Flour Tortillas

Mmm, homemade tortillas are super tasty. It takes a little practice to get the shape right but it's totally worth it. I really like this recipe, it's easy to work with. 5 stars.

Directions: (Makes 15 5-8 inch tortillas)
In a bowl by hand or heavy duty mixer combine 4 cups unbleached all purpose flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 cup shortening and enough water to make a dough (1 to 1 1/2 cups)
Mix until you have a nice dough that's not sticky. Let rest for 30 minutes to 2 hours. (I recommend covering the bowl with a warm wet towel)
 THEN roll into balls and let rest again for 20-30 minutes. (But there's no hurry, it they end up sitting for another hour that's okay)

With a light sprinkling of flour over a work surface and your favorite rolling pin: Take the ball of dough, flatten, sprinkle some flour over the top (as well as some flour rubbed onto the rolling pin).
This is how I do it: Imagine a clock, roll up or down (whichever you choose) at 12, rotate to 3, roll, rotate to 6, roll, rotate to 9, then roll again. Keep in mind if the dough is being stubborn and doesn't want to roll out easily then let it rest for a few minutes.

  Cook on medium heat in an ungreased frying pan or well seasoned cast iron skillet. My husband calls it "Cast iron Nirvana!" you want to be able to cook these without them sticking! If you do want to use the cast iron and are worried about sticking you can always fry up a piece of bacon on it first, then wipe clean!

You can tell it's done on the first side when it bubbles up. Only cook the second side for 10-30 seconds, or until browned.

 The possibilities are endless! We do love our tortillas!

Anadama Bread with Tillamook Cheddar Cheese

This is definitely one of the most unique breads I've made thus far. It's so good! I was really impressed that the finished product doesn't even give a clue that it's got cheese and cornmeal in it.

In a medium saucepan:  1/2 cup cornmeal and 1 1/2 cups of water. Cook and stir constantly until thick and bubbly. About 3 minutes.

Take it off the heat and add 1/2 a cup mild honey, 2 cups (8 oz)  shredded Tillamook mild cheddar cheese, and 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir until the butter is melted then set aside.

In a small bowl/mug sprinkle over 2/3 a cup of warm water: 1 tablespoon of yeast and a pinch of sugar. Stir well, then let sit about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl combine: yeast mixture, cornmeal mixture, 2 cups of flour and 2 teaspoons of salt. Beat well. Add remaining 4-4 1/2 cups of flour 1/2 a cup at a time.

Knead about 3 minutes. Place in a greased bowl turning to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and raise about 1 1/2 hours.

Deflatethe dough carefully and divide in half. Pat each half into a rectangle shape. If you have trouble getting it to stretch let it rest for a few minutes. Then cover each with 2 tablespoons of butter and a teaspoon or two of paprika. I think I used closer to a tablespoon...but then I do love paprika!

Roll up the rectangle jelly roll style and tuck the sides underneath and pinch to seal.

Place in two greased loaf pans and let raise until about 1 inch above the rims (or 45 minutes)

Bake at 350 F for 45-50 minutes.

Squaw Bread

This bread reminded me a lot of the Graham Bread I shared a few years ago. You can find it HERE. SO delicious!

Start with 1/2 a cup warm water, 1/3 cup  vegetable oil, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 cup packed brown sugar and 1/4 cup raisins. Let stand for 5 minutes.

Place in a blender or food processor with 1 1/2 cups of water. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine 1 cup of unbleached all purpose flour, 2 cups of whole wheat flour (you can also use 1 1/2 cups wheat, 1/2 cup medium rye flour)  1/2 cup instant dry milk and 2 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Beat hard for a minute or two.

Then add the remaining  2- 2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour half a cup at a time. Knead until smooth and springy, about 3 minutes. Dust with flour 1 tablespoon at a time if needed.

Place in a greased container, turning to coat, then cover with plastic wrap. Let raise until doubled. About 1 1/2 hours.

Now this is the fun part! (And my husband helped me with this, since he is an expert on the Subway braid)
Four ropes. Third rope up, first one all the way over. All the way down. Or you can just do three rope braids. Or you can just do a free form round loaf of you don't want to bother with the braid.

Let raise about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 425 F with a baking stone, or 375 F without.  Brush the tops with melted butter and reduce oven heat to 375 F if using a baking stone. Bake 35-40 minutes.

Yum!

Farm-Style White Bread with Cardamom

I have never baked with cardamom before, mostly because it was super expensive in Pennsylvania when we lived there and we were on a student budget. Well a month or so ago my husband stumbled over some at an Asian market we really like and it was within our budget so he grabbed some for me. The recipe wants you to get actual cardamom pods and then remove the seeds and crush them. Well what I was working with the actual seeds, and they were super hard, I tried putting them in a bag and using a rolling pin to crush them without success. So I just threw them in whole...wasn't the worst thing, but the bread would have definitely been better with them crushed. I got thinking and decided a pepper mill would work awesome, so I'm going to look for one that comes without pepper in it.

Anyway, this bread is SO tasty! Loved it! I am also in love with bread braids a lot lately so I've been making a lot of them.

Oh and one note: this recipe is HUGE! It makes four loaves. You can give a couple to friends or stick them in the freezer.

So to begin...

In a large bowl: 4 cups boiling water, 1 2/3 cups instant non fat dry milk (I ran out of dry milk and hadn't made it to the store so I just used 2% and heated it up, I didn't get it to a full boil just because I didn't want to burn it and it worked fine)..anyway to continue...4 Tablespoons (1/2 a stick) of unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 cup of sugar. Stir until the butter melts and let sit  until lukewarm..somewhere around 15-20 minutes.

Pour 1/2 a cup of warm water into a small bowl (or mug as I like to use) and add 2 tablespoons of active dry yeast and a pinch of sugar (or drizzle of honey/agave nectar) . Let stand until foamy.
Remove the seeds from 10 cardamom pods and crush with a rolling pin on some waxed paper (or if you have dried seeds grind them through your pepper mill, in total it's about 1-2 teaspoons)
Add 4 cups of flour (in total you will use 12-14 cups of flour), the cardamom, and yeast mixture to the milk/butter mixture. Beat until smooth and creamy, 1-2 minutes. Switch to a wooden spoon and add the remaining flour 1/2 a cup at a time until the dough is soft and shaggy and clears the side of the bowl.

Then comes the fun part when you round up four of your favorite neighborhood children to knead for you..5-8 minutes! LOL, just kidding. We do love these kids though. The best was when they started chasing my kids with their sticky hands. Awesome.

After kneading place the dough in a greased container, turning to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let raise until double. About 1 1/2 hours.

Either put in your pans, or braid. Let raise about 40 minutes.

Twenty minutes before baking preheat oven to 350 F. Then bake on the center rack for 40-45 minutes.

Fresh Berry Muffins

So I usually try to make something for the first time following the recipe exactly, but I didn't this time. Instead of fresh berries I used frozen and instead of half and half I just used 1% milk and they still turned out delicious....

First of all, preheat your oven to 375 F.

1 cup of fresh boysenberries, blackberries, raspberries or currants (Or in my case some frozen mixed berries (unthawed enough to chop). I chopped them up since they were rather large) Then sprinkle about 2-4 tablespoons of sugar over the top and let them sit for about 15 minutes. (I just used 2 tablespoons and it was more then enough. You could also use stevia or another type of sweetener if you have blood sugar concerns)

In a large bowl add 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp (or 5-10 seconds in the microwave...hehe) and 1/4 a cup of brown sugar. Beat until fluffy.

Now according to my 5 year old all eggs need a nest to sit in before you use them, so here is the nest she usually makes for me whenever I am baking!

Add two eggs to the sugar and butter and beat well. (Sorry, I took the picture before it was beaten well...)

My 3 year old LOVES to line the pan. But unfortunately I have learned that with real muffins (with less then 3/4 a cup of sugar) they tend to stick to the paper pretty bad and you don't get to enjoy the entire muffin. So it looks like she will just be enjoying this activity for cupcakes!

In a medium bowl mix together 2 cups of unbleached all purpose flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt. Measure out 1 cup of half and half (or milk in my case) and  add to the flour mixture alternately with the butter mixture and remember to mix just until moistened. I usually like to let it sit for a few minutes, and then take a couple of final stirs to get out any of the pockets of flour that still remain.

Put a spoonful of batter in the pan, then a spoonful of berries, followed by another spoon of batter. The recipe actually says to make 9, but I had enough to make 12.

/

Sprinkle the tops with a combination of 1/4 a cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Bake for 20-25 minutes on 375 F and serve warm! YUM!

Water Rolls

What I really like about these rolls is how simple they are. Easy ingredients that everyone has, plus they are very low fat and low sodium! I opted to make the dinner rolls with the dough, but you can also make hamburger buns. The only challenge is the dinner rolls dry out super fast, so once you've eaten a couple don't leave them out in the open air for long. (Of course if you make buns you won't have this problem, just don't pre-cut or anything)  I used a ziplock bag I had in the freezer to put them in (but you might want to switch them to a different container after a few minutes since they tend to get really soggy when you put them in a closed container)

Sorry I didn't get pictures of the process, just the end result (so just picture a nice bowl of dough, and then a heap on the counter after you've kneaded...lol) or you can look at one of my other posts for an idea of how things should look...
(My next post will be much more colorful, I promise!)

This makes 12 hamburger buns, or 24 dinner rolls.

Step 1.
1/4 cup warm water to which you have sprinkled 1 tablespoon (1 package) active dry yeast and a pinch of sugar..or honey

Step 2.
Combine the remaining ingredients in a large bowl:
1 2/3 cups water
2 Tablespoons Vegetable oil (I used canola)
2 teaspoons salt
2 egg whites, lightly beaten

Step 3.
Add two cups of flour and yeast mixture and whisk until smooth. Add the remaining 3 or so cups of flour half a cup at a time until you have a nice soft ball that clears the sides of the bowl.


Knead the ball for 2-4 minutes, adding flour 1 tablespoon at a time if needed so it doesn't stick.

Step 4.
Place in a large oiled bowl, turning to coat. Cover with plastic and let rise about an hour (or until doubled).

Step 5.
If you are making dinner rolls shape the dough into a rectangle and cut with a pizza cutter over 6 and down 4 (or vice versa) so you have 24 pieces. Shape into a ball and place in a greased 9x13 pan. Rise until they reach the top of the pan (about 30 minutes) and then bake at 400 F for 20 minutes.

If you are making buns divide dough into 12 balls and place on greased pans of your choice (I used two airbake pans) then press flat with the palm of your hand. cover with plastic wrap, then let raise 25 minutes. Then take a knife and slash a cross pattern into the top of the bun, no more then 1/2 an inch thick. Then let sit about 15 minutes. Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes.

Hey, at least I got pictures of the end result!! Which is the best part anyway!

Portuguese Sweet Bread with Honey

Eek, five months. Well I have two words for you.

1. Morning sickness, horribly severe, lasting from the beginning of July until the end of September (but as unpleasant as it was I did lose 10 lbs, and considering I started this pregnancy at a weight I was not happy with I guess it was a good thing)

 2. Low platelets (Anemia) which equals no energy. But I am still alive and kicking and finally tried this recipe which was DIVINE! I really wanted to try french toast with it, but it didn't last long enough for me to get around to it.

Anyway, here we go.

To make the sponge:
Combine 1 1/2 Tablespoons (1 1/2 packages) active dry yeast
1/2 a cup of warm water
1 cup warm milk (I like to heat mine in the microwave for 30 seconds)
1/4 a cup sugar
2 cups all purpose unbleached flour

Beat until smooth and then cover with plastic wrap and let sit about an hour.

To make the dough:
Stir down the sponge.
Add 8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup honey
2 teaspoons of salt (note teaspoons, not tablespoons, most yeast breads call for at least a tablespoon so this is different)
3 large eggs, at room temperature
and then 1 cup of flour. Beat hard until creamy then add the remaining 2 1/2 to 3 cups of flour half a cup at a time. Note that since this is a sweet bread the dough should be soft and not as firm as a typical loaf of bread.
Knead 2-3 minutes, dusting with 1 tablespoon of flour at a time as needed if it starts to get sticky.

It will look something like this. Able to hold its shape, but still kinda "oozing" around!

Place in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let raise 1 1/2 hours.

Divide the dough into two equal portions and place on a large baking sheet (I used an airbake pan)  Let raise about 30 minutes. If desired you can brush on some egg beaten with water/milk for a nice shiny look. The dough did end up coming together, so I think next time I will either keep an eye on it and raise for less time, use two separate pans, or make three loaves instead of 2.

Bake at 375 F for 35-40 minutes.  Then transfer to cooling racks.