Broken computer means bread!

To cope with the frustration of my stupid work computer being entirely unable to connect to the network, I took out my frustrations on bread and meatballs.
Turkey meatballs were: https://www.inspiredtaste.net/20529/turkey-meatballs-recipe-with-light-tomato-sauce/
The store was out of parsley so we left that out and we forgot about the basil.  I endorse including them.  the meatballs were a bit bland.   This was however a great recipe to include the children.  Alex made the meatballs and Elizabeth made the sauce.

I also made focaccia bread using this recipe: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/focaccia-bread  I sauteed some leeks and cherry tomatoes that were far past their prime (think almost dried) and put them on half.  I did this before I poked my fingers through the dough.

it says it's supposed to be a thick batter.  Mine was more of a sticky dough in the mixer.



Overhead shot


It was supposed to have an 8-24 hour time out in the fridge.  Mine was only in there for about 4 hours and it was TASTY!

Before baking: 

Final product:


As dinner:


My notes:
Before you bake it, lift up the dough and put more olive oil under - mine stuck to the pan even though I had what I thought was a ridiculous amount of oil.
If you are going to top only half, use two pans - the topped side could have used just a few more minutes of baking time.
It also was on the short end of the baking time to get that lovely color.

Two bakers. Two lemon cookie recipes. Who will win?

I mentioned to the kids that we were running out of cookies and that we had lemons so we should make a lemon cookie.  They found two recipes and couldn't agree so they asked if they could each make one and see who's is better. 
Alex selected a lemon crinkle cookie: https://laurenslatest.com/lemon-crinkle-cookies/





Elizabeth selected a glazed lemon cookie: https://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/glazed-lemon-cookies/


Interestingly these remind me of the lemon girl scout cookies - savannah smiles for Alex and Lemon-up for Elizabeth.
Lemon Crinkle Cookies:


Lemon Glazed cookies:


The lemon glazed cookies had most of the lemon flavor in the glaze. They are a more cake like texture - soft and crumbly.
The lemon crinkle cookies are chewier with crisp edges.  The lemon flavor was throughout the cookie. 
Patrick liked the glazed cookies and I liked the crinkle cookies best.  Tie game!  Everyone wins!

Italian Week

By coincidence, a lot of the recipes we've been cooking this week have been Italian.

First, we got a bunch of cherry tomatoes to make a batch of Smitten Kitchen's farro (but we forgot to get basil, whoops):




















Then we had a glut of cherry tomatoes that started getting a bit old, so we made the bon appetit summer bolognese (We remembered to get more basil for this!). This is one of my favorite pasta dishes. It's DELICIOUS, satiating, fast, only dirties two dishes, and uses fresh cherry tomatoes to make the sauce. It reheats nicely, too.

















 
Prior to that, we'd made the Italian rustic loaf, and the date soup, which used some some mushrooms: 

Rising!

Finished product!

Then, thinking to use up some of our costco mushroom glut, we made the New York Times cooking baked orzo recipe, but forgot to add the mushrooms. The result was still delicious, and it was completely eaten up within 24 hours. It's kind of like a super fast and easy risotto made of giant rice, with creaminess coming from the cheese. A second attempt (with successfully adding mushrooms, and adding less Parmesan) on Saturday worked


We managed to save more of this for leftovers by having snacks in the afternoon, but it's disappearing fast. For people without an NYT cooking subscription, here's the recipe:

Adventures in bread

I'm not quite the over achiever that Linnea is so I only had a 25 pound bag of bread flour that I got at christmas time.

We made pizza before mom and dad left.  I don't have any pictures and will do a post about that later.

Since then, I have made white bread: https://lilluna.com/basic-homemade-bread-recipe/

I did not top it with butter but it was super yummy! I think it might have been slightly under risen.   This is before rising:

Shaped into loaves: 

The split loaf is half cheesy bread.  I put in what felt like a stupid amount of cheese and it barely showed up in the final product - it was yummy though!   (you can see a bit of crunchy cheese that leaked out on the right side of this picture)

I followed her directions and sliced and froze the second loaf and it made some delicious sandwiches for our hike on Sunday.

I also attempted to make breadsticks (https://prettysimplesweet.com/crispy-breadsticks-grissini/).  I wanted them to turn out like the breadsticks from wuolett.  These did not rise enough to be like those so I will keep searching.  I don't have any in in process pictures for these but the amount of oil and butter in the dough made it very stiff and splitty.  The kids said they were delicious though. 


Last up was hamburger buns: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/40-minute-hamburger-buns/



This dough was much easier to work with.  The shape is all wrong.   These were some notes from Hannah: To make burger buns weigh dough to 3 oz, round, place on parchment lined pans with space. Let rise then flatten with your hand. Dont squish super flat but deflate and the diameter should be about the diameter of finished bun, let rise again and then bake. If you want to be fancy spray with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
I also forgot to add the salt which was definitely missed.  I also realized this morning that there is a video and they put damp cloth over when they did the 10 minute rest so maybe that would have flattened them out more.  I think I also made them too ball shaped when I made the initial buns. 

Overall -
Loaf bread - A - super tasty and not too hard - would add an egg wash to make it pretty next time
Breadsticks - B - tasty but harder to make and not what I was looking for
Hamburger buns - B- - This is mostly my fault since I forgot to add the salt.

More misadventures in baking to follow!

Quarantine Cooking!

Now that we're all doing our best to be house bound, this seemed like a the perfect time to revive our cooking blog to swap recipes. Last night we made a good, freezable, fridge-cleaning soup that we call date soup! Here's the (very flexible) recipe:

For the protein:
1 lb ground meat (preferably chicken or turkey) (Or no meat! Do beans instead)
Liberal amounts of garlic (like 8 cloves?)
Basil or parsley (dried or fresh is fine)
Salt or garlic salt or onion salt, or a mix of all three!
Pepper
Olive oil
Cut any of the above seasonings, or add others that you like (I'd add fennel seeds, but that's not popular with the wife).

Add meat, crushed garlic, and seasonings to a bowl, and squish together like you're making meatballs or sausage. Heat the olive oil in a soup pot, then add meat, and cook so it ends up in little bits, like you're making a bolognese sauce or taco meat.

For the rest of the soup:

Carrots
Onion
Zucchini
Yellow summer squash
Mushrooms
Spinach
Fresh basil
Omit any of the above vegetables, or add others that you like or need to get out of your fridge.

Cut up your vegetables into spoon-appropriate sized bits. Add the carrots and onions to the protein, stirring until they're a bit cooked, then add:

Canned tomatoes or a can of spaghetti sauce
Chicken or vegetable broth
Bay leaves
Other seasonings (Italian seasoning, etc)

Then add the rest of the vegetables, starting with the summer squashes, waiting a while, then adding mushrooms, waiting a while, and adding spinach and basil right before it's done.

As the soup is cooking, cook noodles (pasta shells are traditional for us) to eat it with, or eat it with bread. (Italian rustic is really good, and here's an easy recipe that's worked well for me. (NOT SO RIDICULOUS OF ME TO HAVE BOUGHT A FIFTY POUND BAG OF BREAD FLOUR, NOW, IS IT, STEVE??))
Parmesan or mozzarella are great on top of this soup!

Strawberry Season and Getting Ready for Baby McGee

Today was the sort of day to make those darned Mormon lifestyle bloggers jealous, and not just because of P's glass of red wine and our breakfast coffees. Two of our oldest and dearest friends came down for the weekend, and then left on noon at Sunday. Such considerate guests to leave us one whole weekend day to get all the things done that need doing! We are now totally set for newborn and 0-3 month clothes for our littlest bun, and our brand-spanking new gigantic IKEA bookshelf holds her clean clothes admirably well until we can find a new dresser for H to move into.

An adorable thrift store find to round out H's week of finding great deals on baby stuff. Owl long sleeved onesie for a quarter!

 E shows off the first days of the third trimester (28 weeks!) and her amaaaazing pie creation.

    P got an awesome little hibachi grill for his birthday, so we decided to grill sweet corn and chicken sausages for dinner tonight. I made a 'lishy' (H's word, isn't it great?) salad from the spoils from our  first farmer's market of the year, and we ate like royalty.

     This afternoon we drove out to the strawberry patch and brought back a lovely crop of strawberries. Our first treat is Strawberry Pie with a coconut streusel crust.
 


 

All recipes from Bittman's How to Cook Everything, Tenth Anniversary Edition

Sweet Tart Crust + Streusel Topping + Fresh Strawberry Pie

Sweet Tart Crust:
11/4 cups flour, plus more for rolling
pinch salt
2 T sugar
1 1/4 sticks frozen or cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 egg yolk
3 T ice water

1. Combine flour, salt, sugar in food processor, and pulse. Add butter all at once, process about 10 seconds, until the mixture is uniform (don't overdo it). Add egg yolk and pulse a few more seconds. Now you'll have small crumbs.
2. Put the mixture in a bowl, add 3 T ice water; mix with your hands until you can form the dough into a ball, adding 1 - 2 T more ice water if needed. Form into a ball, and freeze for 10-15 minutes. (If you cover it in plastic wrap, you can refrigerate for a couple of days, or freeze, well wrapped for a couple of weeks.)
3. Sprinkle counter top with flour, and add pastry ball. I found that kneading the pastry like bread dough to incorporate some of the flour made for a perfect consistency. Roll out into a circle about 2 inches larger than your pie pan.
4. Loosen the dough with a scraper, and drape it gingerly over your rolling pin to transfer into the pie pan or tart shell. Press the dough into all the nooks and crannies in the pan, and cut the edges flush with the pan edge. Refrigerate for 1 hour or freeze for 30 minutes before filling.

Streusel Topping:
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened, or reduce sugar)
1 T lemon juice
pinch of cinnamon
1/2 cup whole wheat, 1/2 all-purpose flour

1. Cream butter and sugar in the food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until  combined and crumbly; but less uniform than a dough.
2. Crumble the mixture over the top of a fruit pie, crisp, quick bread, or muffins.

Strawberry Pie Filling:
5 cups hulled strawberries, whole or halved
1/2 - 1 cup sugar, depending on sweetness of berries
3 T corn starch
pinch salt
1/4 cinnamon
pinch of allspice

1. Heat oven to 450 F. Toss berries with sugar, thickener, salt, and spices. Pile into the chilled pie crust.
2. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and add streusel topping. Bake for another 40-50 minutes at reduced heat of 350 F until pie is golden brown. Cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing. 

Crafty Projects and Amazing Rice

It's once again my favorite time of the year, the time that final exams are done and summer is just beginning. And once again, P has been busy crafting. Here's a nice 45 minute project for a kid's room.
We found inspiration for it on Pinterest, and then did it ourselves!

Art Hanger

Cost: zero dollars + 45 minutes of effort

 Supplies: 2 pieces of wood from drawer pulls from our freecycled Dresser.
                Bicycle Brake Cable
                Screws and Screw Wallmounts
                Screwdriver + Drill
                Masking Tape + Pencil
                Clothespins
1. Drill holes in center of drawer pulls for screws to mount in the wall.
2. Drill a second narrow hole through the diameter of the drawer pull to thread the wire through.
3. Decide where you'd like to mount the art hanger, and test-mount it with masking tape. Mark the ends for the drawer pulls.
4. Drill holes in the wall, add screw wallmounts.
5. Screw drawer pulls into wall.
6. Add wire, threading through the holes in the drawer pulls, tugging to the desired tightness. Trim off any remaining wire.
7. Add clothespins and art!

Here are a couple of other home decoration projects we've been up to as well. We found two giant very firm pillows for the guest room so we can have a cozier movie area. Here, H demonstrates that the pillows are great for a reading nook too!





 
I've been slowly redecorating our couch and living room, and we finally got all new throw pillow covers for the couch. Now we have two lovely green ones and the birdie pillow cover on our nice grey couch cover.

Finally, I promised amazing rice. Here it is! It doesn't photograph particularly well, so it's just the recipe.

Coconut, Raisin, and Orange Rice
2 T butter
1 onion, finely diced
1 cup white rice, or parboiled brown rice
1 1/4 cups water
 salt
1 tsp popped cumin seeds
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 tsp cardamom
3 T orange juice

1. Melt 1 T butter over medium heat. Add onion and saute until tender.
2. Stir in the rice and cook 1 minute, stirring continuously, then add water and salt. Raise the heat to high, cover the pan, and bring contents to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 14-20 minutes.
3. In a skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Pop cumin seeds by roasting a bit. Stir in almond and saute until almonds brown faintly. Add coconut, and cardamom, and cook until coconut faintly browns. Remove from heat.
4. When rice is cooked, gently stir in almond mixture and orange juice. Remove from heat, cover, and let steam for 10-14 minutes.