Bread and Cheese

Hey look!  I grew food!  Not quite a pound, but it's a start.  If the hookworms hadn't eaten my only (so far) ripe tomato, that'd be more like three pounds.  It was a big tomato... sigh.

Not only is bread and cheese an excellent, inexpensive, delicious, and quick meal... it's a good morning of activity.  I had a gallon of milk that had been purchased two weeks ago but had only been opened a few days ago and was barely dented.  I knew it was going to turn, and soon.  So, craving lasagne (as one does) I decided to make it into some nice ricotta.  It's pretty simple.

Add half a gallon of milk and the juice of two lemons (I used limes, actually) to a cold, cold saucepan.  Stir briefly.  Put on very low heat and add a thermometer with a temperature alarm (easiest) or regular thermometer.  Heat sloooooowly to 175°F.  This should take nearly an hour.  DO NOT STIR during this time.  when it reaches temperature, turn up the heat to medium and reset the temp alarm to 200°.  DO NOT STIR.  It should reach temperature in about five minutes.  When it does, remove from heat.  Let stand for ten minutes, then pour into a colander lined with cheesecloth (why do you think they call it that?  Hah).  Let drain for ten minutes, then refrigerate.  Sprinkle a little salt if you like, you're done.

I like to drain it over a bowl to save the whey.  It's really good for making bread... which leads me up to my bread-making portion of the morning.

Basic Bread

This is a recipe based on King Arthur Flour's Supermarket Italian Bread, and I was going to call my variation that, when I realized that what makes it Italian no longer applied.  I don't put on the sesame seeds.  I'm using whey instead of water.  Heck, it's technically not even bread, it's sandwich rolls because I portioned them out in 4.6 ounce blobs and made them into a hoagie-shaped roll.

The whey from the cheesemaking gives it a bit of sourdough twang, but not the depth of true sourdough.  It's packed with protein though which is why you can add extra moisture (I upped the whey by half a cup over the recipe's standard water) and still have a strong dough that will hold up under its own weight.


Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup dried potato flakes
• 1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons
  instant yeast
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm leftover whey, or 1 1/4 cups water
• 3 tablespoons olive oil (optional)

Procedure:

Place all the ingredients, in order, in the bowl of a stand mixer, or large mixing bowl. Stir the dough for two minutes on lowest speed or by hand.   Knead the dough with a bread hook or by hand for 5 to 8 minutes, until it's smooth and supple, adding more water or flour as needed. 

Cover the dough and allow it to rise for 1 hour, or until it's doubled in bulk.

For Italian Loaves, transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface and divide it into two pieces. Shape each piece into a smooth 16" log. Place the logs into the two wells of a lightly greased Italian bread pan, cover, and let the loaves rise until very puffy, about 1 hour.

For Sandwich Rolls, divide into eight pieces and roll into rough logs.  Sprinkle a half-sheet pan with cornmeal and lay out the rolls four across in two rows, flattening slightly into oval shapes.  Cover and let rise until rolls are puffy.

Slash the loaves or rolls diagonally, making 3 slashes in each, and immediately put them in the oven. Bake in a preheated 400°F oven for about 25 minutes, until they are golden brown. For the crispiest crust, turn off the oven, prop the door open, and allow the bread to cool in the oven.

So that's how I spent my day.  What have you been doing?  :D

Food and Cooking: Making Your Own

Wow, with the start of the new school year and leap to Senior High for my daughter, I totally lost track of the time.  That, and the disappointing results of my garden due to unspecified pests of some type, have kept me from posting.

I have loved Stove Top Stuffing ever since I was a kid.  Something about the flavor and texture combination made me really, really happy.  I rediscovered this joy recently when I bought some on a sale-inspired whim.  I was shocked and saddened when, AFTER I brought it home, I read the ingredients list and found out that it contained High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Not only that, but it was the SECOND ingredient on the list, obscured by the long sub-list of ingredients for the flour.  I know, I should have read the label in the store, at least to look for semi-expected bad ingredients like MSG (which is also in there, dangit, along with a crap-ton of hydrogenated fats).

I know it didn't have these ingredients when I was ten.  Okay, I don't *know* for sure, since I wasn't a label reader then, but I'd be willing to bet it's changed a lot.  It certainly doesn't taste the same.

So I decided to scour the internet for a clone recipe to make my own mix, and make it healthier.  I've seen many, over the years, in books like "Make Your Own Groceries" (now sadly out of print and selling for over $50 per used book on Amazon) and I knew it could be done.  I found several, including this one on food.com, and another on a blog titled "Feeding the Crew", but I didn't like either one.  The food.com recipe used bouillon cubes, which to me seems odd, and unnecessary.  Just use granules in the first place!  Plus they don't go into the dried celery part, which might discourage some people as it's not readily available in all grocery stores.  The blogger's version was good, but adds a small amount of sugar to the mix.  The less sugar you feed your family, the less they expect it, and the less they crave it.  I don't think it's necessary to add sweetener to a stuffing.

I had a batch of baguettes that hadn't turned out right because I missed a crucial step (that basting with water and blast of steam when they enter the oven is very, very important to the classic crackling crisp crust).  I decided it was time to attempt the mix, but I'd use a modified combination of the two recipes to make something I would be happy to use.

Stuffing Mix

1 1/2 baguettes, sliced thin and cubed -OR- 6 cups cubed bread, dried (see below)
2 stalks of celery, finely diced and dried (see below)
3 tablespoons dried diced onions (I use an organic store brand)
2 tablespoons dried parsley (purchased organic, or home-dried organic)
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
6 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules, optional (you can omit if you plan to use home-made chicken stock for prepping the stuffing)

Place all ingredients in an airtight container and shake vigorously to combine.  To use, combine 1 2/3 cups water and 2 tablespoons of butter in a medium saucepan, -OR- 1 2/3 cups chicken stock in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and add 2 cups mix.  Stir and cover.  Let sit for 5-10 minutes.  Fluff and serve.

*Notes:  You can dry your own celery and bread for this recipe easily, and without fancy gadgets.  Take the finely diced celery and spread it in a single layer on a foil-lined cookie sheet.  Place the cookie sheet in the oven and turn the oven on to as low a setting as you can manage where it still kicks out a bit of heat.  My oven has a digital readout, and will only go down to 170°, so if you have digital, I recommend that setting.  My old dial stoves had something like 120° on the readout, but I swear the heating element wouldn't come on until I set it to at least 150°.  So use your judgement... you know your equipment!  My celery dried in about three hours.  The goal here is something that won't spoil if you leave it in the cupboard, so make sure it's dry.  My celery shriveled to 25% of its original size, and even though the pieces started out the size of pencil erasers, they were teeny-tiny after dehydration.  The same procedure will work for the bread cubes, although you don't need the foil.  The foil is in case the celery sticks, and there's not enough natural sugar or moisture in the bread for that to be a problem.

Food: I am ashamed

Because the quarterly bonus and the paycheck came within one week of each other, we've been feeling less... well, broke, to be blunt... so I haven't been practicing my economical tricks over the last two weeks.  Not to mention my freezer is full to the point of literally bursting open if I don't do a little Tetris with the contents before closing.  I'm sure the next time I have to go to the dentist, we'll be broke enough to eat it down to a manageable level.

We *have* been eating the heck out of the multitude of hamburger buns Barronius brought home a while back.  We've hardly made a dent.  But they make an excellent base for BBQ chicken sandwiches, creamed whatever on toast (make sure you have bagel-width slots on your toaster), and fish fillet sandwiches.

Later this week though, I think I'm going to have to break down and make a double batch of homemade stuffing mix.  Is the blender free to make bread crumbs?