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Food Friday – Whose Side Are You On?

13 Friday Apr 2018

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  • from Kris B.

Parmesan Puffs

I haven’t been baking loaves of bread lately because I don’t want to be eating entire loaves of bread, but I wanted a littler something more interesting than crackers to have with soups and salads.  In my search of the King Arthur website, I found these Parmesan Puffs.  They seemed to fit the bill!

I am traveling this weekend so I had to bake before I left.  Because of a crazy work and performance schedule, the time that I had to do this was at 9:00pm on Tuesday evening.  I wasn’t thrilled about this, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  As I look back, this was actually a good thing.  It made me realize just how quick and easy this recipe is – an hour from start to finish!

To make the dough, water, butter, salt and pepper, are placed in a saucepan and brought to a rolling boil.  At that point, the flour is added immediately and stirred until it forms a cohesive ball.  The moisture is then removed from the heat and transferred to a mixer bowl.  The cheese is beat in and then the eggs, one at a time.  You want the dough to be smooth and shiny, with a pudding-like texture.

My daughter, you is a professionally trained pastry chef, asked if I did “the snot test” on my dough.  “The what?” She said that in school they were taught to do this dough to test the dough of their Gougeres (the fancy names for these puffs).  To perform this test, pinch a small amount of dough between your thumb and index finger.  The dough should stick and stretch as your fingers are moved apart.  If it does, your dough passes the snot test and should puff in the oven.

Using a tablespoon scoop, the dough is portioned onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.  The recipe makes 30 puffs.  You will need two baking pans to allow space between the individual puffs.  PLace them in a 425 degree oven and bake.  The instructions say to bake for 35-45 minutes.

I feel like my oven is on the “cool side,” and I baked mine for a little over 30 minutes, with both pans in the oven), and they puffed nicely and were plenty done.

Oh my goodness!  This things are delicious…and addictive!

As a testament to that, tonight while visiting my friend, we decided to make these again.  The catch was there are only two of us and we didn’t need thirty of these things!  We tried making only a quarter of the recipe.  The only problem was that we ended up with such a small amount of dough that it didn’t warrant breaking out the big mixer.  I whisked it by hand, but I didn’t do as good a job as the mixer.  This small batch did not puff as much as the full batch that I made at home, but they were equally as flavorful.

If you are looking for a snack, an appetizer, or a side for soup or salad, give these Parmesan Puffs a try.  You will not be disappointed!

from Tracey G.

Deviled Eggs

I was going to be making some Deviled Eggs this week one day, and then I saw King Arthur Flour’s recipe for Deviled Eggs, and I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone! The treat for Jeremy and my recipe for the week! Boom! Done!

I also happen to think that Deviled Eggs are another one of those recipes everyone should have in their recipe arsenal, because for me it seems, it ‘s been one of those things that have always eluded me in getting the end result I was after. In discussing making said Deviled Eggs, Jeremy made the comment “Well, you can’t go wrong with Deviled Eggs right?”. Well, yes, yes you can. I made the same mistake over and over it seems, through the years, of trying to make them too “fancy” or something, different seasonings etc. And usually they were a fail. I have found, that most, but most certainly not all, prefer a good old-fashioned Deviled Egg.

This is a really good basic recipe, not much different than my usual go-to recipe that I’ve recently discovered, by the way. The difference mostly in this one is it adds the sweet pickle relish – which also is totally optional, and Worcestershire Sauce – again, that too is totally optional. But I used both because they sounded like good additions. Another addition I do like that isn’t on the “plain” side, but doesn’t overpower the Deviled Egg’s integrity, is chopped green pimento-stuffed olives.

This recipe was super easy, the only difficult part was I had a couple eggs that were difficult peelers, but had I read this blog post on the KAF site in their Flourish blog, entitled “Deviled Eggs: Simple Tricks For Perfect Results”, I would likely have not had as much of hard a time with them!! It’s a great post, with a lot to great ideas that make total sense, and made me shake my head and say “why didn’t I think of that?”!

This recipe calls for:

  • 6 eggs, hard boiled
  • 1/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons prepared mustard; or 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 to 4 tablespoons sweet pickle relish, pressed dry; optional
  • 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, optional, for enhanced flavor

The preparation involves peeling and halving the eggs. I then mashed the yolks with a fork and then added the rest of the filling ingredients. It then gets spooned  back into the egg halves. Then, garnish as desired (I did the tried-and-true paprika and little bit of dried parsley for color). I used a pastry bag fitted with a tip, and I’ve also put the filling in a zip-top bag and snipped a corner off and piped it into the egg half that way. Plus,I’ve also read that you can just mix by mashing all the ingredients together in a zip-top bag, then snipping the corner off and continuing from there, I’ve not tried that yet – but I will!

These were deemed very good by my taste-tester, Jeremy. Although the comment “I’m not sure I care for the crunchy bits” was made in regards to the sweet pickle relish. But that’s ok , I can do with or without it as I like them both ways!

Food Friday – In, On, and Around

06 Friday Apr 2018

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from Kris B.

Creamy Artichoke-Zucchini Dip

Yep, this is another recipe that I chose based on my ongoing attempt to be more intentional about what I eat with the hope that I will lose some unneeded and unwanted weight.  I am following the Weight Watchers plan which, at least in the first three weeks, has proven to work for me.  We’ll see if over the next few months the rest of the weight comes off as easily.

Fruits and veggies are “free” foods on the Weight Watchers plan so I figured a recipe that has veggies as its primary ingredients would be a good place to start.  I have always been a fan of spinach-artichoke dip.  In fact, I will eat spinach with, on, or in just about anything.  I was a little surprised by this recipe’s use of zucchini instead of spinach; but hey, I like zucchini too so what is there to lose?  And if my garden produces like it did last year, I should have an abundance of zucchini.  I’m always grateful for new ways to use it!  So, Creamy Artichoke-Zucchini Dip it is!

You may think that a recipe that uses both cream cheese and sour cream would not be  “figure friendly.”  This recipe actually uses both low-fat cream cheese and low-fat sour cream.  The use of these low-fat ingredients is not a high calorie recipe re-do; they are used because full fat of both of these ingredients would make the dip way too rich.

The full list of ingredients is:

  • 1 14oz can of artichoke hearts
  • 1 small zucchini
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 2 scallions
  • 8 oz. of low-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel)
  • 1/2 cup low-fat sour cream
  • 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 – 1 tsp Tabasco sauce
  • 1/4 tsp salt

In addition to the twist of zucchini rather than spinach, this recipe also suggests an interesting means of preparation.  It calls for the dip to be cooked in a bread machine on the jam setting.  I don’t have a bread machine because, well, using a bread machine takes all of the fun out of making bread.  That said, I had no idea that you can use a bread machine for making something other than bread.  To be honest, as intriguing as this sounds, even if I did have a bread machine with a jam setting, I don’t know why you would choose to cook this dip that way.

To make the Creamy Artichoke-Zucchini Dip, all of the ingredients are placed in a food processor.  I pulsed them until the large chunks of vegetables were small  You don’t want a completely smooth paste.  Then place the dip in an oven-safe dish and bake it for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.  It’s that simple!

For some reason, I don’t seem to have an oven safe dish the proper size for the three cups of dip that the recipe makes.  Everything I have is either too big or too small.  I felt like Goldilocks in the kitchen!  Lol!  In the midst of this dilemma, I decided to calculate the Weight Watchers point value for the dip.  It turns out to be a reasonable 5 points for a half cup serving.  And with that discovery, my baking problem was solved.  I used six half-cup ramekins making it very easy to control portion size!

Weber and I had the dip on celery for lunch.  It is quite tasty.  I did use the lesser amount of Tabasco; he requested more next time I make it I use “a lot” more.  The 1/2 of a teaspoon wasn’t even noticeable.  And this is not because are Texas taste buds are numb to heat.  So, next time I make this, a little more hot and hopefully some homegrown zucchini!

Snack, appetizer for guests, lunch, a dinner side…the Creamy Artichoke-Zucchini Dip is up for the challenge!

My next experiment with it may be as a topping for a flatbread pizza.  I’ll let you know how that works!

from Tracey G.

Lemon-Garlic Butter

As I looked through recipes for this week, a thought struck me that, sometimes, simple is better. Something super easy to make is something we don’t usually think of. This week, the compound butter recipe from King Arthur Flour for Lemon-Garlic Butter felt like that kind of thing – simple, yet something I don’t usually make or have on hand, which is crazy because it’s an easy and quick thing to make and use! And this recipe is really just a jumping off point to all the possibilities. As I was combining the ingredients, my brain was already ahead of myself as to the variations that this could be put through…chili powder for something different, or even sweet versions adding honey for biscuit topping or whatever else you like. The possibilities are endless, and butter is a good vehicle for all kinds of flavors!

This recipe uses the KAF Lemon Juice Powder, but you can use fresh if you desire. I have the powder on hand, so wanted to give it a try that way first. And, me being me, I sometimes cannot leave well enough alone, and, I added a splash of extra-virgin olive oil as the butter was blending in the mixer and a drop or two of my Lemon Oil that I get from KAF. But seriously, none of that is necessary and it’s my own thing I felt compelled to do! And, ok, I added some dried parsley as it, admittedly, would (hopefully) help it photograph better! A little bit of green in a sea of butter-colored butter!

This is recipe that is actually more of a method, and in this instance the method has amounts of particular ingredients. If you wing it on some other flavor, you can make it to your taste!

This, method/recipe involves:

  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1 tbsp of garlic
  • 1 tbsp of Lemon Juice Powder, or 1-2 tsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1/4 tsp salt if you use unsalted butter.

You put all ingredients into the mixer bowl and blend until the butter is fluffy. I then dumped it out onto a piece of waxed paper, and proceeded to make a roll out of it, twisted the ends of the wax paper, then back in the refrigerator it went!

It’s just that easy to have flavored butter around for whatever you desire. I am planning on using this on hot pasta and possible a pat of it on a nice steak! And since you can freeze butter beautifully, this would keep well in smaller portions frozen, ready to be pulled out as needed!

 

Food Friday – Say Cheese!

04 Saturday Nov 2017

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from Tracey G.

Presenting the King Arthur Flour Everything-Cheddar Pastry Twist – easy to make and easy to eat. I was a bit intimidated by it when I read it, but once I actually started the doing, it was really painless to make something that looks pretty fancy and labor-intensive.

I will admit it, I’d bought a couple of the special ingredients needed for this few months ago for other purposes. The Vermont Cheese Powder I’d bought for making my own homemade cheese popcorn with my air popper to dress up my healthy snack a little and the Everything Bagel Topping, I’d bought to well, make bagels with. But after reading and making the recipe, if you wanted to use other flavors etc, the technique would still be suitable. It also called for the Pastry Flour Blend, which I happened to have, but it also gives you the option to use regular all-purpose flour as well.

The recipe is executed in a few steps, but easy ones they are. First you make your pastry dough, which consists of: flour (either the Pastry Flour Blend or AP flour), salt, baking powder, Vermont Cheese Powder, butter and ice water. Once you get it made, divide it into two equal portions, and then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

While that’s doing it’s thing chilling in the refrigerator, you make up the filling. This involves: Vermont Cheese Powder, Everything Bagel Topping, water, a bit of butter and grated sharp Cheddar cheese. I only had shredded Cheddar, so I went over it quickly with a knife to make the pieces smaller and closer to a grated-style. The cheese powder, bagel topping, butter and water get mixed together. The grated cheese stays separate.

To start the assembly, you roll out one of the disks of dough, to approximately 11-inches. It then gets trimmed down to a 10-inch circle via using a pie plate or a dinner plate that’s 10-inches as a template. Once you’ve done that, you pop it onto a piece parchment paper. Spread the dough with the filling mixture within about a 1/2-inch from the edge, then sprinkle on the grated cheese. At this point, you beat an egg with a tablespoon of water and brush the edge of the disk with it.

Next is to roll-out the other disk of dough, in the same manner: roll to an 11-inch circle, then trim to a 10-inch one using pie plate or dinner plate as guide for a perfect circle. This now gets placed on top of the other, and over the filling.

Now here’s where it gets interesting and rather fun! At this point you use a 2 1/2 to 3-inch round cutter (or anything you happen to have that could substitute for that, maybe a glass?) and set it in the center of the circle, it’s a guide so don’t cut with it. Working from the center out, you now cut the pastry circle into 32 wedges. I marked it off in quarters, then divided those up into 8 to make sure I stayed fairly even. You cut through both layers from the edge of the circle cutter all the way to each edge. Once you’ve done that, you take each little wedge and twist it in the same direction 3 times. That’s it. Proceed all the way around doing that with each little wedge.

This is before it’s baked, brushed and sprinkled with the remaining seasoning. You can see where the cutter was in the center – how it leaves a hub.

Lastly, once you’ve twisted them all, brush the whole with some of the beaten egg and sprinkle it with the remaining Everything Bagel Topping. Bake for 30-35 minutes, let cool for 15 and serve!! I should note here that in the actual recipe, it doesn’t mention sliding the parchment onto a baking sheet for baking – but after I did the cutting, I put it on a baking sheet, then did the twisting – and then the baking while on the sheet.

This recipe has a lot going for it – especially if you need an appetizer/snack. It’s simple and very stand-alone, meaning it doesn’t need a dip or anything of that nature to go with it. It would be easy to transport and plate for serving and look pretty as well! They mention it would go well with beer, cocktail or any beverage – with or without alcohol – that you choose or are serving, and I agree. Once I started taste-testing this, I couldn’t stop! I am so excited to find something this easy that looks like you know what you’re doing as far as pretty presentation!! Don’t be intimidated like I was at first, do try it, and now that I’ve gone through it once, it will be even easier/faster the next time! And on that note, you could vary the fillings anyway you like, just keep it fairly dry so it doesn’t ooze out while baking. I imagine you could leave out the cheese powder in the dough, that’s something I’d like to experiment with. You could use your own mixture of seasonings instead of the Everything Bagel Topping for example – I see lots of possibilities for this recipe technique.

But, this is one yummy snack/appetizer just as it is and I can highly recommend it!

Everything-Cheddar Pastry Twist

 

from Kris B.

This week’s offerings are from King Arthur Flour’s broad category, “Entrees, Sides, and Appetizers.”  To me, that translates to “real” food, something beyond sweet treats.  I think it says something about the way that Tracey and I think in that we both chose recipes that rely heavily on cheese.  This was not a planned theme for the week, but it sure is nice when it happens this way!

I often feel like a child when it comes to my food choices.  I still love simple foods, finger foods, comfort foods.  And, despite having eaten many a box of ten for a dollar “fake” macaroni and cheese when I was in college, I still love Mac and Cheese.  I am happy to say though that my palate and my wallet have “upgraded” from the poor college student version of this deliciousness!

I have been in several nicer restaurants lately where “gourmet” mac and cheese has been offered on the menu.  What makes it “gourmet?”  Usually it is the type of cheese or cheeses used and the specialty “add-ins.”  Gruyere, asiago, Roquefort, Fontina, and even smoked Gouda, my personal favorite, add a bit of grown-up flavor to this traditional comfort food dish.  Add-ins such as crab meat or bacon to any number of different kinds of vegetables also help to “adult” your mac and cheese.  The truth is that any macaroni and cheese made from scratch rather than from a box takes a huge leap in its gourmet factor.

I tried King Arthur Flour’s Garlic-Herb Mac and Cheese this week.  Made from scratch macaroni and cheese is definitely more time consuming than that from the box.  It took me more time to make this recipe than it took my husband to cook two rotisserie chickens on the grill, but, it was well worth the time.  Some of my extra prep time was because I always grate my own cheese; and the recipe calls for garlic oil, which I did not have so I had to make that too.  To do that, I used this simple recipe for garlic oil from Ina Garten.  It makes much more than you need for this mac and cheese, but since I know you will be making King Arthur’s Garlic-Herb Mac and Cheese again, having extra will save you a step next time!

Any type of smallish shaped pasta can be used in making this Garlic-herb Mac and Cheese.  It’s funny to me how the shape of the pasta can elevate the dish from looking like child’s food to a grown-up side.  Small shells are a favorite at my house because the cheesy goodness works its way into the center of the pasta, but this time I used a 12 oz. bag of orecchiette, ear-shaped pasta.  They acted like little cheese scoops  I should note that the recipe calls for 8 ounces of pasta.  The ratio of cheese to pasta was just fine despite having used four ounces more pasta than called for.

The pasta is cooked to al dente, drained, rinsed with cold water and set aside.

The cheese sauce begins as a basic béchamel, but it has no additional fat (butter).  The base is 2 3/4 cups of milk and 1/4 cup of flour.  I have to confess here that I used two cups of whole milk and 3/4 cups of heavy cream because I only had a pint of milk on hand.  Thus, I had a little extra fat in mine. 🙂  The recipe calls for you to add 1/2 cup of King Arthur Flour’s Vermont Country Cheese Powder to the white sauce as it thickens.  I did not have any so I used an equal amount of grated Parmesan, but waited to add it at the same time as the grated cheddar, salt, pepper, and ground mustard powder, which are stirred in after the white sauce has thickened and been removed from the heat.

Once all of the cheese has melted into the sauce, the pasta is stirred in.  The Mac and Cheese is then poured into baking dishes.  It can be baked in a small casserole dish or individual ramekins.  By using the 12 ounce bag of pasta, I made eight 3/4 cup ramekin servings.

It is the topping that kicks this mac and cheese recipe up a notch! The topping consists of panko, butter, the garlic oil, and King Arthur Flour Pizza Seasoning (or rosemary and thyme).  The butter and oil are melted together.  The panko and seasoning is then stirred in.  A generous layer of this crispy topping is then spread on top of the macaroni and cheese and the dishes a placed in the oven to bake for 25-35 minutes.

When they come out of the oven you have piping hot creamy cheesy goodness.  This recipe is most certainly worth the time.  It will also serve as a great base for trying your hand at some of your own sideside dishgourmet mac and cheese combinations.  I often add spinach to mine, tossing the fresh spinach in with the pasta in its last two minutes of cooking.  Kielbasa is a favorite meat add-in here.  Be creative!  Make it your own!  Experiment with different cheeses.

If you create a combination that you’d like to share, we’d love to post it here!

Garlic-Herb Mac and Cheese

Say cheese!  And, enjoy your weekend.

Food Friday – August 2017 King Arthur Flour Bakealong Challenge – Golden Focaccia

19 Saturday Aug 2017

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from Kris B.

It’s King Arthur Flour Bakealong week again already!  This month’s challenge is Golden Focaccia.  In all of my bread baking experience, I have never made focaccia.  I always enjoy trying something new so was excited for this challenge.

As I read through the recipe for the Golden Focaccia the first time, I was surprised at how simple this bread really is.  The dough calls for minimal ingredients – flour, yeast, olive oil, water, and salt.  Like the Classic Baguette that was the June Bakealong Challenge, the Golden Focaccia demands a little bit of forethought in that it uses an overnight starter.  This consists of only flour, yeast, and water and can be put together quickly.

I had a plan.  My day was scheduled such that I could make the focaccia, homemade spaghetti sauce, and put together a nice salad using ingredients from our garden.  I’d photograph the focaccia and then we would sit down to a nice dinner.  Note: I had to buy the tomatoes for the spaghetti sauce because all of the beautiful tomatoes that I grew were “claimed” by our resident squirrels just before they were ripe enough to be picked.  That aside,  my plan was perfect and I even had plenty of time with which to execute it.

We all know what happens when we think that we have fail proof plans…

Let’s just say that I am vying for the job of cook on Noah’s ark because I seem to be, on a regular basis, making recipes for these blog posts two times!

Even having to use canned tomato sauce, the spaghetti sauce was delicious.  It’s almost impossible to make a bad green salad so there were no problems there.  That leaves the focaccia…It was terrible!  Despite cooking it the minimum time suggested by the recipe, my focaccia was way overdone, having a texture more like that of dry toast than the moist chewy consistency that I expected.  In trying to troubleshoot, the two things I knew would result in this kind of failure were overcooking and too much flour.  My oven cooks “cool.”  Most of the time when a range is given for cooking time, I have to leave things in the maximum time and sometimes then some.  If the focaccia was overcooked, which it seemed to be, I have to think that was an inaccuracy in the recipe in some way.

With regard to the problem being the use of too much flour, I weigh my flour rather than measuring by volume because this gives a more accurate amount.  And, no extra flour is necessary to knead this dough, so I was fairly sure that too much flour wasn’t the issue.  Solving my problem was going to take some more thought.

Dinner that night consisted of pasta and salad…no bread!

Not to be defeated, I tried again with the recipe for Golden Focaccia.  On my second attempt, I made two changes: I used bread flour instead of all-purpose flour and I cooked the bread only fifteen minutes.  Bread flour has a higher protein content and generally yields a higher rise and less crumb.  Success!  This time was much better!  I suspect the reduction in cooking time made the real difference.  I probably could have left the focaccia in the oven another minute or two and it would have perhaps gotten a little more crispy, but under no circumstances would I leave it in the oven for the 20-25 minutes as indicated in the recipe!

One other “substitution” that I made to the recipe as written is rather than using dried rosemary, in combination with salt in pepper, to season the focaccia, I used King Arthur Flour’s Pizza Seasoning.  Yum!

I’m glad that I gave this recipe a second chance.  It is a tasty bread that makes an excellent side to your favorite Italian dish.  As we discovered with my second batch, it also makes the perfect snack as the bread disappeared slice by slice from the counter once it was photographed.  It would also make great sandwich bread if you are looking for a change.

Speaking of photographing the Golden Focaccia…This was challenging also!

Tracey and I have a running joke about brown food and how much of it there is and how difficult it is to photograph said brown food such that it looks appetizing.  Don’t let the name Golden Focaccia fool you.  It is brown food!  The challenge in photographing it comes in trying to plate the food in such a way that it remains the definite subject of the photo, but the overall photo is not boring.  Yes, you can add all kind of props to liven up an image.  Often though, in the end the viewer’s eye is drawn to the pretty bowl or vase of flowers rather than the food item itself.

I will be the first to say that my photo of the Golden Focaccia is rather boring.  I will also admit that I struggled with exactly how to photograph it.  Perhaps I could have used a colored basket liner rather than white.  But, had I done that, the image would have been more clearly bisected.  I think that might have been distracting.  Maybe I would have been better off using a bottle of olive oil in the background instead of the remaining uncut bread.  Or maybe some nice green herbs in some water.  Here’s the deal…olive oil is also brown(ish).  If you happen to have one of those colorful display bottles for your olive oil, it will definitely add a pop of color to your photo…and likely will pull the viewer’s eye away from the bread.  The same would be true of green herbs.  So there’s the dilemma.  And unlike many other photo subjects, food photography cannot really be “saved” with processing.  It must look real.  It must look edible.  Obviously I came up with no real solution to this whole issue with my photo this week, but this second batch tasted delicious!

 

from Tracey G

I have truly come to love the King Arthur Flour Bakealong Challenge that they present every month. I’m also extremely happy to see that they are continuing it – I was afraid it would only last a year. This month marks the start of a new year of Bakealong Challenges, hard to believe we’ve done it for a year already! It has challenged me and stretched my knowledge and abilities more than I expected! Plus, it’s just downright fun! Yes, there have been frustrations along the way, the first one, off the top of my head, was the Berry Blitz Torte. That one pushed my perfectionist buttons to the breaking point, when in the end, I ended up deciding that the weather was just working too much against me, and it will be one I revisit in the winter, by golly, because I will get it the way I want it! LOL

This month’s KAF Bakealong Challenge, Golden Focaccia is super easy. But it also was a bit of challenge to get “right”. I know that makes it sound ominous, and it’s really not, lol. It IS easy. I just had issues when it came to baking it off. 🙂 There’s also a gluten-free version of the recipe, and I’ll include a link to it at the end of the post!

As Kris stated, the ingredients are simple: flour, yeast, water, salt and olive oil, plus herbs of choice for seasoning it before baking. There is only the one part that makes it something you need to plan ahead for – the overnight starter. It helps jump-start your yeast AND it helps flavor the dough a bit. But it does need to sit for about 14 hours, so plan accordingly.

After you get it all mixed up, there’s a rising time in a bowl for about 30 min. Then, you prepare whatever pan you’ve decided to use, they do list a regular sheet pan, 9×13″ sheet pans or even round cake pans as options. I chose two 9×13″ sheet pans. There are a couple of rising times after you get the dough onto the pan, first one is 30 minutes, second rise is approximately 1 hour.  To prepare it to bake, you spritz it with warm water, then drizzle with olive oil. I too chose to use the KAF Pizza Seasoning on one, and the other was the traditional rosemary, salt and pepper.

After it was all spritzed, oiled and seasoned, into the oven it went. And out of the oven it came like a really tasty, light as air – crouton. I overbaked it. It was still lovely, and Jeremy and I pretty much ate both of the breads quickly despite the crunchy texture. I knew then, that it was something I’d likely make quite often, just to have it to nibble on. So, I decided to make it again, and adjust the baking time to see what I ended up with. Second batch was just as tasty, but, I experimented with the baking times – one pan I baked 17 minutes, and the other was 20-21 minutes. I preferred the 20-21 minute version – it had the perfect crunch and chewy texture. But, the bright side of the slightly under-done 17 minute version, is, that it crisps up nicely when reheated in the toaster oven!

All in all, I am so glad for this month’s Bakealong Recipe for Golden Focaccia, it’s something I too have never ever made in my own kitchen, and I am pleased to know how easy it is now to do it. It just seems to be one that you have to mess around with once or twice to get it the way YOU want it to be. And in all honesty, it’s so easy and inexpensive to make that’s not a problem at all, it’s an easy thing to whip up! Just don’t overbake it… LOL

Here’s a link right to the recipe: Golden Focaccia

And if you’re baking gluten-free, they’ve got you covered with a gluten-free version: Gluten Free Focaccia

Food Friday – Stick It To You Appetizers

07 Friday Jul 2017

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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!

Food Friday – I Love It, I Love It Not

24 Saturday Jun 2017

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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 – 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)

January King Arthur Bakealong Challenge – Pizza Party Buns

21 Saturday Jan 2017

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It’s time for our post on this month’s King Arthur Flour Bakealong Challenge recipe, Pizza Party Buns.

At our house, pizza is usually reserved for those nights when no one feels like cooking.  If I happen to have dough in the fridge, (We are fans of Jeff Hertzenberg and Zoe Francois’ recipe in Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes A Day.) We will have homemade pizza with whatever toppings I can scrounge – vegetables from peppers to asparagus to butternut squash and/or meats of various kinds.  Sometimes I have sauce on hand and sometimes a don’t.  But I always cheese.  And when there is no dough already made, we have pizza delivered.  All this to say that pizza is most often a lazy day meal.

I was excited to try this month’s Bakealong Challenge recipe because I am good with anything that has pizza in it’s name!  I have to say this at the outset here…There are recipes that look impressive and look like they took a lot of time to prepare and didn’t, and then there are recipes like this one that are actually time consuming, though relatively easy, but take a good amount of time and most people won’t realize what went into its preparation.  That is meant only as an observation, not a value statement.  From start to finish, because my rise times were slow, the making of the Party Pizza Buns took a little over four hours.  Would I make them again?  You bet!  They are well worth the time to make.

The dough is a relatively simple dough, though it does call for bread flour rather than all-purpose.  The liquids used are milk and a little olive oil.  And then of course salt and yeast are necessary.  Once made, the recipe says that the dough should rise until it doubles in size, 60-90 minutes.  Mine took almost two hours and I had it in my oven on the bread proofing setting.

After the first rise, the dough is rolled into a 12×18 rectangle.  This dough was quite cooperative when I was rolling it.  My go-to pizza dough recipe is much more “elastic” and is sometimes difficult to roll.  Once you have the rectangle of dough, it is spread with a layer of pizza sauce, (I used prepared.  I know.  Lazy!)  followed by cheese and then the filling.  The recipe suggests pepperoni; I used finely diced Canadian bacon, green bell pepper, and onion.  Any of your favorite pizza topics will work.  Just be careful to not overstuff!  After all of the “toppings” are added, you roll from the wide end of the dough just as you would cinnamon rolls.  The Party Pizza Buns are then sliced and laid flat on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for a second rise.  I cut mine into twelve slices, each of which makes a meal sized portion.  My rise time took the full ninety minutes.

After the second rise, the buns bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

We ate them straight out of the oven (Well, after they were photographed.) and they were delicious!  I have some in the fridge.  I’ll report back on how they are when reheated.

I prefer a thick crust pizza  so I loved these; however, if you prefer thin crust pizza, these are “bready”; hence there name, “buns.”  Lol!  Think of them more like a savory cinnamon roll rather than like a thin crust pizza.

I am also going to try using this dough to make other kinds of roll-up type meals.  I think ham and cheese or spinach and cheese would be just as good as the pizza filling.

I hope you’ll bake some Pizza Party Buns along with us and the January 2017 King Arthur Flour Bakealong Challenge!

from Tracey G

It’s my favorite time – – King Arthur Flour’s Bakealong Challenge time! Ok, I also love Mix Time too, but I really love Bakealong time! As in the household of my partner in crime, pizza is one of those save-mama-some-work dinners here – usually we get take out since my pizza stone cracked in half and I haven’t bothered to replace it. Due to where we live though, we don’t have the opportunity for delivery, lol, so it always still involves some effort – we (read: Jeremy) have to go out and pick it up. But that’s ok, it’s still a time saver! And one heck of a yummy one at that. Depending on where we order from, my favorite toppings can vary, but the boys favorites are: pepperoni and green olives. This can be a favorite of mine as well, but I equally enjoy a meat-free version of green peppers and onion, however, they do not! So, since this batch of Pizza Party Buns would be for everyone in the household, majority ruled, and I opted for the toppings suggested in the recipe, pepperoni and cheese, but added in sliced green olives.

As I read through the recipe for this month’s Bakealong Challenge, I knew what ingredients I had to pick up, the filling items, to be exact. While I always have pepperoni on hand and cheese, I didn’t have any pizza sauce – and I noticed I was low on the other two, so I grabbed some pepperoni and mozzarella cheese too while I was at it. I was ready to roll for whenever I got the chance to make them. Or so I thought. Once I was ready to get started on these, I started gathering my ingredients. Sauce, yep… cheese, check… pepperoni, yes… olive oil, check… salt, right here… yeast, got it… bread flour… Um bread flour… Hello bread flour???? Uh oh. Bread flour is MIA. I was sure I had bread flour – looked through every cabinet…none to be found. Even enlisted Jeremy’s help in the search as he’s my tall person who can check the higher areas of the cabinets easily, lol. But nope, there wasn’t any anywhere. So, when you’re thrown a curve, it’s on to Plan B – all-purpose flour it had to be. The difference between bread flour and all-purpose flour is protein content, bread flour is typically higher in protein content so it aids in the gluten development, which produces and chewier and more elastic crumb. But most of the time it’s ok to swap. And it was this time, as far as I’m concerned, lol. I had no choice! And it was ok! Nothing bad happened!

I too had a bit of trouble in the rising of the dough area – it was incredibly slow! But since it’s cold here in Northern Michigan, it didn’t completely surprise me, just an inconvenience. I don’t have a proofing-setting on my oven, but I do have trick I learned along the way from somewhere – I turn my oven on to 400 for 1-2 minutes, then turn it off and pop my dough in for its rising time. Usually works quite well!

But other than that, the rising, everything came together quite easily – what Kris mentioned about the dough being easy to work with and roll out, is spot-on. I had no issues with mine either. I patted it out into a rectangle with my hands slightly oiled with olive oil, and then rolled it the rest of the way to the desired size of 12×18″. Spooned on the sauce, sprinkled the cheese and toppings then rolled it up. I cut mine into 1-inch pieces, and somehow managed to get 17, I don’t know how I didn’t get 18 pieces, but I must have cut a couple a little larger than the others, lol.

After the 2nd rise, it was time to bake! Yay! And they baked-off beautifully, I think. I didn’t get to eat them straight out of the oven, but I did get to taste-test after they’d cooled to room temperature and they were super yummy – I was so pleased! Harry announced he loved them – and that right there made me extremely happy, 😉 I haven’t tried reheating them yet, but I can say that they are still yummy the next day straight out of the refrigerator! Cold Party Pizza Buns for breakfast! And lunch, and a snack…. Yes, they will definitely be made again, not only are they tasty, but they are very versatile as well – your imagination can run wild with one!

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