Crusty Bread

Hey!  It's been awhile!  I apologize for being gone so long.  Having three kids home all day keeps me a little preoccupied.  I just had to etch out some time to share this recipe with you though.  It's really trippy how it works.  I found the original recipe on simplysogood.blogspot.com  One of the fun things about this recipe is that you can easily add just about any ingredients that tickle your fancy.  This particular loaf has thyme and lemon in it, and I used all wheat flour.  I prefer some substance to my bread.

I'll go ahead and share the original basic recipe and the recipe I used today.  I hope you have some fun with this and really enjoy it.

Crusty Bread

Basic Recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

3C. All Purpose Flour

1 3/4t. Salt (I use Kosher)

1/2t. Yeast

1 1/2C. Water

DIRECTIONS:

Follow directions below, but bake for 30 minutes before removing lid.

Lemon Thyme Wheat Recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

2 3/4C. Whole Wheat Flour

1/2t. Kosher Salt

1/2t. Yeast

6 sprigs of Fresh Thyme leaves

Zest and juice of 1 small lemon

Water

DIRECTIONS:

In a large mixing bowl, whisk flour, salt, yeast, thyme leaves, and lemon zest.  Add enough water to the lemon juice to make 2 cups of liquid and add to the dry ingredients.  Mix until a shaggy mixture forms.  Cover bowl w/plastic wrap and set aside for 12-18 hours.

Heat oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit.  Once oven is up to temperature, place a cast iron pot with a lid in the oven and preheat for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, pour dough onto a HEAVILY floured surface and shape into a ball (the dough will be VERY gooey).  Cover with plastic wrap and let sit while pot is heating.  Remove pot from the oven and drop in the dough.  Cover and bake 25 minutes.  Remove the lid and bake another 15 minutes.

This is what you end up with and it bares an amazing resemblance to sourdough bread.  Our resident bread connoisseur gave it a big thumbs up!

It's crusty on the outside, soft and chewy
on the inside.

SOME FLAVOR VARIATIONS TO TRY:

Orange Cranberry - zest and juice of 1 orange, 3/4 cups dried cranberries.

Lemon Thyme Gruyere - 2 1/2 cups grated Gruyere cheese, zest & juice of 1 lemon, chopped thyme.

Egg Bowls

This is what we had for brunch today.  I got the idea from Tasty Kitchen.  They were very easy to make, and a lot of fun too.  You could put anything you want in them.  We chose to add bacon, Colby/jack cheese, tomato, and basil. They were delicious and everyone loved them.  I'd love to hear what you think.

Bacon Cheddar Egg Bowls

Ingredients:

Dinner rolls (or any leftover rolls you have around)

Butter, melted

Shredded Colby/jack cheese

Bacon, cooked and chopped

1 Egg for each "bowl" you make

1 slice Roma Tomato for each "bowl"

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Fresh Basil to taste, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cut the tops off of the rolls and scoop out the bread.
3. Brush the inside of each roll with melted butter.
4. Fill each roll with cheese, tomato, then bacon - leaving room at the top for the egg.
5. Crack an egg into each bowl and season with salt, pepper, and basil.
6. Bake for 12 minutes.  Cover loosely with foil and bake another 20 - 25 minutes.

Enjoy!

Cheesy, Eggy goodness!!

Healthified Rice Pudding

Ever since I was a kid enjoying my mom's homemade rice pudding, I have loved the stuff. For some unknown reason, however, I rarely make it. Lately though, I seem to be going through a rice phase and I've rediscovered my love for rice pudding. I've also discovered that it's not the healthiest dish on the planet, but then what dessert is? Well, I made a few changes to a traditional recipe and came up with what I hope is a slightly healthier version. I have a few ideas to take it a little further into "healthy land". I'll let you know if any of those turn out yummy. For now, I hope you enjoy this version.

Healthified Rice Pudding
Copyright 2012 Brendilly Bakes, All Rights Reserved

I had a picture of it in the dish I stored it in, but somehow it got deleted.
Sorry. :-)







Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups cooked Brown Rice
2 cups Almond/Coconut Milk blend (Almond Breeze makes this and you should be able to find it in your grocery store)
1/4 cup Turbinado Sugar
1/4 t. Sea Salt
1 Egg
1 cup Dried Cranberries
1 T. Unsalted Butter
1 t. Vanilla Extract

Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, combine rice, 1-1/2 cups milk, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy, 15-20 minutes.
2. In a small bowl or glass measuring cup, combine 1/2 cup milk and the egg until egg is beaten.
3. Add milk mixture and dried cranberries to rice and cook 2 minutes more, stirring constantly.
4. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.

Serve warm or cold with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

NOTE: Personally, I found the flavors blended better after the pudding sat in the refrigerator overnight.

Nutella Caramel Swirl Cheesecake Bars

This recipe came from a fellow blogger at The Kitchen Prep. I saw "Nutella" in the name and had to try it. I am glad I did. I only made a couple of minor changes; adding more vanilla and using half heavy cream in the caramel sauce. Making the caramel sauce from scratch was the most difficult part of this recipe, but even then it wasn't THAT difficult and they are well worth the effort. And, you have enough sauce leftover for a couple of sundaes or another batch of bars. I actually gave the majority of this batch away, much to my family's disappointment. I think it'll make a great gift. I left a few bars on the cake plate for the fam'. I don't want them getting fat, after all. ;-)

Nutella Caramel Swirl Cheesecake Bars
recipe adapted from The Kitchen Prep














Nutella Caramel Sauce













1/4 cup Half & Half
1/4 cup Heavy Cream
1/4 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Water
3/4 cup Nutella
1 T. Light Corn Syrup
1 t. Vanilla Extract
Pinch Sea Salt

Warm half & half and cream in a microwaveable cup (about 30 seconds to 1 minute) until steaming.
Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil without stirring, until amber brown - keeping an eye on it as it can burn very quickly.
Carefully whisk in warm cream until smooth and let cook for 1 minute. Caramel will bubble and rise, so use a big enough saucepan so it does not overflow.
Remove from the heat and whisk in the Nutella, corn syrup, salt, and vanilla until smooth. Allow to cool until thickened, then transfer to a jar or container for storage in the refrigerator.

Crust:
2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup firmly packed Brown Sugar
1 1/2 sticks, Butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13x9x2 inch baking pan with foil and set aside.

In a medium bowl; combine flour, sugar, and butter with a pastry blender until the mixture is crumbly. It will hold its shape when a clump is pinched. Press mixture evenly into foil lined baking pan. Bake for 15 minutes until crust is slightly golden. Set aside.

Cheesecake:
1 8oz. block Creme Cheese
1/3 cup Sugar
1 Egg
1 t. Vanilla
1/4 cup Greek Yogurt

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine cream cheese and sugar until fluffy and incorporated. Add egg, and beat until combined. Add vanilla and Greek yogurt and mix until smooth. Pour into crust.
Spoon globs of Nutella Caramel sauce onto cheesecake batter, dotting throughout the mixture. With a skewer, toothpick, or tip of a knife, carefully swirl caramel throughout cheesecake to create marbleized effect.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, until filling is mostly set. If caramel is cooking too rapidly or becoming too bubbly, cover lightly with a sheet of foil for the last 10 minutes.
Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate and let cool completely before cutting into bars.

Fresh out of the oven. Doesn't that swirl look gorgeous?












Cooled, cut, and looking good!

Monday Monday!

Monday is a big work day around my house. I do the majority of the laundry and food prep for the week ahead. Today, we froze strawberries for smoothies and any other thing we want to have strawberries in; made panini ahead of time and tucked in the frig for tonight plus a few extra in the freezer for later; frosted the last of the banana "cakeins" I made last week; made a big batch of brown rice to have on hand for porridge or pudding; and threw together some homemade condiments (mayostard and homemade caramel sauce).

I make a lot of my own homemade condiments like jam; dressing for sandwiches and salads; coffee creamer; caramel sauce....whatever I feel like having on hand and would rather make myself than buy complete with artificial this and those preservatives. Most of what I make is pretty simple and doesn't take a lot of time. Well worth the effort to know what's in my food. If I could be a subsistence farmer I probably would. When I was young enough to do it, it wasn't even a part of my wildest dreams. Now that I'm older and it's all the body can do to maintain a couple of raised garden beds, I could imagine milking my own cows and keeping laying hens.....and growing a really big garden with lots of fruit trees! Sigh! Oh well....back to the kitchen to make some meatloaves for the freezer. Maybe later I'll share some of my prep recipes.

Happy Monday!

Banana Chocolate Chip Cakeins W/Peanut Butter Creme Cheese Frosting

I call these "Cakeins" because they're kind of a cross between a muffin and a cupcake. They're sweet and moist (and frosted) like a cupcake, but the base recipe is a muffin recipe. I wanted a peanut butter/banana/chocolate thing and toyed with several different ways to accomplish that. In the end, I opted for banana and chocolate in the batter and peanut butter on top. I pretty much got what I wanted. My guys actually loved them without the frosting. After they had one, I had to fight them off of the others so I could frost them. I hope you like them as much as they did.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cakeins w/Peanut Butter Creme Cheese Frosting
Copyright 2012 Brendilly Bakes, All rights reserved

Cakeins:
3 C. White Whole Wheat Flour
1t. Baking Soda
1t. Kosher Salt
1/2t. Baking Powder
1t. Ground Cinnamon
1t. Freshly Ground Nutmeg
1 1/2 C. Granulated Sugar
1/2 C. Agave Nectar
1 C. Canola Oil
3 Eggs
2t. Vanilla Extract
4 ripe Bananas, coarsely mashed
1 1/2 C. Milk Chocolate Chips

Frosting
8oz. Creme Cheese, softened
1/2 C. Creamy Peanut Butter
1t. Vanilla
1 1/2 C. Powdered Sugar

Directions:

1. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Mash bananas and set aside.
3. Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg in medium bowl.
4. In a large bowl, combine sugar, agave, oil, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.
5. Add all but 1T. of the dry ingredients and mix well.
6. Toss chocolate chips with remaining flour and add to batter along with the mashed bananas, and mix gently until everything is just incorporated.
7. Fill muffin cups with an ice cream scoop to get even amounts.
8. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until tester inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.
9. Set on wire rack to cool in the pans.

This is what they look like when they first come out. Notice how you can see chunks of banana. That's what you want.

When you are ready to frost:

Place softened creme cheese and peanut butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and using the paddle attachment, mix on medium speed until well combined. Add vanilla and combine. With the mixer running on low speed, add powdered sugar a 1/4 cup at a time, combining well and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix until all the sugar is used. Check for taste and adjust if necessary.



This is what they look like when they're being enjoyed. Yummalicious!!

Brown Rice Porridge

I found the coolest website this weekend. It's called Eating Bird Food and it's written by a Holistic Health Coach named Brittany. She has some really great healthy recipes, one of which I'm sharing with you today. I plan to try several more and will share those as well.

I'll be honest with you, I used to be a total health food nut. Since discovering Sonic here in Texas, however, that has changed....oh! and Chick-Fil-A....can't forget them. I still use a lot of ingredients you'd find at the health food store, and I eat just healthy enough for some of my southern family members to roll their eyes at me and ask, "What the heck is that?!" I'm really feeling a pull to get things back to how they once were though. Yoga, tofu, no fried foods.....I miss that lifestyle. It made me feel good. So, you can maybe imagine my excitement when I found Miss Brittany because I've almost completely morphed into a southerner and can barely remember how to prepare tofu. Okay, now that I've offended southerners and let my dark skeleton out of the closet, I hope you'll still read my blog and know that although I was born in California, I was raised by a Texan and an Arkansasian (don't think that's really a word) and I LOVE southern cooking, no doubt, but it hates me and my waistline (which I would desperately like to find again). So, this morning, guess what?! I did Yoga stretches and tried the Brown Rice Porridge recipe on the Eating Bird Food site. I feel like I have a new lease on life! Not sure how the rest of the day will go, but it got a good start. :-)

Normally, I would add some kind of sweetener to my morning hot cereal, but this one didn't really need it. If you prefer your porridge syrupy sweet, then you might want to add some.












I think the banana adds a lot of sweetness, and it's so smooth and creamy that I hardly noticed the lack of sugary-ness. The texture that the brown rice adds is really wonderful, as well. Give it a try. I'd love to know what you think.

Brown Rice Porridge
Makes 2 Servings

1 cup cooked Brown Rice
1 cup Water
2T. Rolled Oats (uncooked)
1 whole Banana
Cinnamon (as much or as little as you like)

Heat all the ingredients on high until it comes to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 8-9 minutes.













Easy as can be! I added some peanut butter and a sprinkling of freshly grated cinnamon to mine, and it was so yummy and satisfying. I loved it! If you want it sweeter, add some Agave nectar or pure Maple Syrup and it will still be healthy. Enjoy!

NOTE: My brown rice was actually mixed with a little Quinoa: 4 cups water, 1 1/2 cups brown rice, 1/2 cup Quinoa