Bread Baking Continued

I have continued baking bread since I last posted about it. I've tried a couple recipes, but it always boils down to having to touch the dough. I HATE IT. As in, can NOT deal. No, no, no. I found a no knead recipe and gave it whirl Monday night. You mix up the four ingredients with a wooden spoon and let it sit on your counter for 12-18 hours, or in my case, closer to 22 hours (work being so inconvenient and all). Then you're supposed to bake it in a dutch oven, which I don't have, so I just threw it on a cookie sheet like I've been doing with all the loaves. And voila! Bread! And I barely had to touch it at all. Perfect.

After 10.5 hours on the counter.

After 22 hours on the counter.

Yum.

Baking Bread: Attempt Number One

I'm reading Sourdough by Robin Sloan and it makes me want to bake bread. But as I've mentioned many times before, I'm not exactly a natural in the kitchen. I found several recipes proclaiming to be easy! or simple! on Pinterest and decided to try one last night since Little Man is always down for some measuring and mixing.

As it turned out the recipe that printed was bare bones and didn't include some of the more useful info available on the website. I suspect the bread would have come out better had I had the full description. But alas, what I have now is an incredibly dense, chewy, almost doughy lump.

Things I might try if I do it again: warmer water for the yeast (it was warm coming out of the tap, but the glass bowl was cold, aka room temperature), more flour (?), warmer spot for the bread to rise (Grammy used to place her dough in front of the baseboard heat, but my heat wasn't running last night), and shaping it into a loaf before letting it rise (I just left it on the bowl. The printed recipe didn't mention forming the loaf shape first, or at all actually). Live and learn. And try again, I guess.

Pinned it, Did it, Won't Do it Again

One of the items left behind after my husband's departure was his slow cooker. I'd been anxiously waiting for cooler weather to try using it (because those things actually put out a lot of heat when running all day). It seemed like such a good idea. Throw stuff in while my son is napping and then have dinner all ready without any fuss or muss. Or toddler wrangling.

Creamy Tortellini & Spinach Soup

1 bag frozen tortellini
1 small bag fresh spinach
2 cans Italian style diced tomatoes
1 box (4 cups) vegetable broth
1 block cream cheese

Put all ingredients in the crock pot, chunking out the cream cheese. Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

The results: the tortellini was beyond soggy, to the point of disintegration. The overall flavor was bland. It needed something. Spices? Onion? Garlic? Even corn might've helped. The spinach was the best part, otherwise it was just bland mush.

If I ever did this again (and I won't), I would exclude the cream cheese. It was weird and lumpy and added nothing to the whole affair.

I split the leftovers and froze two thirds of it. Maybe when my electric bill is sky high this winter and I'm feeling desperately broke, I will be grateful for the sustenance.

Meal Prep Again

I sacrificed a good portion of naptime on Sunday to once again meal prep my lunches for the week. I cooked another batch of white rice, along with chicken and veggies. I like the combination. This week I chose a different flavor of pre-marinated chicken breasts, which I've managed to forget. Maybe Italian seasoning or something similar. I definitely prefer the honey mustard from last week. I baked it this week, a much superior method to broiling. I also baked the zucchini and yellow squash with olive oil and garlic salt (not enough). I baked it so long that it practically melts in your mouth, just the way I like it. I portioned the food into 4 lunches, which will leave me eating crap only one day this week. Yay!

Meal Prep

I work with a young woman who is a BIG fan of meal prepping. She puts together lunches for the whole week on Sunday evening. She even has specially purchased plastic containers for the purpose. I've never been willing to sacrifice the amount of time needed to cook and assemble the meals during my son's naps. But I'm also getting so sick of eating crap: processed packaged foods. So the goal is more variety, healthier food (not healthy healthy necessarily but not frozen or freeze dried crap), and hopefully saving a little money.

With that in mind I started small, two marinated chicken breasts, one bundle of fresh asparagus, and white rice (from the cupboard). I broiled the chicken according to the package/internet directions, adding as much as 6-8 additional minutes to avoid any potential RAWNESS. This was the first time I'd ever cooked chicken, so I was a little stressed. Then I baked the asparagus with olive oil and salt, while cooking the white rice on the stovetop.

Now this all may sound very simple, but keep in mind I've never cooked anything more complicated than boiling water for pasta. I ate the first one for lunch today and it was yummy. Success!

Cinnamon Chia Seed Granola

I'm back on my yogurt and granola for breakfast kick. I have very specific preferences when it comes to this daily meal. I use one kind of yogurt (and when the grocery store is out of it on our weekly shopping trip, I get GRUMPY) and one kind of granola. The granola is expensive though, so I am constantly thinking I should make some at home that would be ideally cheaper and lower in calories. My preferred brand is pretty calorie-rich (perhaps why it is so darn tasty).

I had oats and chia seeds in the house, so I googled to find a simple recipe that didn't call for fruits or nuts (a big granola no-no, in my opinion). I found this one and decided to whip up a batch. After all, it was categorized as "quick and easy." I like both of those words.

I measured out the dry ingredients as per the recipe and added a pinch of salt (because, well, I like salt). When it came to the wet ingredients, things got a bit rocky. I misread the recipe and put in double the oil. Oops. Although I used half vegetable oil and half olive oil, so I don't feel bad about it. I'm a firm believer in the goodness of olive oil. Then when I pulled the honey out of the cupboard I discovered it was solid and no amount of running it under hot water was changing that. So I abandoned the un-squeezable honey and went for the organic white Hawaiian honey, which exists in a lovely creamy solid state naturally. I figured if I had to deal with solid honey, I might as well use the good stuff. Of course, this made mixing it a real pain in the butt. After it'd been baking about 6 minutes and the honey was thoroughly melted I gave it another good stir. Problem solved.

As you can see from the third picture, the recipe doesn't produce a ton of granola. And in this case, that's probably just as well. Because it's just not as good as the stuff I buy at the store. I will eat it as a snack, but I can't see substituting it for my regular, much-loved granola. For one thing, I don't think I'm really a nutmeg person. So if I made it again, I'd definitely try leaving that out. Also, the brand I buy doesn't have ANY seasonings, so I probably should have predicted that would be a problem. However, this granola is tasty. Just not tasty enough, I guess.

Seen it, did it: Two Ingredient pancakes

Some months ago I saw Joanna's post about two ingredient pancakes on A Cup of Jo. I've been wanting to try making them ever since. I'm currently taking a break from my green smoothies, so I have some aging bananas hanging around the house. Clearly, it was a good time to give them a whirl.

They are super easy, which appeals to my well-developed laziness. You mash up a banana and mix it with an egg.

Then pour pancake sized blobs into a frying pan and cook until light brown. I added too much butter to the frying pan. Normal pancakes suck up the extra butter; these do not. Flipping them is also tricky, as they do not hold together as well as regular pancakes.

Verdict: NO. These did not taste like pancakes AT ALL. Not surprisingly, they tasted like eggs with bananas mixed in, which tastes as gross as it sounds. I will NOT be making these again.

Random Updates

Since none of these items really merit their own blog  post, here is a collection of random updates:

Green Smoothies: I've been making green smoothies almost every day since late December and am still 100% on board with this activity. I finally tried using kale instead of spinach. I was not immediately won over, but as I've gone through the container I am more and more convinced. I think I prefer the taste and texture of the spinach slightly, but the kale has lasted much better. None has gotten slimy or weird, which the spinach does fairly quickly. Plus, I think I'm getting more smoothies from the same sized container of kale than I did with the spinach. Win, win. I've also branched out and tried different frozen fruit, although the selection at my grocery store is disappointingly poor, especially if I stick to the organic options. Right now I'm on a blueberry kick. One of my friends mentioned she throws in a few baby carrots, so I've been adding 2-3 of those to each smoothie now. Some other things I want to try including at some point are: avocados, cucumbers, mint, and pears.

April Purge: While an April purge was a lovely idea, the reality of identifying one item per day to get rid of was much harder than I anticipated. It turns out that I don't operate well under those restraints. Apparently I work better in spurts during which I might get rid of 5-7 items before losing interest. I didn't want to think about it every day and I didn't want to stop at just one item when I did work up the motivation. In total I got rid of 15 things, which is better than nothing, but not as good as the 30 I'd hoped to purge. If I do this project again, I would structure it differently: 30 Things in 30 Days. That way I could do it all at once or anyway I felt so inspired. But frankly, I'm still feeling unmotivated on the topic as a whole. I need someone else to just come into my house and throw everything away.

Working: I briefly mentioned some work plans in this post back in January, but thus far things have not actually gone as expected. Most importantly, I do not regret leaving my last job. Not even for a second. It was slowly killing me. I have been happier in these last few months than I would've believed possible. I love the work I am doing part-time for our friend's business. It is such a comfortable and casual environment. It's so unusual for me to not dread having to go to work. Who knew the dread wasn't mandatory! I have not been working at my husband's business, for whatever reason, and I'm totally fine with that. I will also be fine if something changes and I am needed. The only source of negativity is the associated financial stress of a significantly lower income. It's been challenging to adjust to a lifestyle of spending NO money. Obviously, I still have expenses (bills, gas, birthday gifts, etc.), but other than the necessities, I've made every effort to prevent myself from buying the things I would've bought in the past. I have to keep telling myself that I don't need said item. And reminding myself that the sacrifices are completely worth it since it means not working a job I hate. I don't know how long I'll be able keep it up, and I know it's not a situation that would appeal to everyone. But everyone has different priorities, and making and saving tons of money has never been on my list.

In the Kitchen Recently

I've never been a fan of cooking, mainly because I don't care at all about savory types of food. All I care about is sweets and desserts. Really. If I could get away with eating only dessert foods I would happily abandon everything else, except for french fries. And cheese. And maybe bread. Um, where was I?

Anyway. I do like to bake though. Because I can eat bits of the batter or dough as I go along. And if I'm doing the baking I can lick the whole bowl all by myself. I don't typically hold grudges, but if you're baking and I ask for the bowl and you intentionally put it in the sink to soak so I can't have it, well, I won't forget that. No sir, that's just low.

After the whole stomach bug from hell thing, I had a couple of bananas festering past the point of edibility, so I decided I had better make some banana bread. I used BerryBird's basic banana bread recipe and it came out great. My husband suggested after the baking was done that chocolate chips would've made a good addition. I don't agree AT ALL, and so I happily ate the entire loaf myself (over five or more days, don't go freaking out).

Next I decided it was time to give the chia pudding another go. Last time it came out too runny, so this time I greatly reduced the ratio of milk to seeds and viola, perfection! I also made a smaller batch, which amounted to two servings for me. Naturally I didn't write down the ratio I used so I'll be winging it again the next time I make it. Oops.

Yesterday I got the hankering to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I always cut the recipe in half because I like the cookies best when they are fresh. The recipe I use results in about 20 cookies, depending on how much of the dough I eat during the baking process. I was concerned because the oatmeal I have is more than 50% dust, but the cookies came out great. In fact, they are fluffier than usual. Which is good because I can't use the oatmeal for making regular oatmeal because there is so few actual whole oats in the container. That means more cookies have to be made so the oatmeal doesn't go to waste! Obviously.

What I Ate Wednesday

I am not a food blogger, nor am I interested in becoming one. However, I enjoyed having a peek at what Cassie ate when she posted a return to What I Ate Wednesday last week. As it turns out, it's a lot harder to remember to take pictures before chowing down than I expected. I bet that gets easier the more you do it, but my first attempt will not be as polished as some of the other participants.

Breakfast: English breakfast tea with a splash of milk and a tiny bit of sugar, plus a banana-mango-strawberry green smoothie.

Mid-morning snack: granola bar at the computer

Lunch: peanut butter & jelly on multi-grain bread

Lunch: chaser of saltines

Dinner: asparagus lasagna (oops, I ate what was on my plate before I had a chance to take a picture)

Dessert: two handfuls of milk chocolate chips (no semi-sweet for me!)

Not photographed: the few (8-12) tortilla chips I scarfed down with salsa when I got home from work before hopping on the elliptical.

Click over to Peas & Crayons to see what other people are eating.

Jumping on the Green Smoothie Bandwagon

I tend to resist things that are extremely popular. I've never read or watched any of the Harry Potter, Hunger Games, or Twilight books/movies. I just bought my first pair of skinny jeans a few weeks ago, after years of mockery. And I don't get the whole kale thing.

But I've finally tried green smoothies and immediately added them to my daily menu. If you recall, two of the items I wanted to focus on for 2014 involved eating more fruits and vegetables. I didn't wait for January 1st to put this one into action. The day after Christmas I purchased a single serve drink blender and blended up my first smoothie based on Nicole's Ultimate Green Smoothie Formula.

My preferred combination is:

• 8 oz coconut water
• big handful of spinach
• 1 banana
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• some frozen mango (I just throw it in so, no measurements, oops)

I don't add any sweeteners, as the fruit is plenty sweet on its own. Nor do I serve it over ice. I don't like ice, plus it is winter!

adding ingredients

With experimenting I've found I don't care for including cinnamon or raspberries (seeds, ugh). The frozen peaches have almost no flavor, so I won't bother with them again.

Last week I was running low on spinach so I decided to try another smoothie variety with milk, a banana, peanut butter, and vanilla extract. I won't make that mistake again. For me, green is the only way to go.

I make one for breakfast every day. It keeps me full for just as long as anything else I've ever eaten for breakfast. 

This week I'll be trying strawberries and maybe next week I'll try including avocado. 

Final product - yummmm

Holiday Dinner with Friends

Yesterday we celebrated the holidays with a group of close friends. The people in this particular group are interconnected in a variety of ways, both old and new. Three of us went to high school together. Three work together and are union brothers. Three others work together in a less formal way.

The afternoon was spent cooking and talking in the kitchen, then snacking on cheeses and olives before moving to the main course around a simple table that easily accommodated all eight of us. We were so full that we barely had room for the fabulous desserts. I still managed to consume an obscene number of Oreo cookie truffles.

focaccia bread

just about to dig in

It was an afternoon and evening filled with laughs and old stories, good company, and great food... the perfect way to celebrate the holidays.

Experimenting with Chia Seeds

It started with overnight oats. I first read about them on Kath Eats Real Food. Although somehow I failed to notice that the whole point is to eat them cold. Um, no. I cannot and will not eat oatmeal cold. That's just wrong. So I threw the oats in the microwave for 30-45 seconds to take the chill off.

For the first attempt I used banana flavored yogurt, milk, oats, chia seeds, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of cinnamon sugar, but it was way too runny and I did not care for the flavor.

The second attempt I used only oats, milk, chia seeds, and maple syrup. Much better!

The third attempt was also a bust. I substituted apricot marmalade instead of the maple syrup. No good.

Not the marmalade, that was fantastic. My sister brought it back from France for me. I think it will be much better on an English muffin. Yum.

So I started looking for other things I could do with the chia seeds. And that's when I read about chia pudding. I modified mine by using regular milk instead of almond milk since that's what I had in the house. I decided to start with a small batch:

• 1 cup milk
• 3 tbsp chia seeds
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• slug of maple syrup (tbsp?)

It turned out a little runnier than I expected, but it tastes great.

I may or may not make the overnight oats again, but I'll definitely be making the chia pudding again. I'll just add a few more seeds or use a little less milk and hopefully that will thicken things up a tad.

Let me know if you have any fun recipes that use chia seeds.

State Fair, Round 1

Last night we went to the State Fair, mainly for dinner, but of course we looked at plenty of things while we were there. We checked out the chickens, ducks, rabbits, cavies, cows, pigs, llamas, goats, and sheep, located in four different buildings.

We tracked down this beauty for my husband's dinner:

It's a Southern Fried Chicken Donut, slathered with chipotle mayo and pickles. He rated it as being one of the two best sandwiches he's ever eaten. And that's high praise from him since he's been known to drive 4-5 hours just for a slice of pizza or a sandwich. I found the very idea of it unappealing, so I went to my go-to vendor for a piece of spanikopita.

Yummy flaky, greasy goodness. For dessert we got soft serve maple ice cream, my all-time favorite. No pictures because I, uh, scarfed it down too quickly.

In the Center of Progress Building we checked out the sand sculpture. As it was only day 2 of the Fair, the sculpture is nowhere near finished, but the theme was obvious.

We only purchased one set of advance sale tickets, but I suspect we will return for another visit and more importantly, more food!

Protein

One of my informal goals for the future (how vague am I?) is to consume more protein. As I've mentioned before, I have never been a fan of eating meat. I don't care for the taste of any warm-blooded animals, and it actually turns my stomach if I think about it too much. I do not like the idea of eating other beings with eyes and feelings. Not to mention the environmental impact and the absolutely wretched conditions found in factory farms. That said, I am not a vegetarian because I've never been good about getting my protein from other non-meat sources. However, I do draw the line at beef. No eating cows for me, thank you very much.

I typically eat about 2 servings of meat per week (this includes seafood, which I enjoy a great deal). I have issues with the texture (and taste) of beans. Nuts are not my favorite food. While I do like the occasional pb&j sandwich, I doubt eating one sandwich per month is going to meet my recommended daily allowance of protein. Eggs in any form other than hard-boiled skeeve me out. I've been on a kick of eating yogurt and granola for breakfast every morning (although I'm currently taking a break from that). I do love cheese. But still, none of this adds up to the 46 grams of protein I'm supposed to eat each day. I bet I average closer to 10 grams/day if I'm lucky.

My doctor even told me to eat more protein, fruits, and veggies and less carbs. (I'm not good about fruits & veggies either, but we'll save that for another day.) I'm not excited about trying to force myself to eat more dead animals. Maybe I could try hard-boiled eggs? Yogurt for 3 meals a day? Clearly, I'm running short on ideas.

The Return of Ice Cream Season

We've had some very summer-like weather recently. Hot temperatures always inspire me to want ice cream. I favor a cinnamon bun flavored creation, but will eat a wide variety of flavors of B&J's, whereas my boyfriend only eats some weird half-baked thing (chocolate ice cream! the horror!). His flavor must be the most popular because it is rarely in stock. After pawing through the freezer case, I heaved a big sigh and turned to stomp off. An employee that was stocking nearby heard me and politely inquired if I was finding everything OK. Um, no, as a matter of fact, I wasn't. So off to the stockroom he went to return triumphantly with my ice cream in hand.

So a few days later when I happened to be back at the same store, and yet again found myself pawing hopelessly for the half-baked nonsense, I knew that it might be possible to find some in the back. There was no helpful stocker lad this time though, so I went up to the front near the cashiers and solicited assistance from a manager type. A few minutes later he directed me back to frozen foods where the same stocker lad held several pints for me. Not embarrassing at all. I tried to explain that the ice cream wasn't for me, but he wasn't fooled, taking note as I scooped up a pint of cinnamon buns too.

Next time my boyfriend will be doing the ice cream shopping!

So easy even I can make it

If you like peas, I highly recommend this pea salad:

1 bag of frozen peas with pearl onions
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons lime pepper
10-12 cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

Thaw the peas and onions and then stir all the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. I don't really measure the mayonnaise. Just throw some in until it looks how you want it. It's a tasty and refreshing side-- perfect for summer!

Hooked

I am now officially hooked on mushroom hunting. I've collected two varieties in the past, but I'd never gone after the morel before today. We didn't find tons, but it was quite addicting. And delicious!

Bubble Tea

I found out yesterday that there is a teahouse in my city. Who knew? Apparently it's been there almost five years! Sis and I had to pay a visit to sample the bubble teas. I've always enjoyed tapioca, so I couldn't resist having it in my tea. How could you go wrong? You can't! So tasty! I can't wait to go back and try some of their other teas and maybe that coconutty dessert.

Day Off

I have today off. Off from work and off from school stuff. I had class this morning, of course, but now that that is done I am taking the rest of the day off. I've taken a handful of days off in recent weeks, but they were all devoted to not-fun things like taking all day essay exams or working on a poster. The poster session is in the past, and I passed my masters intensive exam on the first try. In fact, all that remains of my semester is a one page paper and two final exams. So today I will do nothing school-related.

I picked up some sushi on my way home from class. I adore sushi but am fairly limited in my local selection. Grocery store sushi will suit me just fine for lunch though.

This afternoon I will load the dogs in the car and head to the nearby game management area, where I will try to avoid the scary men that lurk there without accidentally entering restricted areas or getting lost. I've been hiking there for almost two decades, but usually with one parent or another to serve as guide.

Tonight I will watch mind-numbing amounts of TV. And the rest I'll just make up as I go.