Mix It Up Friday – July 2017

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from Kris Baker

Mix It Up Fridays often feel like “cheat days” for me because I don’t normally bake from mixes.  We all know, however, that sometimes you need for life to give you a break and reaching for a box is a reasonable compromise between homemade and store-bought.  I must admit that I felt a little guilty about making bread from a mix because bread baking is such a meditative, even cathartic, process for me.  I thought that I was slacking, or perhaps gypping myself, by not baking entirely from scratch.  After pondering these thoughts for a bit, I came to the following conclusions:

  1. It is really the kneading and shaping process that, for me, that provides the majority of the meditative quality with regard to bread baking.  That is still a part of making bread from a mix.  The convenience that the mix provides is knowing before you start that you have all of the necessary dry ingredients and that they are all pre-measured.  For me, having to pull all of the ingredients from the pantry is often the factor that determines whether I will make bread or not.  Perhaps I’m just lazy sometimes.
  2. The second positive for bread baking from a mix is that it provides the opportunity to try breads with ingredients that may not be staple items in your pantry.  That is the case for me with this week’s Mix It Up Scottish Toasting Oat Bread Mix.  This hearty bread contains barley flakes and oat berries, both things I enjoy in bread, but don’t regularly have on hand.

All that said, I totally enjoyed the process of this bread from start to finish, from the mixing, kneading, and shaping to the eating!

Honestly, I was surprised at how simple making bread really is when you don’t have to gather and measure ingredients.  Literally all I had to do was dump the package of dry ingredients and the included yeast into the bowl, add a cup of warm water and 2 tablespoons of water, mix it up, and then knead the dough.

The dough rises in a lightly greased covered bowl for about an hour before it is shaped and placed in a greased loaf pan for the shorter 30 minute second rise.  With the second rise, the loaf should crown about an inch over the pan.

The Scottish Toasting Oat Bread bakes for 35-45 minutes in a 350 degree oven and then cools on a wire rack.

It is no secret that anything with oats or oatmeal in it is a favorite of mine.  So, it goes without saying that I love this bread.  And since I mentioned above my potential for laziness, I must add here that when I am feeling lazy in the morning and don’t want to expend the energy to make a “real” breakfast (eggs, hot cereal, even a smoothie), I am always content with toast, made with pretty much any kind of bread, with a little butter and jelly or peanut butter.  The Scottish Toasting Oat Bread feels like decadent toast. Lol!  It has flavor and substance.

I should add here that the “toasting” part of its name is important.  We tried a slice of the bread with just a little butter spread on it and found that it crumbled a bit, which did not happen when it was toasted.  Save and enjoy this bread toasted in the morning, but plan on another bread for your lunchtime sandwich.

Though I was leery of bread from a mix, I have to say that I am sold on this one.  It may become a pantry regular for me, sitting right next to the flour bin.  I have enjoyed not teaching this summer and being able to bake whenever I feel the urge.  When I go back to work in a few weeks (aargh), having this compromise option for freshly baked bread in the pantry may help ease me back into the real world of work!

Scottish Toasting Oat Bread Mix

from Tracey G.

I’m a cheesecake lover from WAY back! Ever since childhood, this was, I think, my first favorite dessert, until I met Tiramisu, but that’s another story for another time… LOL 😉 But, even with Tiramisu in the picture, cheesecake is still beloved by me no matter what. It’s one of the desserts I’ll order out after a nice dinner. I also discovered on a trip once that it goes great with a Sam Adams Cherry Wheat Ale! Which, by the way, I just looked something up at the Sam Adams site, and the list of food pairings for this particular beer included cheesecake! LOL! So, I wasn’t imagining it was a great combo!

Anyway, this week I decided to try King Arthur Flour‘s mix for Vanilla Bean Cheesecake, from their Essential Goodness Line. I had been dreaming of pairing it with some of those fresh local strawberries I’d put in the freezer a few weeks ago, so that’s what I did.

The mix is super easy to make, I mean, super easy. And as Kris said, it’s nice to deal with a mix sometimes for the ease and for the fact that you may only have to add a few ingredients, and that’s it. It may contain some of those pantry items I don’t necessarily keep around, so it’s nice to not have to buy a whole lot of something I may only use once and then be stuck with, wondering what to do with.

The only things you provide with this mix is the cream cheese (and honestly, I used Neufchatel and it was just fine!), eggs and butter. It does call for two 8 oz. packages of cream cheese, so I did buy those special for it. But of course, the butter and eggs I had on hand. I prepared mine in a 9-inch square pan, it’s kind of nice it doesn’t make a huge quantity for our household, which means none went to waste.

Putting together is easy, the butter gets added to the crust mix, pressed into the pan and baked for about 15 minutes. While it’s baking, you combine the cream cheese and filling mix, then add your eggs in one at a time until each are combined. When the crust comes out of oven, you pour the filling over the hot crust and bake for the time prescribed depending on the size of your pan, a bit longer for 8-inch than for 9-inch, but even the longest bake-time is about 36 minutes. After baking you cool at room temperature for an hour, then refrigerate at least 3 hours, or overnight, before cutting. Due to that cooling-then-chilling step, it’s best to plan ahead for making this particular mix.

Now, for the eating – not much to say here but YUMMY!! Wow, it far exceeded my expectations of a cheesecake-from-a-mix, I would love to serve this to anyone and let them think it’s homemade because it’s that good! It reminded me of cheesecakes I’ve had out in restaurants that I’ve adored. It’s not that expensive (under 5 bucks), easy to make and fabulous to eat. It will now forever hold a special place in my pantry and my heart!!! Do give the Essential Goodness Vanilla Bean Cheesecake Mix a chance, I’m confident you’ll love it as much as I do!

P.S. Here’s a link to the product page that has some links on how to make some variations using this particular mix! There’s also some great ideas on the online catalog page for it too, I’ll share that link again as wel!

Essential Goodness Vanilla Bean Cheesecake Mix Product Page

Essential Goodness Vanilla Bean Cheesecake Mix Online Catalog Page

Food Friday – July 2017 King Arthur Flour Bakealong Challenge- Blueberry Hand Pies

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I have come to love the week’s where we share our experiences with King Arthur Flour’s Monthly Bakealong Challenge.  I don’t have to figure out what to make and, often times, I am encouraged to make something that I may not have chosen to do on my own.  The July Bakealong Challenge, Blueberry Hand Pies, is one of those things that I probably would not have been drawn to immediately.  Pies are not “my thing.”  I love to eat them, but have never enjoyed making them as much as I do cakes, bread, or cookies.  My experience with this month’s Bakealong Challenge has changed my experience a bit toward the positive.

On first reading, the recipe may sound a little tedious, perhaps even daunting in that you first have to make the blueberry filling, make the crust and then cut all of the pieces, and then finally assemble the individual hand pies.  This is one of those recipes where the words are more cumbersome than the actual process of making the pies.  And, even if the process feels a bit cumbersome to you, the final product is well worth the effort!

The crust for these hand pies is rich, containing a full cup of butter as well as sour cream.  The dry ingredients are whisked together, the butter is cut in and then the sour cream is added.  The recipe says that once all of the ingredients are combined the dough should be turned out on a floured board and it should come together “with a few quick kneads.”  It definitely took more than a few quick kneads for me to get the pastry to come together.  I resisted the urge to add a little more liquid.  Eventually I had a nice crust that was easy with which to work.

For the blueberry filling, either fresh or frozen blueberries will work.  I used frozen because all the fresh blueberries at our house were used to top yogurt or in morning smoothies.  The berries, along with some lemon juice, sugar, salt, and a thickening agent are cooked down over medium heat.  They must cool to room temperature before the pies can be assembled.

I made my crust and put it in the fridge to chill while I made the filling and waited for it to cool.

To assemble, the pastry dough is rolled out to a 14v14 square and cut into sixteen 3 1/2″ squares.  Because I am a perfectionist, I used a 3 1/2″ square cutter for this step,  You can also use a ruler and a pizza cutter.  A heaping tablespoon is placed in the center of eight of the dough squares.  The edges of these pieces are then brushed with whisked egg.  The top pieces of the pies must be vented.  I used a small scalloped cutter to cut a hole in the center of each top.  I then placed the top crust, as well as the cut out piece, atop each of the eight pies.  The decorative aspect of the particular cutter that I used was lost in the baking.  something a little more pronounced, a star or a heart, might be a little prettier in the end.  The tines of a fork are used to seal the edges of the two pieces of crust.  The tops are then brushed with more of the egg mixture and sprinkled with sparkling sugar.  The pies are then transferred to a parchment lined baking sheet at baked for 18-20 minutes.  I split the difference and set my timer for 19 minutes.  The pies were perfectly done at that point.  I share this because I often have to cook things a bit longer in my oven.  So, if your oven tends to be “hot” you may want to check your pies before the eighteen minute mark.

I must say that the Blueberry Hand Pies were a HUGE hit with my husband.  Let’s just say that after my daughter and I sampled a pie, the other six were gone in two days.  Weber is not a big sweets person.  I think the fact that he enjoyed these so much is because the filling is not overly sweet; they are just sweet enough.

This recipe has been deemed “A Keeper.”

 

I am in complete agreement with Kris, I too have come to love the Bakealong weeks for the same reasons – I don’t have to think about what to make, and it does make me try something I may never have thought to make on my own. With this month’s Bakealong Challenge recipe though, for the Blueberry Hand Pies, the funny thing was I’d had the recipe printed off for a couple months and placed in my “to try” folder of King Arthur Flour recipes. I was exceptionally pleased to see it for this month’s Bakealong Challenge as it gave me the push and excuse to get it out and get going on it!

I won’t go into to much repetition here on the hows  – Kris did an excellent job describing the process, there was nothing different there for me! I too had that same thought of “a few kneads?”, when trying to get the crust ingredients to come together – and  I too resisted the urge to add more liquid, lol. I really loved working with this dough, though, it was so easy, even despite the work to get it to come together. Rolling was really easy, it wasn’t sticky and it wasn’t too dry, it was just right for easy working. They also came together easily, I used a ruler to cut my squares and my tablespoon cookie scoop to plop the filling in the middle. I used a knife to cut the steam-vent patterns on the top crust squares, sealed them up, brushed the top with beaten egg and dusted with regular table sugar because both of my guys dislike the large sparkling sugar. They don’t care for the crunch. I on the other hand love it, but since I was making these mostly for them, I chose the sugar they like.

And to say they like them, I think, is an understatement. Jeremy has eaten almost every one of them. I have only had a half, lol! The other night when I was getting his lunch together for him as he was running late, he didn’t ask if I put FOOD in it, he was more concerned with whether or not I put in the HAND PIES! It was hilarious. He’s declared them better than PopTarts, lol, which I take as a high compliment to be sure! I already have all kinds of fruit variations running through my head for these, they are just so perfect for easy eating and travel! No need to cut, no need for plates or forks etc. My next experiment with them is to try freezing the baked pies for future eating – to take a day and stock the freezer with them.

I, like Kris have discovered these to be a keeper, and something I will make often. I am so glad that this month’s Bakealong Challenge was the Blueberry Hand Pies recipe, it was fun to make and even more fun to eat! And there are oh so many variation possibilities!!!

And here’s a link for the walk-through and just the recipe:

Blueberry Hand Pie Walk-Through

Blueberry Hand Pies

Food Friday – Getting Sweet With Bread

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from Tracey G.

I love bread, and that means in all its forms, lol. I love a good sweet bread, which is why I really loved the KAF recipe for Portuguese Sweet Bread I made a few posts back. That bread was really reminiscent of the Hawaiian Rolls you buy at the store – and that made me realize I really wanted a recipe a LOT like the rolls at the store. Enter King Arthur Flour’s Hawaiian Buns. They are perfect in every way – the most important part of that perfection is that they are very easy to make!! Very, very easy! Plus, there’s a great walk-thru for them!

I will say that I used the SAF Gold instant yeast that I’d purchased from KAF as a way to help my sweet bread recipes rise a bit faster, but it’s not a necessary thing to have – regular instant yeast is just fine too. If you use a regular yeast, it will just take a bit longer to rise. And even then, this recipe is worth the wait! This recipe also uses a bit of canned pineapple juice. I made sure to purchase a six-pack of the little cans so I could have it on hand for when the mood hits to make this recipe!

This recipe starts with a sponge. You mix a bit of your flour, water and all of your yeast in a bowl or the bowl of your mixer etc, and let it stand about 15 minutes. After it’s rested, you add: pineapple juice, butter, brown sugar, eggs and yolk, and vanilla. In another bowl, you whisk together the rest of the flour, potato flour and salt.

Now, I’ll stop right here to say I never have potato flour on hand, but I DO have instant potato flakes always on hand, so those were substituted for the potato flour.  

Alright, moving forward… You add the dry ingredients to the mixer and start with your flat beater attachment for a few minutes, then the recipe has you switch to the dough hook and knead for a few more.

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl to rise until it’s very puffy – 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Near the end of the rise, you grease a 9×13-inch baking pan. After gently deflating your dough, it’s now to time to shape your rolls.

Again, I’ll stop here to say it’s a sticky dough, and they recommend keeping your hands oiled when working with it if you’re having trouble – I had to keep mine oiled and it really helped!

Divide your dough into 16 portions, shape each into a nice smooth ball and place in the baking pan and they get to rise for about another hour. Before you bake the rolls in a 350°F oven for about 20-25 minutes, you brush the tops with a mixture of egg white and water so they get a nice shiny top.

This is another one of those creations that I can’t believe came out of my kitchen – they look and taste like they just had to have been by a “professional” somewhere else, lol!! They are so yummy it’s hard to stop eating them – I finally popped them into the freezer, to curb that! And I can say that they freeze AND thaw beautifully!! I know I won’t be buying the rolls/buns this year around the Holidays – I’ll be making them! Give the KAF Hawaiian Buns a try – you will not be sorry!!!

from Kris B.

Lately, I have been trying to curb my addiction to sweets, particularly sweet carbs.  So when it came time to choose my recipe for this week’s sweet bread offering, I wanted to make it something that I would really enjoy.  Two things factored heavily into my choice of King Arthur Flours’s Jam-filled Sour Cream Coffee Bread: The first was the mention of coffee in the name.  Anything that goes with coffee certainly must be delicious.  Secondly, my daughter and her family had just been blackberry picking and I had blackberries on my mind.  And, Weber loves blackberries.  I figured if I made something that he particularly liked, I would not feel obligated to eat it all myself.  Having said all that about the blackberries, the recipe does not specify what kind of jam that you use, so you can use whatever kind is your family’s favorite.

The Jam-filled Sour Cream Coffee Bread is much like a danish with its braided crust and filling of fruit and cream cheese.  The dough recipe calls for pastry flour, which I did not have.  The difference between all-purpose flour and pastry flour is in the protein content of the two.  Pastry flour contains 9% protein whereas all-purpose has 10-12%.  For comparison, bread flour has the highest protein amounts at 14-16% and cake flour has the lowest at 7-8%.  To compensate for the fact that I had no pastry flour on hand, I used a mixture of all-purpose and cake flours.  This recipe calls for three cups of pastry flour.  I used two cups of all-purpose and one cup of cake flour.  Having never made this particular dough before, I have no means of comparison with the pastry flour version.  All I can say is that the dough was light and delicious.  Interestingly, this recipe did not call for SAF Gold instant yeast, often used for sweet breads, that Tracey mentioned above.  The dough only uses 3 TBS of sugars so perhaps it is not sweet enough to benefit from this yeast.

Both the dough recipe and the cream cheese filling call for KAF’s Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor.  “Our Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor is extra-buttery, with hints of vanilla and citrus; add a few drops of this flavoring to your favorite sweet bread recipe, and your family and friends will be clamoring for the name of the bakery you visited.”  I did not have this flavoring either, so I substituted vanilla, but I am going to order some Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor before I make this recipe again!

Once the dough has rested for 90 minutes, the Jam-filled Sour Cream Coffee Bread is ready to be assembled.  The filling consists of a layer of your jam of choice and a cream cheese mixture.  I mixed both of these during the last few minutes of the dough’s rise time.  Again, I was lacking an ingredient called for.  The recipe calls for Instant Clear Gel to be mixed with the jam to help congeal the fruit juices.  The recipe offers an alternative of mixing all-purpose flour with the jam if you don’t have the Instant Clear Gel.

The final layer is a cream cheese base to which butter, egg, sugar, and flavoring are added.

To assemble, the dough is first divided into to pieces.  The first piece is rolled into a 10×15 rectangle.  In the recipe, a crucial step is left out at this point.  Put your dough on the parchment lined pan before you fill and assemble it!!!  It is almost impossible to move if you try to move it onto the baking sheet after it is assembled.  

Continue on.

Half of the jam mixture is spread down the center 2 1/2 inches of the dough, leaving one each clear on each end.  Half of the cream cheese mixture is then spread atop the jam.  The remaining dough on each side of the filling is cut about every 3/4 inches and folded onto the filling to create a braided top.  Honestly, the instructions in the recipe for this finishing step were not the greatest.  They leave out the fact that you have to discard the dough on each side of the center at both ends to avoid a big dough-y end to your pastry.  If you have never made a braided pastry before, here is the link with instructions that shows just how simple it really is.  Incidentally, in this video, the chef assembles the pastry on parchment and then moves the completed pastry to the pan.  You can see the potential for disaster as she does this.  This is why I suggest the entire assembly be done on your baking sheet.

This process is then repeated with your second piece of dough.

This is one of those recipes that sounds, and the final product looks, harder than it really is.  Sliced in about inch pieces, The Jam-filled Sour Cream Coffee Bread is a delicious light treat to have alongside your morning, or afternoon or evening, coffee.  (Coffee is an all-the-time thing at our house.)  I’m looking forward to trying it with some different kinds of jam.  Watch for my version with pumpkin butter in the fall!!!

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As an aside, I have also made the Hawaiian Buns that Tracey wrote about this week.  I was making a recipe for Asian Sliders that called for store-bough Hawaiian rolls.  At Tracey’s suggestion, I made King Arthur’s Hawaiian Buns instead of using the store=bought.  Everything that she says about them is absolutely true!

 

Food Friday – Stick It To You Appetizers

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from Tracey G.

As you all know, I am always looking for ways to use my self-rising flour up before it loses its “zing”, so when I was on the hunt for an appetizer recipe for this week at the King Arthur Flour website, I was really intrigued when I read the title of “Self-Rising Garlic Sticks”….hmmm, a bread-stick item without yeast? That could be a fast treat make. So, then I read the recipe and was convinced this was the one to try. Self-Rising Garlic Sticks became the plan! (If you’re like me and can’t find King Arthur Self-Rising Flour, they do sell it on their website, here. Or if you’re feeling you’d rather make your own, here’s a link to Homemade Self-Rising Flour)

The ingredients were super simple and basic. Self-rising flour, milk, butter and fresh garlic. That’s it. It’s a biscuit dough that, with the way you shape it, becomes these wonderful thin crispy garlicky sticks. Granted, not exactly figure friendly, but I’ve already got designs on trying it with less of a butter bath, lol.

It directs you to preheat your oven to 450°F, then put the butter on a 9×13″ pan, and pop it into the oven until it melts, then you pull it and sprinkle your minced garlic and stir to distribute, then carry on making your dough. I melted my butter in a glass dish in the microwave, then added my chopped garlic. No real particular reason for this, it just fit into my method better, lol.

Next, you mix up your dough by combining the self-rising flour and the milk. You gather it into a ball and fold it over on itself a 3-4 times. Then place it on a well-floured surface and pat into a rather thin, 10×8-in rectangle. After you’ve done that, you cut the rectangle in half, creating two 8×5″ rectangles that then are cut into 16 sticks each, giving you a grand total of 32. The sticks are about 1/2″ wide, by 5″ long.

Once the sticks are cut, you’re ready to add them to the pan. Your garlic butter should be on your pan, waiting for the dough sticks. As you’re placing them, roll them in the garlic butter and crowd them in the pan. They will be rather tightly together, and seemingly swimming in butter. I was skeptical as to how it would all come together with all that butter, but it does!

Bake your sticks at 450°F for about 15-20 minutes until they’re a light golden brown. When they come out and as soon as you can handle them, pull them apart gently and place on a plate, or in a basket for serving. They most definitely are best served warm, and in my opinion reheat nicely in some foil in a preheated oven. I froze half of them, so we shall see how those come out after being thawed and reheated in the near future!

These little sticks are extremely yummy and extremely addictive! They have a slightly crispy crunch and a yummy buttery garlic flavor. They’d be good with some grated or shredded Parmesan cheese on top as well! I served them with a pasta and marinara sauce dinner, and they were wonderful! I highly recommend these Self-Rising Garlic Sticks when you need a fast bread-stick for dinner or a quick and fun dippable appetizer!

 

from Kris B.

Don’t judge a book by its cover or a zucchini stick by its photo!  I will be the first to say that these Baked Zucchini Sticks with Sweet Onion Dip did not photograph well.  (Probably due to photographer error or degree of hunger.)  That said, they are absolutely delicious!  Whereas Tracey is looking for recipes to use up her self-rising flour before it is no longer self-rising, I’m looking for ways to eat our abundance of zucchini so that they don’t go to waste.

The Baked Zucchini Sticks with Sweet Onion Dip is a two-part recipe.  It involves the making of the onion dip and then the zucchini sticks themselves.  The dip has a mayonnaise base to which honey, mustard, cider vinegar and caramelized onions, that all have been pureed in a food processor, are added.  Salt and pepper to taste and the dip is done.  It is best when made ahead and given time to chill and allow the flavors to meld.

The baked zucchini sticks are simple to make.  The one thing you need to know is that the sliced zucchini must be salted and allowed to drain before you can coat and bake them.  Once they are drained, the zucchini sticks are dipped in some form of egg; it can be egg substitute, whole eggs, or egg whites.  They are then dredged in a mixture of panko and parmesan cheese seasoned with King Arthur Flour’s Pizza Seasoning.  The coated zucchini sticks are placed on parchment that has been lightly coated with olive oil and are then baked in a 425 degree oven for a total of 20 minutes, turning them once after twelve minutes.  As with any crispy baked item, these are best served right out of the oven.  We had none left so I can’t speak to how they might be if reheated. 🙂

From the three zucchini called for by the recipe, I got 24 sticks.  The dip recipe made about 1 1/2 cups of the sweet onion dip.  We had lots of dip left over after enjoying the zucchini sticks.  Admittedly, I am not one who likes my food covered in sauce, gravy, dressings, or dips, so I probably used less than was expected for a serving.  My husband ate his fair share and there was still more than half of the recipe left.  When I make this again, I will definitely pare down the recipe.  As I said, we did manage to eat all of the zucchini sticks!  They are a nice alternative to chips or the dreaded french fries alongside a sandwich or burger.

The thing that makes this a King Arthur recipe is the use of the King Arthur Flour Pizza Seasoning, but you can also use any Italian seasoning or herbs that you have.  Don’t let the fact that you don’t have the exact ingredient called for deter you from trying this Baked Zucchini Sticks with Sweet Onion Dip, especially if you have a garden overflowing with zucchini!

Mix It Up Friday – June 2017

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from Tracey G.

This week I opted to try a gluten-free mix. I like to try the gluten-free mixes whenever I can, because I think if I don’t have to eat them for my health, but want to eat them because they taste good, then it’s a win. And that’s how it is with this particular mix from King Arthur Flour. It’s in their line of gluten-free mixes, and it’s a muffin mix. Meet King Arthur Flour’s Gluten Free Muffin Mix.

It’s a basic, plain mix that you can customize any way you like. I make fruit muffins all the time, and wanted to go a bit different with this, so I made chocolate chip. That said, chocolate chip muffins are not my first choice for muffins, but I thought Harry might enjoy the change-up. Well, let me say I LOVED these things!

Very simple to make, you use either butter or oil – I used oil due to trying to cut as much cholesterol as I can these days, especially in places where the butter flavor really won’t be missed, etc. I did use the 3 eggs the directions call for, 1 cup of milk and then you have your add-ins, which shouldn’t be more than 1 1/4 cups. That’s it. It all comes together easily, and bakes up lovely.

This is easily one of the best muffin mixes I’ve ever tried, gluten-free or not. The end result tasted like something I’d buy from a store, and I don’t mean that in a cheap-tasteless way, lol. I mean that in the way of those big beautiful muffins or baked goods treats you just know are yummy, but not figure friendly, but an excellent treat just the same. And these are it. They stayed fresh for a great amount of time, made nicely sized muffins and there wasn’t one left. Over the course of a couple of days, they disappeared fast.

Whether you need to eat gluten-free or not, do give this Gluten Free Muffin Mix from King Arthur Flour a try, you won’t be disappointed.

 

from Kris B.

Only I could be led down a rabbit hole, or two, by a boxed pancake mix!  This week I made King Arthur Flour’s Blueberry Sour Cream Pancakes from their line of boxed mixes.  For most people, pancakes from a box should be a no-brainer.  This mix calls for the addition of 2 eggs, 2 cups of milk, and six tablespoons of either butter or vegetable oil to the mix.  For some reason, I got hung up on the either/or between the vegetable oil and the butter.  Which is healthier?  Which makes for a better tasting pancake?

I started by looking at the nutrition labels for both the butter and the canola oil.  Butter has 100 calories per TBS to canola’s 120.  But, canola oil has 1g of saturated fat and 0 cholesterol to butter’s 7g of saturated fat and 30g of cholesterol in the same one tablespoon.  Butter adds more flavor to a recipe than does the oil.  Canola oil adds more fat to the recipe because it is 100% fat whereas butter contains liquid and is only about 80% fat.  Therefore, using butter in baked goods will often result in a more dense, more dry final product.  When following a recipe that specifies that you use either butter or oil, substitutions can be made taking into consideration the difference in fat content between the two.  For example, a recipe that call for 4 TBS of oil would need almost 5 TBS of butter.  Since the King Arthur Blueberry Sour Cream Pancake Mix called for an equal amount of either, the assumption is that the batter is fairly tolerant and you’ll be successful either way.

So what did I do?

I made my pancakes using the canola oil instead of butter.  Why?  The primary reason is that I use almond milk instead cow’s milk almost exclusively.  Whole cow’s milk has around 8g of fat per cup, almond milk only has 2.5g.  Baked goods need fat so I opted for the oil over the butter to help compensate for the fat that I was not getting in my milk choice.

Once I climbed out of this hole, the making of the pancakes was simple.  Mix all of the ingredients, pour them by 1/4 cup scoop onto the hot griddle and cook until done.  The instructions on the box say to cook the pancakes at a medium-high setting.  I had better success cooking mine on medium.  I don’t know if this had to do with my fat and milk choices; I’m not even going to try to figure that out right now!

The King Arthur Flour Blueberry Sour Cream Pancake Mix makes 22 pancakes each made from a 1/4 cup of batter.  And they are delicious…especially with some fresh summer blueberries and a touch of grated lemon peel…and of course, butter (because I didn’t use it in the batter) and syrup.

Then came the second rabbit hole…

I wanted to photograph the pancakes with syrup on them and I wanted the syrup to be “pretty” as in cascading over the side of the stacked pancakes.  We all know that syrup   soaks into hot pancakes almost immediately.  I had already figured that I would shoot cold pancakes and cold syrup to try to avoid the soaking in of the syrup before I got the photo I wanted.  On a whim, I decided to do a Google search to see if there were any tricks that might help me to achieve the look that I was after.  I was not prepared for what I found.

First let me say that there is nothing “real” about professional food photography!  The photos may look good, but you would not want to eat what is on the plate.  Just saying…  I did find a trick that addressed the exact issue about which I was concerned…how to keep syrup from soaking into your pancakes.  Easy solution: spray your pancakes with a water-repelling fabric spray.  Seriously?  What a waste of delicious pancakes!!!  There was no way I was going to do that!  Once these pancakes had their picture taken, they were becoming dinner.  Yes dinner.  Breakfast…its what’s for dinner many nights at our house.  Did I get the beautifully dripping syrup in my image.  Nope.  Did I eat the pancakes?  Yep!

Most people either really enjoy food photography or they don’t like it at all.  The reason that many people are turned off by it is because they say “my photos never look as good as other people’s.”  That very well may be true; but not because you are not a good photographer, but rather because you are shooting exactly what is in front of you.  Food.  Just food.  No water-repelling spray or glue or cardboard or shoe polish…all the things that professional food photographers use to make the stuff they want us to eat more photogenic.  Remember this too when you are cooking and your rendition of the recipe doesn’t look like that in the cookbook!

All that said, I must now say that all of the photos that Tracey and I post here are of food that is 100% edible and most often is consumed shortly after its photo is taken.  Neither one of us is willing to waste food.  And, we are much to honest to spray our pancakes with water-repelling spray or top our pies with mashed potatoes intended to look like unmelted ice cream.  What you see from us is real food that is cooked, photographed, and eaten by real people.

Happy cooking, eating and photographing!

Food Friday – I Love It, I Love It Not

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from Tracey G.

I absolutely love June – it’s one of my favorite berry seasons – strawberry!!! We have a few local u-pick berry farms, and this time of year people go pick, then sell them on the sides of the road for a nominal cost.  Totally worth it to me to not have to do the work to reap the rewards of fresh, local berries with flavor! Much more reasonably priced than the grocery store berries and way tastier too, since they weren’t picked and shipped across country to me, lol.

So, I found this recipe for Strawberry Cream on Shortbread in King Arthur Flour’s Mixed Bag recipe category under “Fruit Desserts”. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to make it! But I didn’t have any fresh berries to work with, the local sellers hadn’t appeared yet – I was rather bummed until I read in Tips From Our Bakers, to feel free to use frozen berries! Yes! I was good! I always have them on hand, either ones I’ve frozen myself or store-bought frozen strawberries. Game on! It worked out perfect – I had everything I needed to make this on hand! They even have a Strawberry Cream on Shortbread walk-through as well!

The recipe is easy to follow and the ingredients are simple. Perfect combination! For the crust you need: Butter, powdered sugar, salt, flour and vanilla. The filling ingredients are: strawberries (fresh or frozen), lemon juice, sugar, plain gelatin, water and heavy whipping cream.

Mix all the ingredients for the crust, and press into your prepared pan. And here you have a choice, either a 9-inch square or a 9-inch round springform pan. Since my 9-inch square pan was busy, and I wanted a prettier presentation – springform it was! The crust took a few extra minutes to bake, but no big deal.

While the crust was cooling, I made the berry-mixture. In a blender you combine the berries, sugar and lemon juice. After you soften and melt your gelatin in the water by heating gently either in microwave or on the stove, you add it to the blender. Blend until it’s all processed well together. You then refrigerate the berries, stirring every 15 min until they are moundable on a spoon. They said approximately 45 minutes, but it wasn’t quite that long for me. When they are ready, you whip your cream until stiff peaks form. Then, you carefully fold your berry-gelatin mixture into it thoroughly, and spread on your cooled crust. Refrigerate until ready to serve and give it time to set.

To serve you can garnish it with fresh berries or crushed sweetened berries – or both! This is most certainly something I will make again, and likely often since I can use frozen berries. This was one of the best desserts ever and it’s super easy!! I also noticed that by using fresh chopped strawberries to garnish, that their juice in combination with the shortbread crust, was very strawberry shortcake-esque!! Wonderful! I will be making Strawberry Cream on Shortbread a permanent entry into my recipe book!!!

 

from Kris B.

Let’s just chalk this week’s recipe up to an exercise in self-realization.  I must say at the outset, I don’t like blue cheese.  That, however, is not part of the week’s self-realization; I already knew that thanks to a bout of food poisining caused by blue cheese salad dressing while on a college wind ensemble tour over thirty years ago. I still carry a grudge!  So why then did  I choose to make a Blue Cheese Spread?

I may have mentioned in a previous post that my husband and I spent our honeymoon in Vermont.  In addition to enjoying a day on the King Arthur Campus in Norwich, VT., we also spent a day on Bonnieview Farm with the Urie family making artisan cheese.  As a reminder of our fabulous time on the farm, we now subscribe to a monthly delivery of cheeses made on Bonnieview Farm.  It just so happens that this month, we had an abundance of blue cheese.  Because I don’t eat it at all and even Weber, who likes blue cheese a lot, can only it so much of it at a time, I needed to find some way to use it.  This is how I ended up with King Arthur Flour’s Blue Cheese Spread, a recipe found in their Mixed Bag collection.

The Blue Cheese Spread is simple to make.  Cream cheese and honey are combined using a mixer until fluffy.  Then the crumbled  blue cheese, thyme, and freshly ground  pepper are added.  Heavy whipping cream is then used to thin the spread to achieve  the desired consistency.  I didn’t mind making this recipe because Weber did the part I wasn’t keen on; he crumbled the blue cheese.

Here’s where the real moment of truth occurred for me.  I had a hard time photographing the cheese dip in a way that it looked minimally palatable let alone delicious.  Despite trying different angles and dishes and garnishes, it just never looked “right” to me.  I finally realized that the reason I couldn’t “make it work” is because I had no relationship with the food itself.  I always choose recipes for things that I will enjoy eating.  My “reward” for making and then shooting the food is then getting to eat it.  I know.  Sad. But oh so true.  This is probably an indication that I would not ever make a good professional food photographer.  You want me to photograph oysters???  I don’t think so!

Despite all that, the word from Weber, who does like blue cheese, is that the Blue Cheese Spread is quite tasty.  The one thing that I might do differently is add more thyme.  It is barely noticeable in my recipe.  Also, I probably should have made the accompanying crackers, but I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm for that either.

My final word on this recipe is that if you like blue cheese, try it!  Word on the street is that it’s quite good.

Blue Cheese Spread from King Arthur Flour

 

Food Friday – June 2017 King Arthur Flour Bakealong Challenge: Classic Baguette

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from Tracey G.

After the simple, but what felt like many steps of last month’s Bakealong Challenge, I was really excited to see this month’s Bakealong Challenge: a Classic Baguette. The Classic Baguette is something that was on my list of “will try” – but with no specific time-frame in mind, so this pushed me into it. And I was ready!

I read the recipe, “Classic Baguette” and read through the Bakealong Baguette Walk-Through, and was itching to get started, this looked like a fun project. Any time I can create something at home, that I only usually buy in a the grocery store, I’m all for it. That makes it a fun challenge all the way around!

This recipe is easy and it’s simple in terms of ingredients – flour, yeast, salt and water. The only “extra step” is making a simple overnight starter out of flour, yeast and water. You have to let that sit for about 14 hours or so, so it works out really well to make it before bedtime and let it sit at room temperature overnight.

The next day you’re ready to rock! I mixed it all as directed, but then I followed the “slow rise” directions in the “Tips” section. Instead of almost 2 hours, I let it go 3. The rest I followed right along. The shaping was fairly simple too, I was pleased with my results for my first time ever making this classic bread!

As for the steam-baking, I didn’t use a cast iron pan in the bottom of my oven for the “steam factor”, as I’ve read a few things that it can ruin the seasoning on your pan. So unless you have a cast iron pan you’re willing to let serve the purpose without regard to it, give it a go! I used a cheap disposable foil 13×9 inch pan.  Seemed to work well!

Once my bread cooled, I couldn’t wait to try it! I sliced off a few pieces and was so excited and happy, not to mention astonished I’d made this in my OWN oven!! In my kitchen! Yeah!! You can bet I will be making these often, I think I at almost one whole loaf myself, plain, with nothing on it whatsoever. Just enjoying the taste of the bread!

This was a fun and instructional Classic Baguette Bakealong Challenge, I feel I now have a whole new skill, thanks to King Arthur Flour!

from Kris B.

Like Tracey, I was excited to try the Classic Baguette that is this month’s King Arthur Bakealong Challenge.  Baguettes in France are like tortillas here in Texas.  They are a simple bread that is served with almost every meal.  I remember when I visited France being thrilled by the fact that I could walk down the street and find a vendor selling baguettes in front of every market and on almost every street corner.  Sometimes they were even stuffed with hot dogs! The free-flowing baguettes and the street vendors who sold crepes with Nutella were some of my favorite things to see in France, only slightly less thrilling than Notre Dame and Chartres Cathedral.  Lol!  Yes.  Travel is all about the food as far as I am concerned!

Back to this week’s baguettes…

As is usually the case, Tracey read the entire recipe before I did and gave me the heads up about needing to make the poolish, or starter, ahead of time.  It is simple to make, consisting of flour, yeast, and water that are mixed together and then sit at room temperature for at least 14 hours.  Mine probably sat closer to eighteen hours before I made my baguettes.

As Tracey said, baguettes require a minimum of ingredients – only flour, salt, yeast and water, and the starter that was made ahead – making them a perfect bread for everyday.  All of the ingredients are mixed together and then kneaded.  I used the dough hook on my mixer and kneaded for about four minutes as suggested in the King Arthur Flour recipe.

Just so that we had a means of comparison, I used the shorter rise times for my baguettes.

As you may have figured, it is the shaping of the dough that makes it a traditional baguette, though interestingly, the lean dough (i.e. containing no fat) is dictated by French law, not the actual shape of the loaves.  The word “baguette” means stick or wand.  Traditionally, French baguettes are 2 – 2 1/2 inched in diameter and are usually about twenty-six inches in length, though they can be made as long as a meter, or thirty-nine inches.  King Arthur’s Bakealong Challenge recipe makes three fifteen inch baguettes because most of us don’t have ovens big enough to bake thirty-nine inch loaves of bread!  If you prefer, you can also make six smaller (7-8 inch) baguettes.

After the initial ninety minute rise, the dough is separated into three (or six) pieces and rests for fifteen minutes before the long loaves are shaped.  Each of my pieces was 12 5/8 ounces.

I was a little concerned that I might have trouble shaping my loaves correctly.  As I have mentioned before, my oldest daughter is a trained pastry chef.  I asked her if she had any helpful suggestions.  I should know better than to ask Brooke for help.  Though she is excellent at baking she is even better at sarcasm.  Her words of wisdom were, ” Make sure that your loaf doesn’t look like a snake that swallowed a rat.”  Umm…OK.  I take that to mean that the loaves should look like hungry snakes, long with an even thickness along the entire loaf.  The King Arthur walk-through shows exactly how to fold and then shape the dough.  I then used a baker’s lame, for the first time, to make the slits in the top.  Every now and then my daughter let’s me play with her toys.

A Lame (pronounced LAHM, meaning “blade” in French) is typically a long thin stick made to hold a metal razor used to cut, or score, bread dough to help control the expansion of the loaf as it bakes.

I always like it when I learn something new, however, scissors or a sharp knife will also work just fine!

When I baked my loaves, I also was not willing to sacrifice the seasoning on my cast iron skillet so used a disposable pan for the water for the steam.  The steam is necessary to get the crackling crust associated with artisan loaves.

The bake time suggested in the recipe is 24-28 minutes.  I baked mine 25 minutes and they were plenty done.  I mention this because I often have to cook things for the maximum suggested time in my oven.  I was concerned that the tops of the loaves would get over-browned had I baked them any longer because I had my oven rack set a notch higher than I normally would for bread to accommodate the pan of water.  In the end, all worked out fine.  Like Tracey, I claim success with the King Arthur Flour Classic Baguettes Bakealong Challenge!

Though this recipe requires a bit of forethought because of the need to make the poolish ahead of time, the ingredients are ones that I always have on hand so I can see homemade baguettes becoming a frequent accompaniment to meals at our house.  Whether a cool salad in the summer or hearty soup during the winter, they are the perfect bread.

And if you choose not to eat all three baguettes at once, they can be frozen and reheated right before serving.  We had one left to freeze. 🙂

Food Friday – Healthy Whole Grains In Fun Packages!

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From Kris B.

Whenever I bake with whole grains, I feel like I am making an honest attempt at being healthy. Add some blueberries to that, with their antioxidant properties, and I’m feeling even better about my choices.  And add to all that that on June 10th my husband is celebrating a “big” birthday and blueberries are a favorite of his, King Arthur Flour’s 100% Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins were a win-win recipe for me this week. Oh…and they come together quickly and easily, which is also a good thing since I am having twenty-five people for dinner at my house on Saturday to help celebrate the big birthday. Needless to say, my mind has been on a million other things this week.  I needed a recipe that called for pantry staples and was easily executed.

The dry ingredients – whole wheat flour, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and the blueberries (I know, they aren’t a dry ingredient! :-)) – are whisked together in a large bowl. In another bowl, the wet ingredients – buttermilk or yogurt, vegetable oil, and vanilla – are whisked together and then added to the dry ingredients and the blueberries. They are mixed until the ingredients are evenly combined.

I must say that at this point, the batter did not look appetizing at all! The whole wheat flour and brown sugar made the batter much darker than what you expect for “normal” muffins. On top of that, the grayish hue from the blueberries and it looked like I was mixing cement in the bowl. Remember the husband for whom I specifically chose blueberry muffins? He said that the batter looked like canned dog food. Let’s just say that at this point in the process, I was a little, or maybe a lot, concerned about what the final outcome would be.

I soldiered on, scooping the batter into twelve prepared muffin cups and baked the muffins nineteen minutes, splitting the recommended 18-20 minutes down the middle. When I pulled them from the oven, miraculously their color had improved.

The muffins cooled enough to be removed from the muffin tin to the cooling rack where they finished cooling completely. I looked for the best possible light that I could find to photograph. This too was difficult in that it was pouring rain and my kitchen is fairly dark on a good day!

My family knows that once the photos are taken, whatever I made for the weekly blog post is up for grabs. We were all pleasantly surprised! Despite making fun of the uncooked batter, everyone sang the praises of the cooked muffins. Let’s just say that four of us took care of eight of the muffins with no problem! Whew! What looked at first like it might be a disaster turned out to be a success! Yes!!!

Thanks, King Arthur, for a new healthy-ish family favorite!

100% Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

from Tracey G

After last week’s pastry recipe, I was in the mood for something that really didn’t involve a whole lot of effort. Not that the Tasty Toaster Tarts were all that “labor intensive” by any means, I guess I was just wanting a no-brainer this week! LOL! The chocolate chip cookies I made for Harry’s class at school last week, disappeared quick around here. I’d made enough for a small army, so after packaging up the treats for his class, I had PLENTY left over, but you’d never know it – I think they were all gone in a matter of two days. I believe I only had one or two out of all of them!

So, as I started my research for a Whole Grain/Whole Wheat recipe, I wanted something that’s not the first thing you’d think to make with whole wheat etc., my brain immediately went to cookies. I then ran across this cookie recipe for Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies using KAF White Whole Wheat Flour, it totally filled the bill! I was really eager to give it try, but I wondered would the boys know something was different? What would the texture be like?

The recipe had a few things different that I’ve never added to a chocolate chip cookie. Of course it had all the usual suspects: butter, chips, vanilla, an egg, and so forth. But it also included some different things like a wee bit of espresso powder (which I can tell you I am going to try experimenting with it in a non-whole wheat chocolate chip recipe, I really liked the bit of extra “something” it gave them!), a teensy bit of cider vinegar and the addition of honey.

It all came together easily, and let me say the dough tasted extremely promising, lol. I know, I know, not supposed to eat raw cookie dough blah blah blah, but there was no way I could help myself, lol. Cookie dough and I have a long-standing relationship! So, I thought if the dough is this good, the final cooked version of it must be as equally good, and it was!! And if you follow the baking directions – they stay super soft, wow, really yummy!

The boys loved them, and neither knew or could tell they were made with a whole wheat flour until I told them, well, I told Jeremy – not Harry! LOL! That’s a big score for me, I can get some healthy whole grains into Harrison without him being the wiser – he just thinks he’s eating cookies! Sneaky yes, but totally worth it!! 😉 If you’re looking for a sweet and yummy way to get your grains on, do try the Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe a try!!!

Food Friday – Pastries, Pies, and Tarts…Oh My!

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from Kris B.

Now that the lazy days of summer are mine to enjoy, I find that I have more time to fix, eat, and savor breakfast.  And once we make it to “real” summer here in Texas, morning is about the only time of day where a hot meal sounds the least bit satisfying.  Enter King Arthur Flour’s Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Quiche, with a bit of spinach added because a little green always makes a meal feel healthier.  Lol!

There really is nothing special about this recipe.  It is a Classic Single Pie Crust made from scratch, which should be obvious from my less than perfect crimping around the edge.  But hey, I don’t often…ever?…have people over for breakfast so I wasn’t too concerned about the aesthetic here.  This crust was totatlly a utilitarian crust!  It won’t be winning any bakeoff awards, but it tastes just fine!

To make the filling, 3/4 of a pound of bacon is fried and then drained.  The recipe calls for onion to be sauteed in butter using another pan.  I cooked the onion in the same pan as the bacon using a tiny bit of the bacon drippings and omitting the butter.  When the onion was almost translucent, I threw a couple handlfuls of spinach on top and let it wilt.  I then let this veggie mixture drain on a paper towel with the bacon.

To assemble the quiche, the eggs, cream, and milk are whisked to gether in a bowl.  The bacon, veggie mixture, cheese and seasonings are added and then this is poured into the prepared pie shell. The quiche then bakes for 40 minutes.  I did bake mine an extra 6 minutes because it did not seem set in the middle after the initial 40 minutes.

Since there are only two of us at my house and we did not eat an entire 9″ quiche for breakfast, I can report that the quiche reheats well and makes for a good lunch and/or dinner as well as breakfast!

from Tracey G

There’s kind of a funny story to how I ended up choosing this particular recipe for Tasty Toaster Tarts….

We were all sitting around one day, and I noticed Jeremy eating store bought toaster pastries, which is ok in itself, but I’d had a bunch of homemade treats laying about and I said so. To which, Jeremy, replied to me with “but there’s no homemade Pop Tarts now is there?” Um. Nope. Had me there. So, when this week’s recipe rotation came around to Pies, Tarts and Turnovers, it was a no-brainer for me as to what kind of recipe I was after! I’d show him! Ha! Homemade toaster pastries here we come!

This is a pretty easy recipe to make, nothing complicated – a very simple crust and simple fillings. Basically it’s like making 9 big ravioli, lol. I went two different ways for fillings, the original in the recipe is brown sugar and cinnamon, then they also give you the directions for a jam/fruit filling which I also tried. As if there’s not enough variations on filling, there’s also provided an alternate crust recipe, using their White Whole Wheat flour, and less fat, by substituting some of the butter with vegetable shortening. So, I tried that route too! This is the crust version that is used in the Flourish Blog walk-through of the Tasty Toaster Tarts.

Both the crust variations mixed up well, and were easy to work with, only trouble I had was feeling like I didn’t have “enough” dough to work with, but it was not a big deal. They rolled out well and it was easy to cut the rolled dough into the directed measurements. You then brush the bottom crust with a beaten egg, fill, and top with second sheet of rolled out dough, and seal around the individual tarts. Now, you can score, bake and then cut them apart, but I preferred to cut them apart and bake individually.

After they’ve baked and cooled completely, you can frost them if you choose – I frosted maybe half of each batch, which was just an simple powdered sugar icing that I added little bit of vanilla to for flavor. I loved the look of the rainbow sprinkles in KAF’s photo so I decided to do that too on my iced tarts.

As for the taste? They are fantastic, I think the first thing Jeremy asked me was “now, can these be frozen?” – I interpret that to mean “can you make more to have on hand?” I loved both crust versions and both filling versions, but I think my favorite filling was the brown sugar & cinnamon one. I think that wound up being my favorite because on the occasions I do eat the store-bought versions, that’s my favorite!

If you have some time, do give KAF’s Tasty Toaster Tarts (say that 5 times fast!) a try – these are definitely a bit more of a grown-up version of the old favorites, the crust is more pie crust than whatever you’d describe the store-bought crust obviously, and wow are they good!!!

Mix It Up Friday – May 2017

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from Tracey G

This is the first time I’ve tried a non-baked good mix from King Arthur Flour – a soup mix is my mix of choice this week. When I was shopping for mixes to try out, I remembered Kris had tried a soup mix back in December, it was the Sausage and Lentil Soup Mix, so that’s what I decided to look for – a soup to try. I actually found two, and the one I tried this time is the South Of The Border Tortilla Soup Mix. It’s from Frontier Soups (as is the Sausage and Lentil Soup Mix) and I am very glad King Arthur Flour carries it! I can see why the description states: “Named a finalist in the National Association for the Specialty Food Trades’ Outstanding Product competition”, it’s one of the best soups I’ve had, regardless of being a mix or totally homemade-from-scratch! I fell completely in love with it – it’s as good as I’ve had in any restaurant.

The mix is a combination of freeze-dried corn, dehydrated black beans, red bell pepper, green bell pepper and onion. All this with a combination seasonings that pulls it all together wonderfully – you can customize spicy heat if you wanted by what kind of salsa you use. I used mild this time and loved it, and likely wouldn’t do it any different the next time I make it.

It’s super simple, and I made it even simpler by purchasing an already-prepared rotisserie chicken from the grocery store – all I had to do was get the meat off and shred it. The other ingredients you provide aside from the cooked & shredded chicken are: 12-16 ounces of salsa, 6 cup chicken broth and 1 cup of water. That’s it. And since they’re ready-to-go items, it makes this soup a snap to put together.

You start by combining the chicken broth and water, which you bring to a boil. Then you add the soup mix, salsa and chicken. You then cover the pan simmer for about 25 minutes. And that it’s it.

For serving they suggest tortilla chips, crumbled, or tortilla strips in the bottom of the bowl, then ladle soup on top – I used tortilla chips, but I crumbled them on top of the soup already in the bowl, and they really added to the whole soup experience, so I highly recommend serving them with it either way. I also served extra salsa and chips on the table as a “side dish” that was rather fun, more like being out a restaurant. While we were eating it, we discussed the different ways you could change it up – you could try using a yellow corn tortilla chips in it, garnishing with sour cream and/or cheese. It would be good with cheddar cheese, queso fresco – or if you’re feeling adventurous, both! For supper I served it in bowls, for my photo, I opted for a cup – it’s a lovely large teacup that Kris got me from her trip to the U.K. last year, unfortunately the saucer didn’t survive, but the cup was totally unscathed! It’s absolutely gorgeous, and was so excited to use it for my photo!

Bottom line, this is definitely a soup mix I will purchase again, it was so easy and so tasty, a serious win-win!!!

South Of The Border Tortilla Soup Mix

 

 

from Kris B.

Soft pretzels have always been a “go to” snack for me, especially when I am away from home.  When I need a quick pick-me-up while shopping at the mall, I’ll usually search out one of the chain soft pretzel shops and have a cinnamon sugar coated pretzel.  This may not be the healthiest snack choice, but in my opinion, it is definitely a delicious one.  Lol!

Soft pretzels are also a favorite airport “meal.”  When my dad was sick and we were making so many trips between Dallas and Delaware, soft pretzels became my treat in the Philadelphia airport.  They were what I looked forward to after our early morning flights out of Dallas.  We had to change terminals in Philly.  In the terminal where the small commuter planes flew in and out, there was a food court with some of the best soft pretzels I’ve ever had!  They were an easy grab and go between flights.  My monthly airport pretzels are one of the few things I miss about making those all too frequent trips back to the east coast.

This summer, we are not traveling at all.  It seems like we have not had much time in the past few years to just be at home.  It’s like home has just been a springboard launching us toward our next trip.  I enjoy going and doing, but I’m looking forward to the entire summer at home!  Maybe I will actually take the opportunity to clean out all the closets and drawers that have neglected for way too long.

The downside to this year’s summer plan???  No airport pretzels!

Yes, I can and have made soft pretzels myself, but when I want them, I usually want them “right now.”  Enter King Arthur Flour’s boxed mix for Soft Buttery Pretzels.  They do require a little work in that, as with all soft pretzels, they have to be blanched before baking; the mixing, however, is a piece of cake.  Bad analogy there…sorry!  🙂

The Soft Buttery Pretzel Mix comes with a package of dry ingredients, yeast, and coarse salt for topping.  To that you add 2 TBS of soft butter and a cup plus 2 TBS of water.  Knead that all together and then let the dough rest for 30 minutes.  After this resting period, the dough is divided into eight equal parts.  Mine were approximately 3 oz. each.  The pieces are rolled into 20-24 inch ropes and shaped into pretzels.  The mix instructions give easy to follow instructions for how to shape traditional pretzels.  The formed pretzels rest for fifteen minutes and are then blanched in a bath of simmering water and baking soda.  They are placed on a parchment lined baking sheet  and baked for 20-24 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

After completing my pretzels, I read the comments and reviews on the King Arthur website.  Several people complained that the pretzels stuck to the parchment…to such a degree that they were inedible.  I will say that unexpected sticking is something with which I am plagued in my baking, but I had absolutely no issues with my pretzels sticking.  The only suggestion that I have to avoid potential sticking is to use a slotted spoon to remove your pretzels from the water bath, making sure to get rid of all excess water.

Serve the pretzels with your favorite mustard, cheese sauce, or other dipping sauce.  The King Arthur Soft Buttery Pretzel mix comes with coarse salt for topping the pretzels.  For a sweet treat, omit the salt.  After the pretzels come out of the oven, let them cool slightly, brush them with butter, and then dredge them in cinnamon sugar.  Yum!

You can also vary the shape of the pretzels, making everything from pretzel bites to hamburger buns.

This is a versatile mix to have on hand.  Appetizers, snacks, treats, sandwich rolls – all covered in this one little box!

Soft Buttery Pretzel Mix from King Arthur Flour

 

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