Honey Wheat Quick Bread

This recipe is from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and it's amazing.  Do you own it yet?  You should.  It's excellent.  This recipe is from 689, and will be the last recipe I post from this book.  Because you should own it.  And yes, I also own the Joy of Cooking and The New Best Recipe Cookbook and I thought owning a third encyclopedia book would be overkill, but this one is different and it's amazing.
Ingredients:
Oil or butter for greasing the pan
1 2/3 cups buttermilk/yogurt (or 1 1/2 cups milk plus 2 tablespoons white vinegar)
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup molasses (I used honey for a lighter flavor)

Procedure:
1.  Preheat the oven to 325 and grease a loaf pan.
2.  Sour the milk - and this tip is why you MUST buy this book.  It's genius.  Heat the milk in the microwave for 45 seconds or so, and then pour in the vinegar.  Let it settle.  It sours so much better than when you just pour in the vinegar.  Let it sit while you assemble the dry ingredients.
3.  Mix together the dry ingredients and add molasses (or honey) to the sour milk.  Combine ingredients until just moistened.
4.  Pour mixture into loaf pan.  Put it in the oven.  Bake for 45-60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Verdict: This bread is delicious.  It's a whole wheat bread that doesn't taste too wheat-y, and the honey gives it a great flavor.  I bought a 2lb jar of Wildflower Honey at the farmer's market this morning and it's amazing.  We've been going through honey so fast that we're hoping the 2lb jar lasts us awhile.

Six Months

Six months ago, Mr. Barefoot and I did this:

But we also did something else.  We stopped buying bread.  We have not purchased a loaf of bread off the shelf in the store since October, probably the week before the wedding when I frantically stocked the fridge so that we would have food for guests and ourselves.  

Our companions for this journey have been Darth Mixer and The New Best Recipe Cookbook.  Every week or two, I whip up another loaf of delicious homemade bread.  We're still eating mostly white bread, and I would like to make the changeover to wheat, but we haven't yet.  

There are pros and cons to making your own homemade bread:

Pros:

1. Homemade bread is so delicious, you can have it as a snack.

2. No weird preservatives.

3. Homemade bread doesn't make the best sandwiches, so it lasts longer.  

4. No sugar, since the recipe uses honey.  

5. Locally made :).  

6. Cheap.

Cons:

1. Homemade bread is so delicious, you can have it as a snack.

2. It doesn't make great sandwiches (except grilled cheese)

3. Still using all-purpose flour, which has weird preservatives.

4. If you make too much of it, you gain weight and go through flour really fast.  

5. It can be a pain to make, let rise, and cook.  

Flax Seed Bread (in the food processor!)

I bought flax seeds last week.  Because I read in a magazine that they are good for you and will help you lose weight.  Plus my old roommate likes flax and speaks highly of it.  The health benefits seem high, and although I'm currently 25 and don't have to worry about high blood pressure, cholesterol, or prostate cancer (probably never have to worry about that), I firmly believe that I should eat weird tasting food now, so that I don't develop those health problems as I get older, and more importantly, so I'm not adverse to eating healthy foods when I do develop health problems.  So I'm trying to eat more whole grains, and in case you haven't noticed, I've been making, and eating, a lot of white bread lately.  (Another advantage to making whole wheat bread is that it's not quite as delicious.)

I made it in the food processor - a single loaf fit just fine in my 6-cup food processor, and The New Best Recipe cookbook recommended kneading bread in the food processor rather than in Darth Mixer.  It worked pretty well for this recipe - we'll see whether I stick with it.  The food processor is lighter, but harder to clean and more likely to take off one or more of my fingers.

Flax Seed Bread
1 3/4 cups warm water
1 tbsp dry yeast
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp dry milk powder
2 tbsp oil
4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cups flax seeds

Recipe:
1.  Combine yeast and warm water and let yeast dissolve.
2.  Add honey, salt, milk powder, and oil.
3.  Combine 2 cups flour and water mixture in food processor, process (our food processor only has two "on" settings - pulse and go)
4.  Stop food processor, remove lid, add remaining flour and flax seeds.  Mix some more, until you have a dough.
5.  Put dough in a pan.  Let rise until doubled, approximately 1 hour.
6.  Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

This is a pretty good whole grain bread, unlike my last foray into making wheat bread, which did not rise at all and can be at most generous, termed a disaster.  This turned out like well, bread.

More bread? More bread!

I made bread from scratch today.  Like, made up my own recipe.  I based it off the Simple Dollar bread recipe, but swapped out a few quantities and ingredients.  I was pleased that a bread with milk in it finally didn't taste..off.  I made two loaves of wonderfully chewy sandwich bread.  I cooked them a smidgen too long, but just shy of burning them, so they are still edible.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp yeast
2 tbsp honey (or more. just pour a generous amount in)
2 cups water
several pinches salt
olive oil (around 3ish tablespoons, just pour)
1/2 cup milk (I used skim. Anything that tells you to use whole milk in baking is usually wrong. Skim is fine.)
a lot of flour (I think it will come out to around 6 cups)

Procedure:
Pour water, yeast, honey together.  Wait until bubbly.  Add milk, salt, oil and mix.  Add in flour by the cup until you have an actual dough and it is somewhat handleable (but still very sticky).
Put in an oiled bowl, let rise for an hour. Divide, put in two loaf pans.
Let rise for another hour. Preheat oven to 400.  Cook for 30 minutes.

Cornbread

Tonight I made cornbread and chili for Mr. Barefoot while I went to a job thing.  I made the Pioneer Woman's Skillet Cornbread.

It came out just fine, if you like your cornbread dry and tasteless.  I like sweeter, moister cornbread, so I will continue hunting for a recipe that mimics the #10 cornbread I had in the Caymans.  

Do you have a good cornbread recipe? Is it moist and delicious? Please share.  

Try.

Awhile ago, I realized I wanted to marry Mr. Barefoot.  Cuz I love him and think he's really cute and all that.

Now that we are married, I find myself struggling with the gravity of it all and what it means to be married.  Over the weekend, while "we" were cooking - by which I mean I was cooking and he was breathing down my neck and nagging me and taking up space in the kitchen, I realized something.  We will have this fight that we have semi-regularly, and we will be angry - but we will not leave.  We're both going to stay.  I'm not going to get a divorce over something as silly as how I stack the dish drainer.

So we're in it.  So then I realized that means I might as well try.  Since I'm not going anywhere, and neither is he, I might as well try to empty the draining rack and put things away before doing the next load of dishes.  (Yes, I usually just load wet dishes on top of dry dishes until something falls out and I admit defeat; or until he puts the dishes away.)  I might as well try to clean as I cook, rather than making a big giant mess.  I might as well try to use fewer pots and utensils as I cook.  I might as well try to make sure the kitchen doesn't look like a war zone when he comes home from work.  (And while we're on it, I might as well try to get a job because I suck at being a housewife.)

I promised more pictures and recipes, while I wax philosophic about marriage, so here is a recipe for homemade croutons (made with homemade bread).

You will need a loaf or so of bread, about a quarter cup of olive oil, some garlic powder, salt, italian seasonings, and an oven at 400 degrees.  

Cut the bread into cubes.  Put them in a bowl.  Mix the olive oil, garlic powder, salt, and seasonings together. Pour over cubes, then stir cubes until they are mostly well coated.  Spread on a pan (coat with foil if you really want to avoid cleanup), and then bake for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees.  

Delicious and cheap, and an excellent use of a loaf of bread that I wasn't a huge fan of.  We probably won't buy croutons again.  

White Bread

Since I wanted to start things slow with Darth, I opted to start with a super-easy bread recipe.  Unfortunately, it's so good that I don't have any incentive to try anything more challenging. It makes two loaves and I froze one.  We finished the other one off in a few days.  Mr. Barefoot wants to try making it in the crockpot during the day so we come home to fresh baked bread.  Any tips? Anyone know where I can get a rack for my crockpot?
I did also use Darth to mix up some of my famous foccacia bread - I've been making this recipe for years and it's a real crowd pleaser.  It's so nice to not have to knead the bread myself - it means that I can make bread on a whim without getting all flour-y. 
When I made the foccacia bread, instead of using the Italian seasonings, I used Old Bay, garlic powder, and minced onion (I need to get powdered, but I don't have it yet).  I topped it with cheddar cheese.  Next time, more Old Bay, but otherwise it was pretty good. 

Banana Bread Muffins

We had a few overripe bananas lying around, so they went into banana bread.  I like to use this recipe from The Simple Dollar, but today we were out of butter, so I substituted 1/2 cup applesauce for the butter.  

Our loaf pan was currently in use, so I poured everything into muffin tins.  It made 12 very full muffin tins, and cooked for about 45 minutes.  

I put most of the muffins in ziploc bags in the freezer, so they can just be grabbed and microwaved, and we don't feel the need to eat them all this week before they go bad.  

Mr. Barefoot's Guest Post #2

This Slate piece on homemade vs storebought crossed my screen last week; many of the items considered turned out not to be worth the time, but the bagels got rave reviews, so I decided it would be a good weekend project (something I've been short of lately, other than wedding planning). The recipe is pretty involved, so I won't reproduce it here - just follow the link and try them yourself.

Baking isn't really my thing, so it probably wasn't a smart move to kick Ellie out of the kitchen for offering too much advice - especially before she'd gotten around to defining a "light coat" of flour on a work surface...(hint: It's not light. If you can see any part of the work surface, you're not done. Bagel dough is sticky, sticky stuff. I may start using it as a construction adhesive.) (hint #2: dough allegedly sticks less to plastic cutting boards than wood. Ideally I would have used the counter - it wound up covered in flour anyway so it's not like I got out of cleaning it - but I didn't feel like dealing with any remnants of the various toxic - er, all-natural - cleaning products it's most likely coated in.

Despite all those challenges, the bagels turned out pretty darn well. They were amazing straight out of the oven, and at least as good as generic store-bought the next morning. I wouldn't expect them to last too well, but I didn't have the chance to test that. I topped a handful with various spices that were within easy reach - minced onion flakes, cinnamon sugar, mixed-up pepper, and cumin seed, but the dough was tasty enough to stand on its own. In the future I would probably experiment with including cheese (chunks, so you get the big pockets in the dough lined with thick melted cheese) or caraway seeds, but always leaving at least half plain. Next time I'll also make a smaller batch, because this is too much bread to eat in a single weekend.

Cornbread Verdict

The cornbread was good - especially with chili, because the chili was moist enough that the cornbread soaked it up like a sponge - I'm still on the quest for the perfect moist cornbread, and have yet to find it. I've tried adding applesauce, extra water, extra eggs, extra milk, rum, none of these are the answer. I think the answer might just lie in like, a full stick of butter. Any tips???

Cornbread

I tried this cornbread. Verdict later.

Ingredients:

• 3.5/4 cups stone ground cornmeal
• .5(3/4) cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 cups milk (I used milk powder because somebody used up all the milk)
  
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 to 2 teaspoons vegetable oil for the pan or skillet

Preparation:

Heat oven to 425°. Put a sturdy 8- or 9-inch iron skillet or square baking pan in the oven.

In a medium bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, salt, and baking powder. Whisk to combine.

In a large glass measuring cup or a bowl, whisk the 1 1/2 cups of milk with the egg and melted butter. Stir into the dry mixture until blended.

Carefully remove the hot pan from the oven and swirl a teaspoon or two of vegetable oil around in it until the bottom is coated. Spread the batter in the pan and bake the cornbread for 22 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned.

I used my Le Cruset Stoneware Baker. It's such a good size for 2 - person dishes.

Pretzels

I tried making pretzels for the first time in awhile last night. They came out pretty good, except that they used a lot of flour (5 cups!) and not enough anything else. I followed this recipe, and was pretty pleased except that the high flour content made them tricky.
The recipe I will be following next time is the Joy of Cooking Recipe, even though it calls for bread flour, which I don't buy because I usually have two kinds of flour already. You can find substitutions, or maybe you buy bread flour.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup warm water
1 package active dry yeast (if you buy 2lb bags of yeast at costco, about 1 tbsp is enough)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup warm water
Procedure:
1. Start by mixing the 1/2 cup water and yeast. Let stand 5 minutes.
2. Add flours, butter, sugar, and salt.
3. Mix by hand or on low speed while slowly pouring in 1/2 cup warm water.
4. Knead for 10 minutes by hand or with dough hook on low speed until smooth and elastic.
5. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and turn it once to coat with oil.
6. Let rise for an hour to an hour and a half. Then punch down dough and divide into twelve equally sized balls. Let rest for 10 minutes.
7. Grease 2 baking pans.
8. Roll dough into an 18 inch long rope and shape into a pretzel.
9. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Boil 8 cups of water and 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon baking soda.
10. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer - using a slotted spoon, gently slide several pretzels at a time into the water. Simmer for 30 seconds, then flip them over and continue to simmer until puffed, about 30 seconds longer. Return to baking sheets and sprinkle with coarse salt.
11. Bake until deep golden brown, until 15 minutes.

Amish Friendship Bread

Amish Friendship Bread is delicious. It is also the worst chain letter ever. You are supposed to give a ziploc bag of starter to somebody else. I'm not sure how to make starter. Once you get the starter, you will eventually create four cups of starter - three to give away. The problem is if you don't have three friends, or when you show up at a friend's house with a bag of goo and they look at you. So if you are in that situation, keep reading.
So once you get the starter from somebody, you follow the steps below.
Day 1 -6/9 - Do nothing
Day 2 - 6/10- Mush the bag
Day 3 - 6/11- Mush the bag
Day 4 - 6/12 - Mush the bag
Day 5 - 6/13 - Mush the bag
Day 6 - 6/14 - Add 1 cup each flour, sugar, milk. Mush the bag
Day 7 - 6/15 - Mush the bag
Day 8 - 6/16 - Mush the bag
Day 9 - 6/17 - Mush the bag
Day 10 - 6/18 - Follow directions below

Pour the entire contents into a non-metallic bowl.
Add 1.5 cups each flour, sugar, milk.
Measure out 4 separate batters of 1 cup each into 4 one-gallon ziplock bags

For the remaining batter:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Add:
3 eggs
1 cup oil
.5 cup milk
1 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamom
.5 tsp vanilla
1.5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
.5 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1 5.1oz box of instant vanilla pudding

Grease a pan. Mix .5cup sugar and 1.5 tsp cinnamon. Dust pan with half the mixture. Pour the batter into the pan and dust with remaining mixture.
Bake 1 hour, cool 10 minutes.

What to do with the extra batter:
If you have four ziploc bags of batter, follow the steps again. If you know you won't give them away, put two cups in each bag and only use two bags.
Then - use the two sets of starter and follow the remaining directions, without adding the 1.5 cups of flour, sugar, and milk.

I also tried substituting the oil with applesauce and used sugar/fat free pudding. It came out tasting more like applesauce cake, and might be great with a little nutmeg and allspice.