picture!

This month's Bread Baking Day is hosted by Lien of Lien's Notes/ Notitie van Lien. The roundup should be posted around March 3, so hop over to Lien's site and check out all the cool and creative potato-y breads. I'm also sending this to Susan at YeastSpotting, a weekly compilation of wonderful yeast creations.

I'll be out of internet range when the roundup is posted, so forgive me for not coming round and commenting on the various potato breads. I'll try to catch up the following week when I get near a computer!

Also, if any of you happen to be counting, I'm posting my yeast adventures out of order. I baked 4 new yeast recipes in a week's time, and am posting this one now in order to submit it to February's BBD.

the recipe:

Potato Bread with Three Wheat Flours
adapted from The Fanny Farmer Baking Book

yield: one 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf

1 1/2 cup warm potato water
1/2 cup warm or room temperature mashed potato
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 T butter, softened (3/4 oz)
1 T sugar
scant 1 tsp instant yeast
3 3/4 - 4 1/4 c. flour (I used 1 1/2 cups all purpose, 1 cup white whole wheat, 1/2 cup coarsely ground red whole wheat for the initial dough and 1 cup of all purpose kneaded into the dough)

1. Mix potato water, mashed potatoes, salt, butter, and sugar and beat to blend well.

2. Stir yeast into 3 cups of flour. Add this mixture to the potato mixture and beat vigorously.

3. Add enough flour to make a manageable dough; turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for a minute or so.

4. Let rest for 10 minutes.

5. Resume kneading, adding just enough additional flour to keep the dough from being too sticky to handle, until smooth and elastic. (this took about a cup of additional flour for me)

6. Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise until double in bulk.

7. Punch the dough down, then shape into a loaf. Place in greased loaf pan, cover loosely, and let rise to the top of the pan.

8. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 40-45 minutes. (I baked about 45 minutes, until an instant read thermometer registered 190 degrees)

9. Remove from pan and let cool on rack.

Ultimate Yogurt Parfaits with Homemade Granola

A couple of Wednesdays ago, my afternoon 'to do' list ran about like this:

- go to gym; arrive in time to watch Tyler's Ultimate on the Food Network during my workout

- pick up farm box

- go home and make granola. I was going to be seeing my brother the next day and I often give him some of my homemade granola. Since baking the Granola Grabber cookies with TWD in the fall, I've been making my own granola. Commercial granolas can be filled with fat and sugars, and by making my own I make it with the ingredients that I choose. The recipe I've been using is really good; a lot less sweet than most store-bought (and most recipes), it lets the flavors of the fruit and nuts shine through. I'm glad to avoid a big shot of sugar in my morning cereal.

So anyway, I got to the gym and the Tyler's Ultimate episode was ""Saturday Breakfast", including granola parfaits. He made the granola and then the other parfait elements. What luck that the episode just happened to fit my plans for that afternoon! I made [this new granola recipe] that day and the parfaits on Saturday.

Granola notes:

I made the granola recipe from Tyler's show, but it turns out that the recipe Tyler made is credited so someone else. The rest of the parfait - the syrup and the yogurt - are Tyler's [I edited that last sentence to make it a little clearer; this was not my own usual granola recipe]

I made a few changes, mostly to boost the nutritional profile:

- used chopped walnuts not almonds

- replaced the flax seeds with wheat germ. Flax seed is a little hard for us to break down as we eat it, so ground flaxmeal is a better bet nutritionally. But the omega-3s can deteriorate with heat, so I've read that it's better to add flax once the granola is cooked. Or if you make the parfaits, you could stir the flaxmeal into the yogurt. I make sure to have a serving of flaxmeal every day.

- cut the brown sugar in half and added 1/4 cup water to the liquids

- used extra light flavor olive oil for the oil

- For the fruit, I stirred in what I like - 1 1/2 cups of a mixture: golden raisins, dried cherries, dried blueberries, and raisins. I left off the banana chips and dried apricots.

granola verdict:

I did a good job of cutting the sugar, because this granola had just the merest hint of sweetness. Because of its long bake time, the walnuts had a deep toasted flavor which was delicious with the crispy oats and the sweetness of the dried fruit.

I like adding the dried fruit after the granola was cooked - the fruit stayed nice and tender.

I'm thrilled with this new granola, but if you are wanting sweeter granola, add the full amount of brown sugar. This recipe doesn't make a clumpy-style granola - there's not enough of the liquid ingredients.

Parfait notes:

- I prepared a 1/3 recipe of the sauce and the lemon-yogurt.

- There was a partial package of mixed berries in the freezer and I filled in with some frozen wild blueberries. I used a Meyer lemon the berry sauce.

- On the show, Tyler used plain yogurt, but the written recipe calls for vanilla yogurt. I used about 1/2 cup of plain - nonfat Sigghi thinned with a little nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt - and stirred in a splash of Meyer lemon juice and a pinch of its zest. You can make it sweeter by using the vanilla yogurt.

This Icelandic-style yogurt is very thick and packed with protein. Since it's expensive, I use it judiciously.

parfait verdict:

This was a delicious breakfast. The sweet berry sauce was enough to balance the tart unsweetened lemon yogurt, and the granola added texture. Healthy and very delicious!

I'm submitting this post to Tyler Florence Fridays. Check out the roundup to see which of Tyler's yummy recipes have been cooked up this week!

{Adventures in Yeast} #4 - Mark Bittman's No Knead Bread

This bread was amazing with dinner, dipped into olive oil, and for breakfast, spread with salted butter.

In November 2006 Mark Bittman published the recipe for his No-Knead Bread, which immediately took the food blogging world by storm. I was blissfully unaware, however, since at the time I was neither a food blogger nor a yeast baker. But now I dabble in both, so although I've arrived late to the party, I'm still excited to be in on the hoopla.

In the intervening two+ years since the recipe's publication, it's been baked, varied, analyzed and perfected by many experienced bakers. Even Mark Bittman has revisited his recipe, making it quicker, and devising a whole-grain version. For my first attempt at this bread, I used a blog with step by step pictures and tips - so easy even the blogger's four year-old can make it (and he shows us how).

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I followed the recipe to the letter.

Here's the dough after about 8 hours. See all those bubbles? They are going to be holes in the bread when they grow up!!

- I need some practice in the turning out and shaping arena. The four year old can shape a better loaf than I can! The surface of mine was not taut. And even though I thought I'd dusted the tea towel generously enough, the loaf oozed in to the towel. Or maybe the dough was too wet??

- I put a circle of parchment in the bottom of my pot so that the loaf would come out (rather than stick on the bottom) at the end of its cooking time.

- My bread was lopsided and flat, which I will try to improve on future loafs.

- My pot tolerated the high heat in the oven this time, but it did not seem happy. I don't think the handles will hold up to that heat on a regular basis. So the next time I make this bread it will need to be in a different pot.

The recipe specifies a 6-8 quart heavy pot. I'd really like to have a new 6 quart enameled cast iron pot but (1) I don't want to pay for one, and (2) I'm having a bout of cooking-induced elbow tendinitis (from wrestling with 25 lb turkey in January), and those pots are heavy! I've read that this bread can be baked in a crock pot insert, but mine's not big enough.

There is no question that a pan will be found/bought. Because I need to be able to make this bread; it's just that great.

the verdict:

This was the kind of bread that dreams are made of: crusty on the outside, substantial and chewy on the inside, with just the right kind of holes to soak up olive oil or butter or just be their splendid holey selves.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll have to say that my husband did not rave about this bread. Instead, as I gushed on and on about my own baking, there was a restrained subtly approving murmur from his quarter. Under brutal cross-examination, he admitted that he thought it was lacking a little complexity of flavor. Hmm, we'll have to see what he thinks of it next time ;)

{TWD} Devil's Food "Wite-Out" Cake

Back in the day, when you were typing a letter, or a paper, or a document (yes, typing with an honest-to-goodness typewriter) and you made a mistake, you had two choices: retype the page or employ the magic of Wite-Out correction fluid. Slap that stuff across your mistake and voila! Good as new and none the wiser (unless you looked really really hard).

And there you have the true beauty of this cake.

I need practice with layer cakes. And with cooked icings. After making this cake I can honestly say... that I still need practice with layer cakes. And especially with cooked icings! This week's cake was fraught with pitfalls for me. So it may come as a surprise to hear me say that this is my new favorite cake. Not because of the taste - which is amazing, or the appearance - which is dramatic. Nope, it's because of the magic powers of the devil's food crumbs covering the outside. Like Wite-Out, these little babies cover a multitude (yes a multitude, you can take it from me) of sins.

Lumpy overcooked marshmallow frosting? You'll never taste it because of the clumps of crumbs. Finger in the side of the cake? No problem, the crumbs will cover it. Vanilla paste instead of vanilla extract in the icing? The black specks in that billowy whiteness will blend right into the crumbs. Lopsided crumbly layers? You won't notice under all those crumbs.

Dorie calls it "Devil's Food White Out Cake", but in my book it's Devil's Food Wite-Out Cake.

mother and baby: 6" and 3" cakes

n.o.e.'s notes:

- After a lot of internal debate about cake pan sizes, I finally decided to make a 6" cake rather than the specified 8". This should technically only have required around 1/2 recipe. Eschewing the math this week, I made a full recipe of both the cake and the frosting, figuring I'd find a way to use the extra half.

- The batter came together easily and tasted great. It was nice and chocolaty, and not too sweet.

- When it came time to fill the pans, I used 2/3 of the full recipe of batter rather than 1/2, to make sure I got nice thick layers that I could split for a really tall little cake. This week's P&Q had plenty of reports of cake layers that hadn't risen very much.

- Each of my 6" layers (baked for 29 minutes) domed a good bit, but otherwise didn't really rise much.

- With the leftover batter, I baked five 3" tartlettes using a silicone pan.

- I split the layers the next morning, and I can't say that they cut evenly or cleanly. I first cut off the domed part of each layer, leaving a fairly thin layer to try to split.

- My gut told me to start beating the egg whites for the icing when the syrup was 220 degrees, but I didn't listen to it, since I've never made cooked icing. I dutifully waited until the syrup was 235 degrees. It shot right past 235 to 242 before I could even get the mixer turned on. I spent the next several minutes frantically moving the syrup around on the stove trying to keep it at 242, while exhorting my whites to "form firm peaks already." I have no idea if I ever got the whites to the proper stage - or if I passed it in the flurry of activity.

- When I poured in the syrup instead of being rewarded with a lovely fluffy icing I saw a hot and scrambled icing. Last week it was scrambled yolks; this week the egg whites wanted a turn. I kept beating until the icing cooled and the big lumps broke up into small lumps. (Sorry for the lack of pictures; some things are just too discouraging to document visually.) Except for the scrambled bits (which tasted exactly like hardened egg whites) the icing tasted like fluffy marshmallows.

you can see the little lumps in the white icing, and the black vanilla specks - thank goodness for the crumbs!

- I pressed on and spread the icing and stacked the layers. I crumbled the dome trimmings for the outside, leaving me with one extra cake layer. The thought briefly crossed my mind to make this a 4 layer cake, but instead I just loaded the 3 layers with lots of icing.

- I also frosted two of the little tartlettes together to make a tiny cake.

the verdict:

I loved the taste of this cake - the layers were nice and moist and fudgy and the icing fluffy but not too sweet.

- I took one of the extra tiny tartlette cakes and sat it in a pool of creme anglaise that I just happened to have in the fridge (This was the scrambled batch from last week's TWD. I ran through the curdled creme with the immersion blender and it was perfectly smooth and delicious). I'll have to say this tasted fantastic!

Between last week and this week, I've had my fill of measuring the temperatures of pots on the stove top - and of the resulting scrambled eggs! I'm not sure how fast I'll want to make the marshmallow icing again - the cake would be (nearly as) delicious with any thick fluffy frosting. But this will be my new Devil's Food cake recipe (sorry, Duncan Hines!). And I will remember the magic powers of the "Wite-Out" crumbs to solve all those pesky layer cake setbacks.

p.s.- The icing reminded me of the marshmallow fluff I had on fluffernutter sandwiches every day when I was 10, so I had a spoonful of peanut butter + icing for a little snack.

Thanks to Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater for picking this cake for us to bake! You can find the recipe on her post, or on page 247-249 of Dorie's book Baking From My Home to Yours, where this cake is featured on THE COVER!

Oops, I forgot about taking this picture while it was still daylight!