Monthly Archives: March 2017

Mix It Up Friday – March

31 Friday Mar 2017

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from Kris B.

It is Mix It Up Friday again and boy am I glad of that!  March has been a rough month at our house with an elderly dog with health issues and my younger daughter getting married.  I have a great desire to eat cookies, but honestly, I have zero energy or enthusiasm for making much of anything from scratch at the moment.  It is in times like this that I am most grateful for good quality mixes like these Chaidoodles from King Arthur Flour.

These cookies are a variation on the classic Snickerdoodle.  In addition to cinnamon, which is the signature flavor of Snickerdoodles, Chaidoodles are flavored with chai spice, a blend of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice, anise, and black pepper.  These cookies are like Snickerdoodles all grown up.  I’m sure they’d be delicious with a nice cold glass of milk, but I ate mine as an afternoon snack with a warm cup of tea.  All I can say is “YUM!”

The Chaidoodle boxed mix, a softened stick of butter and an egg are all you need.  In twenty minutes or so you have delicious cookies!  The instructions say to add all of the ingredients together and “mix until a smooth dough forms.”  I will admit when I first started mixing, I had what looked liked playground sand that I was sure was never going to come together into a smooth dough.  After mixing with my hand mixer for about two minutes, I actually stopped and looked on the King Arthur website to see if perhaps there was a correction to the recipe.  Nope.  I resisted the urge to add a little water, or maybe another egg, and just kept mixing.  Finally, after a good four minutes or so the dough did come together as the instructions said that it would.  As I get older I seem to be getting a little more patient and a lot more willing to follow directions!

One of the cookie making instructions that I still often ignore is the amount of dough used for each cookie.  With this recipe, I did use the tablespoon scoop that the recipe called for with the hope of getting the number of cookies specified by the recipe, which was twenty.  I got nineteen and half.  Since I am a fan of raw cookie dough…don’t judge me…I believe that that half a cookie, which for obvious reasons could not be baked with all of the full-sized cookies, was intended to satisfy my raw cookie need. 🙂

My entire family was home when I baked these cookies.  As the cookies cooled on the rack, I was asked, “Can I have a cookie?”  “NO!, Not until I photograph them.”  That is a familiar refrain at our house.  Once the photos were taken, everyone was right there for their portion of cookies.  Before I knew it, half the batch was gone…and there are only three of us!  I’d say that is a positive review of the King Arthur Flour Chaidoodle Cookie Mix!

This mix sells for $5.95 on the King Arthur Flour website and is also available at some retailers.

 

From Tracey G.

Yay for Mix It Up week! I love this week in our monthly rotations – I’m always game to try a mix especially from King Arthur Flour. And this one did not disappoint, it was easy and it was yummy!

I appreciated this being mix week as it’s been Spring Break around here, so that means I have had Harry home all week! And let me say it’s gone by way to fast, I know I’m going to miss him when he goes back to school next week, even though I do enjoy the quiet time, lol, I enjoy him being around more!

But anyway, when I got the mix out this time, to see what was needed as an additional ingredient to make it work, I had to do a double-take. It said I needed to add 1 1/2 cups of milk. That’s it. Nothing more. Huh? That can’t be right, there has to be something else, but nope. Just the milk. Talk about making easy even easier!! Only thing that would have made this bread easier to make would be if it made itself, lol. Seriously!

I made this mix a day in advance, so I had to keep walking by it without being able to taste it, as it hadn’t made its way in front of the camera yet, lol. I was really happy once I’d gotten my photos taken to be able to finally sneak a piece of it! And it is wonderful! The currants are moist and flavorful, the texture is a bit dense, but not dense in a bad way by any means, it’s flat out yummy. I had it plain, I can only imagine how it would be with a little butter spread on it! I am so glad I tried this mix – now I look forward to trying the recipe Kris made for March 17th Food Friday Post to see how it stacks up. Even though I know both are delicious, it’s always fun to see how a mix vs. a homemade recipe compare!

I purchased this mix right from the King Arthur Flour website, and now I’m thinking it was just a seasonal item – as it’s not there anymore. So, I will definitely know better next year – if I see it, I’m stocking up on a few boxes!! If I had known that, I wouldn’t have chosen it to do as a review, lol, it’s hard to recommend an item that can’t be obtained right now! But I can say that it’s a really great mix – and do try it when you can!

 

Food Friday – Appetizers and Snacks

24 Friday Mar 2017

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from Tracey G.

Ever since I bought my King Arthur Flour Fresh Sourdough Starter last fall, I’m always looking for a way to not have to throw away the “discard” when I feed it. It just makes me crazy to remove all but 4 oz, and just throw it away if I don’t have anything to do with it. This recipe for Sourdough Crackers from KAF fills the bill perfectly AND easily!

It’s a very simple recipe – and very made-to-your-taste since the 2 tbsp of dried herbs called for in the recipe are left entirely up to you and what you want! I couldn’t make up my mind, so I used the Pizza Dough Flavor I bought online from King Arthur Flour for other purposes, lol, like pizza dough, and a bit of dried basil. The rest of the ingredients called for include: whole wheat flour or white whole wheat flour, salt, butter and sourdough starter. The extras are some oil to brush with and sea salt to sprinkle on – I actually used kosher salt because that was all I had and it worked wonderfully.

It comes together very easily, and makes an easy dough to work with when it’s time to roll it out. For some reason I thought it was going to be long and tedious – I couldn’t have been more wrong, it went so easily! And fast – I had it all done within about and hour to hour and 15 min – and 30 minutes of that was chilling the dough. I can say I will definitely make these again, but I will get myself a rolling pastry wheel/pizza cutter, it was a little tough cut them with a knife, but certainly not tough enough to keep me from making them again, and soon because I can’t seem to stay out them and they are dwindling fast!

I had one crazy scary mishap though… I pulled my sourdough starter out of the refrigerator, took what I needed for my crackers, and then measured out what was left for feeding. I fed my starter first, so that was taken care of. Next, got the dough made and set to chill. When that was done, I pulled the dough out and turned on the oven while I was rolling it out and getting it ready to bake. I opened the oven to pop the crackers in and was horrified to discover I’d forgotten that that is where I’d put my starter to do its thing – and now it was in the preheated oven!!!! I donned my oven mitts and grabbed it out so fast! The edges cooked to sides of the bowl, but the middle was still goopy – and not too hot. I crossed my fingers, scooped that bit out and set it aside to see if it still lived. And it did! I was so happy to see it bubbling away – so instead of discarding when I fed it today (I decided to keep it out of the fridge for a day or two to feed it back into good health, lol), I made it into 2 batches of starter in case I had a real tragedy the next time – this way I’ll have a backup in the refrigerator!

So, if you’ve got some sourdough starter in the refrigerator and wonder what to do with the unfed discard, this recipe is a great way to use it! And if you want to try getting some Sourdough Starter (or making your own starter) , let me say it’s a fun project to have, and the King Arthur Flour blog, Flourish, has lots of Sourdough Starter information! All you have to do is search “sourdough starter” or even just “sourdough”!

Here’s are a couple of links to get you started should you want some more information on maintaining it:

Maintaining Your Sourdough Starter

Making Your Own Sourdough Starter

 

from Kris B.

Here in Texas we seem to have gone directly from a very mild winter to summer.  We had a day in the nineties this week.  For me, that means that it is too hot to cook or eat heavy meals.  It’s salad time!  Unfortunately, the crops missed the memo saying that summer was coming early and the fresh seasonal fruits and veggies are not ready yet.  So, I have been on the lookout for light fare to accompany simple garden salads for lunch and dinner.  Enter King Arthur Flour’s recipe for Pirozhki (Stuffed Buns).

Pirozhki means “small pie.”  Traditionally, they are stuffed with meat, usually beef as is the case with this recipe from KAF, and they are glazed with an egg wash to create their characteristic golden color.

The dough for the Pirozhki consists of the usual suspects, all-purpose flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and water; added to that is butter, eggs, sour cream, and King Arthur Flour’s Vermont Cheese Powder.  I did not have any of the Vermont Cheese Powder, so I substituted parmesan cheese.  Since I have never used the Vermont Cheese Powder in anything before, I’m not sure what the effect of this substitution on the recipe really is.  I can say that the dough is delicious as I made it!!

Speaking of dough…I made it using the dough hook on my stand mixer.  The dough comes together easily and handles well.  Though the overall process for making the Pirozhki is simple, it takes some time because the dough requires three periods of rest; the first is 90 minutes, though mine took a little longer; the second happens after the dough is divided into sixteen 2 oz. balls and is only fifteen minutes; and the third one, an hour, comes after the balls are flattened, filled and seamed like dumplings.

The filling, which consists of ground beef, onion, garlic, parsley, cheese, and the seasoning of your choice, can be made during the initial rise of the dough; or, it can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it.  Most of the time I do not read the recipe reviews on the King Arthur website before I make a recipe, but this time, for some reason, I did.  Overall, the recipe received overwhelmingly positive reviews, but two things kept coming up.  The first was that the 8oz. of ground beef called for in the recipe did not make enough filling for the sixteen Pirozhki and that the filling was a little bland.  Armed with that information, and because I had a pound of ground beef, I made and used the full pound, adjusting the other ingredients as necessary.  Having done that and seeing the amount of filling that I put into each Pirozhki, I think having used only half the amount of meat would have made for a disappointing final product.

I was lazy when it came to addressing the complaints about the bland flavor of the filling.  I’m still trying to catch up after my daughter’s wedding last Sunday and we have an elderly dog who is spending the weekend in ICU because of heart issues so my brain did not want to think about which spices to use and their amounts so I just added a little Season-All and called it done.  That said, we all enjoyed the final product and I will definitely make these again.  Next time, I’ll give my full attention to flavoring the filling!

As I said above, this recipe makes sixteen Pirozhki.  I am going to freeze a good number of mine and take them to school for lunch.  A few minutes in the microwave or toaster oven should make them almost as good as hot out of the oven!

Pirozhki (Stuffed Buns)

Food Friday – March 2017 King Arthur Flour Bakealong Challenge: Butterflake Herb Loaf

17 Friday Mar 2017

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from Tracey G

This was a fun recipe this week – and the joy of it being the King Arthur Flour Bakealong Challenge recipe this month, is that it is one “style” I honestly don’t think I would have tried on my own volition! I would have written it off as too much work – and it’s not! It was actually fun work, lol. This is the Butterflake Herb Loaf recipe, and it’s wonderful! Not only was it easy, it’s so customizable as well!!

Harry declared that is the bread I should make whenever we have spaghetti/pasta night instead of any other kind of garlic bread – homemade or not! LOL! To please the palates around here, I chose a few of the butter seasonings listed and modified one out of necessity. I chose to just use the salt, basil and fresh garlic. I grated the garlic on my larger-holed Microplane Grater, instead of mincing it as the recipe directs and it worked wonderfully. The ingredient I “modified” was the cayenne pepper. Somehow, someway, I discovered I was out of the stuff! That never happens! So, being in a pinch, I decided to add a few drops of Frank’s RedHot hot sauce – it added such a wonderful flavor, I will do that again next time I make it on purpose!

In this recipe you make your dough, after it is all done rising the first time, you divide it, then you roll it out and cut into circles. I didn’t have a 3.5″- 4″ cutter, so I did as they suggested and used a canning jar lid ring, worked like a charm! I cut out all my circles, spread with the seasoned butter, folded in half and lined them up in the pan. And then you repeat for the second half of the dough in another pan. Rise again. I will note here that it was a slow riser for me, it took the full 90 minutes, and then some, to get where it was supposed to be – on both the first and second risings. Once it was ready to bake, after rising in the pan, into the oven it went. And wow, did it smell yummy while it was baking! Not to mention, the recipe walk-through really helped see it was pretty darn easy to do!

Of course, after they were baked, the first loaf didn’t last long – that’s why I’m glad this recipe made 2, one to eat right away and one to photograph THEN eat! Kris and I have already started discussing some variations we’d like to try with this super versatile recipe. The Butterflake Herb Loaf is a certain keeper!

 

 

from Kris B.

As Tracey said, this month’s King Arthur Bakealong Challenge was a fun recipe to make and even more fun to eat!  When you first read the procedure for making the Butterflake Herb Loaf, it may sound a bit burdensome, but once you get going with it, the recipe is super simple.

This is a great bread to accompany almost any meal.  I have to admit that the loaves at my house never made it to mealtime.  They became an afternoon snack and then a midnight snack.  I did make the filling exactly as the recipe called for except that I omitted the caraway seeds.  Here in Texas, we always have cayenne pepper.  🙂  It is not something that I would have thought to add to a recipe like this, but it gave the bread the tiniest little kick, which we hot sauce and jalapeño-loving Texans like!  I will say that I did not add enough of the filling to my bread rounds as I went because I had more than I think I should have after my pans of bread were done.  So, when the bread came out of the oven, I brushed the tops of the loaves with the remaining butter and herb filling.  All I can say is yum!

There is something about bread though…it is often times hard to photograph.  It falls into that “brown food” category that Tracey and I joke about all te time!  Bread tastes so good, but often doesn’t look equally as good in photos.  Yes, you can add a little pop of color to the photo by using a colorful placemat or serving piece, but you have to be careful that the eye is not so pulled to the color that it upstages your tasty brown bread.  Something to think about when photographing any kind of food…remember that no matter how pretty your dishes and linens may be, the food is the subject of your photo!

Butterflake Herb Loaf recipe

Recipe walk-through

King Arthur Bakealong Challenge

 

 

Tuesday in Texas – What’s Your Style?

14 Tuesday Mar 2017

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What’s your style?

This is an easy question for me to answer regarding my clothing. I like comfy and casual, loose-fitting, not faddish or trendy. My preferred daily attire of jeans and a t-shirt, flannel shirt, or sweatshirt and tennis shoes or Birkenstocks has not changed much in the last forty years. The sizes have just gotten a little bigger.

As far as food, my style is definitely home cooking with a little comfort food. I don’t like “fussy” foods. I don’t want to have to use fancy names, ingredients, or kitchen tools.

My style of music composition is easy to categorize as well – minimalism with a hint of neo-classicism.

Our home reflects the same stylistic elements as my clothing and food – simple, casual, and comfortable. I don’t like fussy here either. There will always be an Afghan (aka dog blanket) on the couch. You can put your feet up on whatever you can find to put them on. Hot coffee is always ready in the coffee pot and iced tea in the fridge. And, you are always welcome…as long as you are not expecting a fussy environment! We live here and have no housekeeper so there is usually a dish or two in the sink, books and newspapers laying around, and very likely a stray glob of dog hair on the floor somewhere. Call it our style.

However, when it comes to photography, I have not figured out my style. Yes, there are certain subjects that I like to photograph, but every other photographer shoots them as well, so it is not a fondness or talent for a certain subject that speaks to my style. I often include quotes on my photos, but I’m not sure that that is a stylistic element. Many others do that as well, I have no particular “look” to which I am drawn. My daily shots simply reflect my daily moods; therefore, their look is all over the place as my moods are equally all over the place. Lol!

I have fretted for a long time over the fact that my photography does not have a look that is unique to me. Recently though, I had an epiphany. There are several photographers whose work I see regularly and who have a personal style, one that is easily recognizable. I have seen so many of their photos done the same way over and over and over again that I now find them boring, uninspired, and lacking creativity. I shocked myself with this realization. Maybe I’m glad that I never discovered a style!

So what then is style when it comes to photography? Is having an always identifiable look to one”s work a positive or negative thing? Is it OK to be all over the place in your choice of subjects and mood? Does it really matter how my personal style is described by me or anyone else? Do I still want or need a personal style?

Maybe the best I can do is make people ask, “I wonder what the lady in the jeans and t-shirt is photographing today?”

What’s your style?

Food Friday – Luck O’ The Irish: Cake and Bread

10 Friday Mar 2017

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from Tracey G.

This week, as we’re approaching St. Patrick’s Day next Friday, we thought we’d do a couple recipes with a bit of Irish “flavor” either figuratively or literally, lol. I saw this Chocolate Stout Cake and knew, instantly, that I had to make it! And after reading the Chocolate Stout Cake Walk-Through, any from-scratch cake-making doubts I had were gone.

Maybe it’s that 13% Irish DNA match in me (that I never knew existed!), but I love Guinness, and I always have – it’s my favorite stout, and probably my favorite beer as well. (But, I must say it’s tied with Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, another favorite!) So, what could be better than making a chocolate cake where a main ingredient is stout? Nothing I say, I love stout and I love cake, let’s put them together! And as if one needs one, it’s a great reason to pick up some Guinness for the fridge…

The recipe was really easy to do, even though I had to do mine in parts, lol. I made the cake one day, and then frosted it the next. And it didn’t hurt a thing, it all turned out beautifully in the “end”.

The original recipe makes a HUGE cake, very tall etc. But after reading all the way through and on to the “Tips From Our Bakers” that’s included at the tail end of the recipe, I discovered a smaller version. It gives you amounts to scale back the cake and that’s what I did – and it’s still a big beautiful cake!

With the scaled down version all the steps and whatnot, are the same – just in less quantities. The butter gets melted into the beer, and the cocoa powder gets added to that mixture. I did use regular cocoa powder as it was all I had on hand for the project, and it’s still lovely and tasty. While that mixture is coming to room temperature, you beat the eggs with the sour cream together. In another bowl you whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Once the stout/cocoa powder/butter combination has cooled, you mix that into the sour cream/egg mixture. Then, you add in the flour mixture.

When your batter is mixed, you divide it amongst your pans. I used two 8-inch round pans, as again, that’s all I had. I does call for 9-inch rounds though, so I had some extra batter left over that I made 6 cupcakes out of! Always fun when that happens, lol.

The frosting is a ganache – simply it’s hot, heavy cream poured over chopped chocolate and mixed until the chocolate is melted and smooth. I used  bittersweet chocolate chips for this, as again, that’s all I had on hand, and it worked wonderfully. I did have to microwave my mixture a couple of times at lower power to “warm” it up, as it was chilly in the house and even the hot cream didn’t stay hot long enough to melt all the chips.  Then, after you get it stirred smooth, you refrigerate it for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally and checking the thickness. You want it to cool/chill enough to be spreadable as a frosting. Once it reaches spreading consistency, you put about 2/3 cup on your first layer, smooth it out and top with your second layer (or second layer, then more ganache, then 3rd if you used 8-inch pans etc). After you’ve done that, with the rest of the ganache you frost the top and sides. The ganache was super easy to work with, very forgiving and easy to make look pretty! I’ve never used it in this capacity, usually I make my chocolate truffle centers out of it.

The cake is rich and moist, so for me, a small sliver went a LONG way for serving! I loved it, and I know Jeremy did too as he had TWO pieces – the regular kind of size piece of cake! This recipe will  most certainly have a spot in “the book”, it’s a great dessert/cake and for me something even better – a scratch cake that turned out as it was supposed to! I have a long track record for failed from-scratch cakes – thank you King Arthur Flour for helping me look like I know what I’m doing!

Chocolate Stout Cake

Chocolate Stout Cake Flourish Walk-Through

 

from Kris B.

I am still reeling from the crazy roller coaster of a week that we have had with our sick elderly black lab.  He is doing well thanks to lots of veterinarians and techs who cared for him during his five-day hospitalization.  I have to say that this week I would much rather be eating Tracey’s Choco;ate Stout Cake and drinking a Guinness or two than cooking something of my own, but that would be a little irresponsible, so I opted to try a very simple recipe for Irish Soda Bread…easy and for me, bread is the perfect comfort food.

Because the rising agent in this bread is baking soda, Irish Soda Bread requires no rise time.  The dry ingredients are mixed together in one bowl, the wet in another.  They are the combined, kneaded a little, and then the dough is shaped into a flat round and placed in a nine-inch cake pan to bake.

Traditional Irish Soda Bread consists of only a coarsely ground whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk.  There are many “Americanized” recipes that use white flour and add sugar and raisins making it more cake-like than bread.  This particular recipe splits the difference between the two.  It does use currants, which gives the bread a hint of sweetness.  This recipe also calls for a bit of bread flour to be mixed with the whole wheat flour, an egg, and butter, ingredients that are not called for in an authentic Irish Soda Bread recipe.

This recipe for Irish Soda Bread is dense, but not too dense and sweet but not too sweet.  Served warm with a pat of butter, it made a hearty afternoon snack.  Reheated for 20 seconds or so in the microwave and then spread with a little butter and some apple butter or orange marmalade, it becomes a nice breakfast bread.

The only small issue that I had with making this Irish Soda Bread was with the baking time.  The recipe calls for the bread to bake for 45-55 minutes at 400 degrees.  Though my oven normally requires things to cook toward the maximum end of specified cook times, for some reason I set the timer for 45 minutes.  It was a good thing.  Even before the timer went off, the top of the bread was starting to get overdone.  I was baking on the middle rack.  Next time I make this recipe, and I will make it again, I will drop the rack and see if that fixes my problem.

This is a great recipe if you want to add a little touch of Irish to your life!

Irish Soda Bread recipe

Tuesday in Texas – Photograph It All

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

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I have mentioned before that I have been a journaler for most of my adult life.  Over that time these journals have run the gamut of being trivial daily diaries to poetry to pages that hold my deepest secrets and desires.  The thing that was missing from my journals for most of those years, however, was any entries about the bad times, the sad times, the hard times, the ugly times in my life.  Those aspects of my life were marked simply by the absence of any writing.

When I started taking a photo a day as an extension of my journaling process, I was not able to avoid documenting those not so good days.  When you commit to taking a photo every single day and you want that photo to be an authentic and honest depiction of your life on that day, you will inevitably end up with some photos that are not pretty and may be difficult to take.  From my perspective five years in to a photo a day, I say, “Do it anyway!”

The first time that I was really tasked with taking that difficult photo was the day of my dad’s burial.  I was a year and a half into my photo a day project.  I had become comfortable with carrying my camera with me almost every place that I went.  So I picked it up that morning.  For probably the first time in my life, I honestly did not care what anyone thought about the fact that I was taking photos.

Technically there is probably lots wrong with this image, but I can’t see those things.  What I see is a photo that was taken on the most difficult day of my life and the one photo that I am most grateful to have taken.

Since that wet and cold day in October of 2014, I have not shied away from the difficult photos, though none have been as hard is this one was.  I also have become much better about writing about the not so pretty times.  With maturity comes the realization that the tough days in life make us appreciate the joy-filled days so much more!  With experience we learn to take nothing for granted.  And that is truly a gift.

i hit one of those ugly patches in life last week and it has carried into this week.  I was miserably sick for several days.  It would have been easiest to not take any photos at all, but I didn’t want to break a 1500 day streak.  I have grown to a place where I am perfectly ok with my photos not being “good” as long as they are authentic.  It doesn’t get much more real than this!  I literally rolled over in bed, grabbed my phone, and snapped this.  Done!  Sadly, this was my day!

This sums up where I was after five days of this fever.

About the time I started feeling better, our 12 1/2 year-old lab was hospitalized with pneumonia.  It makes me sad to see him sick.  I don’t like seeing him feeling badly.  But yet again, I pulled out my camera.

And I have documented each day of his hospitalization.

Some day I will be able to look back on this series of photos and take comfort in knowing that we did everything that we possibly could to take care of our boy.

You may not be able to look at the photos of your difficult times immediately.  They may need to reside safely hidden on your hard drive for some time before you are ready to look at them.  I feel confident saying, however, that one day you will be glad to have the photos that depict the harder side of life rather than leaving big holes in your story.

Photograph it all!

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