You are here: Home / Archives for Recipes / Bread

Bubble Pizza (Pizza Monkey Bread)

January 31, 2012 by 16 Comments

Isn’t there some sort of sporting event coming up this weekend? Some big deal? Football something or other?

I’m a little fuzzy on that point, I’m just thinking I’ve heard talk.

Anyway, if you happen to be going somewhere or having lots of people over, you might be expected to have some finger food available. It’s only natural. And if you’re looking for something fast and filling, it doesn’t get much better than this.

We’re talking about Bubble Pizza. What is that, you say?

Pizza dough + pizza sauce + pepperoni + scads of cheese = Bubble Pizza

In other words, it’s a  lip-smacking, comforting, puffy, pizza-goody-packed, cheesy, gooey, easy, crowd-pleaser. If you’re not cooking for a crowd, don’t despair. If you serve this with a nice green salad, you have a complete meal that’ll win over everyone other than the dearly departed Doctor Atkins.

Here’s a bonus… If you keep this dough on hand, Bubble Pizza is never more than an hour away!

Print
Bubble Pizza (Pizza Monkey Bread)

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Bubble Pizza (Pizza Monkey Bread)

Some parts crispy, some tender, but all gooey, cheesy, pizza-y and full of pure comfort, Bubble Pizza is the perfect addition to your big game party food, but it's equally at home served with a big salad for a fast and satisfying weeknight meal.

Ingredients

  • 1 pound pizza dough (like this) , cut into 16 roughly equal sized pieces or storebought
  • 2 cups of your favourite pizza sauce (like this)
  • 3 cups grated part-skim mozzarella, separated
  • 25 thin slices of pepperoni, cut into quarters
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
    • Optional:
  • sliced green onions for serving

Instructions

Drizzle the olive oil into a 9-inch to 12-inch cast iron skillet (or other heavy oven safe skillet.) Use a pastry brush to distribute the oil over the bottom and up the sides of the pan.

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the pizza sauce, 1 cup of the mozzarella and the pepperoni slice quarters until evenly mixed. Drop in one piece of dough at a time, use tongs or two forks to turn it to coat both sides, then transfer to the prepared pan. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough. If any of the sauce mixture remains in the bowl, use a spoon to dollop it in small amounts over the dough that is in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining cheese evenly over the prepared dough and let rise for 10 minutes before preheating your oven to 425°F with a rack positioned in the center third of the oven.

When the oven reaches the correct temperature, slide the pan into the oven (on top of a rimmed baking sheet to catch drips if the dough, cheese and sauce look precariously close to the top of the pan. Remember it will rise higher as it bakes!) Bake for 25-30 minutes (or longer, if necessary) or until the bread is puffy and well-set and the cheese is melted and browned. Remove the pan from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. Lay a platter or plate that's slightly larger over the top of the pan before carefully inverting.

If desired, you can sprinkle sliced green onions over the Bubble Pizza before serving. Serve warm!

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/01/31/bubble-pizza-pizza-monkey-bread/

 

Filed Under: Bread, Comfort Food, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Mini Cheddar Scallion Monkey Breads

January 16, 2012 by 22 Comments

 

There’s very little cheese in this recipe. That is, there’s not so much cheese compared to the sum total amount of cheese in, say, Wisconsin or Vermont. There’s really not a whole lot compared to what you would find in my favourite cheese factory and shoppe. But otherwise?

There is a ton of cheese in and on these mini monkey breads.

As in a lot.

Very much.

A whole cheesy bunch.

 

Mmm. Cheese.

What we have here is little pieces of cheese bread dough tossed with minced scallions (Because onions and Cheddar cheese? They’re like *this*!) and olive oil, plopped into muffin tins and capped with a serious amount of cheese. How much? Well, about this much…

In case you’re mentally tabulating, that’s roughly a quarter cup of shredded cheese on top of each of these little golden brown beauties. (That doesn’t count how much went into the dough. Hubba hubba.)

In short, this bread is a cheese lover’s dream. Served by itself as a hearty snack or alongside a piping hot bowl of whatever soup flicks your Bic, this is, simply put, the stuff.

Now I’m going to tell you to grate your own cheese for this. I try not to be super bossy about this kind of thing, but I’m going to put on my mom voice right now. Whether you do it, your food processor does it for you or you bribe some burly bicep-ed man in the house with promises of cheesy kisses, I don’t care… Just don’t use the stuff in the bag (not that I’m opposed to that sometimes) because it usually is treated with stuff to make the shreds stay separate for long periods of time on the store shelves. There’s something about the way cheese you’ve shredded yourself melts that just plain makes this taste better.

I have another piece of unsolicited advice for you.  Use the extra sharpest Cheddar you can find for this bread. You want the tang and punch and wow and “I AM CHEESE” presence that only extra sharp Cheddar can deliver. Your extra-Cheddar perseverance will be rewarded. Unless, of course you really don’t like extra sharp, in which case you should substitute away!

I want you to know that I accidentally fell face first into this plate after I took these pictures.

It’s okay, though. I only ate the ones I licked.

Print
Mini Cheddar Scallion Monkey Breads

Mini Cheddar Scallion Monkey Breads

Bite sized morsels of cheese-laced bread dough tossed with minced scallions (Because onions and Cheddar cheese? They're like this!) and olive oil, arranged in muffin tins and capped with a serious amount of cheese then baked to crisp topped, deep golden brown perfection.

The dough for this is the Cheese Bread recipe from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion.

Ingredients

    For the dough:
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 3 1/2 cups bread flour (can substitute all-purpose flour if necessary)
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
  • 1 cup finely grated extra sharp Cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
  • 2 tablespoons softened butter
  • 2 teaspoons tomato paste
    • For the Scallion Oil:
  • 8 scallions, trimmed and minced
  • 5 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 clove garlic, peeled and minced
    • To Top the Rolls:
  • 2 cups finely shredded extra sharp Cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese

Instructions

Mix together all of the dough ingredients by hand, stand mixer or bread machine until a smooth, elastic dough forms. Let rise, covered, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Stir together all of the ingredients for the scallion oil in a small mixing bowl. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray. Toss together the cheese topping mixture. Set these all aside.

Turn the risen dough out onto a clean counter and divide into 36 equal-ish sized pieces. Roll each piece in the scallion oil, pushing scallion bits into the dough. Put 3 pieces in each of the 12 muffin cups. Let rise for 30 minutes in a warm, draft-free place.

Preheat oven to 375°F. As the oven preheats, evenly divide the cheesy topping mixture over each of the risen monkey breads. Bake for 22-30 minutes, or until the bread is set and the cheese is golden brown and crusty on top of each monkey bread.

Let the bread cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then turn out onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or room temperature.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/01/16/mini-cheddar-scallion-monkey-breads/

Filed Under: Bread, Comfort Food, kid food, Rebecca, Recipes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , ,

Honey Potato Rolls

November 18, 2011 by 12 Comments

Every year right around this time I get sappy. I spend November first through January tenth in a heightened state of emotional lather. We have all five boys’ birthdays interspersed among Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. The ever-racing nature of time is really driven home by singing Happy Birthday twenty five times in six weeks (I figure an average of five rounds of Happy Birthday per child) and throwing in Christmas carols to boot.

What this boils down to is that I am the Queen of the Holidays. I’m not suggesting that I’m about to whisk the immaculate turkey-shaped-folded-cloth-napkin-white-light crown from Martha Stewart’s coifed and calm head. Not even close. We are talking about Queen Thanksgiving and Christmas Spirit, folks.

We make handprint turkeys and construction paper cornucopias and real live turkey feather (dead turkey, rather. I’ve never plucked a feather from a live one.) headdresses to honour the native people who helped the settlers. We have a very Omnimedia-unapproved Christmas tree. Each year it is filled with odds and ends like homemade ornaments, bamboo umbrellas from our beloved and now defunct Chinese restaurant, and an ornament from my piano teacher when I was a kid. But there’s more. There are pieces of iridescent ribbon the children loved that they cut from a gift several years ago, rocks (Yes, rocks. My children love them.), twigs –because as one child said, “A tree can never have too many!”, and more often than not, a few lovingly arranged paper towels. I didn’t ask on that one. What I do know is that the child who does that has a look of rapture on his face when he does. That’s enough for me.

I burst into song with no provocation. I dance around the kitchen waving wooden spoons while my eyeballs glitter and my smile gleams (if a tea-soaked smile can do such a thing) at those who enter my lair. I brandish homemade cookies and cakes and bread and candies and dried fruit under the noses of anyone who says, “I’m hungry!” because the baking and the cooking reaches near manic levels.

Oh, the baking and the cooking.

What makes you feel the holiday spirit more than a scent of cookies or a rising loaf of bread wafting from the stove? I can’t think of a thing. I would add to the list, however, licking your fingers to remove the chocolate after breaking a freshly set batch of English toffee, a tall glass of cold eggnog, a steam-capped stockpot of simmering soup, and a pan of hot, soft rolls fresh from the oven, dotted with butter.

Topping the list of things that equal Thanksgiving to me are rolls: specifically, my grandmother’s rolls. You may remember me having an attack of guilt when I made another kind of roll last week. They were the chief joy of the Thanksgivings of my youth and remain one of the biggest to this day. Her rolls are, in a word, perfect. My copy of her recipe, on an index card written in her hand, is one of my prize possessions. The soft, golden brown potato rolls with a touch of nutty whole wheat and a subtle hint of honey reliably disappear faster than the other fixings at the feast.

But there’s another wonderful reason to count on these rolls. You can make the dough, form the rolls, put them in pans, wrap them tightly and freeze them days in advance. To bake, thaw on the counter for about two hours, then let rise for another hour and a half. Bake and tada! Fresh rolls with all the hard work done well ahead of time.

Print
Honey Potato Rolls

Honey Potato Rolls

Soft, golden brown potato rolls with a touch of nutty whole wheat and a subtle hint of honey reliably disappear faster than the other fixings at the feast, but don't save them for Thanksgiving alone. If you're looking for the perfect accompaniment to a bowl of creamy soup, look no farther.

Ingredients

  • 2 ¼ teaspoons (or one packet) yeast. Active Dry Yeast or Instant are both acceptable
  • 1 ½ cups warm water (for best flavour, use the water in which you cooked potatoes)
  • 2/3 cup honey
  • 1 cup lukewarm mashed potatoes
  • 2/3 cup butter, softened to room temperature
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 ½ teaspoons salt
  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 5 to 5 ½ cups all purpose flour

Instructions

To Make the Dough:

In a large mixing bowl, the bowl of a stand mixer, add the water and honey, stir gently and sprinkle the yeast over the top. Let stand for 2 minutes. Add everything but the flours and stir well (using a sturdy spoon or dough hook) to combine. Add the whole wheat flour and 2 cups of the all purpose flour and stir well until even. Add the remaining flour and stir it in. If you have a stand mixer, use the dough hook to knead it. Otherwise, turn onto a generously floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about five minutes. Transfer the dough into a large clean mixing bowl or dough bucket, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours but no longer than 5 days.

To Shape the Rolls:

Grease or butter two 9”x13” rectangular or four 8” round baking pans and set them aside.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and punch it down. Divide in half, then portion each half into 20 equal sized pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.

Place the dough balls into the prepared pans (5 rows of 4 in each rectangular pan or 10 rolls in each round pan.) Cover with a clean towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until puffy in appearance and nearly doubled in size, about 2 hours.

To Bake the Rolls:

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Bake the rolls for 20 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. If desired, brush the finished rolls with melted butter.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/11/18/honey-potato-rolls/

Filed Under: Bread, Comfort Food, kid food, Rebecca, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , ,

No-Knead Rosemary Crescent Rolls

November 12, 2011 by 10 Comments

Each Thanksgiving that I have spent as an adult, whether we were eating at home or taking to the road to visit relatives, I have made two kinds of rolls; Honey Potato Wheat Rolls and Crescent Rolls. The truth is, though, that I have eaten one or both of these every single Thanksgiving of my life. I grew up on them. Both of these roll recipes are handwritten by my grandmother on index cards with her notes and advice. I can almost feel a hug from Grandma when I hold the recipe cards in my hand. I can see her wink at me while turning away from everyone and giving a secretive jerk of her thumb over her shoulder toward the extra basket of rolls she stashed on top of the refrigerator for me. Well, I assumed they were from me. My Grandma wasn’t much given to secretive hand gestures.

I tell you this so you can understand how important those rolls are to me and how big a departure it was for me to even consider another roll. Don’t get me wrong, a gal can never have too many roll recipes*. But the mere thought of introducing a roll recipe that wasn’t my Grandma’s so close to Thanksgiving about gave me the vapours**.

*As evidenced by my over-the-jean roll against which I continually do Pilates battle.

**Not that my Grandma minds. She’s all about innovation at 85. I’m the one with the change issues.

All this to say that it would clearly take something pretty special to motivate me to play with a new roll recipe more than a week into November. And to try one that even superficially resembled my Grandma’s crescent rolls? GASP. I’m telling you, if I was in therapy, they’d tell me I was making progress. I’d hate to let them down, but I would have to be honest and say it’s because Zoë François of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day exercised some sort of voodoo mind control with her Rosemary Crescent Roll recipe.  It was inevitable that I was going to make these. I am a sucker for all things rosemary. I said to myself, “I’m just going to try making these. It doesn’t mean I’ll make them for Thanksgiving.”

I decided to do a little experimentation and try ABin5′s Olive Oil Dough vs. my own No-Knead Semolina Dough recipe. I went all scientific for the job, too. I weighed dough. I rolled, prepared and baked it identically. I served it to an audience (Hi, Austins!) willing to observe my “this one in the right hand, this one in the left hand and never the twain shall meet” rule. They gamely ate two crescent rolls each (one of each variety) and pronounced them both really, really, really good.  When I asked which they liked better, they pretty much agreed that they liked them both equally. The ABin5 one was narrowly pegged as the one they’d rather eat as a sandwich roll (because I made mine large) and my No-Knead Semolina Dough was narrowly preferred as the one to eat solo.

I turned to my husband as the tie-breaking vote. He ate one roll from each batch. He chewed thoughtfully. He contemplated. And then he said, “They’re both awesome. ”

So it looked like it was going to boil down to whichever dough I had on hand the next time I  made the rolls, because there was obviously going to be a next time. The question was when. Then he said it.

“I think we should have these at Thanksgiving.” I looked at him like he had five heads.  “B-b-but Grandma’s rolls!” I stammered.

“I just really like these. Both versions. If I had to choose, I’d go with these.” (And here he gestured with the hand holding the ones made from my semolina dough.)

Then I thought about how the crisp-crusted, soft-crumbed, rosemary enhanced rolls would taste sopping up gravy. I thought of slicing open a twisty, tender, herb studded crescent roll and stuffing in pieces of leftover roasted turkey and maybe, just maybe sneaking some cranberry sauce in to boot. I considered my late night Thanksgiving tradition of standing at the refrigerator door long after the kids are in bed and dunking a roll in the leftover gravy and I had a realization.

This year, there would be three kinds of rolls at our table.

Progress, she marches onward in the form of rosemary and bread. That kind of change I can live with.

 

Print
No-Knead Rosemary Crescent Rolls

No-Knead Rosemary Crescent Rolls

These crisp-crusted, soft-crumbed, rosemary studded rolls are perfect for sopping up gravy, leftover turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce,and late night dunking into the gravy boat in front of the refrigerator door. Bonus: They're created with dough you can make up to 10 days in advance of baking!

Ever so gently adapted from and with thanks to Zoë François

Ingredients

  • 1 pound No-Knead Semolina Dough or olive oil dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.**
  • 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • coarse salt for sprinkling

Instructions

Line a half-sheet pan (or two smaller baking sheets) with parchment and set aside.

Moderately flour a clean work surface and your ball of dough.

Roll the dough into a circle that is about 1/4-inch thick. Brush the circle generously with olive oil, sprinkle evenly with the chopped rosemary and sea salt.

Cut the circle into 8 equal wedges. Take one wedge into your hands and gently stretch the pointed end of it while holding onto the wide end to make the piece longer.

Lay the piece back on the work surface and pull the wide end to stretch it gently. Begin rolling the wide end tightly, jelly-roll style, toward the pointed end. When you get close to the pointed end, give it another gentle stretch and wrap it tightly around the center.

Lay each roll on the prepared pans, with the point side down to keep the dough rolled. Be sure to leave ample room between the rolls for expansion. If desired, curl the ends of the rolls gently toward the center to enhance the shape of the finished rolls. Let rise, uncovered, in a warm, draft-free place for up to an hour, or until puffy.

Preheat oven to 475°F.

Brush the rolls one more time, generously, with olive oil then bake, rotating midway through the cooking time, for about 20 minutes, or until beautiful golden brown.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/11/12/no-knead-rosemary-crescent-rolls/

Do you have recipes that you break out every year or do you do something different every Thanksgiving? I must know!

 

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Bread, Comfort Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches

October 26, 2011 by 13 Comments

 

Hey. My oven’s fixed.

Can you tell?

Is it obvious?

And I want to talk about the way it got fixed, because I have a little serious bragging to do.  But first, let’s all of us hearken back to last Friday.  It was a lovely day. We all got out of bed on the right side. The boys, of their own volition, had declared the day to be computer and computer game free. It was nice-ish fall weather.

I was cooking down apples and canning applesauce like nobody’s business.

We had friends over to visit; one mama and her four little ones. Good folks. Great friends. The kids were all playing outside in a light mist, running laps, yelling, trying to catch swirling leaves and growing increasingly hungry. We had plans, folks. We were building up to a pizza and movie evening where the kids would collapse on the couches with hot slices of gooey homemade pizza in hand while watching something very Wallace and Gromit-y.

The kids kept coming into the kitchen asking when pizza would be ready. I told all four hundred thousand of them (because I’m fairly certain that’s how many times I was asked and children don’t ask more than once, right?) that I was waiting for the pizza dough to rise and I also wanted to finish the mega batch of applesauce I was processing.

The applesauce was finished and the dough was perfect, so I turned around and hit preheat on the oven and bumped the temperature up to 475°F then walked away to assemble other ingredients. The gathering together of other ingredients took about half an hour because there were eleventy thousand interruptions. (But not by children, because children don’t interrupt, right?) When I got back into the kitchen I noticed that the oven temperature display still read ’100°F’ and cold dread crept into my happy little heart because I knew exactly what that meant.

That meant I had blown through yet another baking ignitor  (See this post for more information) and I was about to disappoint a grand total of four hundred thousand children (because that’s about how many more had come into the kitchen to ask when the pizza would be ready.) I called the Evil Genius down from his lair (upstairs office) to give the oven the once over, confirm my diagnosis, and say a few well-chosen words over the oven all of which he did obligingly before retreating from the ravening hordes of 1.8 million starving children.

I went into damage control mode, rolled out the pizza dough, pan-fried an infinite amount of dough rounds, threw indecent amounts of cheese into the sauce and heated that up for ultra-cheesy dunking sauce, and served bread wedges with sauce to the all of the children of the world who had somehow managed to fit themselves into my den. Crisis was kind of averted. But if you’re expecting pizza and you’re given bread wedges (even if they are fried) and cheesy dunking sauce (even if it does have my weight in cheese) are you a happy camper? Yeah. No. They weren’t either.

When our long-suffering friends headed for home, and after I dropped my clearly under-nourished eldest son off at a birthday party where he fervently hoped there would be food, I went home to order (yet another) replacement bake ignitor. That’s where the second blow came. The price on these little fast-burning-out beasties had doubled since the last time we had replaced one. Let’s just say they wanted to charge more than a puppy at an animal rescue for the part. Not that I need another puppy…

I did a little more researching on the part and found a forum where some wonderfulblessedfabuloussweetkindadorablelovely person wrote that most horizontal bake ignitors (which was what I needed) were interchangeable provided you had someone handy who knew how to splice wires. My husband’s middle name is SpliceWires. With that piece of information on hand, I found a part for under twenty dollars (after springing for expedited shipping) that would do the job. I ordered. It arrived Tuesday morning. I dropped the package in my working-from-home-husband’s lap and begged him to use his lunch break to fix it. He -again- obliged. Having married a brilliant man makes me feel brilliant by proxy. I patted him on the back. Then I patted myself on the back. And then I made these.

What are these you ask?

Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches, I say.

These were a favourite of ours for picnic lunches toward the end of farmers’ market season around here. They’re gorgeous brown, sesame-dusted-for-crunch, soft bread encased salty ham and nutty Swiss cheese sandwiches. You can make these a month in advance, wrap in foil, freeze and reheat for a fast hot meal. Or do like we did- wrap in foil or parchment, refrigerate and pack in a picnic lunch with a bottle of honey or horseradish mustard, a crunchy apple and a thermos of hot cider. Can you even imagine something more perfect than that lunch on a blanket in crisp air under technicolor trees?

The answer is no and not forty-two, in case you were wondering.

So, unless your baking ignitor is kaput and you’re waiting for your cheapola replacement to come, you really ought to bake yourself a tray of these before the snow brings down the rest of those perfect and vibrant leaves and get yourself out on a picnic blanket STAT.

P.S. The reason two of the sandwiches were glaringly not-twisty is because two of the children eating them are of the No-Swiss-cheese variety. There’s no fun in force-feeding disliked cheese on a picnic, so I left them un-twisted so we’d know at a glance which sandwich went to whom!

Print
Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ham and Swiss Twisted Sandwiches

Make lunch exciting with these golden-brown sandwich twists stuffed with salty deli ham and nutty Swiss cheese. Pack in a lunch or picnic box along with a squeeze bottle of your favourite mustard, an apple and a thermos of hot cider for a delicious, filling and far-from-ordinary meal.

Ingredients

    For the dough:
  • 2 pounds of soft, white bread dough ( This link is to is my preferred dough for these sandwiches ~or~ you can use thawed, previously frozen homemade or purchased dough.)
    • For the Filling:
  • 24 very thin slices deli ham (I like Virginia-style baked or honey-baked)
  • 12 slices deli Swiss cheese
    • For the Topping:
  • 1 egg, beaten with a fork
  • 3 tablespoons sesame seeds

Instructions

Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Cover 5 pieces with a tea towel.

Divide the 6th piece of dough into two equal pieces and flatten the two pieces into 6 to 8 inch long rectangles.

Tear or cut two slices of Swiss cheese into strips. Arrange half of the cheese strips down the long edge of one rectangle and repeat with the remaining cheese and other rectangle.

Stack 2 pieces of ham and roll up into a tight tube, lay that on top of the cheese on on rectangle then repeat with 2 more pieces of ham and the other rectangle.

Wrap the dough around the ham and cheese, taking care to pinch the ends and seams tightly to seal.

Squeeze the ends of the two tubes together and then twist them around each other, pinching the opposite ends together when you reach them.

Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet.

Repeat with remaining pieces of dough.

Let the sandwich twists rise in a warm, draft-free place covered gently with a tea towel, until puffy, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Carefully remove the tea towel from the twists, brush them with the beaten egg and sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of sesame seeds each one.

Bake for 18-24 minutes, or until a beautiful brown. Remove from the oven and let cool on the tray for 10 minutes.

Eat while warm or transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling before wrapping in foil or parchment and refrigerating or freezing.

To Reheat from Refrigerated:

Place foil or parchment wrapped sandwich twist in a preheated 350°F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until heated through.

To Reheat from Frozen:

Place foil or parchment wrapped sandwich twist in a preheated 350°F oven for 30-40 minutes, or until heated through.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/10/26/ham-and-swiss-twisted-sandwiches/

 

Filed Under: Bread, Comfort Food, Freezer Pleaser, kid food, Meat, Recipes

Individual Garlic Bread Braids

September 26, 2011 by 16 Comments

Bread makes me happy. Garlic bread makes me happier. Individual garlic bread makes me even happier than that, but individual garlic bread that is braided makes me happiest of all. They hit all of the food points that make me nearly weepy*. You have a.) bread, b.) extra tasty bread, c.) cute bread, and d.) cute bread to the fiftieth power.

*I cannot be the only person who starts feeling a little teary over food they love. Come on. Somebody say it’s not just me…

Everyone loves individual servings. It’s like when you were a kid and you scraped together enough money to buy your own comic book or candy bar when your mom was grocery shopping. Remember how excited you got when the clerk put it in a bag by itself and handed it to you*? It was better than playing grown-up. You had arrived.

*Again, this isn’t just me, right?

Now, when I’m given an single serving size anything -bread, custard, cake (ooooh, cute little cake- not to be confused with cupcake), cornish game hen, or whatnot- I feel like I’m a kid again. So what is about individual servings that does it?

Theorizing about marginally useless stuff is one of my specialties, so I’ve given this some thought. It’s about feeling like someone took trouble to please you. When you get that perfectly-sized-for-one item, you feel like one of a kind. It seems like it was made just for you: like someone wants to make you  happy. It feels like love.

There’s nothing wrong with buffet or family style meals; they’re what we serve here every night. But this is the little touch that says to each child, “I love you. This is for you and you alone. You are special.” That is always a good thing.

Do you want to make someone feel loved tonight? Put one of these tender, golden-brown, garlic and herb brushed braids next to their plate and watch their face light up. The day’s burdens ease a bit, the tension melts away like warm butter on hot bread, and the conversation flows just a bit more easily.

Print
Individual Garlic Braids

Rating: 51

Yield: 6 servings

Serving Size: 1 braid

Put one of these tender, golden-brown, garlic and herb brushed braids next to dinner plates and watch faces light up. The day's burdens ease a bit, the tension melts away like warm butter on hot bread, and the conversation flows just a bit more easily.

Ingredients

  • 4 cups (1 pound, 1 ounce, by weight) all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups (11 1/2 ounces, by weight) semolina flour
  • 3 teaspoons SAF or instant yeast
  • 3 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 4 tablespoons sugar or non-diastatic malt powder
  • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cups (16 ounces, by weight or volume) lukewarm water
  • 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 3/4 teaspoon granulated garlic (or 1 clove fresh garlic, minced)
  • 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasonings

Instructions

To Mix Dough By Hand:

Add all ingredients except oil, garlic, and seasonings to a large mixing bowl and stir together with a sturdy wooden spoon until you form a shaggy but cohesive dough. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, covered with a clean towel. Turn out onto a lightly floured counter top and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Transfer dough to a clean bowl, cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

To Mix Dough By Stand Mixer:

Add all ingredients except the oil, garlic and seasonings to the work bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Turn mixer onto the lowest setting and mix until a shiny, elastic dough forms. Remove the bowl from the mixer, cover the bowl with a damp towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

To Mix Dough By Bread Machine:

Add all ingredients except the oil, garlic and seasonings to the pan of your bread machine that has been fitted with the dough paddle(s). Set the bread machine on the dough setting and press start. When the cycle is completed, proceed with shaping…

To Shape the Dough:

Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and form into a neat mass. Divide into 3 equally sized pieces. Divide each of those pieces in half. This will give you 6 pieces all together. Cover all but one piece with a tea towel.

Divide that one piece into 3 equally sized pieces.

Roll each piece lightly with the hands to form a rope between 10 and 12 inches long. Repeat with the other two pieces so that you have 3 ropes of roughly equal length. Line them up in parallel with the ends facing you.

Gently grasp the end of the rope on the far left. Lift it to about the center, leaving the far end on the counter, cross it over the rope nearest to it and lay it down. Now grasp the end of the piece on the far right and lift it to about the center, leaving its far end on the counter, cross it over the (now) center rope (which is the first one you moved) and lay it down. This is the manoeuver you will repeat – far left over center, far right over center, and so on- until you have ends too short to continue. At that point, pinch the ends together and tuck under the braid. Now go back to the center of the loaf and finish braiding the loaf toward the top. When you reach the ends, pinch together and tuck under. Transfer the braid to a parchment lined baking sheet and repeat with the remaining pieces of dough. (For a photographic how-to on braiding bread, visit this post .) Let rise in a warm place until puffy in appearance and about doubled in size.

While dough is rising, stir together the olive oil, garlic and Italian seasonings and preheat the oven to 400°F.

When the braids are puffy, brush generously with the olive oil mixture then bake on the center rack of the oven until deep golden brown, about 18-20 minutes.

Brush the finished bread again with the remaining olive oil mixture and let cool at least 10 minutes before eating.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/09/26/individual-garlic-bread-braids/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Bread, Instructional, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fancy-Pants Bacon Jam, Spinach, Egg and Asiago Breakfast Pizza and a Giveaway!

August 16, 2011 by 84 Comments

Updated 8/19/11: Winner announced below the contest rules!

Sometimes you just know something is going to be good. Sometimes you have to pat yourself on the back. Today’s lunch was one of those moments.

While digging madly through the cupboards to find fast lunch ideas for my already starved* children, I realized I was out of bread, cheese, tortillas, apples, and all sorts of other things I rely on to fill their hollow legs quickly.

*Or so they said repeatedly and loudly while clinging to my legs.

Thankfully, a perusal of the refrigerator revealed a big bucket of my special no-knead semolina pizza dough and some leftover cooked spinach. Serendipitously, they were resting right next to a fresh jar of bacon jam and a dozen fresh eggs from our chickens. I knew I had the ingredients to make a great lunch but what I didn’t know was just how epic and satisfying that lunch would turn out to be.

I found that I was on auto-pilot setting when I noticed I automatically pre-heated my oven to four hundred and seventy five degrees without thinking after setting the bucket of dough on the counter*.

*That is the temperature at which I cook all of my pizzas, but this is the subject of an upcoming post. Oooh, spoilers! A tease and a Doctor Who reference all in one sidebar. I’m not proud.

Apparently I was making pizza for lunch. Well, why not? I decided to go with the auto-pilot. I rolled out the dough, spread on a little bacon jam and topped the jam with spinach that had been squeezed dry, topped it with a little grated asiago and slid it into the hot oven. Four minutes into cooking, I gently slide a cracked egg on top of the spinach. When the egg was set, I removed it from the oven…

…showered the top generously with more asiago and shook an indecent amount of hot sauce over the whole thing. I cut it in half, paused for a quick picture, admired the runny yolk, and there was a knock at the door.

Sigh.

Half an hour later, I was able to dig in. I can honestly tell you this tastes incredible at room temperature… I’m equally certain that it would taste most amazing hot, but at least I can tell you it’s better than just okay when cool.

The pizza crust has a crackling crisp underside due in part to the (hubba hubba) semolina flour in it. The insides are chewy. The upper crust takes on a deep golden brown and then we get to the bacon jam. Oh, bacon jam. Do you guys remember my bacon jam recipe? I didn’t think it was possible to love it more than I already did when I wrote that post but I was wrong. Every single way I’ve used it has made me love it better.*

*I guess maybe that one time I tried to use it as perfume didn’t work out really well… But everything else? Golden.

The salty, smoky, meaty, sweet, perfect umami bacony goodness that is bacon jam on pizza crust topped with spinach (hello, lover), an egg that I just took out of the coop this morning and a shower of finely grated asiago cheese? You could say this auto-pilot lunch was inspired. So, I thanked the source of all inspiration and blessings and ate my really excellent cold lunch pizza.

Pssst. I’m sharing my pizza dough recipe with you here today so you can get it in your refrigerator and use it both for this recipe and upcoming ones. This is a big hint. BIG HINT.

Now. Another giveaway! And hoo-doggy it’s a hot one. The generous folks at Smuckers offered to send one of Foodie with Family’s readers a pretty amazing gift basket. And when I say pretty amazing I mean four seriously pretty pink and green striped ice cream REAL (as in not plastic) bowls, an ice cream scoop, some of their new ice cream toppings (Blueberry and Hot Caramel) some of their classic toppings (Hot Fudge), some sweetened condensed milk (Used to make their dead easy 3-ingredient ice cream for which they include the recipe!) and -wait for it- a $75 gift certificate to Cooking.com.

So what does this have to do with a fancy-pants breakfast pizza? What goes better with pizza than a milkshake, I ask you? Not a thing, as far as I’m concerned.  And if I accidentally dolloped some of that caramel sauce into the blender with my ice cream and milk then I might have accidentally really loved it, too. I highly recommend accidentally doing that. Happy, happy day.

What do you need to do to enter this contest? This is one of my patented super complex entries. Leave a comment. Tell me what you like to eat with your milkshakes, what you would do with the $75 gift certificate, what your favourite ice cream topper is (Smuckers or otherwise), about the time you poured Magic Shell over your brother’s head, or what you like on your breakfast pizza. That’s it! Not too shabby for a chance to win all those goodies, eh? The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced here on Friday, August 19th.

Our winner is:

TiffH Well here in Oklahoma I love me a Strawberry milkshake with crinkle cut fries from Braum’s Ice Cream. And as far as cooking gift card I would get the ice cream maker I’ve been wanting (cuz I don’t have one) and use it with all that spiffy Smucker’s ice cream toppings and bowls… yeah! Can you overnight me some of that pizza because it looks delicious, and the egg on top genius!

TiffH, email me your mailing address and whatnot and I’ll send that right onto the folks at Smuckers!

Oh, and do me a favour? Since they’re being so generous, show them a little love and head on over to their website. They have some pretty fine dessert recipes posted!

Print
Fancy-Pants Bacon Jam, Spinach, Egg and Asiago Breakfast Pizza

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

This inspired breakfast pizza is topped with the salty, smoky, meaty, sweet, perfect umami bacony goodness that is bacon jam on pizza crust, spinach (hello, lover), a fresh egg, and a shower of finely grated asiago cheese. While it looks and tastes like a big deal, it's incredibly simple to make.

Ingredients

    Per Pizza:
  • 1 navel-orange sized piece of Semolina Olive Oil Dough (see following recipe) or favourite pizza dough
  • 2 tablespoons Bacon Jam warmed to slightly over room temperature
  • 1/4 cup cooked spinach, squeezed to remove most of the liquid
  • 2 tablespoons finely grated asiago cheese, divided
  • 1 egg, cracked into a shallow bowl or measuring cup
    • Optional for serving:
  • hot sauce

Instructions

Preheat oven to 475°F with a pizza stone in place (if you have one.)

On a clean, floured surface, roll or press out pizza dough until it is about 1/4-inch thick in the center and slightly thicker around the edges.

Gently spread the bacon jam from the center of the dough to within 1/2-inch of the edges, taking care not to stretch the dough. (Heating the jam ahead of time helps it to spread more easily.)

Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the asiago over the bacon jam and scatter the spinach over the top.

Sprinkle semolina or cornmeal over a pizza peel (if using a pizza stone) or a baking sheet (if no stone is available.) Transfer the dough, carefully, to the dusted peel or pan. If using the stone, slide the pizza directly onto the stone, if using the sheet, slide the sheet directly into the center of the oven.

Bake for 4 minutes then open the door of the oven and pour the cracked egg directly into the center of the pizza. This is easiest if the bowl or measuring cup is held right next to the pizza to minimize the egg running.

Bake an additional 8-14 minutes or until the egg is done to your liking. I pulled mine when the whites were firmly set and the yolk was still mostly runny.

Transfer the pizza to a cutting board, sprinkle with the remaining asiago cheese.

Serve hot or cold with hot sauce, if desired.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/08/16/fancy-pants-bacon-jam-spinach-egg-and-asiago-breakfast-pizza-and-a-giveaway/

Print
No-Knead 10-Day Semolina Olive Oil Pizza Dough

Prep Time: 15 minutes

This is, without a doubt, the best pizza dough I've ever made and eaten. The fact that it is no-knead and incredibly simple to make adds to its already ample charms. It bakes up as a beautifully crisp bottomed, chewy pizza crust but can also be made into pita bread and focaccia. It's like the bass-o-matic of pizza doughs!

Inspired by Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Zoë François and Jeff Hertzberg.

Ingredients

  • 5 1/2 cups room temperature water
  • 3 tablespoons instant yeast
  • 2 tablespoons kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons sugar (raw or granulated)
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 11 cups (2 pounds, 15 3/4 ounces by weight) all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups (11 ounces by weight) semolina flour

Instructions

Mix the yeast, salt, sugar, olive oil and water in a 12 quart capacity bucket. (This recipe can be halved if you do not have a large enough container.)

Stir in the flour until no dry pockets remain. You do not have to knead it, but I find the easiest way to have it thoroughly mixed is to wet one hand and forearm and use that one to mix it in completely.

Cover lightly (Do not put a lid on tight. Trust me.) and let rest at room temperature until the dough has doubled and collapsed. (Or at least until dough is very, very puffy.) This takes a less than 2 hours in warm weather and more than 2 hours in cool or cold temperatures.

You can use the dough immediately. If you have leftovers, you can store them in the container, lightly covered (again, do not use a tight lid!) for up to 10 days. If you need to store the dough beyond that time, divide into individual pizza sized servings. Freeze in re-sealable plastic bags that have about a teaspoon of olive oil smeared around inside each for up to 3 months.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/08/16/fancy-pants-bacon-jam-spinach-egg-and-asiago-breakfast-pizza-and-a-giveaway/

Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Bread, Breakfast Foods, Main Dish, Rebecca, Recipes, Snacks, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , ,

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

August 1, 2011 by 17 Comments

AH- HAHAHAHAHAHAAH!

Bwahaha-HA!

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.  HA-ha!

Evil laughs are so hard to put into words, but I really have to give it a shot here.

I have three reasons to guffaw as though I’m the baddie who conquered MetroCity.

  1. I’ve discovered (or rather I discovered that King Arthur Flour discovered) the secret to a super moist cinnamon swirl and it doesn’t require buying a special cinnamon spread in teeny-tiny jars.
  2. I fed raisins to two unsuspecting children who swear they hate them and they loved them.
  3. The first two reasons are related.

Please allow me, in the grand tradition of super villains, to fill in the back story a little bit.

First, a friend asked me whether I had a recipe for cinnamon schmear (what many commercial bakeries use to fill their cinnamon rolls and bread) a while back. She had a hankering for bakery-type cinnamon rolls with the distinctive, moist filling that they turn out. I did a little research but all of the recipes seemed to be missing something crucial. I wrote off the search for a while.

Second, I have two kids who just plain don’t like raisins. I can’t blame them, really, I’m not certain those little shriveled grapes are my favourite things in the world, but unlike them, I’ll eat ‘em. And when you stuff them in an oatmeal cookie, I’ll eat them quite happily. Those two, however, are the anti-raisin police. If raisins are suspected to be in the vicinity, these normally sanguine children clamp down, dig their feet in and steadfastly refuse to even try the item in question. What’s the big deal? Well, the fact that these same two children pretty much despise all fruit, for one. And raisin cinnamon bread, for another. The rest of the crew can’t get enough raisin cinnamon bread. Ever.

That puts me in a bind.

If I sally forth making raisin cinnamon bread, I have two little faces with big saucer eyes that stare at me sadly as if to accuse me of deliberately making something that looks delicious “except for those shrunken bits there.” I can almost hear them thinking, “Why don’t you just make a plain old cinnamon swirl bread, Mama?”

“Because of the moisture the raisins bring to the bread!” I cry back at them in my brain*.

*Aren’t you glad you’re not in my brain?

This internal debate intensified when one of the feed-me-no-raisins twosome specially requested cinnamon swirl bread.

And along rides valiant King Arthur to the rescue on his cookbook steed…

I thumbed through the index and saw a recipe for ‘Cinnamon Swirl Bread’. There was no mention of raisins anywhere so I figured it was a good bet. When I opened the page, I scanned the ingredient list and saw (you know what’s coming) raisins. Oh geez.  For some reason, I decided to read the blurb about the recipe anyway and boy am I ever glad I did.

This was the bit that got me:

“First, for a deep-dark, moist cinnamon swirl inside the bread, whirl sugar, cinnamon and raisins or currants together in a blender or food processor until smooth. The fruit adds moistness as well as subtle flavor to the filling.”

Well, hello. This seemed like it would solve all sorts of problems. With the raisins obliterated in the food processor, I would get the moisture I desired from them without setting off the no-raisin-radar. Smooth, moist, deep-dark cinnamon swirl? That sounded remarkably like the cinnamon schmear my friend was seeking.

I gave it a whirl and wow. (Cue evil laugh again.)

They didn’t just like it, they loved it. Luh-uh-uh-huhved it. I made a double batch and it was gone after breakfast. The raising hating duo couldn’t get enough of the bread. I pleased them all! I texted my friend and told her I’d found her holy grail of cinnamon swirliness. I was on a roll.

It’s not just cinnamon swirl bread.  It’s a soft, white bread with a hint of cinnamon kneaded into the dough that is rolled around the most deep, dark, moist cinnamon filling ever. It holds together beautifully when sliced thanks (again) to the King Arthur Flour Bakers Team’s genius idea to use an egg wash instead of brushing the dough with butter. If you are the sort who is inclined to dismantled your bread along swirl lines while eating it -as I am- you’ll find that the bread de-swirls beautifully with just a little encouragement from your fingers and teeth. There’s more though. Those clever Arthurians topped the bread with a streusel topping. Is that gilding the lily? Perhaps, but it’s really tasty gilding.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread. It’s what’s for breakfast.

Print
Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Cinnamon Swirl Bread taken to another level: tender white bread topped with a cinnamon streusel crown and filled with the most deep, dark, moist cinnamon swirl imaginable. This makes the ultimate cinnamon toast.

Adapted gently from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

    For the dough:
  • 3 cups (12 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup (3/4 ounce) instant potato flakes or 1/4 cup (1 1/2 ounces) potato flour
  • 1/4 cup (1 1/4 ounces) nonfat dry milk
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 3 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) granulated sugar
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
  • 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick or 2 ounces) butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1 cup (8 ounces) water
    • For the Filling:
  • 1/4 cup (2 ounces) raw sugar
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon, divided
  • 1/4 cup (1 1/2 ounces) raisins or currants
  • 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon of water until smooth
    • For Topping:
  • 2 tablespoons (1 ounce) cold butter
  • 2 tablespoons (7/8 ounce) granulated sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Instructions

For the Dough:

Combine all of the dough ingredients in a large mixing bowl (or the work bowl of a stand mixer), mixing until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.

Knead until the dough is smooth and satiny. By hand, this will take about 10 minutes. By mixer, it will take between 5 and 7 minutes.

Oil a large mixing bowl or proofing bucket and transfer the dough to it, covering lightly with plastic wrap.

Set aside in a warm, draft-free place to rise until puffy and nearly doubled in bulk.

For the Filling:

Pulse together the raisins, raw sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, and all-purpose flour until the raisins have been obliterated and the sugar forms clumps. It will resemble this:

Stir together the remaining cinnamon and granulated sugar in a small bowl and set aside.

To Assemble:

Lightly oil your work surface and transfer the dough to it.

Gently roll the dough into a rectangle that is approximately 16" x 8".

Brush the dough with about 1/2 of the egg wash, scatter the raisin/cinnamon mixture evenly over the top, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over everything else.

On the short end of the rectangle, begin rolling the dough up log-roll style. Keep it tight but don't be so heavy handed that you stretch the dough. Making a tight roll eliminates air pockets in the swirl.

Pinch the seams and ends closed.

Tuck the ends under and move the log into a greased 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" standard loaf pan.

Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap or parchment and let rise at room temperature for about an hour, or until the dough has risen just above the edge of the bread pan.

To Top and Bake:.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine the butter, sugar, cinnamon and flour with a pastry blender (or in a food processor) until crumbly.

Brush the top of the risen loaf with the remaining egg wash and sprinkle all the topping over the egg wash. very gently press the topping into an even coating.

Bake the bread for about 45 minutes. If it begins browning too quickly you can tent it with foil in the last 15 minutes of baking.

Place bread pan on a cooling rack for five minutes, then run a butterknife around the edges of the loaf to loosen it.

Place the pan on its side and slide the loaf out (this should minimize the amount of streusel topping that falls off.) Turn the loaf upright and cool completely before slicing.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/08/01/cinnamon-swirl-bread/

Filed Under: Bread, Breakfast Foods, kid food, Recipes Tagged With: , , ,
«Older Posts
Newer Posts»