Erik's Garlic Knots

For Christmas, "Santa" brought Erik an awesome cookbook that is set up to make cooking with kids super easy for everyone. He is loving making all kinds of yummy new things, and for dinner tonight he chose to make Garlic Knots and Homemade Mac 'n' Cheese. It was a huge hit with everyone! If a seven year old can make these than you can too!
If you like cooking with your kids (*or aspire to like it*), you really ought to check out this book. So far every recipe we've tried has been a smashing success, and the pizza crust was easily the BEST home made pizza crust we've ever eaten.

What You Need:
1 (14 oz) container refrigerated pizza dough OR 1 ball (1 pizza's worth) of pizza dough
3 TBS melted butter
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp parsely


What To Do:
*I have rewritten these instructions to be more like a traditional recipe, but the directions in the book are designed for a child to be able to follow them with as little adult help as possible and they are amazing!

Preheat oven to 400*. Grease a large baking sheet.

Roll the dough out to about a 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 8 long strips, then cut each of those in half to make 16 pieces. Take each strip of dough and twist it a lengthwise, then tie it in a knot. Place on the greased baking sheet.

Mix the garlic salt and parsley together in a small bowl. Brush the knots with the melted butter, and sprinkle the garlic/parsley mix on top.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown. (Ours in the picture above might have benefited from another minute or two, but we got impatient.)

Calzones

I will admit to never having had a calzone before I made these, but I'm so glad I did! I found this recipe in my favorite Betty Crocker cook book and just had to give it a try. These are pretty easy to make and SO yummy. You can fill them with whatever you have handy and you've got a really yummy dinner ready to go. This filling recipe came from my Betty Crocker cookbook, but we've also used cottage cheese (instead of ricotta), pepperoni, sausage, and pretty much anything else you might put on pizza). Here's a whole page of ideas for ways to make this yummy dinner treat your own. 

What you Need (crust):
2 1/2-3 cups all-purpose flour
1 TBS sugar
1 tsp salt
1 pkg regular dry or quick active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
3 TBS olive or veggie oil
1 cup very warm water (120-130 degrees F)

What you Need (filling):
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (8 oz)
1/4 lb salami, cut into thin strips
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
ground pepper
1 large egg, slightly beaten

What you Do (crust):
In large bowl, mix 1 cup of the flour, the sugar, salt, and yeast. Add oil and warm water. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl requently. Stir in enough remaining flour until dough is soft and leaves sides of bowl. Place dough on lightly floured surface. Knead 5-8 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes. (At this point you could just use this dough to make pizza, but why stop here when you could make calzones?)

What you Do (calzones):
Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 2 cookie sheets.
Divide dough into 6 equal parts. On lightly floured surface, roll each part into 7-inch circle with floured rolling pin.
Top half of each dough circle with mozzarella cheese, salami, ricotta cheese, basil and tomatoes to within 1 inch of the edge. Sprinkle with fresh ground pepper. Carefully fold dough over filling; pinch edges or press with fork to seal securely.
Place calzones on cookie sheets. Brush with egg. Bake about 25 minutes or until golden brown.

We like to warm up some marinara (or whatever pasta sauce we have handy) and serve it as a dipping sauce. YUM!

Mom's White Bread

This is the recipe my mom used to use for bread before she switched to whole wheat bread. I don't have a wheat grinder, so I just make this fluffy white stuff and pretend it's just as good for me as the whole wheat kind. It's SO yummy, and really not that hard to make. 

What you need:
2 cups hot water (it can be pretty hot, as long as you can hold your hand in the water for a few seconds, you know it's not hot enough to kill the yeast)
1 TBS active dry yeast
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup sugar
5-7 cups flour

What you do:
*In a large bowl, combine the water, yeast, salt, shortening, sugar, and 1 cup of flour. Mix this fairly well (you'll probably still have lumps of shortening, don't worry about them, they'll get dealt with later), then leave it to rest for about 10 minutes.
*Add in the flour, one cup at a time, mixing well after each cup is added. Keep adding cups of flour until the dough gets too thick to stir in any more. If you are using a hand held mixer, you will probably have to switch to an old fashioned stirring spoon to get enough flour into your dough for it to be workable.
*Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 5-8 minutes, or until the dough cleans the table and is nice and springy. Dribble just a bit of oil in the mixing bowl, then place your ball of dough back in the bowl, turning once to coat all sides with the oil.
*Let rise is a warm place until dough has doubled in size, about an hour. Divide your dough into 2 pieces and shape into loaves. Place in greased loaf pans and allow to rise until doubled in size.
*Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until it's golden brown on top and sounds hollow when you take it out of the pan and thump on the bottom. Remove from pans and let cool on wire rack. When the bread is completely cool, store in plastic bags.

Irish Soda Bread

I made this to go with our Dublin Coddle for St. Patty’s day this year. I’ve never had soda bread before so I can’t say if this is an authentic recipe or not, but it was pretty tasty. It’s a pretty dense, crusty bread, so not great for sandwiches but really good for sopping up extra sauce/gravy.

What you Need:
3 ½ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

¾ tsp salt

1 ½ cups buttermilk (I substituted 1 ½ TBS lemon juice plus enough milk to equal 1 ½ cups total)

What you do:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Sprinkle a thin layer of flour on a baking sheet.
Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Mix in enough buttermilk to form moist clumps. Gather dough into a ball. Turn out onto lighly floured surface and knead just until dough holds together, about 1 minute.

Shape dough into a six inch diameter by two inch high round. Place on baking sheet. Cut a one inch deep X across the top of the dough, extending almost to the edges. Bake until bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on bottom, about 35 minutes. Transfer bread to a wire rack and cool completely. 

Totally Awesome Biscuits

I'm going to break the rules and not post a picture. Just imagine a biscuit and there you have it. 

Totally Awesome Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 ½ tsp. salt
1 T. baking powder
4 T. shortening
1 c. milk
2 T. butter (do not add into dough mixture)

1.    Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and mix.

2.    Cut in shortening.

3.    Stir in milk. The dough will still be sticky at this point, that's normal. 

4.    Dump about 1/4-1/2 cup of flour on the counter and spread it around (about a 1 to 1 1/2 foot circle is plenty) to prepare your floured surface. 

5.  Place dough on the floured surface and sprinkle a light layer of flour over the top. 

6.  Knead the dough (by folding it in half) 7-10 times. Do not over-knead.

5.    Flatten (either by hand or with a rolling pin...I just flatten it with my hands) to about an inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter/cookie cutter/tin can. Recombine edge pieces, flatten and cut again (mixing the dough as little as possible). 

7.    Melt 2 T. butter in 8x8 baking pan.

8.    Place each cut biscuit dough in the pan of butter, turning it over so that both the top and bottom are coated. 

9.  Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown. You don't want to wait until these are brown to pull them out of the oven as they will be overcooked and hard at that point. To test if they are done, lightly try pulling the top of one biscuit. It should pull up easily and the inside should look flaky. 

10. Store cooled leftover biscuits in an airtight container (plastic baggies work) in a cool place. Can be reheated in the microwave (you only need about 10-15 seconds). 

Curried Carrot Soup

I found this recipe by Rachael Ray on the food network. To spiff it up, I also made little mini bread bowls from rye bread. I'll give you the soup recipe first, then the directions for the bread bowls.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, chopped

1 1/2 pounds packaged baby carrots, from produce section

6 cups chicken stock, available on soup aisle

1 tablespoon mild curry paste or 1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Coarse salt

1 cup sour cream

Plastic condiment bottle or medium plastic food storage bag

6 blades fresh chives, cut into 1-inch pieces

Directions

Preheat medium pot over medium high heat. Add olive oil, butter, onions and carrots and saute 5 minutes. Add 4 cups chicken stock, curry and cayenne, and about 1 teaspoon salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until carrots are very tender, about 15 minutes. Place pot on a trivet next to food processor. Process soup in 2 or 3 small batches until soup is smooth and carrots are fully pureed. Transfer processed soup into a large bowl as you work to make room for more soup in the food processor. Return completed soup to the soup pot and place back over low heat. If the soup is too thick, add remaining stock, up to 2 cups, to achieve desired consistency. Adjust seasonings. Place sour cream in a plastic condiment squeeze bottle or into a medium food storage bag. Cut a very small hole in the corner of the bag with scissors. Ladle soup into bowls and squirt a swirl of sour cream around the bowl from the center out to the rim. Drag a toothpick from the center of the bowls out to the edges, forming a spider web design on soup. Pile a few pieces of cut chives at the center of each bowl to resemble green spiders in their webs! Cool!

Then, for the bread bowls:

Using a rolling pin, roll out each slice of bread as flat and thin as you can get it. Round the edges slightly. Tuck into muffin pan, pressing the bread against the edges of the tin. Spray with olive oil spray or give a light coat with a brush. Sprinkle on oregano and parsley. Bake at 350 until the bread is dry (about 10 min.). 

Pie Crust

Proportions for a single pie crust (just the bottom, not the top):
1 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. + 1 TBS shortening
2-4 TBS water

Proportions I use when making a double crust (top and bottom crust):
2 1/2 c. flour
1 1/4 tsp. salt
just slightly less than 1 c. shortening (if you want an exact amount...2/3 c. + 1/4 c. + 2 tsp. of shortening)
5-10 TBS water

1. Mix flour and salt together.
2. Cut in the shortening (don't over mix here, there will be shortening clumps and chunks, that's normal and needed)
3. Sprinkle in water 1 TBS at a time, mixing between each TBS. I use my hands to mix the dough, and I mix it by folding the dough in half rather than stirring or smashing). You want the dough to hold together and not be sticky.
4. Sprinkle counter with flour and roll out dough to desired thickness.
5. Place in pan, and poke 2-3 holes in bottom of crust (to prevent bubbles)
6. Bake as pie recipe directs, or to bake a crust for later filling (like for pudding pies, etc.) bake at 475 for 8-10 minutes.

Aunt Dove’s Rolls

Ingredients

3 cup water

3 eggs (either warm them under warm water or set them out the night before)

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup sugar

1 TBS salt

3 cups flour

1 cup flour

2 TBS fresh instant yeast

3 cups flour

1/2 cup melted butter

Instructions

Put all of ingredients in the first section into a Bosch mixer and whip them up

Mix the 1c flour with yeast, add the the mixture and whip until spongy (at least 2 min).

Add flour until dough barely starts to come away from edges (about 3 cups)

Let dough rest and rise until very light

Roll dough and cut into circles, dip melted butter and fold over, put in pan. Let it rise

Bake for 10-12 min at 400 degrees. serve hot.

The ones in the picture are made with wheat flour. They taste better with white.

Oatmeal Dinner Rolls

I know, I know...same picture as the Salisbury Steak, but I was lazy.

Before you think "Ew...Oatmeal in rolls"...these turn out fantastic, they don't taste like oatmeal, and they are so easy and fluffy and healthier than normal white rolls.

Ingredients:

2 c. water

1 c. quick cooking oats

3 T butter or margarine

1 pkg active dry yeast

1/3 c. warm water

1/3 c. packed brown sugar

1 T. sugar

1 1/2 tsp. salt

4 3/4 - 5 1/4 c. all purpose flour

Instructions:

1. In a saucepan, bring water to a boil.

2. Add oats and butter. Cook and stir for 1 minute.

3. Remove from heat; cool to lukewarm (~115 degrees).

4. While oatmeal is cooling, dissolve yeast in warm water in a medium to large mixing bowl.

5. Add the oat mixture, sugars, salt and 4 cups of flour to the yeast water. Beat until smooth.

6. Add enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. (I added too much flour in step 5 by accident, so I added almost 1/4 cup of water to make the dough).

7. Turn onto a floured board; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.

8. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top of dough ball.

9. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

10. Punch dough down and allow to rest for 10 minutes.

11. Shape into 18 balls. Place in 2 greased 9-inch baking pans.

12. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.

13. Bake @ 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Baguette with Peach Brie || Autumnal Equinox Dinner || Course 2

This was course #2 in my A.E. Dinner. Some liked it, others thought it was weird. I liked it. Each person got about 4-5 (some picked more, some picked less) slices, I just forgot to take pictures during the dinner, and this was all the Brie and baguette that was left at my house (I sent the Brie and baguette leftovers home with my brother).

Ingredients:

1 baguette

1 pkg spreadable brie

1/4 c jelly (I used Cameron's peach freezer jam that he made)

Method:

1. Mix the brie and the jelly until you get the flavor combination you like.

2. Slice the baguette.

3. Spread brie on baguette.

4. Eat.

Bread Sticks

2 1/2 - 3 cups all purpose flour

2 TBS chopped fresh or 1 TBS dried rosemary leaves, crumbled (I didn't have rosemary, so I used a combination of parsley, oregano, and basil equaling about 1 TBS)

1TBS sugar

21/4 tsp (1pkg) regular or quick active dry yeast

1 TBS olive or vegetable oil

1 cup very warm water (120-130 degrees F)

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

cornmeal (optional)

What to Do:

1. In large bowl, mix 1 cup of flour, the rosemary (or whatever spices you use), sugar, salt, and yeast. Add oil and the warm water. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed 3 minutes, scraping sides of the bowl frequently. Stir in enough remaining flour until dough is soft and leaves sides of bowl.

2. Place dough on floured surface. Knead 5-8 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes. Grease cookie sheets with shortening or spray with cooking spray; sprinkle with cornmeal if desired. Divide dough into 12 equal pieces, roll and shape each piece into 12 inch rope, sprinkling with Parmesan cheese or coarse salt if desired. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place about 20 minutes or until doubled in size. Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Bake 10 -12 minutes or until golden brown.

Dinner Rolls/Hamburger Buns

Depending on the size you make these, you can use them as dinner rolls or do like I did and make them big enough to use as buns for hamburgers, sloppy joes, etc...

3 1/2 to 3 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp (1 pkg) regular or active dry yeast

1/2 cup very warm water (120-130 degrees F)

1/2 cup very warm milk (120-130 degrees F)

1 large egg

butter or margarine, melted, if desired

What to Do:

1. In large bowl, stir 2 cups of the flour, the sugar, 1/4 cup butter, salt, and yeast until well mixed. Add warm water, warm milk, and egg. Beat with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 1 minute scraping bowl frequently. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.

2. Place dough on lightly floured surface. Knead about 5 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy. Grease large bowl with shortening (or put a little oil in the bottom). Place dough in bowl, turning dough to grease all sides. Cover bowl loosely with plastice wrap and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour until dough has doubled in size. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.

3. Grease bottom and sides of 13x 9 inch pan with shortening or cooking spray for hot rolls, or cookie sheet for buns.

4. Gently push fist into dough to deflate. For hot rolls, divide dough into 15 equal parts. For buns, make balls of dough about half the size you want the finished bun to be. Shape each piece into a ball; place in pan. Brush with melted butter if desired. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place about 30 minutes or until dough has doubled in size.

To make the tops of my buns look cool, I cut criss-crossing slits in the balls of dough right after I put them on the pan and before they started to rise. (This picture is after the dough has risen, right before they went into the oven)

5. Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm or cool.