bread | Slim Shoppin'

Aug 20, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Aug 20, 2011 in a day in the life of me!, bread, chicken, Dinner Idea, general ideas | 5 comments

Wet and stormy Saturday

As I type this, its totally pouring outside right now. Last night the weatherman said it would rain, but only a little bit and late afternoon. The rain started around 10:30 and over an hour has gone by and its still pouring

It always bums me out when the weather is bad on the weekend, because I think of the gorgeous days during the week, when I am stuck inside at work, and then when you get a day or 2 off and the weather sucks – that is no fun.

PLUS, it’s the air and water show in Chicago this weekend! I don’t know if it will go on today or what?

And, my local farmers market was hosting a corn roast today too, but I didn’t want to go out and stand in the rain to do that.

So, I may have to get busy in my kitchen

Over the last week, I’ve helped my two sons completely over haul and deep clean their rooms in preparation for the school year starting next week. Have you ever cleaned teenage boys rooms? Its gross. My older sons way of cleaning his room is shoving as much stuff under his bed and in his closet.

So now my daughter asked if we could do the same thing to her room this weekend! I do enjoy purging stuff and becoming more minimalistic. I occasionally read a quirky and cute site called Fly Lady who has great tips on being organized.

Andrea has some great back to school tips. And Robin Sue of Big Red Kitchen always has great tips for back to school and packing lunches – her newest thing? Using small mason jars for packing her kids lunch!

So last weekend, I made another batch of artisan bread in 5 minutes. All you need is a big bowl, flour, water, salt and yeast, and a wooden spoon!

You can’t mess this bread up. So I made 2 loaves, and then I made chicken breast sandwiches for dinner. How cool is that?

For the chicken sandwiches, I just grilled some chicken, made turkey bacon, and a little bbq sauce and cheddar cheese. SO good!

And with the leftover dough, I made garlic bread pizza (just rolled out some dough into a circle), added a little olive oil and fresh garlic and garlic powder, bake at 450 for 10 minutes, and cut into squares. I served that with pasta.

OR, you can make skillet bread pizza (just cook the pizza on a skillet) cook for 5 minutes on low, flip, cook another 5 minutes, add your toppings, top with a lid and let the cheese melt.

And, if you’ve made it down this far – check out a give-a-way on my friend Sueson’s blog for a VIP coupon to Mamma Chia Juice drink for free! Leave a comment on her site, or tweet about it, or link it to Facebook for more entries

What is Mamma Chia? A new health drink, low in calories (110 calories) 10 grams of fiber, 4 grams of protein, 2000 mg of Omega-3′s, 9 grams of sugar (from Agave) and Gluten-Free and Vegan. You can buy these at health food stores or at Whole Foods in the refrigerated juice section. These taste amazing!

It’s still raining out – but I’m not going to let that prevent me from having an awesome weekend!

If you have kids, when do they start?

And I BIG SHOUT OUT to my brother Charlie’s daughter Sarah is leaving for college today. GOOD LUCK SARAH – your first care package will be arriving soon!!

The post was featured on Yeastpotting

Mar 27, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Mar 27, 2011 in a day in the life of me!, bread, Dinner Idea, general ideas | 12 comments

Home made pitas!

I’ve made home made English Muffins, home made crackers, artisan bread, home made tortillas, home made pretzel rolls, but never have I made pita bread!

Last week, my bother in law Jim sent me a recipe that he made for home made pitas. I thought I had printed out the recipe, but when I checked my bag I couldn’t find it, so this recipe comes from a site called The Fresh Loaf.

This recipe makes 8 pitas

Pita Bread

3 cups flour – I used all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey – I used honey
1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
2 tablespoons olive oil, vegetable oil, butter, or shortening

In a mixing bowl, add all the ingredients. Add 1 1/4 cup water. If the dough looks a little dry, you can add up to another 1/4 of water. Mine was fine with just the 1 1/4 cup water. If you have a mixing bowl with a dough hook, put the mixer on for 10 minutes.

Cover and let rise for 90 minutes. Here is what it looked like after rising:

I love this dough because its so soft. Once its risen, divide the dough into 8 equal parts. Each dough ball was 3.5 ounces. Place on a cookie sheet and let rise again for another 20 minutes.

After the dough balls have risen, I took one at a time and rolled it out thin. Here is the important part, roll it out to be about 1/8 inch thin. That way it will bubble up in the oven and you’ll have a pita you can stuff. If it’s rolled out too thick, you will have a pita, but you’ll have to use it as a tortilla because it won’t have a hollow inside. A few of mine did not puff up all the way – but I’m going to use those for pita pizzas.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. If you have a baking stone, you can use that, I used my pizza pan. I cooked 2 at a time, and the best part is it only takes about 4 minutes for each pita.

Just roll them out right before putting them in the oven.

These made pretty big pitas, so eating half at a meal is plenty. Each WHOLE pita is 211 calories, 3.9 grams of fat, 38 carbs, 5 grams of protein and 1.5 grams fiber.

*******

On another note, I’ve been busy reading magazines this weekend. I am what you call a magazine-a-holic, and if its a cooking magazine, forget about it! Lucky for me I am involved in a Mom-mail e-mail list of hundreds of Mom’s in my area. People give away stuff, are looking for things, are selling stuff, give referrals, etc… I’ve gotten so many great things from it, but one woman was giving away this, and I was the first to respond:

YEP – cooking magazines!! Mostly vegetarian times, Rachel Ray, a few Cooking Light as well as a few Bon Appetit and Penzey Spices!!!

And, I huge shout out to Hometown Seeds for sending me a free sample of their kitchen herbs. I’m going to give it a shot to see how it turns out.

I was given chives, sage broad leaf, thyme, flat leaf parsley, dill, cilantro, sweet basil, purple basil, and oregano. Check out their site for some great deals to get your kitchen herb garden going, or tons of stuff to plant in your garden this year!

How was your weekend – what did you make? Is it spring where you are? It’s still in the 30′s in Chicago – what’s up with that?

Mar 21, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Mar 21, 2011 in bread, breakfast, holiday foods, Side dish | 9 comments

Skillet Soda bread

This was my first try making soda bread for St. Patrick’s day – and it is SUPER easy to make, even if you’ve never made any kind of bread before. There is no kneading involved and no yeast! My mother-in-law always made this for St. Patrick’s day growing up and since she recently passed away, I wanted to make a loaf in her honor. She had the daunting task of cooking for 11 kids and her husband every night, so I should never complain about cooking for my family of 5

This recipe isn’t her recipe – but it comes from a very good source – America’s Test Kitchen

Makes 1 loaf

4 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tsp. baking soda
1.5 tsp. cream of tartar
1.5 tsp. salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1.5 cups low-fat buttermilk

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Place the flour, soda, cream of tartar, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour using your fingers until it is completely incorporated and the mixture resembles course crumbs.

3. Make a well in the center and add the buttermilk. Work the liquid into the flour mixture using a fork until the dough comes together in large clumps. Turn the dough onto a work surface and knead briefly until the loose flour is just moistened. The dough will be scrappy and uneven.

4. Form the dough into a round about 6-7 inches in diameter and place in a cast iron skillet. (I put a little oil in the bottom of the skillet so the bread wouldn’t stick). Score a deep cross on top of the loaf and place in the pre-heated oven. Bake until nicely browned and a tester comes out clean inserted into the center of the loaf, about 40-45 minutes.

5. Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter, if desired. Let it cool for at least 15 minutes before cutting.

My whole family loved the bread! Of course since my husband always had it growing up, I was happy to make it for him. And it’s great the next day toasted in the toaster with a little drizzle of honey.

Have you made soda bread before?

And I huge thanks for all the birthday wishes – the party is still going, on Tuesday, my sister Biz, her daughter Hannah and my Mom are doing lunch and shopping – so still more celebrating to do (which I love!)

Have a super day everyone!

Mar 6, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Mar 6, 2011 in bread, breakfast, kid friendly, Muffin of the Week, vegetables | 6 comments

Jumbo Double Carrot Cake Muffins

I have to give credit to Spabettie’s site because last week she made these beautiful looking pancakes using carrot juice in the batter. It got me to thinking, what if I made muffins using carrot juice in the batter as well as shredded carrots?

These made my kitchen smell amazing, and when I took them out of the oven, it was hard to wait for them to cool down before I could try one. I made 6 JUMBO muffins out of this, however you can make 12 muffins that are smaller if you like. I usually will eat this as my breakfast, so I don’t mind the jumbo size.

Each JUMBO muffin is 321 calories, 10 grams fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 6 grams of protein, 57 carbs, 20 grams sugar and 3 grams of fiber. And each muffin has 216% of your vitamin A for the day!!

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3/4 cups carrot juice
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg
5 carrots, peeled and shredded

I used my blender to shred the carrots

In a mixing bowl add all the ingredients and blend for about a minute (don’t over mix).

Spray PAM cooking spray to avoid them sticking to the muffin tin. Before baking, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of brown sugar on top to make a nice crunchy sweet topping.

For these muffins, I baked them at 375 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick came out clean. For making 12 muffins, bake for about 10-12 minutes. Let cool in the muffin tin for 5 minutes before taking out and letting cool on a wire rack.

Other add-ins could be adding a banana or chopped apple or maybe some chopped walnuts if you like that kind of texture in it.

I love when things turn out great the first time! Last week I tried to make thin mint muffins. I used Mark Bittman’s basic muffin recipe (from How to Cook Everything Cookbook). I didn’t have any milk, so I used evaporated milk and they turned out hard as a rock. (The thin mint part was crushing 3 thin mint cookies on top of the batter before baking). That was my son Mark’s suggestion! The only reason I made the basic muffin recipe is my son Mark saw I was making muffins and he said “are you adding tofu or flax seed or chia seeds or anything weird like that?”

I ended up throwing them all in the garbage. Can you not use evaporated milk in recipes like that instead of milk? Biz – you might know the answer!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! What did you make???

***
Over the weekend I watched an episode of Restaurant Impossible with Robert Irvine on Food TV. He goes into a failing restaurant and in 2 days and a $10,000 budget, he figures out what’s going on and tries to fix it. He went to a restaurant where two twenty somethings had paid $600,000 for an existing restaurant PLUS $200,000 for their recipes!! Neither one of them had any restaurant experience AT ALL! During their first year they lost $120,000.00!!! When Robert went into the kitchen what did he see? ALL CANNED FOOD! Nothing was fresh. Green beans from a can, corned beef has from a can, shrimp from a can, canned fruit, etc… He said “why would you spend $200K for recipes when there basically aren’t any recipes, its just opening cans of stuff? The reason I like this show is to see the reaction of the restaurant owners when they see their restaurant changed for the better.

If you haven’t checked out that show yet, it’s really good!!!

Mar 4, 2011 Posted by Jennifer on Mar 4, 2011 in bread, dessert | 11 comments

Nutella Ring

Nutella ring

I was so excited when Zoe from Zoe Bakes left a comment about my artisan bread! She’s the author of the book Artisan Bread in 5 minutes, which is available on AMAZON HERE. Not only did I make her Artisan bread recipe, I made the other recipe that was in this Months Cooking Club of America Magazine.

It’s made with the same master dough recipe that I made the Artisan bread from (CLICK HERE TO BE TAKEN TO THAT RECIPE).

If you made the whole recipe of the basic dough recipe, it makes 4 (1 pound) loaves of bread. Just take a grapefruit size handful of dough. (use flour on your hands because it is sticky!). On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough into a 10×15 rectangle.

Take 1/2 cup of Nutella and put that all over the dough. Roll the dough up into a log, and re-shape into a circle and pinch the ends together, making a 6 1/2 inch or so circle. Using kitchen shears or a serrated knife, cut the bread about 1/4 inch deep all around the edges.

Mix an egg with 1 tablespoon water and coat the outside of the dough with that. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of sugar. Bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for about 30 minutes.

This makes 12 servings and each serving is only 155 calories!! For the article from Cooking Club – CLICK HERE.