Cooking Up Some Love

A few things first...

I never follow a recipe as it is written. (That's just no fun.)
I never measure anything out exactly. (Also no fun.)

but most importantly

I NEVER FEEL BAD ABOUT WHAT I EAT.

That being said I always try to make what I like healthy... and still taste as good as the original thing. That, of course, is not always possible, but I come pretty darn close sometimes.

Monday, November 19

Family Traditions: Homemade Noodles Style

It's that time of year. You know, to break out all the old family traditions. My family doesn't have many, but the ones that we do have all involve... Any guesses??? FOOD!! :D So every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas my grandpa would get down this old Better Homes and Gardens "New" Cook Book, the Souvenir Edition. It is ancient despite being the "New" Cook Book. It is gold. Yes as in metallic shiny gold. It is falling apart.



Hideous yet awesome. I can't get rid of it, despite the fact that in it is only one very short recipe my family, I'm pretty sure, ever kept it for... bookmarked by another recipe card.



As you can see, I could easily write that down and save it to the computer, but it kinda takes away from the memory of making it...

So back to my grandpa taking this down every Thanksgiving and Christmas and once in awhile Easter. Well my grandpa was a sit on the recliner and watch football/read westerns kind of old man so when he was doing something in the kitchen, I was pretty intrigued. Grandma got me into cakes and cookies. You know, the normal things. He got me into homemade pasta, dinner pancakes, and fudge. Kinda eccentric things. I mean come on. Who makes their own pasta? My family. So to pay homage to my family past and present (it's like my mom's favorite part of holiday dinners), I'm going to do it yet again this year. :) The following is instructions for the whole thing including cooking. I'm just making the noodles today so the pictures will only show up until I put the noodles in the fridge.

Ingredients:
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt
    • We use less because we use chicken stock... it gets really salty really fast if you don't lower and use reduced sodium stock.
  • a dash of baking powder
    • NOTE: This is not called for in the recipe. My grandpa just did this. So as tradition stands, so will I. My grandfather was the first one who taught me that your own cooking creation is always better than the recipe... Even if no one else thinks so. ;)
  • 2 tablespoons of milk
  • 1 cup flour, NO LUMPS
    • I now use whole wheat flour, but it specifically calls for sifted white flour. Just an FYI.
  • (If cooking immediately) Some large amount of boiling liquid
    • We use chicken stock.
  • Meat, veggies of choice (optional)
    • We add sliced/shredded/cubed turkey/chicken.
Mixing:
  1. Combine everything but the flour.
  2. Add flour and make a stiff dough. (Start off incorporating a little at a time. If for whatever reason your dough is still wet after you have added all your flour, add more.) Form into a ball and let relax for about 5-10 minutes.
  3. Squish ball into a disk.
  4. Roll out very thin on a flat surface.
    1. I do this twice. Once and then let it sit for 5-10 minutes to relax again. I then roll it out more. It will get paper thin if you do this right.
  5. Let stand for 20 minutes. Yes you must do this step. Like the rest of the dough relaxing time. I know it's frustrating, but do it anyway.
  6. Roll up loosely.
  7. Slice 1/4 inch wide. Or more or less. I personally do a little less.
  8. Unroll, spread out, and let dry for 2 hours. Yes the full two hours. Or more. In case you forget... Like I always do. I put mine in the oven. Our pilot light in there is so hot that our oven is almost always at 90-100` F. When we lived at our other house, I would stick them in the bathroom with the gas heater going. You know, the dangerous ones they can't put in houses anymore. You can put them anywhere just make sure the dog or cat can't get to them because for some reason animals think they're mighty tasty.
  9. (If cooking immediately, skip this step) Bag and label and put in fridge/freezer if not cooking immediately.
    1. Thaw night before if put in freezer.
  10. Drop into boiling liquid of some kind with optionals added. Make sure noodles are completed submerged.
  11. Cook uncovered for about 10 minutes.


My ball.
Squish it out.
Roll out thin. Paper thin.

Roll it up.

Cut it up.

Spread and dry it out.


Feeds approximately a family of 4-6 as a side dish.

Now I usually double this recipe and do it early. I do it about a week in advance and put it in the fridge. It freezes wonderfully for about a month or two also. So feel free to try it out early and freeze. My first few times on my own were not successful. It made me wish that I wasn't such a teenager at the end of grandpa's life and would have paid more attention. But alas I was a typical teen and then went on to blunder up noodles for the first few years. :) I'm sure grampa laughed pretty hysterically at my attempts from heaven. ;)

Friday, November 16

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Beer Bread!


It's my favorite time of the year. All those things that you only really get once a year start rolling around the supermarket again! This recipe incorporates two of my favorite holiday items: pumpkin and sweetbread!!! Now let it be noted that the love of pumpkin was something I happened up (although I'm not really sure how), not something instilled in me by family tradition. The sweetbread, on the other hand, was a staple so integral to our house during the holidays, I'm pretty sure grandma cooked it nearly every other day because there was always someone else to give it to as a show of merriment for the season and love. The one thing my grandmother taught me growing up is to appreciate everyone. EVERYONE. The bank tellers, the plumbers, the AC repairmen, etc. Even to this day, if we call about the AC in grandma's old house in the middle of a heat wave in the summer, they get to us way sooner than is reasonable.

So here follows some way yummy than I would have imagined pumpkin beer bread adapted from The Realistic Nutritionist where my additions/substitutions/subtractions are all noted under each ingredient.


MIXING!
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour & 2 cups all purpose flour
    • I used 3 cups whole wheat flour.
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
    • I added 1 teaspoon of baking soda in addition to the tablespoon of baking powder because of the honey I add later on.
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 – 4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (just do it all. You know you want to.)
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
    • I did use brown sugar here. It's fairly hard to replace both brown sugar and white sugar at the same time without completely bombing the consistency since both subs I use are wet, not dry.
  • 2 tablespoons regular sugar
    • Here, I substituted 1 tablespoon of honey for the white sugar.
  • 1 cup of canned pumpkin
    • YUM FACTOR!!! :D
  • 12 ounces beer ([she] used Oktoberfest)
    • I used Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale. (If you like pumpkin and haven't tried this, you totally should!)

  • 2 tablespoons of melted margarine (you can also use butter)
    • I opted out of this step.
  • Cooking spray
My additions:
  • some undisclosed amount of cinnamon
  • a very small dash of allspice
  • 3/4 cup chopped pecans
  • about 1 cup of pumpkin seeds



COOK IT!
  1. Preheat oven to 375` F.
  2. Spray a (fairly large) loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside.
  3. Mix flours, baking powder, sugars, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, allspice, and salt.
  4. Add in pumpkin, beer, and honey, mixing until fully combined.
  5. Stir in pecan chips.
  6. Pour mixture into the prepared loaf pan (more like plop). 
  7. Cover top with pumpkin seeds and press them down so they will stick to the bread after baking.
  8. Bake for 50-60 minutes until the center comes out clean when poked with a toothpick.
The yumminess that is pumpkin beer bread.

As you can see, the bread is literally half gone before I even thought to take a picture of it. And it rose! A lot! Yayy!! It's not really sweet which is good around the holidays, but it's just sweet enough to be a dessert-ish type thing. I opted out of the butter because I don't like to put butter on my sweetbreads. The pumpkin seeds made it more savory so if you're really looking for a sweetbread, I would add a bit more sweetness and skip the pumpkin seeds. The ale is light and more of an undertone unlike the last one, leaving it kinda neutral so you don't get a true beer bread flavor, but it's there very very subtly.

Now off to eat the rest. hehe.

Tuesday, November 6

Oatmeal Stout Whole Wheat Honey Bread (Revised)

So I am endeavoring to blog once a week... Thanks to Johnica! If she can do it, I can too! :D

This is what prompted the bread.
So we moved to College Station in August. My mom helped us move, and she was nice enough to buy us some stuff while she was here. We were perusing and saw oatmeal stout. I LOVE oatmeal, so what do I do? I'm like why not this? ... I'll tell you why... It tastes like a stale Guinness Extra Stout mixed with coffee. Now as you might know, I am a tea addict, like pretty literally, but I am NOT a coffee fan. So what do you do with beer you literally can't drink because it tastes so bad? You make the next best thing: beer bread! Well I've never done this before so here goes the experiment via Peanut Butter Boy (where you will find the original recipe). So of course you know me... I had to mess with it. ;)  The comparison recipes are as follows:

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups whole wheat flour (or WW pastry flour or spelt flour)
    • I used plain old whole wheat flour.
  • 1 cup extras (optional Scrap the optional and try anything. I bet the fruit loop beer would be awesome with dried fruit in it!)
    • I used rolled oats (because it was oatmeal stout).
  • 2 tablespoons raw sugar
    • I used 1 tablespoon of honey because you know we don't do sugar in here.
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
    • I used 2 teaspoons baking powder &
    • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda (because of the acidity of the honey)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
    • I used 1/2... because I forgot to read the amount. haha.
  • 1 (12oz) bottle beer
    • This is where that horrible oatmeal stout comes in... Please feel free to use ANY other beer.
  • Extra Additions:
    • 1-2 tablespoons of melted butter
    • enough oatmeal to cover the top of the loaf


Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375 and put rack in the center of the oven.
  2. Add all dry ingredients to a large bowl, making sure to lightly spoon the flour into measuring cups to avoid using too much. Whisk together all the dry ingredients.
  3. Lightly grease a 9 x 5 bread pan with butter or cooking spray.
  4. Pour beer (and honey) into the dry mixture and stir to with a wooden spoon. (Supposedly here it gets tough to stir, but I bet because I used honey instead of sugar that mine was a smidge too wet for that nonsense.)
  5. Transfer dough to your bread pan and press down gently so it spreads out evenly.
  6. Pour butter over the top of the loaf. Then the oatmeal... or vice versa...
  7. Bake for 1 hour. Let sit for 5 minutes in the pan.
  8. Slice thin and spread on butter or nut butter or not. 

Before Bake
After Bake

So it didn't rise like I would have liked it too, but it was certainly tasty! :) More baking powder next time!

This is from the revised ingredients. It rose quite a bit more. Still as tasty!

Peanut Butter Boy said: "Leftover bread will stay good for a week, but toast it first to restore the crispiness. You can also freeze the loaf for several weeks."

Sunday, January 15

Dinner? I thought we were doing Dessert.

Ok I confess:
1) I hardly post like I should as I seem to have all the time in the world.
&
2) Sometimes having sweets for dinner just sounds so much better than actually cooking a meal.

So I started looking for ideas online for cookies since Nathan didn't want chocolate chip. Weird right? So I stumble upon an idea for almond-coconut oatmeal cookies. Now oatmeal cookie is my favorite so I got down to business realizing half way through that of course I had picked a "healthy" recipe. Oops. All the better for me to mess with it though since chances as better than not that it would have a funny texture anyway. I hampered the recipe so much though that even putting the original up here just seems silly.

So ingredients:

DRY
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour (pastry or otherwise)
3/4 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup of UNSWEETENED shredded coconut
1/2 chopped almonds

MOIST
1/2 cup butter (yes real honest to goodness butter)
1 to 2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar free table syrup (if this freaks you out, just use all real maple syrup)
1/4 cup real maple syrup (for flavor mainly so if you can handle all sugar free, go for it)

TOPPING
cinnamon for sprinkling
stevia for sprinkling (i prefer Truvia)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F
  2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
  3. Place all dry ingredients into a bowl and mix well.
  4. Brown butter and let cool slightly. (you can skip this step, but you'll lose a LOT of flavor. just saying)
  5. Mix all wet ingredients together.
  6. Mix wet and dry ingredients together.
  7. Make small balls and place onto the cookie sheet.
  8. Squash down for flat cookies and leave round for fat cookies (these don't spread).
  9. Sprinkle with cinnamon and stevia.
  10. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
  11. Cool for as long as you can wait... about 30 seconds for us.

They go great with milk and tea. They have more of a muffin-y texture the fatter they are from the lessened amount of butter/oil in them. No matter the texture, cookie or muffin, they are tasty. :]