Well I Finally Made Them!

 

I had been putting it off, I don’t know why. I researched and found a good recipe . I read all of the comments on it and took all of that into consideration, then procrastinated about making them. The task seemed daunting ,I don’t know why. But I finally made the English Muffins Steve had been craving.

They are good, they are tasty, they are time consuming. I’m glad I have had this experience.  I might make them again….or not.

 

 

English Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup Buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1/4 cup melted shortening
• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

1. Warm the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Mix in 1/2 of the sugar, stirring until dissolved. Let cool until lukewarm. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast,baking soda and the other 1/2 sugar  in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine the milk, yeast mixture, shortening and 3 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Add salt and rest of flour, or enough to make a soft dough. Knead. Place in greased bowl, cover, and let rise.
3. Punch down. Roll out to about 1/2 inch thick.
4. 
5. Cut rounds with biscuit cutter, drinking glass, or empty tuna can . Put some cornmeal on a plate and gently rub muffin on each side in cornmeal. Cover and let rise 1/2 hour.
6. Heat greased griddle.
7. 
8. Cook muffins on griddle about 10 minutes on each side on medium heat.
9. 
10. Keep baked muffins in a warm oven until all have been cooked. Allow to cool and place in plastic bags for storage. To use, split with a  fork and toast. Don’t cut with a knife, it will mess up the nooks and crannies.
11. Great with orange butter, or cream cheese and jam.
12. 
13. They were really good toasted and buttered! Crispy and crunchy!
14. 

My notes on this recipe….

I grilled them on each side until I had them the desired color and then put them in a 350* oven for 8 minutes each side. I read several comment on this and most people said that this worked better than doing them on the griddle the whole time, so that you did not have to monitor them the whole time. They don’t have a lot of nooks and crannies, but they had some.  I don’t think I rolled the dough out quite thin enough,so they were a little thick, heavy. If I had rolled them out more I think they would have had a better texture.

 

Well until next time…. I’m thinking about Pita Bread…..

we’ll  see!

I Found It!

 

 

Last year I found a fabulous noodle recipe, and then I lost it! Don’t you just hate that!!! Those noodles were tender, flavorful and easy to make. I found another recipe not long ago and I made some chicken noodle soup with them , well suffice it to say they were not good. They were rubbery,somewhat tuff and they ruined my soup!! So I started out on a quest to find the perfect noodle recipe. I have done the hard work for you, so here it is.

 

 

The Perfect Noodle

 

2 eggs

3 Tbsp butter melted and cooled

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 cup  flour

1 tsp salt

(You could add pepper or herbs)

 

In bowl, mix eggs,butter,whisking well, add all other ingredients and stir together until soft dough forms.

Dust counter with flour and gently knead until smooth (DO NOT over work dough)

Divide dough ball into 3rds and cover the dough you are not working with a damp towel.

Roll one ball of dough out to 1/8 thickness

Then slice noodles into thin strips,

What is that cool tool? It is a herb cutter, but I do not use it for that. The blades are spaced just perfect for noodles and pasta! Separate the noodles and put them on a cookies sheet and let them set and dry out some . Repeat with remaining dough.

You can make these in advance and dry them or you could freeze them to have on hand.

When ready to use put big pot of water on to boil and put noodles in,stir gently to separate but don’t break them up.

It does not take but maybe 5 minutes for them to cook, check to see if they are tender. Drain in strainer.

So simple so easy!  The possibility of these are endless,add a bit of butter and sprinkle with herbs  and eat as is or  put in soup….You can’t go wrong!

I made chuck steak and cooked in the slow cooker and served over the noodles like stroganoff! Yummy!

Here is the recipe for Steak:

 

Chuck Steak and Mushroom Gravy

 

4 pieces of chuck steak

2 cloves garlic (chopped)

1 to 2 cups sliced mushrooms (how much do you like mushrooms?)

1/4 cup flour

2 Tbsp olive oil

salt ,pepper

1 can Beefy mushroom soup

1/2 can of water

1/4 C  Sour Cream (optional)

In large skillet put olive oil and heat over medium heat.

Salt and pepper steak on both sides and dredge in flour on both sides. Place steak in skillet and brown on both sides.

Put meat in slow cooker

And sauté mushrooms and garlic  in same skillet as you browed the  meat adding more oil if needed.

Place  mushrooms on top of meat and pour soup over   top of meat. Using the soup can,fill about 1/2 full and deglaze pan getting all the bits and pieces and pour over everything. Cover and cook for 4 hours on low. When done with fork break up meat into pieces. If desired at this point you may stir in Sour Cream. I did not, but it would have been heavenly. We are trying to cut back on the fat a bit so I left it out.

 

 

I made scones for breakfast this morning,I love scones.  Like the noodles, I went on a quest for the The Best scone recipe. I had a raspberry scone at Starbucks one day and thought, man I need to learn how to make these! What I learned was that all scone recipes are not equal! It is hard work  but some one had to do it. So after much flour and many trials and ten pounds…. This is the Best scone recipe, I can say that because it is the name of the recipe!

So here my friends is the fruits of my labor… I do it for you!

 

The Best Scones

 

2 1/4 C flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp sugar (plus extra for sprinkling on top)

1 Tbsp orange peel or lemon

1/2 Real butter cold (cut up small)

1 C fruit ( Blue berries,strawberries,raspberries,raisins,cranberries* see note)

1 C plain yogurt

1 Tbsp milk

In food processor place first 7 ingredients ,(*You will notice in this picture I put my dried cranberries in with the flour ,I did this because I find that the cranberries are a bit big when not chopped up some so ,I let the food processor do the work for me.) Pluse until it has a crumbled texture. Put in yogurt (This morning I used Vanilla yogurt because I accidentally picked it up rather than plain. I added a bit more vanilla to the mix and yum!  ) You will want to be very careful at this point not to over work your dough so on pulse ,do it just until dough comes together.

It will be a little sticky .

Flour your surface,

turn out dough,if you want to add fruit do it now . Just kind of pat dough out and put fruit on top and fold over a couple of times to incorporate it in, Then roll out to a disk,

about 1/2 inch thick,cut into triangles And place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Preheat your oven to 425*

Brush with milk ( I have used orange juice ) and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. These are so light and fluffy but delicately crunchy on top. A perfect complement to a cup of coffee or a cup of tea.

I only baked half of the recipe, I flash froze the other 6 and put in Zip lock bag.   You can defrost and bake as directed . These are great to have in the freezer for snacks or when you find yourself with unexpected company.  I love These combinations,Blueberry and lemon,Orange and Cranberry topped with cinnamon and sugar, Raspberry and lemon. The possibilities are endless! Tell me your favorite combinations!

 

And finally my Sarah~Noelle Came today! You don’t know what that is? Well check out  my friend Joni Horn’s website out to find out!   Sarah~Noelle

The best  all natural skin care products!

Well until next time…. Maybe Steve will get lucky and I’ll tackle those English Muffins he asked for??

Cinnamon ,Apples and Raisins

 

 

It has snowed again and I have been so bored! So what to do but go in the kitchen and cook!

 

 

 

Boy, have I made some messes in the kitchen! You can see Steve is shocked at the mess,but no worries….

see it cleans up pretty good!  Well, lets see what went on to make all that mess!

 

What is better than fresh homemade bread for breakfast? Well I think it would be fresh Cinnamon  Raisin Bread! Oh my it was heavenly, and it was not even breakfast time when I stole ,I mean tasted  a piece for quality control.

 

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

 

Makes one large loaf, It could be divided into 2 smaller loaves.

 

3/4 cup very warm water

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 Tblsp sugar

3 1/2  cup flour (I used 1/2 regular flour and 1/2 bread flour)

 

Mix the first 4 ingredients  in stand mixer bowl and let sit for 5 minutes.

Then with dough hook mix in flour. Mix in the mixer just till dough starts to clean the sides of bowl.

Dust counter with flour and knead dough for about 5 minutes ,until smooth and elastic.

Put in butter large bowl and cover and let rise for 2 hours.

Now for the filling,

1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 Cup raisins (optional)

 

After dough rises punch down and dust counter with flour and roll dough out into rectangle

Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar,

Add raisins if desired.

Roll up short ways ,and place seam side down in buttered bread pan.

Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Pre heat oven to 350* and bake for 30 minute or until browned on top and hollow sounding when thumped on the bottom.

Ooh, how pretty!  It rose so nice. Lets slice into it! WAIT!!

After it cools of course ,Surely you can wait 15 minutes!

As you can see, I did not roll mine short ways, I should have ! You will have more swirls of wonderful cinnamon if you do.

I must say the taste did not suffer though!

 

 

I had a leftover piece of pie pastry,what to do? When the children were little I would take the pastry that I cut off from the pie and roll it out and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and bake for about 10 minutes and they would eat it like cookies. But the children have grown up and left home so… lets take the leftover pastry and make a grown-up desert, lets make a Gallette.

 

Apple & Orange Cranberry Gallette

 

This is really more of a technique than a recipe. You and substitute any fruit and flavor component. Nuts would be a nice addition I would think.

2 finely chopped apples (peel optional)

1/4 cup dried cranberries

about 1’4 cup orange marmalade

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar(taste your apples to see how sweet they are)

1/4 cup flour

1 Tblsp butter

dash salt

1 egg for egg wash

Roll pastry out on flour dusted counter.

Place on parchment covered cookie sheet. On a side note, parchment paper is wonderful! Please get some and use it, it will make your life so much easier. Not necessarily better but it makes clean up a breeze. Cookies don’t stick. If you don’t have a bread baking peel, you can use parchment paper dusted with corn meal , place your bread dough to rise on it and then slide onto baking stone .It will not stick to bottom of your bread. Okay back to the Gallette…

In large bowl mix apples, cranberries ,cinnamon ,salt ,sugar(to taste) and marmalade and flour, Mix well. Spread out on crust.

Then fold crust up around fruit.

Dot with butter,

Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon& sugar.

Bake @ 350* for 30 to 35 minutes or until fruit is bubbly.

Let cool and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I did not have any vanilla ice cream and it was still really, really good. Like I wanted to eat another piece, I didn’t ,but I really wanted too! Enjoy!

 

Well until we meet again, we are supposed to have more snow on Tuesday into Wednesday and flurries on Thursday. Joy !

I will see what I can think of to whip up for the next batch of weather! Any suggestions?  Steve would like to see if I could fix English Muffins…..We’ll see!