Multigrain Bread #2

 

Ingredients

1 ¾ cups warm water, about 105F

2 ¼ teaspoons yeast

2 tablespoons honey

½ cup rolled oats

¼ cup sunflower seeds

2 Tablespoons flax seeds

2 Tablespoons pine nuts

1 ½ teaspoons salt

2 cups bread flour

¼ cup rye flour

¾ cup whole wheat flour

 

Instructions

 

1. Whisk the warm water, yeast, and honey together in a large bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer. Let it sit for 2 minutes.
2. Add the rolled oats, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, and pine nuts. Stir together well and allow to sit for 3-5 minutes, until the grains and seeds soften and absorb some of the water.
3. Add the salt and give it a quick mix to help dissolve and distribute the salt. Then, add the  bread flour, rye flour, and  whole wheat flour and mix together very well 
4. Cover the bowl damp towel. Let the dough rise for 1 ½ – 2 hours in warm place until at least doubled in size.
5. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F when you are almost ready to bake.  Place a Dutch oven and cover into the oven while it preheats, getting the pot nice and hot.
6. Lay out a sheet of parchment paper and sprinkle with a little flour.  Scrape the dough onto the floured parchment and sprinkle with a little more flour.  Shape the dough into shape.   Brush the top of the dough with some olive oil and sprinkle some of the seeds used in the bread on top of the bread. 
7. Pick up the parchment paper by the edges and place the bread and parchment paper inside the Dutch Oven.  1-2 ice cubes to the pot in between the parchment paper and the pot, and cover with the lid
8. Bake for 40 minutes covered at 450 degrees F. Then, uncover and bake for 10-15 minutes more, until nice and brown on top.

 

2011 Spice Rack Challenge #1 - Rosemary

with only 3 days to get this posted I figure I better get a move on. My friend over at Mother's Kitchen just started this great new cooking blog challenge called The Spice Rack Challenge and for the first challenge she chose Rosemary.

After a visit to one of my favorite eateries (Marie Catrib's) I chose to make rosemary pita chips out of a naan recipe that I have been playing around with for the last month. I made the naan, rolled it out, covered it in herbs and fried it up into pita chips. they turned out nice, not like what we get at Marie's but good as their own entity.

Naan

1 packet yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons plain yogurt
1.5 cups flour
2 tablespoons dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried oregano
pepper
salt
oil for frying

In a measuring cup add 3/4 cup water yeast and sugar, stir to mix and let set for a few moments to bloom.

in a bowl add the flour and salt and mix together. then add in the water/yeast mixture, butter and yogurt. I use my kitchen aid to mix it all but you can knead it on the counter top until it is elastic, about 5 minutes.

place dough in an oiled bowl and let rise for about an hour.

mix the herbs and seasoning on a plate

punch the dough down and divide into small rounds (I divide into 8ths). Roll the rounds out into little disks and pat into the herbs and fry in a some oiled cast iron pan until crisp.

Squash Bread

This is just wonderful bread and it was my 6 year old's idea. One day we had some very ripe bananas and my 6 year old thought it would be a good idea to make banana bread with them. I got online and found a recipe that was simple and easy for a 6 year old to follow.

She did a good job, with a little coaching, and made a good batch of banana bread. As we were eating our fresh warm bread she looks up at me and said this would be so good made with pumpkin. What a great idea so we went to the kitchen the next day and steamed up some sweet potato (it was the closest thing I had to squash or pumpkin in the house that weekend). That sweet potato made some killer bread too.

Since that day, a few months back now, we have worked out our squash break recipe to be something that we find outstanding.

1 to 3 butternut squashes, enough to make 6 cups of puree.

cut the squash into chunks, with skin on, and steam until tender. let cool and the remove the skin from the meat and mush up the squash meat to use in bread.

• 6 cups squash or pumpkin puree (do not used canned stuff, I could tell you stories that would make you want to wash out your mouth with a toilet brush, yes that bad)


• 2/3rd cup butter, melted (I will try to replace half of this with apple butter next time)


• 2 cups brown sugar


• 2 teaspoons vanilla


• 2 eggs


• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon


• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg


• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger


• 1/8 teaspoon cardamom


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 2 teaspoons baking soda


• 3 cups flour.


• 1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350F

mix flour, spices,baking soda and nuts in a bowl and set aside.

mix the squash, butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla until well blended. pour in the flour mixture and mix until all the white flour is just combined. pour into 2 oiled (I use cooking spray) loaf pans and bake for 1 hour.

I stole this Banana Bread

I do not usually copy and past a recipe but I really liked this one and I do not want to forget it. I got it from Cookingbread.com

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Banana Bread Recipe: Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

• 1 large egg
• 1 cup banana (mashed)
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1/4 cup shortening (melted)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup raisins or pecans

• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method

In a bowl mix butter and sugars together. Add egg, molasses, shortening, buttermilk and bananas. In another bowl sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together. Add rolled oats. Slowly add dry ingredients to the banana mixture. Combine till moistened. Add raisins or pecans. Pour into a large greased bread pan. Bake in a preheated 350 F oven for 60 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 1/2 hour before removing from pan.

Changes I have made thus far. replaced the flour with whole wheat pastry flour and plan to replace some fat with apple sauce next time.

without the fat replacement these muffins are 5 "zucchinis" each

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 14
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 257.2

• Total Fat: 10.7 g
• Cholesterol: 24.6 mg
• Sodium: 214.3 mg
• Total Carbs: 40.7 g
• Dietary Fiber: 3.5 g
• Protein: 3.9 g

Homemade Challenge March 09 - Bread

I have followed Ben's Blog, What's Cooking, off and on for some time now and recently he started a Homemade Challenge where each month there is a theme of something that you can make yourself. Month one (February) was homemade cheese. Well I missed the cheese I did manage to get involved in in March Homemade Challenge of making Bread.

At first I wanted to make some flat bread to go with a dish that I wanted to try that my friend Warda posted over at 64 sq ft Kitchen called Tchicha bel Khoubiz and then a few days later Diana Dyer posted her version of Tchicha bel Khoubiz over at 365 days of kale. I had this dish for the first time at a Food blogger get together last summer and enjoyed it very much. Thank you Warda! Please visit Warda's blog for recipe.

I made this dish for lunch on a day that I was making pizza for dinner so I too some of the pizza dough and pressed it out flat and cooked it on my cast iron pan. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of it before it was gone making it hard to post it for Ben's challenge so a few days later I decided to make homemade flour tortillas and those I managed to get a photo of...

the tortillas are easy, here it is

1 cup flour
2/3 cup water
2 tablespoons oil
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
salt

mix dough, knead for 10 minutes. Let rest for 20 minutes. Divide into 6 equal balls. Roll out paper thin. Cook on hot pan for 30 seconds a side. Done!

Thank you Jason for this Ciabatta

This bread is in no way mine, the only credit I can take is that I enjoy it very much. I found the recipe here and I have made it many times.

500g A/P flour

475g (~2 cups) water

2 tsp. yeast

15g salt

In Kitchen Aid style mixer with hook: Mix all ingredients roughly till combined, let it rest for 10 minutes.
Beat the living hell out of the batter, it will start out like pancake batter but in anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes it will set up and work like a very sticky dough. You'll know it's done when it separates from the side of the bowl and starts to climb up your hook and just coming off the bottom of the bowl. literally climbing!

Place into a well oiled container and let it triple! it must triple! For me this takes about 2.5 hours
Empty on to a floured counter (scrape if you must, however you gotta get the gloop out), cut into 3 or 4 peices. Spray with oil and dust with lots o' flour. Let them proof for about 45 minutes, which gives you enough time to crank that oven up to 500F.
After 45 minutes or so the loaves should be puffy and wobbly, now it's iron fist, velvet glove time. Pick up and stretch into your final ciabatta shape (~10" oblong rectangle) and flip them upside down (this redistributes the bubbles, so you get even bubbles throughout), and onto parchment or a heavily floured peel. Try to do it in one motion and be gentle, it might look like you've ruined them completely, but the oven spring is immense on these things.
Bake at 500F until they are 205F in the cnter (about 15-20 minutes), rotating 180 degrees half way through. Some people like to turn the oven down to 450F after 10 minutes, but whatever floats your boat. I usually bake in 2 batches.

Daring Baker November 2007 - #3

~~~~~~Potato Bread~~~~~~

I am sorry to say that I do not have much to say about this Daring Baker Challenge. The Kids did not feel like making bread so I did it all alone while writing a paper comparing the Dhammapada to the Book of Job. The bread tasted good; however, the temp of 450 F was a little too high and it got too dark on the outside for me. We all eat so much of the bread when it came out of the oven that the whole family was in a bread coma for several hours and the 3 day old leftovers turned into GREAT french toast. Thank you Tanna (Tana is my aunts name) for giving a new challenge with bread.

Swedish Rye Bread

This is a bread my mother used to make when I was a child. I remember fondly the wonderful smells that this bread produces and the Melody of flavors this bread brought to the table.
I have not had this old fashion bread since my mother passed away almost 15 years ago and I thought that the recipe had been lost back then; however, my sister recently surprised me with the very recipe card that had been my Greatgrandmothers and the very one that my mother would use to make this bread.

1 Pint Milk (2 cups)
1 cup Shortening
3 T Dark Molasses
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 t. salt
2 packages active dry yeast
1 1/2 T. orange zest
1 t. anise seed
1 1/2 cup rye flour
3 cups all purpose flour, approximate

Scald milk, add shortening, molasses, honey, brown sugar and salt. Stir to dissolve sugar and melt shortening. Let cool. Add yeast, orange zest and anise seeds. Stir in rye flour . Let rise 1/2 hour. Then add enough white flour to make a stiff dough. Turn onto lightly foured surface and knead until smooth and elastic.

Put into a greased bowl and turn once to gease top of dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour of double in size. Punch down and turn onto lightly floured surface. Divide in half, knead each half, place into 2 greased bread tins.

I have to say that I am not very excited about the fact that this bread takes a whole cup of shortening; however, I plan to play with it and maybe replace the shortening with olive oil, I know that olive oil is not very Swedish, but is shortening.

Making this bread also gave me a chance to start to teach the kids how to knead bread. We all had a blast squishing the dough down and pulling it up again; however, the kids got tired very fast.

Banana Bread

1 ½ cups all Purpose flour
2 t. baking powder
½ t. baking soda
¼ t. salt
1/3 cup wheat germ
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup flax seed
½ t. cinnamon
¼ t. ground cardamom
2 large eggs, beaten
¼ cup buttermilk
¼ cup oil
1 cup mashed, very ripe bananas
½ cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter an 8 ½ x 4½ x 3 inch loaf pan.

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.

In a large bowl combine eggs, buttermilk, and oil; stir well. Stir in mashed banana. Add Flour mixture, and walnuts; stirring just until moist.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 45-55 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes and remove from pan.

Approximate Nutrition Fact: per slice (16 per loaf) Cal. 155, Fat 8, Carbs 19, Fiber 3, protein 4,

Blackberry Bread Pudding

3 cups stale bread, cut into cubes
2 cups milk, scalded with 1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 cup blackberries

microwave for 10 minutes
The kids picking ripe blackberries at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Cornbread

I love this cornbread recipe. I started with a recipe from a 1987 Southern Living cookbook now it is a whole new bird. I mean bread. 

 1 cup Whole wheat pastry flour 

4 Teaspoons baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

1 cup corn meal 

1/3 cup sugar 

2 eggs, beaten 

1 cup milk

 1/3 olive oil

 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil 

 Preheat oven to 400 with a 12 inch cast iron pan in the oven. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, cornmeal, and sugar in a large bowl. Combine eggs, milk, and 1/3 cup oil in a small bowl; add to dry ingredients. Stir until dry ingredients are moistened. Add 2 T. oil to hot cast iron pan and then spoon in the cornbread batter. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. If using a smaller cast iron pan cook time will be longer, but it will work fine.

Heating the pan first gives a nice dark crusty bottom to the cornbread that I just love. Everyone that I have ever served this to loved it also.