From the Kitchen

Cinnamon Raisin English Muffin Toasting Bread

Posted on May 2, 2019May 1, 2019 by suburbandadman

kitchen32 Weird! Why a picture of dough and not the finished product? Well, you might find it hard to believe that any bread worth eating can come out of a dough this goopy. I promise your efforts will be rewarded if you follow the recipe and your dough looks just like the picture. I keep discovering that a sticky dough winds up making a tastier bread; don’t worry about your hands getting messy. A little soap and water and you’ll be right as rain.

Bit of Wisdom: Something that looks absolutely wrong can be so obviously right.

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
½ Tbsp. honey
2 Tbsp. warm water (110°F – 115° F)
2 ½ Cups bread flour (you may need a little more or less)
1 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
½ Cup raisins
1 Cup boiling water
1 Cup and 2 Tbsp. warm milk (warm milk in microwave for 1 minute)
Cornmeal

Preparation

Combine yeast, honey, and warm water. Set aside until bubbly (about 5 minutes.)
Prepare raisins for baking by placing them in a bowl and covering with boiling water. Let sit for 10 minutes and drain before use.
Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon.
Add yeast mixture to milk, and one cup flour mixture. Whisk until smooth.
Add remaining flour until you get a SOFT GOOPY dough. Stir in prepared raisins.
Spray bread loaf pan with cooking spray. Dust pan with cornmeal to coat bottom and sides.
Spoon the dough in to the pan. Dust top of dough with cornmeal.
Set aside in warm place until dough has risen to the top (or a little above) the pan. This part takes about 30-45 minutes, so BE PATIENT.
Pre-heat the oven to 425°.
Place pan in center of oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. The loaf should be golden brown and sound hollow when you tap it.

IMPORTANT NOTE

THIS SOUNDS OBVIOUS, BUT OH, WELL. MAKE SURE YA’ TOAST THIS BREAD BEFORE EATING IT. THE BREAD WON’T TASTE GOOD AT ALL AS JUST BREAD. YOU WILL THINK YOU DIDN’T MAKE A GOOD LOAF. YOU DID! JUST TOAST IT. OH, AND PUT SOME BUTTER ON IT TOO.

From the Kitchen

Challah (Egg Bread)

Posted on April 19, 2019 by suburbandadman

Challah (2)

This picture is of my first attempt at baking a challah. The background for this is kind of the same as the bialys I posted earlier: I felt like a having some challah, and didn’t have any on hand, and there was no place close to buy some. I was a bit afraid of doing it on my own, but my wife helped me with the braiding! She also suggested the sesame seeds, which turned out being a tasty addition. I have to let you know my that Stacy (my wife) turns thick slices of the challah in to the best French Toast ever!

Bit of wisdom: Tasting good is more important than looking good!

Ingredients

4½ cups bread flour (divided)
2¼ tsp active dry yeast
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp salt
½ cup water
½ cup milk
2 Tbsp. butter
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 egg yolk and 1 tsp milk whisked together for the egg wash
sesame seeds

Preparation

In large mixer bowl, put in 2 cups of the bread flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Mix well.
In small saucepan, heat the water, milk, and butter until very warm (120° – 130°F.) (Don’t worry if the butter is not completely melted.)
Add to flour in mixing bowl and slowly add in eggs while mixing on low. Turn up mixer to medium and beat for 3 minutes. Turn off the mixer or the flour will go EVERYWHERE when you do the next step. Okay, I admit I’ve had it happen to me (don’t laugh too hard!)
Add in the remaining 2½ cups flour, change to the dough hook on your mixer, and mix the flour in on slow speed. When new flour is mixed in well, turn up the speed to medium (4 on Art, my KitchenAid mixer) and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic (about 8 minutes.) BREAD MAKING TIP: Don’t worry if the dough is sticky. Too much flour makes it harder for the yeast to do its thang! Try to get comfortable with dough on the sticky side; sticky dough turns in to a soft, less dense bread, dontcha’ know. (That’s Minnesotan for don’t you know?)
Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and turn over to coat. Cover and let rise in a draft free warm place for one hour. (I use the proof setting on my oven and it works great.)
Kids of all ages like this next part! Uncover the dough and punch it down. Remove dough from the bowl, and, on a lightly floured surface, divide in to three equal parts. Roll each part in to a 15” long “rope.”
Place a piece of parchment paper on to a cookie sheet and coat evenly with cooking spray. Move the ropes on to the middle of the parchment paper and loosely braid them from center to ends. (Get someone who knows how to braid, or just do as good as you can!) Pinch the ends and tuck under to seal.
Cover the dough and let rise in a warm place for 30 – 45 minutes. Test for readiness by giving the dough a light poke; the indentation should remain.
Brush the dough with the egg wash and sprinkle sesame seeds evenly over the dough.
Bake at 400°F for 25 – 30 minutes until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on a wire rack

Bourbon Lime Tilapia

Posted on April 10, 2019April 10, 2019 by suburbandadman

This picture looks very large. I guess I must have wanted you all to see the grates on my Holland Grill up close. I make fish for myself to bring to work. I buy 2 lb. frozen bags of Tilapia at the Aldi; a great value! I’d eat fish at home but my wife doesn’t appreciate the aroma (or taste) of fish. I made the marinade and tasted it and it did NOT taste good. I threw the recipe in to the recycle bag, yet finished making the fish anyway. Ya’ see, I had run out of time to try something else and I really didn’t want to skip dinner. But lo’ and behold, the finished product tasted excellent! I promptly fished (pun way intended) the recipe out of the bag and added it to my fish recipe repertoire.

I want ya’ all to know that I will do my level best to give credit for recipes that I simply follow and like the results. However (according to my friend Annette’s rule) if you change one third or more of the ingredients, the recipe becomes yours. Regardless, please let me know if and when I need to give someone credit and I will be happy to do so.

Bit of wisdom: Don’t be so quick to judge a recipe (or yourself!)

Ingredients

4 .25 lb. tilapia fillets
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp. lime juice
1 tsp dried basil (I crush the basil to get more flavor.)
2 tsp bourbon
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp fresh ground black pepper

Preparation

In a small bowl, combine olive oil, lime juice, basil, bourbon. salt, and pepper.
Place the fillets in a re-sealable plastic bag and pour in the marinade. Smoosh around so that the fillets are evenly coated with the marinade. Seal bag and put in the fridge for 30 minutes. Remove the fish to a plate and discard the marinade.
Heat up your grill. When the grill is hot (say 400°F), grill the fillets for 3-4 minutes on each side; like with any fish, careful not to overcook!

From the Kitchen

Bialys – Yeah, I made ’em!

Posted on March 29, 2019March 31, 2019 by suburbandadman

These are bialys, a considerably less well known cousin of a bagel. Okay, I agree, they don’t look so great…but they taste delicious! I have always enjoyed a good bialy and had enjoyed some on a trip to Hollywood (Florida!) Problem? I can’t find a good bialy near my home in good ol’ Minnesota. So I decided to try my hand at making them, and this picture is of my first batch. I have made them many, many times since; even the worst made batch tastes great! I invite you to try the recipe, you’ll be surprised at how good of a baker you are.

This recipe is cobbled together from many bialy recipes found in cookbooks and on the interweb all you kids use nowadays (lol). Also, I have refined the recipe over the many times I have made them. I believe this version results in the best taste and texture. I hope you think so too!

Bit of Wisdom: Don’t be so afraid of failure that you skip trying. (Very loosely adapted from a Carrie Fisher quote.)

Bialy Ingredients

1¾ cups bread flour
3½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. granulated sugar
2 ¼ tsp. active dry yeast (one packet)
2 ½ tsp. salt
2 cups warm water (110°-115° F)
Olive oil for bowl
Cooking spray
Corn meal

Filling Ingredients

2 Tbsp. canola oil
2 Cups finely chopped Vidalia onion
2 tsp minced garlic cloves
3 tsp. poppy seeds
3 tsp. sesame seeds
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp freshly cracked black pepper
Cooking spray for shaping indentation

Instructions

Measure flour to mixing bowl of your KitchenAid mixer. Stir in sugar and yeast. Sprinkle salt on top, but do not mix in.
Add the warm water to the flour mix, and using the dough hook with mixer on stir setting, mix for one minute. Increase mixer speed to medium (4 on my friend Art the KitchenAid Mixer) and continue mixing for 7 minutes. The dough should form into a ball, but still be elastic.
Remove dough to a large, lightly oiled bowl. Turn dough until coated with the oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours. I put it in the oven on the proof setting and it works great.
Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper and coat well with cooking spray. Evenly coat parchment paper with corn meal.
Remove dough onto a well-floured cutting board and cut into twelve equal pieces. Flour your hands and shape each piece into a ball. Continue forming the bialy by pushing the ball down over your middle finger. Remove the dough from your finger and close the ball at the bottom. The top of dough ball should be smooth. Lightly dust with flour and place dough ball on to the prepared baking sheets. Cover with plastic wrap (to prevent sticking) and a clean dish towel. Let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes (careful not to over rise.) You want to bake the bialys in a hot oven, so pre-heat your oven to 450°F after covering the bialys.
Make the filling while the oven’s preheating. Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat, add onions and sauté until the onions are soft and translucent (about 4 minutes.) Add garlic and continue sautéing for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in poppy seeds, sesame seeds, kosher salt, and ground pepper. Set filling aside.
Use cooking spray to coat the outside of a 2 ½” diameter cup. Press cup firmly onto the center of each dough round until the cup touches the baking sheet. To make sure the bialy stays flat during baking, use a cooking shears to make a few one-inch incisions at the bottom of each indentation.
Fill the indentations with equal amounts of the filling and smooth out using the back of a spoon.
Put bialys in to pre-heated oven for about 35 minutes until they are golden brown with some darker brown spots. Serve warm. Bialys don’t keep long in the fridge, so freeze them unless you are going to eat them within a couple of days.