Honey Whole Wheat Cornbread

As the weather gets warmer, it's time to start emptying the freezer.  There's an awful lot of chili in there, so in keeping with this month's Melissa Clark theme, I made Honey Whole Wheat Cornbread to encourage chili-eating in the household.

Some of Melissa Clark's recipes could be considered healthy, but this isn't one of them.  You are instructed to mix a whole stick of melted unsalted butter into your cornbread batter (I scaled it back to 6 tablespoons and I believe I could have done away with it a bit more).  She also calls for sour cream, which I substituted yogurt for, cutting down on the calorie count.  I love that this recipe is baked in a cast iron skillet, after melting and swirling the butter around in it - the cornbread pulls away from the sides of the skillet as it cooks and doesn't stick at all.

The book also contains a handful of salad recipes, which I intend to try over the next few weeks.  After a nice dinner at Frog & Peach, where I had a perfectly cooked piece of salmon atop a bed of mixed citrus and thinly sliced fennel with herbs, I am looking forward to trying an orange/fennel salad from Cook This Now - hopefully I will be writing about that in the coming days.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Even before Thanksgiving, I saw an article in the New York Times: A Radical Rethinking of Thanksgiving Leftovers, unsurprisingly written by Mark Bittman.  Good ideas, and I was excited about them, but I came across a few more that were a little more appealing to me, and ended up with a few of my own, too.  First we made a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a spicy mustard (pictured above).  I made ham stock and turkey broth from the leftover bones.  I adapted a White Bean and Ham Stew recipe from Food & Wine magazine to use that ham stock.  My favorite so far has been the Turkey Soup with Lime and Chile from the New York Times, which turned out to be super simple and tasty, just what we needed after a stuffed weekend (the avocado and crispy tortilla strips helped with the transition from heavy to light).  I circled back to the original article and made some exceptional cranberry yogurt parfaits (pictured below).

Broccoli-Basil Mac & Cheese

Ever since this recipe for Broccoli-Basil Mac and Cheese was posted, I was looking forward to it.  I love broccoli and I love mac and cheese.  Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed in the outcome.  I used manchego as called for in the original recipe, and I don't think I like it very much.  The basil flavor didn't come through at all, nor did the out-of-season yellow cherry tomatoes.  The broccoli wasn't pronounced.  The squash seemed out of place.  I probably should have used a half-and-half pasta instead of whole wheat.

I want to go through this recipe and rewrite it to be more appealing to me.  I know I can use it as a starting point to make something great.  I'll likely keep the broccoli bread crumbs, but I'm considering trying a cauliflower bread crumb, maybe sauteed to crisp it up a little.

Mediterranean Baked Eggs

These Mediterranean Baked Eggs are in a blue box off to the side of another recipe.  While the recipe takes up a whole page, it's set off to the side, not a featured recipe.  The book is Ancient Grains for Modern Meals, and these baked eggs have no grains in them.  However, they've stuck in my mind since I got the book.  This is funny for a few reasons - one is the sheer number of recipes I see.  For any to stick in my mind means they must be something special.  The second reason?  I'm not big on eggs.  Specifically egg yolks.  But... these were delicious.  Granted, I did not eat my yolk (which cooked too much to be good, anyway), but I still enjoyed the eggs.  The tomato sauce was extremely flavorful, despite my forgetting to "season" it with red wine vinegar and brown sugar.  You can make the sauce ahead, so this makes a perfect brunch recipe - keep an eye on it in the oven, then take it out and let it finish cooking while you're finishing up everything else.  The toast is essential, but you can multitask in the oven and just lay the slices across the racks to toast.  What a great little weekend brunch this was for the two of us, and I expect to be adding it to my spread the next time I host a brunch for friends.

PS: note my Le Creuset Mini-Cocottes.  A birthday present that I absolutely adore.  :)

Oat Soda Bread

Heidi's Oat Soda Bread is a spinoff of her Rye Soda Bread from Super Natural Every Day.  I loved the rye version and I was actually a bit skeptical about the oat version since I liked the rye so much.  Fortunately, this is some of the best bread I have ever had and probably the best bread I have ever made myself.  I love the whole soda bread technique because it's so much quicker and easier than making a yeasted bread.  This bread makes a great sandwich bread as long as you like it by itself.  I tried it with some tomato, arugula, and whole grain mustard (also homemade, recipe from Super Natural Every Day).  I topped this bread with oat bran, since I have a whole bunch of it hanging around.  I'm really looking forward to experimenting a little more.  This bread has a lot of all-purpose flour in it, which I'm sure really helps the texture, but I would like to find a way to make it more whole-grain.  I'm looking forward to trying a spelt version too, now that I've got the basic technique down.  For someone who never makes bread because of the time commitment, this is a great option.

Spelt Focaccia

 

It's heirloom tomato season.  This makes me think of flat, bready things with cooked tomatoes on top.  Last year I made a tart, this year I had my heart set on Focaccia.  Once I'd made up my mind, I was immediately set on the recipe from Good to the Grain, to keep it a bit healthier with the whole grains added in.  The recipe uses half spelt flour and half all-purpose flour.  Other than that, all you need is kosher salt, yeast, water, a pinch of sugar, and a lot of olive oil.

I ended up making this down the shore because that's where I was.  I followed the recipe as-is, but I split the dough into two (one's a bit smaller than the other) and baked a shredded Parmesan-like cheese from the farmers' market on top of one.  On the other, I layered slices of heirloom tomatoes - a golden variety and a bumpy, red, visually interesting one.  The focaccia was nearly gone within just a few minutes, and we went through more than one dish of the focaccia dipping oil that I made by mixing olive oil with a bit of focaccia seasoning from Witherspoon Bread Company.

Haley took the photo of the jar of focaccia spice.

Classic Grilled Cheese with Marinated Onions and Whole-Grain Mustard

This "classic" grilled cheese recipe comes from Nancy Silverton's sandwich book.  I know her name from mentions in Kim Boyce's book, Good to the Grain, which has not made an appearance here in a while but is a huge inspiration to me.  I asked for this book for my birthday because I like sandwiches.  I like going to a cafe and having some delicious panini-pressed goodness oozing with flavor.  I wanted to try some at home, but it's always easier when you have a bit of guidance.

This wasn't the first recipe I intended to make, but it was actually kind of spontaneous.  I had everything on hand except the bread.  I stopped at Panera for something crusty, since it was on the way, and took home a "country loaf."  This was not only delicious but ended up being perfect for what we were making.

I didn't actually make this myself, which always makes things taste better.  The sandwich has four main elements: the thick, crusty bread is smeared with whole-grain mustard and layered with slices of Gruyere and marinated onions.  Then you spread some butter on the outside and clamp down your grill press for some tasty crunchy brown grill marks, which also melts all the cheese and softens the onions up a bit.

My one criticism of this sandwich is the salt factor - I would at least halve the salt in the marinated onions.  I suppose they were sort of quick-pickled, but it's worth a shot as I was super thirsty eating this sandwich and the salt was just at that point where it starts to detract from the flavor.

We had this soup with a tiny bit of Smoked Tomato Bisque, a perfect accompaniment to grilled cheese.  The soup seemed to have lost a bit of its salt content in the freezer, but with the saltiness of the sandwich, it was good.  This also helped me to discover something interesting/important about frozen soup.  I had read that you can refreeze something you defrost in the refrigerator, so I put the soup in the fridge this morning to thaw with the intention of serving some and re-freezing the rest.  When I took it out of the fridge, I was disappointed to find that it was still frozen.  However, I decided to try to scrape a bit out with a spoon, at which point I discovered that although still frozen, I could scoop large flaky chunks out.  So I did that and put the rest of the soup back in the freezer.  Now I know I can have small portions of my soups with just a bit of advance planning.

King Arthur Flour 100% Whole Wheat Bread

I got this recipe from the bag of whole wheat King Arthur Flour.  I haven't made bread in a while, as the recipe for Oatmeal Sandwich Bread from Good to the Grain was too crumbly for us.  I wanted to try this one because there is a quote from a customer right on the bag saying how great this bread recipe is.

I was pleased with the texture of this bread.  It was softer and less dry than the other one, had a nice whole wheat flavor, and had soft crust.  The only thing I didn't like about this was the rise - I think it came out too flat and it makes very small sandwiches.  It used instant yeast, which I have not used before (it actually took me months to figure out the difference between instant and active dry yeast, and to locate instant at Shop Rite).  I am thinking about trying to use active dry yeast instead, and use the technique from Good to the Grain, but with the same ingredients as this recipe.  I am also interested in trying the bread with white whole wheat flour, or with different types of flours.  Bread is something you should make your own!  I want to keep experimenting until I find the method and ingredients that work for me.

As I searched online for a link to the recipe I used, I found another bread recipe I would like to try.  Classic 100% Whole Wheat Bread - if this looks anything like the picture in real life, I want it!

Oatmeal Sandwich Bread

I had promised I had quite a few things to post about, and now here I am having gone four days without an update.  Oh well.

I am trying not to eat preservatives and other junk found in the processed foods at the store.  I have found a few brands of sandwich bread that are acceptable, but the last time I went to buy one they were not on the shelf.  (Granted, I will not pay full price for bread, especially the type of bread that I find acceptable, so they may have been on a shelf somewhere, but they were certainly not on the sale shelf.)

I have tried to make my own bread before, but I have since researched the difference between instant and active dry yeast (rookie baker mistake), so I gave it another go.  This time I used a recipe for Oatmeal Sandwich Bread from Good to the Grain, using active dry yeast.

Things went well at first.  I used an autolyse which gives the flour time to absorb or something.  (I don't know, I just followed the directions.  Note to self: learn what the hell you are actually doing.)  Then I had to let it rise for an hour.  Then I had to knead it a bit and fold it over on itself and put it in the pan to rise some more.

Here is where I ran into some trouble.  Maybe I need a bigger loaf pan, but I suspect the whole hour in the directions was too long for the second rise.  I should have kept a closer eye on it, because when I brought it out to go in the oven it was already bulging out of control.

I tried to scoop it back in a little, but it was a little too late.  I put it in the oven with a sheet pan on the rack below in case it fell that far.  (Luckily, it did not.)

In the oven, it grew more, as you can see from the photo.  For the whole 40 minutes of baking time I was nervous that it was going to get out of control and turn into some kind of bread monster.

When it came out of the oven, it had wrapped around the loaf pan.  As you can see, it was not sitting flat on the cooling rack since it had literally wrapped around the bottom of the pan.

The roughness you see is mostly wheat bran, which promptly fell off as I tried to find a way to remove the bread from the pan.

This was no easy task.  In the end the loaf pan had to be released from its yeasted prison by knife.

In the end, it looked mostly like a loaf of bread.  I would count it as a success, although it could be improved upon.

I sliced the bread the next day (sorry, no pictures) and made a sandwich using leftover spiral sliced ham from Easter, a slice of Swiss cheese, a romaine leaf or two, and some spicy brown mustard.  It was delicious, but crumbly.  The top part of the bread pretty much just fell off.  I would attribute this to the stress placed on that area by the excessive rise.  Oops.

The bread did taste good, at least as good as storebought bread, with the potential to be better.  I followed the recipe exactly which I do not think I will do again.  My main concern is the refined bread flour.  After a little bit of research I am going to try using white whole wheat flour in its place because, if the source was correct, it has a similar amount of protein to bread flour.  I would also like to try including some of the multigrain flour mix, the recipe for which is also in this book.  I think it would be fun to add some different flavors in the mix.

When you take into account how little time you are spending actually doing work, bread making goes fairly quickly.  Now I can't wait for tomato season so I can have my favorite sandwich, BLTs, on my homemade bread!

Roasted Tomato and Goat Cheese Panini

This is one I made up all by myself. I don't like to eat the same things over and over and over, but cooking for only two people I often have a lot of stuff left over. From the Red Pesto Ravioli ingredients, I got two more dishes of that, plus I still have some oven roasted tomatoes, sun dried tomato pesto (dry and chunky, not like a sauce), spinach, and goat cheese. I wanted to use some of these things, plus I wanted to find ways to use my freshly baked bread, and from this my panini was born.

Ingredients:
20 tiny oven roasted tomatoes
1 Tbsp goat cheese
1 Tbsp sun dried tomato pesto
6 spinach leaves
2 slices whole wheat bread

Directions:
1. Spread the goat cheese on one slice of bread and the sun dried tomato pesto on the other slice.
2. Layer the oven roasted tomatoes over the goat cheese, and the spinach leaves on top of that.
3. Put the other slice of bread on top and pop it in the panini grill until warmed through.

Yum yum yum! I would definitely make this again... maybe even later today!

Almost No Work Whole Wheat Bread

Using the recipe from Food Matters, I decided to make my own bread. In his efforts to make healthy eating simple for everyone, Mark Bittman has come up with a bread recipe that requires (as the title states) "almost no work." The ingredients are: whole wheat flour, salt, yeast, and water. Next time you are at the store, look at the ingredient list on the healthiest-looking sliced bread and see how many bad or unrecognizable ingredients there are. And while this bread took a lot of time, I spent most of that time sleeping and laying around watching TV. It was great.

At first I was a little nervous. I have active yeast and the recipe calls for instant yeast. I couldn't find "instant" in any store, so I just used the active yeast and it worked out fine in the end. The bread also had to rise for 14 to 24 hours. That is a pretty broad range. In the directions it says to look for bubbles on the surface. I didn't see what I would call "bubbles," but I saw lots of things that look like popped bubbles, and also lots of bumps, so I just went for it. I estimate this was about 15 or 16 hours. I kept it in my laundry room, covered of course, since it is the warmest place in my house.

I dusted the top with wheat bran as suggested in the recipe. When it came out of the oven it was dense and heavy. After it cooled, I sliced it up and put all the slices tightly back together like a commercial loaf of sliced bread. I wrapped it up tightly in a dishtowel and it is now sitting on my counter.


I tried an end piece of the bread and it was really delicious. The crust was really crunchy in the best way, and the inside was much more dense than a commercial sandwich bread, but I have a feeling it is going to be just as good. I am going to eat a lot of bread this week to try to figure out the best ways to use it - toast with some kind of spread, sandwich, panini, maybe french toast... then whatever is left over later in the week will be made into fresh bread crumbs.

It was really easy and kind of fun to make my own bread, and it really makes me happy to know that all the ingredients are good things and that it is 100% whole wheat, for real.

Zucchini Bread

Despite all our efforts, we still had a GIANT zucchini left and wanted to use it before we left. I had wanted to bake all weekend (I love baking!) so I wanted to make a zucchini bread. I remembered this zucchini bread recipe from one of the cooking blogs I like. It looked like it would make a nice moist bread... yum!

We had 3 disposable loaf pans, so we decided to triple the recipe so there would be enough for everyone to take home with them. This meant we needed 3 cups of grated zucchini, but this giant monster zucchini we had gave us 4 cups, so we just put it all in for some extra zucchini flavor. The oil and yogurt also made it very moist. My mom helped me by cutting the zucchini to fit in the food processor and helping me measure it out. Haley also helped by mixing, handing me stuff, and being my official photographer again. I am glad she likes to help and she takes a LOT of pictures - I wish I could use them all!

One of my favorite things about the recipe was that it included whole wheat flour - yay! But it still called for a lot of all-purpose flour. If I try making this again, I would probably substitute white whole wheat flour for most or all of the flour.

We mixed the wet ingredients (and sugar) together, and the dry ingredients together, and then combined them to make the batter. We added walnuts (the recipe suggested them) and that added a nice textural difference. I like how you can see the flecks of green from the zucchini throughout the bread and on the top too.

My only regret is that I forgot to bring some for lunch today! I would love to try making these as muffins, since we all know how much I love muffins...