April Meal Plan

In the past week or so, Hey, Babe and I decided to change how we eat a little.  We already avoid a lot of processed foods, but we are going to be making an effort to eliminate even more of them.  Things like white flour, white sugar, processed oils, etc. will be if not totally removed from our diet (I really like to bake and I don't want to give that up entirely) they will be drastically reduced.  I am curious to see how increasing our consumption of foods nearer to their natural form will alter our energy and health (both mental & physical).
It was a bit trickier for me to come up with a variety of foods that would work with this new tactic.  As you can see below, we didn't avoid them completely, but there is a significant lack of pasta and breads in the majority of our month's plan. 

April
Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thur.	Fri.	Sat.	Sun.
				Potluck Dinner	Chicken Pot Pie	Chicken Stir Fry
Chicken Curry, Brown Rice	Salisbury Steaks, Mashed Potatoes, Peas	Salad Pizza	Taco Salad	Eggplant Parmesan	Birthday Party	Black Bean Soup
Chicken & Basil Roulades w/Mustard Sauce, Baked Squash, Green Beans	Beef & Broccoli, Brown Rice	Salmon Fish Sticks, Carrots & Peas	Black Bean Mushroom Burgers, Roast Corn	Pork Chops, Brown Rice, Broccoli	BBQ Chicken stuffed in a loaded Baked Sweet Potato	Sautéed Spinach w/Chickpeas & Oven Roasted Tomatoes, Roasted Potatoes
Chicken Cordon Bleu, Twice Baked Potatoes, Broccoli	Fiesta Steak, Tomato Salad, Corn	Pizza	Taco Salad	Vegetable Torta	Greek Grilled Chicken Kebabs,	Easter
Herb Roasted Chicken & Sweet Potatoes	Stuffed Zucchini Cups	Fish, Rice, Broccoli	Potato Nachos	Kielbasa, Sauerkraut, Mashed Potatoes, Sauteéd Apples	Chicken Florentine, Whole Wheat Pasta, Peas

It seems that this month my work will be more cut out for me.  It will be interesting to see the results of our efforts. Enjoy!

The Daring Bakers make Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Holy cow was this good!  When I realized that I was going to be making this without any extra hungry people around to help me eat it (other than Hey, Babe and Little Man) I decided that I was either going to have to cut the recipe down or make half of it a savory version.  After sitting back and thinking of all the interesting filling possibilities we had in the pantry, I knew that cutting the recipe down was no longer a viable option.

I narrowed down my choices to three.  A savory pizza-like "cake" stuffed with chopped onions, pepperoni, mozzarella and herbs, and two sweet versions.  The first sweet cake had the standard chocolate, cinnamon and nut filling provided in the original recipe and the second had blueberries with a dusting of cardamom. 

I had no trouble getting the dough to come together, the only adaptation to the given recipe that I made was to use 2 yolks instead of one of the whole eggs that were called for to eliminate the waste the meringue would otherwise have created.  I did chose to allow it to rise in the fridge overnight so that I wouldn't have to deal with it the next day, taking it out of the fridge to come to room temperature a few hours before I'd need it (we have a cold house).

When the pepperoni version was baking in the oven my mouth started watering, it smelled so tempting that I could hardly wait to try it.  It was incredibly tender and moist and I said to Hey, Babe that even if the other two version were awful I'd still make this again.  Next time I might add some more cheese, but other than that it was delicious.

After having finished dinner I was curious to see if dessert would be as good.  I tasted the chocolate version and decided it was my favorite.  Then I tasted the blueberry version and decided that it was my favorite.  But when I tasted the chocolate a second time I changed my mind again.  Can you see where this was going?  They were both so delicious I really can't say which I liked more.

This dough was so easy to work with and has so many possibilities for filling variations that I know I will have to try some more versions.  I can see cream cheese, or apples, or sausage and peppers, or broccoli and cheddar, or...I think I need to go eat something.  All those possibilities are making me hungry.

Find the challenge recipe here.

Tips To Make An All Butter Pie Dough

Growing up I thought that all pie crusts were gross.  They looked nice (most of the time) and lots were very flaky but sure enough every time I bit into a piece of pie one of two results awaited me.  Either the crust was so dry, bland, and moisture sucking that I'd rather have eaten a stick of chalk, or it left a weird film of something akin to a liquid plastic chemical over the entire surface of my mouth and I'd feel the urge to scrape it off.  Thankfully, Mom agreed that the efforts of making a pie crust weren't worth the unappealing results (and the results of store bought crusts were even worse) and skipped the process entirely, always choosing instead to use graham cracker crusts. 

While in college one of my roommates made a pie for a Thanksgiving dinner we were hosting.  I didn't want to offend her, leaving the crust she had worked hard to make very obviously sitting on my plate with only the filling gone, so I quickly took a bite of the outer crust side.  I had thought to get the gross part over quickly so that my last bites would be nearly all delicious filling, but as I ate that bite I knew it had been a mistake.  It was the best pie crust I had ever tasted.  I don't mean to say that it was just better then all the other gross ones but still not worth eating. No, this crust was incredible.  It was worth savoring.  I should have been taking small bites of the buttery, moist flakes to make it last as long as I could and here I was chomping away trying to get it over with so I could get to the good stuff.  Oddly enough I can't tell you now what kind of pie it even was because the awesome crust pushed all other memories of the experience out of my head.

Now that I knew good pie crust wasn't a myth I knew I was going to have to learn how to make one myself.  After some consultation I was made aware of the standard tips, not to overwork the dough, keep everything cold, use all butter for better flavor use some shortening if you want it flakier (no thanks, that would be the liquid plastic I have always hated), etc.  So I tucked that knowledge away for the next pie crust making opportunity.  Which didn't happen for quite a while.
 

Since that first experience, I have learned a couple of other things.  If you freeze your sticks of butter and then run them over the coarse side of a box grater it will be easy to toss them together with the flour using a fork. Use less water then you think you will need.  Leave dry spots even.  Otherwise you will just add a ton of flour later, toughening up your crust.  I tend to like using my food processor to grate the butter because it is quicker so I also use it for the mixing part, but if you use a hand grater you can mix this with a fork.  Also, who says that you can't flavor the crust?  Recipes don't usually call for any, but I like to add some spices in with the flour that work well with the filling (cinnamon for apple pie readily comes to mind).  Really it seems that good pie crust comes more from practice and a gentle touch then from any specific "best pie crust" recipe, but I have used this one with great success.  One of the benefits of baking is being able to eat your mistakes as you learns from them so get in the kitchen and give it a try. 

All Butter Pie Dough

-= Ingredients =-
2 1/2 cups Flour
2 tablespoons Sugar(for savory applications, reduce this to 1)
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 tsp ground spice, like cinnamon (optional, use whatever will best complement your filling)
2 sticks unsalted butter, frozen
1/2-34 cup ice cold water

-= Instructions =-
To the bowl of your food processor add the flour, salt, sugar and spice.  Pulse once or twice to mix it up.  Open up the processor and remove about a cup of the dry ingredients.  Using the coarse grating disk, feed the first of your frozen sticks of butter carefully through the tube.  Pour the dry ingredients in.  Feed the second stick through.

Switching back to your s-blade, pulse two or three times and then begin to drizzle 1/2 cup of ICE cold water into the feed tube while pulsing.  The dough will look like it is starting to think about coming together. Maybe.  Dump it out into a bowl (or your counter top) and use your hands to finish mixing and bringing it together.  If you really need it, add another tablespoon of water at a time to the dough, but only just enough to make it barely clump together.  


Divide the dough in half, and place each half on a large piece of plastic wrap.  Use the sides of the plastic wrap to pull in the dough and shape it into a disk.  The thinner the disk is now, the less work you will have to do later, but don't go too crazy. Let the dough chill in the fridge for at least two hours before rolling it out.  This helps the butter to get cold and solid again (we don't want it melting into the flour) and also allows the water we added so stingily to distribute more evenly.

Your dough should keep at least a week in the fridge, and in the freezer longer. This will make enough dough for one double crust pie.

Just a couple of rolling tips: When you are ready to roll out your crust, lightly flour your workspace and leave the plastic on the top of the dough.  Turn the crust often so it doesn't stick to your counter.  Halfway through rolling it out, peel off your plastic wrap since it will have been stretched quite a bit by now and may be at risk of tearing.  You can stick it back on if you like, but removing it will have released the tension that was building up (learned that the hard way, see the below photo).  We don't want it to rip and leave behind bits of plastic.  If you use plastic all the way to the end of your rolling, allowing the dough to chill again will make it easier to remove the plastic without ripping your hard work to shreds.

Daring Cooks Make Cold Soba Salad and Tempura

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com

I neglect you pretty much all month (or two) with sporadic postings and then I suddenly come up with three in a matter of two days?  What is the world coming to?  I know that I am a bit late posting my completed February challenge, and since it is a short month I'm really getting it up last minute, but even though I put up our meal plan earlier today I wanted to make sure I had this post in February.  It's the little things (like posting a February Challenge in March) that would keep me up at night, tormenting me.  Oddly enough, I made the challenge several days before the posting date but since I did not have the opportunity to post about it before it is still a late challenge.

Back in November I put General Tso's Chicken on the meal plan.  For various reasons, probably because of the holidays, we never made it.  General Tso's Chicken happens to be one of Hey, Babe's two favorite meals, and so instead of letting it drop out of existence, it made its way back onto the menu for January (I didn't even pretend it was going to happen in December, I knew better).  Once again, it didn't happen.  I don't really care for deep frying, and if a meal is going to get skipped it is going to be one I'm not thrilled about preparing.

February rolled around and it once again appeared on our meal plan.  In this case, however, I knew that it was not going to be skipped over.  The two strong reasons compelling me to be sure it was made were the fact that it was Hey, Babe's birthday and he was looking forward to one of his favorites for dinner, and the knowledge that I could kill two birds with one stone and use the challenge of making tempura as the base for the General Tso's chicken.

Unfortunately, the cold Soba salad was not well received.  None of us cared for it at all and I ended up just tossing it.  I hate to waste food like that but since no one was going to eat it there was no real other choice.  The tempura battered chicken, however, was excellent.  I loved how easy it was to mix it together and batter the chicken.  The sauce I used to turn it into General Tso's came together well, but I think next time I'll let it get a little thicker.  It was overall very satisfying and the tempura worked wonderfully.

For the challenge recipes, please visit the Daring Kitchen website.  To make General Tso's chicken, add the following sauce recipe to Tempura Battered Chicken:

Sauce for General Tso's Chicken
Ingredients
3/4 cup chicken broth canned
4 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon Molasses
1/3 cup Soy Sauce or Soy substitute
1/4 cup white or apple cider Vinegar
1/4 cup dry Sherry
2 tablespoons Cornstarch
1" knot fresh Ginger peeled & grated
4 scallions, chopped
4 Garlic cloves minced
2 teaspoons red pepper flakes (or less if you don't like it too spicy) 

Instructions
Whisk together broth, sugar, molasses, soy sauce, vinegar, and sherry. 

Spray a wok or non-stick skillet with oil. Cook ginger, scallions, garlic and red pepper flakes for about 2-3 minutes. Add more oil if necessary.

Whisk the cornstarch into your sauce bowl to create a slurry before adding it to the skillet. Heat the sauce until boiling, add the cooked tempura chicken and then reduce to a simmer for a few minutes to coat the chicken pieces.  Serve over rice with steamed broccoli on the side.

March Meal Plan

With the end of February I hope we are also seeing the end of Winter.  It has been a rather rough one for us what with the flu and colds and stomach viruses plaguing our household.  This is the first month in a while that has not caught me by surprise, but it is no wonder since I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Spring.  We have been teased with gorgeous, no-jacket weather a few times only to receive more snow and rain.  It sometimes feels like a cruel joke.  Today Little Man and I are suppose to start the first of the seeds for the veggie garden so I have great hope that Spring is firmly on it's way.  Perhaps once Spring has thoroughly overtaken winter we will have less sickness in the house, which will mean less time spent being a frazzled nursemaid and more time to sort through my backlog of recipes that I am itching to share.  Here is our plan for the coming month:

March
Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thur.	Fri.	Sat.	Sun.
	Veggie Burgers, Baked Sweet Potato Fries	Spinach Lasagna	Pizza	potluck game night	Buffalo Chicken Wings, Fries, Salad	Salmon Salad Sandwiches
Italian Chicken Wraps	Spanikopita & Greek Salad	Crispy Fish Tacos	Make Ahead French Toast Casserole	Spaghetti & Meatballs	Omelet, Home Fries	Salmon Salad Sandwiches
Chicken Tortellini Soup	Spinach, Cheddar & Mushroom Quesadillas & Sweet Potato Black Bean Soup	Pesto Stuffed Shells	Corned Beef, Colcannon, Soda Bread	Chili & Matzo	Chicken Stir Fry	Salmon Salad Sandwiches
Yeast Raised Waffles, Sausage	Chicken Enchiladas	Fried Fish Sandwiches	Chicken Caesar Salad	Sarah's Cabbage Soup	Southwestern Egg Rolls	Salmon Salad Sandwiches
Potato Soup	Chicken Curry over Rice	Slumgullion	Taco Salad

Daring Bakers make Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

All month I have been putting off making this challenge for the simple reason that I didn't want to be the only one to eat it.  Hey, Babe isn't really big on dessert (so he claims) and insists that he pretty much just sticks to cookies.  Since the deadline for the challenges was very helpfully coinciding with our plans to visit my family, I was pleased to started whipping everything together.  I hadn't anticipated any trouble.  Since it just looked like a soft pudding to me, I thought it would be a cinch to make.

Actually, the Panna Cotta really was simple.  I didn't have any trouble tweaking it to make the coconut version I had visions of.  The trouble came when I tried to create a recipe for chocolate geleé.  You see, my vision included a chocolate geleé layered with creamy coconut Panna Cotta and served with a crispy almond Florentine cookie alongside.  Things didn't quite turn out the way I had planned.  The chocolate geleé never actually set, which I discovered as I was ready to pour my assembled Panna Cotta into the dishes.  On top of that, Hey, Babe became miserably ill with his second stomach virus in a month while I was in the middle of preparations.  It turns out that I won't be having anyone to share my incredible dessert with after all since we did not feel inclined to spread the plague to another household and opted instead to stay home. 

At the last minute I poured my coconut panna cotta into two large bowls and only one of the prepared glasses with the chocolate not-quite-geleé.  Since the one I poured into the glass didn't really layer nicely I feel it was a wise choice.  The chocolate not-really-at-all-geleé-now-that-I-think-about-it I simmered in a pot until it became a much thicker chocolate sauce.  Tasty, but not what I had planned.  The combination between the two was absolutely perfect.  The bitterness of the chocolate subdued the sweetness of the panna cotta and danced together with the coconut in perfect harmony.  It was exactly as I had hoped.  The Florentine cookies added a pleasant crumbly crunch to an otherwise silky smooth experience and all in all I am completely satisfied with the results.  The only shame was the lack of any appreciative audience to share it with.

To the given recipes I made the following changes:
-Substituted 1 can (2 cups) of coconut milk for the 1 cup of milk and 1 of the cups of heavy cream
-Substituted sugar for the honey (I wasn't sure how strong the coconut flavor was going to be and so I didn't want to take any chane that the honey would distract from it)
-Added 2/3 cup of chopped almonds to the cookies
-Substituted almond flour/meal for the all purpose flour (I think it made them quite crumbly but I liked them that way)

Daring Bakers Make Biscuit Joconde Imprimes, part Two

Our happy plans of celebrating some birthdays with this marvelous dessert over the weekend were shot to pieces when Hey, Babe came home from work with a stomach virus.  I suddenly found myself with an enormous dessert and no one to share it with, though I really can't complain about that part.  It is unfortunate that the change in plans happened so last minute, if the party had been canceled sooner I would have been able to put off making it, make a smaller version, or even try to freeze it right away.  However, that wasn't the case.

I wasn't sure how well the mousse was going to freeze since I've never tried it before.  Some Google searching didn't give me any promising reports for a mousse made with gelatin, noting weeping and separating in some cases.  Not only that, but I had no idea how to package the mousse to protect it in the freezer.  I didn't have a big enough container to fit it in as a whole and I was afraid that anything I could wrap it in would just stick to it and ruin it.  So I just ate the whole thing myself.

I'm kidding! Although I really could have because whoa, it was the best one I've made to date.  I ended up cutting the mousse into pieces and freezing them in smaller containers and when I defrost a piece I will be able to find out how well this particular recipe freezes for future reference.  I had hope that Hey, Babe would recover quickly so I optimistically left a piece out for us to share.  Hey, Babe not recovering fast enough, plus the fact that Little Man also caught the bug, plus the mountains of gross laundry that resulted from all that sent me to the fridge often to console myself.  Needless to say, the unfrozen piece is long gone.  Poor Hey, Babe will have to wait until I defrost another piece before he can try it.

At first I wasn't sure that the caramel layer came through over the strong flavor of the white-mocha layer.  After several taste tests I have decided that it doesn't (and really can't) come through over the mocha layer, but it definitely complements it.  I am pretty sure that this is my new favorite triple mousse cake.  And thanks to some unfortunate luck on Hey, Babe's part, I will get to eat it several more times.  Hmm, I wonder how it tastes frozen?

Triple Layer Mousse
Ingredients:
Milk Chocolate Mousse:
10 oz. Milk Chocolate
1 1/2 c. Heavy Cream
1 tsp. unflavored Gelatin
2 Tb. cool Water

White Chocolate-Mocha Mousse:
10 oz. White Chocolate
1 tsp. unflavored Gelatin (or 2 sheets)
1 1/2 c. Heavy Cream
1 ½ TB. Instant coffee granules

Caramel Mousse:
For the caramel:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
1/4 tsp salt
For the mousse base:
1 tsp powdered gelatin
2 tsp cool water
1 egg yolk
1 TB sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup heavy cream


Instructions
For the Milk Chocolate Mousse:
Chop the milk chocolate and place it in a double boiler. Pour ½ c. of the heavy cream over the chocolate and allow the gentle heat of the simmering water below melt the chocolate. Stir the chocolate and cream mixture until smooth.

While the chocolate is melting, pour the 2 TB of cool water into a small dish and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Let sit until the gelatin has completely dissolved and begins to thicken into a gel. Add the gel and stir it into the milk chocolate mixture until it has completely melted. Allow chocolate mixture to begin cooling so it does not melt the whipped cream you will be adding.

Using your mixer, whip the remaining 1 c. of heavy cream to soft peaks. Check the chocolate, you want it around 80°F or cool but not stiff. Add about half of the whipped cream to the melted chocolate, whisking and folding gently until it is incorporated. Fold in the remaining whipped cream once the first half is whisked in. When the chocolate and cream are evenly blended, pour the mousse into your chosen vessel. I had a layer of the Joconde cut to the size of my Springform pan and placed in the bottom. But this can also be poured over a flourless dark chocolate cake, or into glasses to be served individually. Smooth the top and put in the fridge.


For the White Chocolate-Mocha Mousse:
Wait around 20 minutes after the first mousse was made before you begin to give it a bit of time to set and then proceed in the exact same manner as the first mousse with the exception of adding the coffee granules to the ½ cup of heavy cream before pouring over the white chocolate (unless you prefer to leave the white chocolate mousse plain, in which case omit the coffee). Pour the finished white chocolate mousse over the previous layer and place back in the fridge.

For the Caramel Mousse:
For the caramel:
Place the sugar in a small heavy bottomed saucepan set over high heat. Cook until the sugar has melted and is beginning to turn darker in color. Remove from the heat (the residual heat from the bottom of the pan will continue cooking it until it is a darker color) and add the heavy cream and butter. Stir with a wooden spoon until completely smooth, add the salt and stir a bit more until it is incorporated. Scrape out into a small bowl and set aside.

Prepare the mousse base:
Measure the cool water into a small dish and sprinkle the gelatin over top to soften. Set aside. In the now empty caramel pot, whisk the egg yolk with the sugar until very pale. Add the milk and vanilla and heat slowly over medium heat until it has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add the softened gelatin and stir until it all dissolves into the cream. Add the waiting caramel back to the pot and whisk well to combine. Let cool to room temperature.

In a medium bowl, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks. Carefully whisk and fold 1/3 of the whipped cream into the caramel base. Continue on and gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream. Pour the finished caramel mousse over the previous layer, smoothing carefully. Allow the assembled layers of mousse to chill in the fridge at least an hour (a few more would be better) before serving.