Borek ( Spinach and feta layered Turkish bread)

Recipe from Home Cooking in Montana. This girl is great, I love her blog. I book marked this recipe months ago and finally got around to making it for my backyard knitting bbq this weekend. I pretty much followed her take on the recipe except I used active yeast instead of instant. So here's deal about yeast:

Instant yeast can be added directly to the dry ingredients. Active dry yeast has to be re-hydrated first. To do this you must use water that is no hotter than what you can comfortably put on the back of your wrist. If the water temperature is hotter the yeast will start to die. When substituting active in place of instant use 25% more.

I also didn't have a mixing machine with a paddle so I just kneaded the dough by hand (about 10 minutes, or 3 songs on my ipod shuffle). It's really difficult to over knead bread by hand so don't be afraid to go at it. In retrospect, I could have kneaded the dough even longer. My bread didn't rise as much as Ellie's, but it was still delicious.

Valuable lessons from my 5th grade science project (What factors affect bread making?): The dough kneaded for longer than the recipe called for came out better, almost double the size. The bread made will boiling water to activate the yeast came out terrible. Killing the yeast with hotter water is what will do your bread making in. So be careful!


Kneading dough= great release for built up stress.

Cheesy Goodness part II

The creative grilled cheese juices have been a flowin'. I call this the Costa Rican Grilled Cheese.

Tomato
Fresh Cilantro
Dubliner cheese
Artisan bread (I've been loving Rudi's Organic Bakery Multi-grain from MOMs lately)
Lizano sauce* (souvenir from CR. I suppose you could find this in an international grocery store)

Grill Marinade

grilling season has returned hizzah!

SOY SAUCE MARINADE

1/2 c soy sauce
1/2 c water
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

Our Best Bran Muffins

This is one of my favorite recipes from my Mommom. The crucial thing here is to not over bake them. If you leave them in the oven too long they taste like a substandard dried out mass of bran. If you bake them just right they taste like a glorious bran success, and they stay moist for many days to come. You have to know your oven just right to get the correct bake time. In my oven it takes about 16 minutes.



OUR BEST BRAN MUFFINS

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder (I make these VERY generous)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups 40% Bran Flakes
1 1/4 cups milk (or buttermilk, if you don't have any you can add a tbsp of vinegar to the milk and get the same effect)
1 egg
1/3 cup veg oil

1. Stir together flour, baking powder, salt & sugar. Set aside.
2. Measure bran flakes & milk into mixing bowl. Stir to combine, let stand 1-2 min or until cereal is softened. Add egg & shortening, beat well, with a spoon.
3. Add dry ingredients to cereal mixture, stirring only until combined. Portion batter evenly into 12 muffins.
4. Bake in oven at 400 degrees about 25 mins or until golden brown (keep an eye on your muffins. as soon as they bounce back to a poke, take them out. they will continue baking even after you remove from the oven by the residual heat of the muffin tin)

DON'T OVER BAKE!

How to cut a pineapple

Cutting and serving a pineapple is always an awkward situation. I had to go whitewater rafting in Costa Rica to learn the proper technique. After a few hours of rafting our instructors Felipe and Diego pulled us over to a nice beachy spot where they flipped over our rafts, put table cloths over them, and served us a lovely lunch (this reveals our rafting difficulty, or rather lack of difficulty level). Felipe was a fruit cutting extraordinaire. I'm going to try to sum up his secrets via instructional photos. Mind you he had an entire pineapple beautifully sliced and ready to serve in all of 30 seconds.

1. Using a very sharp serrated knife, cut off the shoot and base.

2. Cut in half.

3. Place pineapple half on counter with the flat side facing up. Cut length wise down one side of the pineapple till you reach the center. Rotate the pineapple 180 degrees and repeat.

4. Making two slits, cut out the core into a V shape and remove.


5. Slice width wise to water ever thickness slivers you want.



Felipe and Diego's were much prettier than mine

Easter Dinner 2010

Save the liver!

Mim made an awesome roasted chicken for dinner tonight. She almost threw away the liver, but luckily I was walking through the kitchen and stopped her just in time. The important thing to remember is to always save the liver! Don't throw it away! I hope I've made my point. Don't ever throw the liver away.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/3523/saturday-night-live-the-french-chef

Apple Pumpkin Grilled Cheese

I didn't have any good lunch materials yesterday so I made something new. I used pumpkin butter from Trader Joe's that's been in my frig since thanksgiving, paired with sliced golden delicious apple and Dubliner cheese on artisan bread. Any kind of jam could be used in place of the pumpkin butter (apricot, fig..).

Turkey pot pie (w/ rice crust)

Much to Ryan's dismay this was a "healthy" pot pie. A traditional pastry pot pie requires a lot of work and is too heavy in my opinion (it might not be heavy in moderation but I can never eat anything that resembles pastry in moderation). I tweaked this recipe from cleaning eating magazine (http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/minisite/ce_index.htm). Sometimes they thoroughly take all the fun out of recipes, this is one of them. I think I saved it though! They have this irrational opposition to all fats. I am not a fat hater. I am a firm believer in real butter and whole milk. They have good intentions though, so I forgive them and continue to read their magazine. I do approve of their substitute for half and half--plain yogurt. They call for fat free of course, but i used brown cow cream top (the best yogurt in the world). It gave the pot pie filling a good thickness without weighing it down. I also didn't have any fresh herbs which seriously hurt the flavor. But we can't have fresh herbs all the time. It's not summer yet grr!

Ingredients:
2 cups cooked long grain brown rice (I used a wild rice mix, but brown rice probably makes for a nicer fluffier crust)
2 TBSP butter
3 oz parmigiano (didn't have any so I used aged Dubliner cheese from costco, better choice!)
sea salt and black pepper to taste (always heavy on the pepper)
12 oz boneless, skinless turkey breast cut into one inch cubes
2 carrots sliced
1 white turnip peeled, cubed
1 leek, sliced up through the light green part
half a red onion, diced
3 TBSP whole wheat flour
1/3 c plain yogurt
2 c chicken broth
2 TBSP parsley
2 TBSP sage



Instructions:
preheat oven to 375. combine rice, cheese, s n' p in bowl, set aside. In a large skillet heat 1 tbsp butter, cook turkey till brown but not cooked through (~5 minutes), set aside. Heat 2 tbsp butter and cook veggies until softened (~5 minutes). Add flour, stir for 30 sec. Add broth, stir until simmering. Add yogurt and mix well. Add turkey, parsley, and sage. Season with s n' p. Grease a baking dish, add turkey mixture and top with rice mixture. Bake for 30 minutes, until filling is bubbling and rice is golden brown. let stand 5 min. Bon appetit