New (?) Direction./Bread Dough

   Hello, all! The next 15 weeks I will be embarking on a new direction--not only in life, but also in my blog.  As part of a class I am taking at ESC, I have to make periodic entries into this blog. Talk about being right up my alley! Imagine, having to jabber away about something I am passionate about; or rather being encouraged to post my stories of how the foods I prepare are woven into my family's life. I have entered the first stage of heaven.

Writing about cooking: that's me wrapped up in a nice little gift package.

   In celebration of my good fortune, I am embarking on a quest to make good meals for the family, as you all know, we eat dinner together most nights, but with classes starting, I need to find easy preparations that don't skimp on taste. The husband will be the first to notice if I get too careless and start serving packaged foods. And my ankles will show it, as well, as they start to swell from all the preservatives and sodium that makes pre-packaged foods so unhealthy. Both alternatives are to be avoided.

   So where do I start? 

   I think a crock-pot full of meatballs with homemade Italian bread are in order. Meatball heroes will serve both as a dinner and a lunch, or two, for the guys at the shop during the week. Yes, they are the extended family of guinea pigs for my escapades in the kitchen. (Insert evil laugh).

   Just so we are clear: I will not just serve meatball heroes for dinner, but will also serve at least a tossed salad, and possibly some fried artichoke hearts or cauliflower with a dipping sauce, followed an hour, or so, later, by some dessert fare. That, to me is a dinner; where just a hero is fine for lunch, or a Sunday evening supper after a dinner was served at two or three o'clock, although, we seem to have gotten away from the early Sunday dinners and evening suppers, as of late.
    The Italian bread recipe I use is so easy, especially for those who don't like to knead, or in my case, have trouble kneading--my hands cramp up after a few minutes, so I often did not get the dough fully kneaded, which resulted in less than fully risen bread-stuff. However, my darling spouse bought me a Kitchen Aid® stand mixer a few years back and now I do not have to worry about under-kneading. I use this recipe anyway, and it always comes out perfect. I have to give a shout-out to my friend, Donna, for this recipe, and technique, as since I got this recipe a year ago, I generally use only this recipe for all my loaf and round breads, as well as cinnamon buns and monkey bread. I use it so often, I don't even have to refer to the written instructions anymore.

                   Easy Bread Dough 
1/2 cup warm water--up to 117°F. Too hot and you will kill the yeast
1 package instant dry yeast (or 2 1/4 teaspoons)
Add the yeast to the water. Stir and set aside.

In a 2 cup measuring cup add:

1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt (aids in rising)
2 tablespoons butter (unsalted) melted
Mix together until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Add yeast mixture (which should be a little foamy on the top). Stir.

Pour the mixture into the bowl of your Kitchen Aid® and add 3 cups of unbleached white flour. You can use 1 cup of whole wheat in place of 1 cup of the all purpose flour, if you wish. I have done so several times, but you might have to "tweak" the amount of water or flour as you proceed. Turn the mixer on to stir in the flour. You will notice it looks like doing this by hand, as you make a well in the center of the mound of flour, add the liquid and slowly work the flour into the liquid until you have a soft dough. If you are doing this by hand, turn out onto floured surface and gradually add more flour, kneading in after each addition, until you have a nice firm, but not stiff dough, that is not sticky. If your dough is sticky, knead in more flour; if it is too stiff, you will have to add some more warm water, but if you knead in the flour slowly this rarely happens. The recipe says you will use between 4 and 5 cups of flour--we all know this depends on the humidity of the day, and the room. Flour can be very thirsty one day, and the next, not so much.I have never used more than 4 1/2 cups of flour, and most of the time I only use 4 cups. .

   Once you have the right consistency, knead dough (if by hand) for one minute, let rest 10 minutes, covered. Knead another one minute, rest another 10 minutes, again covered. Divide into two parts, and shape into your desired shape. Place on greased sheet pan, cover with greased plastic wrap and a kitchen towel, let rise in warm place until double. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Cool on wire rack. After completely cooled you can wrap tightly in plastic, but do plan to use it within the next day or two. There are no preservatives in homemade bread, so it will mold sooner rather than later. Hey, there is the lesson within a lesson for the day--if it takes a long time for your store-bought bread to mold--there are plenty of preservatives in it and therefore should be avoided in the future.
    Now, I do a slightly different procedure with the kneading as I use the stand mixer. I knead in the flour gradually, and once I get the consistency I am looking for I let the mixer knead the dough for about five minutes, then put it in a greased bowl and let it rise for about an hour and half, until double, then I shape it and let it rise again until double. I use either an egg wash (one egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water) or swab the loaves with olive oil, sprinkle with sesame seed, and sometimes granulated garlic and bake as directed.
  The shaping is where you can get inventive. I found the best thing to do is to roll out the dough into a rectangle and roll up from the short edge very tightly, sealing the edge and ends. It comes out exactly like Italian bread from the Italian bakeries I remember as a kid when I visited relatives in downtown Brooklyn. Who knew? I certainly didn't but now that I do, I almost always use that method and between the recipe and shaping method I have never been disappointed.
    Rolling the dough out is how you make the cinnamon rolls, also, slathering butter, and sprinkling cinnamon and sugar over the dough before rolling and slicing into individual rolls. Place in a greased round cake pans. Use butter, cinnamon & sugar across the top and bake away. The aroma, whether it be Italian bread or the cinnamon rolls is absolutely divine. You can top the cinnamon rolls, fresh out of the oven, with icing made of 1 cup powdered sugar, about 1 tablespoon of milk, and a drop of vanilla. Add the milk by 1/2 teaspoons til you get a consistency of while glue--you know the stuff that you used in school in the squeeze bottle. The icing will melt and cover the top. Let it cool a bit before you attempt to bite in--hot sugar is about the same temperature as the surface of the Sun. Trust me on that one.
   Of course, I digress, yet again. 
  Here are a couple of photos; one of the risen dough; and one of the formed loaves waiting to rise. Of course, I got caught up again in life and failed to get photos of the risen dough, and the cooked bread. Naturally, because I served it for dinner before continuing this entry there is less than half a loaf left, so I will not tease you with that but will post my next results, if I can keep life from distracting me.

    Love when dough does what it is supposed to do!

  I forgot to mention that you also slash the top of the dough every two inches or so across the top.


   You should give this recipe a try if you want to try some homemade bread, it is by far the easiest recipe ever! Feel free to post your results too, as I would love to hear how yours come out.
   Until next time--enjoy!

Homemade Ricotta Cavatelli

   Oh, yeah, I love cavatelli, even the kind you buy in the freezer section of a grocery store, but boy, do I remember my little old Italian grandma making these by hand and having trays of them sitting on kitchen towels drying all around her house when we'd come for a visit. Funny, but until now it never dawned on me that after dinner those trays were nowhere to be found, yet I never actually saw anyone go around the house and collect them. I guess Italian grandmas are magicians, after all!

   After my recent foray into homemade pasta I started telling my husband that I wanted to try my hand at ricotta cavatelli--I already make the ricotta--it was just a natural progression, if you ask me.

   The recipe is quite basic--flour, eggs, ricotta, salt, and the kneading part can be handled by my trusty old KitchenAid® stand mixer.

   The most difficult part is with the shaping of the cavatelli. You know the drill, you have to let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes; cavatelli needs to be wrapped in plastic wrap,and the rest period takes place in the refrigerator. After the dough has rested you split it into  quarters, using one quarter at a time, keeping the rest of the dough covered with the plastic wrap and a damp towel; all the standard rules for working with dough.

   You then split the quarter into half so you are working with 1/8 of the dough at a time. Roll the dough into a rope about 1/4 inch in diameter. Cannot tell you how long the rope should be, as it will vary on the accuracy your split, but you want the width go be close to 1/4 inch (some of mine were thicker, but it did not cause a problem.) Then cut the rope into 1 inch pieces, they will look like little pillows. Here's the part that really takes practice: using a putty knife or other flat tool (I switched to a kitchen scraper which worked fabulously), gently drag the tool across the dough from the long edge furthest away from you towards yourself. You only need a drop of pressure, the dough will curl up over the edge of the tool and end up looking like a tiny hot dog roll. Perfect. Toss the pasta onto a sheet pan that has been lightly sprinkled with flour. And continue with all the dough---oh, yes, you are literally making the pasta piece by piece, although I was able to line up about three next to each other and do three at a time, with only minor adjustments at the end. Pretty impressive for my first try. Here's what they looked like:

And here's a closer look:

   Beautiful, don't cha think?

   Home made spaghetti sauce, home made Italian bread, mixed green salad, and maybe a bottle of Chianti to finish this off. Perfect, perfect perfect.

   Talk soon!

    

Turkey Pot Pie mmmmm Jan 27, 2012

   I made a turkey last Sunday, just about 10 pounds of bird. Yum, it was delicious. I stripped down the carcass and froze it for a future turkey soup, and made a leftover dinner with the mashed potatoes and gravy, extra stuffing, and all the rest of the trimmings. I still had a little breast meat, the 2 thighs and legs left, so I diced it all up with diced potatoes, onions, peas, fresh carrots, a new gravy, and made a homemade pie crust for the top. I do not like to make homemade pie crust, but I did it. It was okay for the topping of the pot pie, but it never would have held up as a pie crust---guess I will have to work on that some more.

  Start by peeling the potatoes and cut them into 3/4 inch cubes. For this application I usually 3/4 peel the potatoes as well--I don't like when the peels separate from the flesh and are free floating in the mix. I figure by keeping some of the skins I am not throwing all of the nutrition out...just one of my things. Toss the potato cubes into boiling salted water (1/2 teaspoon is enough--but trust me, you need SOME when boiling potatoes--yes, yes, pasta, too. Boil for about 10 minutes, just until the potatoes are fork tender. Drain them well. Set aside. Dice 1/2 of a large sweet onion--we only use sweet onions here. I like the pieces on the small size, I don't like long strands of onion in this dish. Melt 4 tablespoons butter (okay, okay, you can use margarine if you must) in a large skillet. Add the diced onion and sweat, adding diced fresh carrots in after about 5 minutes (I used 2 medium carrots--scrubbed well, not peeled). Continue to sweat the veggies until the onion is almost transparent, but do not allow to brown. You can add a stalk or two of celery, diced, along with the carrots if that's your thing--I use it in soup, otherwise I am not a fan.

   Sprinkle 1/4 cup of flour into the mix, stirring constantly to prevent lumps, until the flour is completely incorporated and bubbly--(we all know this is a roux, right?) Add one tablespoon of chicken base (or two bouillon cubes or 2 packs), whisking constantly, add 2 cup of waters, and 1 cup of milk, to blend in the base. Bring to a slow boil, stirring. When the mix comes to a boil, that's how thick it will be...you can add more milk or water if it is too thick for your liking--we like it thick--stick to your ribs style.

   Toss in the potatoes, the leftover diced turkey (or chicken)--oh, anywhere from 2 cups up, and some frozen peas. Bring mix just to a boil. I add poultry seasoning, if I have it, if not I use ground thyme, rubbed sage, about a tablespoon of rosemary leaves run through the food processor, or through the fingers, and if I feel like Scarborough Fair, I add some parsley: you know, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme?
   This hot bubbling mixture is then tossed into a greased casserole dish, why greased? I don't clean up the pots and pan, so out of compassion for the one who does, I grease all my cookware, and pray the food doesn't stick too bad to make the cleanup a very difficult chore (man, do I love him). Then cover the top with a pie crust of your choice, to the edge. You can get fancy and flute the edge, if you want, but do not forget to poke about four holes in the crust toward the middle in a spoke fashion to allow steam to escape. I also put a drip pan under the casserole, for I tend to fill them to the top and when they start bubbling, well, the oven cleanup detail (I got this one) prefers less mess.
   Bake at 375 for about 25-30 minutes, you are really just cooking the crust here. Remove it from the oven and let it sit about 15 minutes before you try to serve it---it is HOT!
   This one came out fabulous, even my beef and potato eating man said it was excellent. Just another touchdown! How about any of you out there? Care to share a use of leftovers from your personal cookbook?
  'Til next time. Happy cooking!

Shrimp Scampi

   Ahhh! Shrimp Scampi. What more can one say? Luscious, succulent shrimp, in a butter-garlic sauce with white wine, fresh parsley, a drop of  hot pepper flakes, and a spritz of fresh lemon. There you go, that's the recipe. Now if you think I have proportions, well, think again! In the true Italian spirit, I just wing this recipe, but today, just for you, I will try to come up with proportions.
  The most important proportion, naturally, is how much shrimp to use, and I hope we all realize that depends on how many people you are feeding. Well, normally, yes, but this household loves shrimp, so my proportion might be a little high. For five of us i make 2 pounds of shrimp. There will be leftovers, not much, but there will be a late night snack for someone. I use the 21-25 count shrimp, less peeling is how I see it.
   I use 1/2 pound of butter, that's 2 sticks, unsalted if you have it; 12 cloves of garlic, or 4 heaping tablespoons of jarred minced garlic; 2 tablespoons good olive oil; a palmful of chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley; 1/2 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes, or more to your own family's liking; 1/4 cup white wine--I use sauterne, but any dry to semi-dry wine will do; and just a squirt of fresh lemon juice. Oh, and believe it or not, you still need a dash or two of Kosher salt.
   Heat the olive oil over medium heat until it starts to ripple, not smoke. Add the butter and stir it around to melt it. Once all the butter is melted add the garlic and let it come to a simmer. When you start to smell the garlic and LONG before it begins to color, add the wine, the red pepper flakes and the spritz of lemon. Allow it to simmer 3 minutes. Add the shrimp, and toss until the shrimp begin to turn pink. Toss in the parsley, remove from the heat, and keep tossing until the shrimp is fully cooked. Add the salt, toss again, and then serve over pasta, if desired. I made homemade noodles again, so we're having it over that, along with homemade bread, and a tossed salad. Who can say touchdown?

Ricotta Cookies December 17, 2011

  This is the one time of year I do extensive baking. Not normally something I do year round mostly because of the frustration factor. There is so much effort, for so little reward, and most of the time I get extra frustrated because my cookies seldom make it to the frosting stage, having so many cookie monsters in my household. It is a time I often become cross with my loved ones as they grab for un-frosted cookies by the handful. You might ask why I should get frustrated with that? There are no cookies to frost or decorate, less work. Well, yes, and no. I like to have platters of cookies ready for guests during the holidays, so my efforts have to be repeated and repeated until I finally throw in the towel, and say let them eat Aunt Alma's fruitcake that comes every year like clockwork and is always, surprisingly, wrapped identically to the previous years'--all the previous years. Either Aunt Alma wrapped about a thousand fruitcakes 25 years ago, or she bought miles of the same wrapping paper, either scenario frightening in its own right.
   So to my family, whom I love very much, I apologize for the snapping and slapping of little patties away from the cookie stash. Just give me the room and time to get all your favorites done and I promise you will be able to eat them to your heart's delight without fear of being scolded.   Now that my annual disclaimer has been published, I will tell you of the varieties of cookies and candies I make for Christmas.

   Tradition in my family goes back to the Struffoli that Grandma Julie made. Little Italian fried honey balls mounded into a conical shape piled high on her silver platter and liberally sprinkled with multicolored nonpareils, you know those tiny little round sugar sprinkle balls.  Not being one for most Italian pastries, it was nice to be able to enjoy something sweet at the Italian relatives' houses. Over the years I also learned that the "flag cookies" or "rainbow cookies" are simply almond cookies with layers of raspberry and apricot jam, and frosted with semi-sweet chocolate--definite winner in this house! Somewhere along the years my mother got a recipe for Ricotta cookies, and as they say, that was "all she wrote". 

   In the early years I only made chocolate chip or Toll House Cookies, sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies and/or blossoms, and ricotta cookies. With the advent of the glorious internet I have now included: seven layer cookies, no-bake peanut butter cups, mint candies, rum balls, stained glass window candy, truffles,baklava, and raspberry-almond thumbprint cookies. This year I learned of a neat little trick with Ritz® crackers, peanut butter, and semi-sweet chocolate morsels. Any wonder why the prospect of re-dos gets me testy?

    And that's just the standards. Some years I try new recipes; for example one year I made half moon cookies the size of saucers, another year I dipped pretzel rods in almond bark and decorated them. Another trial was Santa's Whiskers cookies, sometimes I include chocolate snickerdoodles, and gingerbread men--actually this year I made reindeer that don't look very much like reindeer, but they taste, and smell,marvelous, so deal with the funny looking reindeer.
   I have made spiced tea mixes, and hot cocoa mix from scratch as gifts. This year I am putting together a few "brownies in a jar" mixes for gifts. And I am in four college classes, which don't break until the 26th of December. Okay, I am stressing myself as I await the last 1/2 dozen of the 8-1/2 dozen ricotta cookies I baked today to finish. then its time to frost them. maybe I picked a good time to do this, as not one cookie has disappeared yet. With some luck I'll get them all done and stashed before anyone gets home. I'll post photos of the completed cookies. But, for now, here's the recipe for Grandma Ann's famous Ricotta Cookies. Well, maybe not worldwide famous, but in this family they sure are!


Ricotta Cookies

Drain 15 oz ricotta in a fine mesh strainer for at least 4 hours in the refrigerator.

1/2 lb unsalted butter softened to room temperature
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla (pure, please)
Grated rind of one orange-no white pith please
4-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda


Cream the softened butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl (I use the Kitchen Aid® stand mixer). Add the eggs and the vanilla. Mix well. Sift together the dry ingredients and add to batter in increments--don't just dump all of it in at once, just about a cup at a time, just until all mixed--be careful to not over mix the batter- you know the drill it will make the cookies tough if the flour gets over worked.
Drop dough by heaping teaspoons (a measuring teaspoon) onto a greased cookie baking sheet. Bake at 350°F for 9-10 minutes. You are looking for a slightly browned edge of the cookie only. Remove from the oven, cool one minute, then transfer to cooling rack and let cool completely before glazing (recipe follows). I got 8 1/2 dozen from this recipe today! Yay!


The Glaze

2 cups confectionery sugar (powdered sugar) 
1/4 cup butter softened
3 teaspoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla


Mix all ingredients well, working out all lumps of the sugar until smooth. drizzle over cookies and then sprinkle with multicolored sprinkles or nonpareils. Let glaze harden before trying to store in a covered container.
   As promised here's a photo:

 

   Want more cookies? Just let me know!

Cranberry Sauce 11/22/2011

   Thanksgiving is almost here. Probably the biggest food holiday of all! And a tradition in this country since 1621. Or so we are lead to believe. I am taking an early American History class and things I am learning now are news to me. Maybe because when I first learned history I was a child, trying to find out who I was, and my place in this big world. Certain things evaded me. Okay, many things evaded me. And I have learned that the talking point headlines of yesteryear do not paint an accurate picture of everything that was going on. But I am not going to go into a history lesson here, that's another blog out there, somewhere. I thought that over the course of the next few days I would share with you some of my recipes, and, well, whatever else may pop into my head that I think you might find entertaining, or maybe educational. We'll see where it goes, how's that?

   Let's start with cranberry sauce. All while growing up I remember cranberry sauce, jellied, sitting in a bowl in the shape of the can it came out of. My mom would slice the roll into 1/4 inch slices, so when you took some cranberry "sauce" there would be a round slab of red stiff jelly on your plate. That's how I thought cranberry sauce was supposed to look.

   Then, when I got a little older and ventured to other family's thanksgivings I learned there was something call "whole berry" cranberry sauce. Mixed in the "jelly" were berries of the "cran" variety, and this stuff did not come out of its can in a formed lump. Very interesting and dang, good!

   Fast forward about a hundred years, years that included both the jellied and whole berry versions on my Thanksgiving table. Then, just about five years ago I decided to make my own cranberry sauce. They wouldn't sell bags of whole cranberries by the truckload if this was a difficult task. So I bought my first bag of cranberries and set out to make my own.

   Upon researching how to make cranberry "relish" I was shocked to see most recipes required on three ingredients: cranberries, rinsed and picked through for mushy ones or the occasional stem, water, and sugar. Of course some recipes got exotic, so I quickly dismissed those. A few recipes included orange, either grated peel, or strips of peel, and/or chopped up orange segments. That sounded interesting.

   So you wash and pick through your three cups of cranberries while you have one cup of water and one cup of sugar on the stove. the sugar-water concoction come up to a boil in a heavy bottomed saucepan. I quickly realized is a light syrup. Interesting. I grated the peel of half an orange, and cut slices from the other half, avoiding the pith (that bitter white stuff under the peel but before the flesh), like you do for marmalade. When the sugar-water comes to a boil, add the cranberries and the orange peel. Keep it up to a boil, stirring.

    Within minutes you will start hearing this popping sound. The cranberries are bursting, letting their pectin go, just stir and continue on for ten minutes, if you want a little tighter concoction just stir and boil until the stuff gets thick, however, it gels up pretty good without much help. Remove from the heat and pour into a glass bowl or container. Allow to fully cool to room temperature without covering. Then when it is room temperature, cover and refrigerate until you are ready to use it.

    Upon completing my first batch of whole berry cranberry sauce I looked at my husband and said, "I cannot believe we have bought this all these years and it is so easy to make." We have never bought it again. I usually buy a big 3-pound bag once a year. Take out what I need for Thanksgiving, and then seal the bag and toss it in the freezer. You can use these babies in muffins and scones without thawing them out, just add more sugar to your recipe because they are bitter in their natural state.
    So next time you want cranberry sauce, why not give it a try? I'd like to see some of your cranberry recipes if you want to share. I'm always looking for ideas.

Whole berry Cranberry relish

Beef on Weck November 7, 2011

    We've made it to November. I cannot understand when I was young I thought a year took FOREVER to go by; now, as an adult, time just flies by so fast, it almost seems impossible. Youth may be wasted on the young, but time? The older you get, the faster it goes.

   We never even covered all of the food celebrations for October, and now, since I have started taking classes again, I am not making any promises for covering all the celebrations for November, either.

   November starts out being Georgia Pecan Month; Good Nutrition Month; National Peanut Butter Lover's Month; National Pepper Month; Raisin Bread Month; and finally Vegan Month. Not as power-packed as October, but a nice variety, wouldn't you say?

   The first week is National Fig Week. The second week celebrates Split Pea Soup. There are no weekly celebrations for the third and fourth weeks, probably because we will be coming up to Thanksgiving, and with all the food we Americans traditionally prepare for this celebration of our blessings and family, what would the point be to use an entire week on just one food? Whomever designated these food celebrations was thinking!

    November 3rd was National Sandwich Day, and I posted that fact on Facebook, which started a conversation of favorite sandwiches. One of my friends, who shares wonderful recipes with me, posted that her favorite sandwich was Beef on Wick. I had to ask what Wick was, as I never heard of it. My friend replied with an internet link on the sandwich and the Kummelweck roll that makes this roast beef sandwich so special' it also is called beef on Weck.

    Kummelweck rolls are similar to Kaiser rolls, but are shaped differently and topped with a salt-caraway seed mixture. The sandwich is a traditional sandwich from Buffalo, NY. Apparently Buffalo is not just known for its wings. Who knew? Probably people from Buffalo.

   I ended up making the Kummelweck rolls from the recipe my friend sent. Although they seemed to look like the pictures I've seen, I, personally was not impressed. Next time I try to make them I am not going to make them only 2 ounce pieces of dough. I would have preferred if they were bigger, like twice as big as they came out. I do not know if I messed up, as I have never had them before. I will try them again, just making them larger.
      I had made a roast beef on Sunday for dinner, well, hubby made the beef, I made all the sides, but we had leftover roast beef, and it was delightfully rare. Hubby lubed up the commercial slicer we have in the kitchen (thank you, Grandma!) and sliced the beef extra thin. I even made homemade horseradish, which also needs some tweaking, but overall, it was not a bad attempt at beef on weck.

Here's a link to Beef on Weck recipe Beef on Weck

   If you ever get to try this, please let me know. 

Source:

Beef on Weck Sandwich Recipe  retrieved 1/26/2022 from https://whatscookingamerica.net/sandwich/beefonweck.htm

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