Tomato Spinach Bread

       Happy belated Thanksgiving! I hope you passed a wonderful, memorable, and filling day. I wanted to make this Thanksgiving special for myself by making something I have never attempted before. So as I was flipping through this year's issue of Taste of Home's "Best Holiday Recipes" and came across this bread, I decided that it would be my something special. I have made yeasty breads before, but  never a flavored one, besides cinnamon sugar. Plus, I had never attempted to make a swirly sort of loaf. Well, as you can see my "swirl" didn't quite make the cut (I didn't seal the edges well enough) but I think it still looks pretty. And it was delicious, which made any technical flaw irrelevant as far as I am concerned. Each of the sections of dough was remarkable individually, but when all three were combined in a single bite the flavor was marvelous. During dinner, we ate this bread alongside all of our other dishes, but this would make awesome sandwich bread slices as well. Or you could do what my aunt did with all of the leftovers--turn it into garlic bread the next day to serve with spaghetti! Awesome.

Tomato Spinach Bread

Recipe from Taste of Home

Makes two loaves

Ingredients

plain dough

•  1- 1/4 ounce package active dry yeast
•  1 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
•  4 teaspoons of butter, melted
•  1 teaspoon salt
• 2 3/4 to 3 cups bread flour

spinach dough

•  1/4 cup cold water
•  1- 10 ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (fresh would be better but I don't know how much you would need for this particular recipe)
•  1- 1/4 ounce package active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
• 4 teaspoons butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/4 to 3 1/2 cups bread flour

tomato dough

• 1- 1/4 ounce package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
• 4 teaspoons butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1- 6 ounce can tomato paste
• 3 1/4 to 3 3/4 cups bread flour

egg wash to brush on top of loaves before baking

• 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon cold water

Directions

Step 1

plain dough

--In a large bowl, pour in warm water. Sprinkle package of active dry yeast over water and let sit a couple minutes to activate.

--After the yeast looks a little foamy, combine butter, salt, and 2 cups of flour into the yeasty water. Combine until smooth.

--With the remaining flour, add a little bit at a time until the dough becomes firm and not extremely sticky.

--On a lightly floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic, then place in a greased bowl (I used olive oil to enhance flavor), cover, and refrigerate overnight.


spinach dough

--In a food processor, puree the cold water and spinach. (I don't have a food processor, so that is why you can still see chunks in my bread. I think it still looks cool, though.)

--In a large bowl, pour in warm water. Sprinkle package of active dry yeast over water and let sit a couple minutes to activate.

--After the yeast looks a little foamy, combine butter, salt, 2 cups of flour, and pureed spinach into the yeasty water. Combine until smooth.

--With the remaining flour, add a little bit at a time until the dough becomes firm and not extremely sticky.

--On a lightly floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic, then place in a greased bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight.


tomato dough

--In a large bowl, pour in warm water. Sprinkle package of active dry yeast over water and let sit a couple minutes to activate.

--After the yeast looks a little foamy, combine butter, salt, 2 cups of flour, and tomato paste into the yeasty water. Combine until smooth.

--With the remaining flour, add a little bit at a time until the dough becomes firm and not extremely sticky.

--On a lightly floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic, then place in a greased bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

Step 2

--The next morning (or approximately 8 hours later), punch down each dough, then divide each dough into two parts.

--For each dough on a lightly floured surface, roll into a 10-inch by 8-inch rectangle.

--Stack 3 rectangles of dough (of each flavor) on top of each other, the plain dough being between the two flavored doughs. I absentmindedly did plain, spinach, then tomato, but nobody seemed to care. ;) You should end up with two different stacks.

--Roll each three-tiered stack into 12-inch by 10-inch rectangles.

--Then, roll up each rectangle "jelly-roll" style starting with the long side.

--Tuck the edges under the loaf and pinch all of the seams tightly.

--On a baking sheet (greased or covered with parchment paper), Place the uncooked loaves seem-side down. I ended up using two baking sheets because I wanted to bake my loaves separately just in case my oven decided to act up again.

--Cover the loaves and let rise for 30 minutes, preferably in a warm location.

--Preheat your oven  to 350 degrees.

--Once the loaves have risen, beat together the egg white and cold water to make a quick egg wash, then brush the wash over each of the loaves.

--Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until golden brown.

--Remove to wire racks.

--Eat warm or cooled, whichever you prefer. Enjoy!

Happy Baking!

--H

Puppy Chow

       My father has taught me many things in life: good work ethic, compassion, dry humor, love. Some days, though, my favorite thing he instilled in me is his sweet tooth. Since I was young I have memories of him scraping the last bits of ice cream from a bowl, sometimes over exaggerating and scraping his spoon even when everything was gone, just to see if he would get a reaction from us kids. He even puts strawberry syrup on his cereal to give it that extra bit of sweetness. I don't go that far, that's too weird. My dad is also the one who ate all of my cookie mess-ups when I was just learning how to bake. He always tells me that there is no such thing as a bad cookie if it was homemade. Even if I don't agree with this statement (some of those first cookies got pretty crispy (with extra "flavor" (the burnt bottoms and edges))) the fact that he ate every single batch I ever made was extremely encouraging. I was always given a blue ribbon for my effort, in fact, I was given two.

       Though today I'm not sharing cookies, I am sharing something sugary and sweet, perfect for the sweet-tooth. Puppy Chow. Many people know this treat as "Muddy Buddies", but I grew up calling it Puppy Chow and refuse to call it anything else--I can be stubborn. I have made many batches over the years, and because of this I have found my favorite types of ingredients to use. First, I like to start with rice chex as opposed to corn chex. I prefer the lighter crunch and less pronounced flavor so the chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar can shine. The off-brand rice chex is acceptable to use, and is often what I choose to purchase. Next, I love using milk chocolate in my Puppy Chow. It is creamy and not overpowering, which is how I find semi-sweet chocolate to be. I have to use a certain type of milk chocolate though: Nestle. I even go so far as to check the expiration dates--the fresher the chocolate the better for the Puppy Chow.

       I used to think that it didn't matter what type of peanut butter I used as long as it was creamy, so I always bought the Our Family brand because it was the cheapest. Now I've come to realize the type of peanut butter does matter. I don't like using Skippy or Jiff, they are underwhelming and disappointing in Puppy Chow. Ironically, I prefer the Our Family. Lucky me, it's the least expensive around these parts. (As a side note, I have never tried using natural peanut butter but plan to in the future.) Finally, I discovered that the brand of powdered sugar matters as well in this recipe. I once bought some off-brand powdered sugar out of convenience, but it was no good in Puppy Chow. It wasn't even sweet and it left a waxy coating on my mouth after testing it, weird. Lesson learned.

       So, without further ado, here is the recipe; enjoy eating some crunchy, peanut butter/chocolate, sweet goodness. =)

Puppy Chow

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
• 1-11.5 ounce bag milk chocolate chips
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 bag powdered sugar (you might not use it all)
• 1 box rice chex

Directions:

--Empty cereal box into an extra large Tupperware bowl

--In a separate microwaveable bowl, place butter, chocolate chips, and peanut butter. Microwave for 1 minute, then stir.

--Continue to microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring after each stop. You want the chocolate to be nice and runny, but be careful to not let it seize (become stiff and overcooked).



--Once chocolate mixture is melted, pour half of it over the cereal. Carefully stir the cereal to get it coated in the chocolate, try not to break the pieces.

--Once first half seems sufficiently combined, pour the rest of the chocolate over the cereal. Continue to mix the cereal slowly until all the cereal pieces are completely covered in chocolate.

--After the cereal is thoroughly covered, sprinkle 3 cups of the powdered sugar over the chocolate-covered cereal. Put the lid on the bowl and shake gently until the powdered sugar is soaked up into the cereal pieces evenly. You can add more powdered sugar as desired.

--Be careful not to add all of the powdered sugar at one otherwise it will all disolve into the hot chocolate pieces. Instead, once you have about 4 or so cups in the cereal, wait until the chocolate cools mostly down to add the final sprinkling of powdered sugar. This gives the nice, powdery white look that the Puppy Chow has when finished.

Happy Baking!

--H

Big Apple Pancake

Mornings can't come soon enough for one reason. Breakfast is by far my favorite meal.  I could probably eat some type of breakfast fare at every meal and be perfectly satisfied.  As evident in a previous post, pancakes are a staple to our breakfasts and recently I discovered an amazing soufflé-like pancake, the dutch baby.   More like a custardy, strudel-y pancake cousin, this pancake surprises your eyes and your taste buds which I think are equally important to impress.  And a nice little bonus to this pancake is that you can prep the rest of your breakfast without trying to flip the pancakes at the same time as the bacon.  An effortlessly easy breakfast after a long and stressful week? Yes, please.  Because who really needs to finish out a laborious week with an equally laborious breakfast? Not this chick.  I believe there should be more recipies like this: Gather ingredients. Dump 98% of them in the blender.  Turn on the blender.  Pour contents of blender into a cast iron skillet.  Put the skillet in the oven…wait…take out of oven…enjoy! I mean who can’t cook like this?!

There are few things I look forward to more than weekend breakfasts and the discovery of this pancake has succeeded to make me wish everyday started with “S”.

Adapted from my Epicurious App:

Big Apple Pancake

INGREDIENTS:

½ stick unsalted butter

1 large sweet apple (Gala, Golden Delicious, Fuji) peeled, cored, and cut into ¼ inch wedges

½ c whole milk (it’s better for you people, the other stuff is just white water)

½ c all-purpose flour (whole wheat works here too)

4 large eggs (preferably organic, free range)

3 T. granulated sugar

½ t. vanilla

¼ t. salt

½ t. cinnamon

Powdered sugar for dusting

SPECIAL GEAR: 10 in well seasoned cast iron skillet or other oven proof skillet

PREPARATION:

Make sure your oven rack is in the middle of your oven and preheat it to 450 degrees

Melt the butter in the skillet over medium heat and transfer 2 tablespoons to the blender.  Add the apple wedges and cinnamon to the remaining butter in the skillet and sauté until they begin to soften, about 3 to 5 minutes.

While the apple is cooking, add milk, flour, eggs, granulated sugar, vanilla, and salt to butter in the blender and whip it up until smooth.  (I ran mine about a minute the second time I made this to really get some air in it which I must say really helped the puffiness).

Then pour the batter over the apples cooking up in the skillet and stick the whole thing in the oven.  Bake until pancake is puffed and golden, about 15 minutes. 

Take out of the oven. Dust with powdered sugar.  Scoop out a wedge and enjoy!

I’ve made this a few times now and each time I cannot believe it took me this many years in the kitchen to discover such a breakfast treat.  You can bake it without the apples and slather them on top once the pancake comes out of the oven. You can eat it plain with maple syrup and butter.  You can make compote of whatever fruit you have and pile it on top of the puffed perfection.  Just like regular pancakes, this little ‘baby’ has limitless possibilities.


Homemade is better!
--L