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!