Basic White Bread

Warm homemade bread is one of my favorite comfort foods. This recipe produces a white bread that is soft, a little crusty, slightly dense and serves as the perfect medium for sopping up that last bit of soup or pasta sauce.

Recipe
3 C flour
1.5 tsp salt
1 and 1/8th C warm water
2 tsp yeast
1tsp honey
1 tsp olive oil

Method
Add the yeast and honey to the warm water and allow it to sit for 5 minutes. Mix together flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Attach the dough hook to the mixer and add the yeast solution to the flour. Mix on low for a couple of minutes and check to see if all the ingredients have incorporated smoothly. You may need to add a teaspoon of water or flour if the dough is either too wet or too dry. Mine came out just right! Knead the dough for another 5 minutes.



Shape the dough into a ball and add the oil to a bowl (I just used my stand mixer bowl because I have two), making sure to roll the dough around in the oil until it is lightly coated.


Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, or use a handy mixer bowl lid, and let the dough rest for an hour and a half, pat it down and let it rise for another hour and a half.


Remove the dough from the bowl, shape it into a loaf and place it on a floured bread peal or on a sheet of aluminum foil. Place a damp paper towel over the surface of the dough and let it rise for another 40 minutes. While the dough is resting, preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.



After the dough has rested and the oven has come to temperature, put a cup of water into a 9” brownie pan, place the pan in the bottom of the oven and wait 5 minutes. Now, cut four or five thin vertical slices along the dough’s surface. These cuts will allow the dough to expand in the oven without blowing out it sides. Place the loaf in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the bread after 20 minutes and if it looks like it is browning too fast, you can place a tent of aluminum foil over the loaf and this will allow it to cook evenly without burning.

Voila! Nice, crusty white bread for sandwiches and toast.

Strawberry Appleberry Tart

In which I wax promotional…

A Delicious Blend of Every Good Thing
The classic apple pie recipe is enhanced in this tart with the addition of vibrant strawberry jam and plump golden raisins. It is great for a party, easy to assemble and certain to delight your family and friends. Strawberry applebery tart offers a harmonious combination of flavors and textures that will leave even the most ostentatious of “pie critics” (like the crazy old lady from work who insists that apple pie must have cheese) demanding a recipe.

Just a Few Simple Ingredients
Pastry
2 ½ C all-purpose flour
T tsp salt
¼ C sugar
½ C chilled shortening
½ C chilled butter
6 TBS ice water + 1 tsp of white vinegar

Filling
4 Apples – Peeled and sliced ¼ inch thin
¼ C Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
½ C Strawberry jam
½ C Dried golden raisins
1 TBS King Arthur Pie Filling Enhancer

Easy to Make
Prepare the filling by combining the apples, sugar, cinnamon and pie enhancer in a bowl and allow to set for 15 minutes. Then, fold in the strawberry jam and raisins.

Now, prepare the pastry by cutting the butter and shortening into ½ inch cubes and placing them in the freezer on a plastic-wrap lined plate. After the butter and shortening have chilled for 15 minutes, put the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor and pulse for two seconds. Add the butter and shortening and pulse until the dough is in pea-sized (roughly) crumbles. Add the ice water/vinegar solution slowly, one tablespoon at a time, until the dough will easily hold its shape when pushed together (it may take less than 6 tbs of water to reach this state).

Shape the dough into a disk about ¾ of an inch thick, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

After the dough has chilled, place the dough on a floured surface and roll out into a 16 inch circle that is about ¼ inch thick.

Note: If you are a miserable dough roller like me, you can use this trick.
Place two overlapping sheets of wax paper on your counter top and sprinkle with flour. Place the dough on the wax paper, flour the top of the dough, place another sheet of wax paper on top and roll to the desired thickness/shape.

After you have rolled out the dough, line a pizza pan with aluminum foil and place the dough on the pan. Put the filling in the center of the dough and spread it out from the center toward the edges, leaving a two inch thick border of dough. Fold the dough in over the filling, leaving an open space in the center. Brush the dough with cream and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.



Bake the tart in a 400 degrees F oven for 40 minutes, until the crust is golden-brown and the filling is bubbling. Let it cool for 15 minutes (or as long as you can hold out) before serving.



Add Strawberry Appleberry Tart to Your Recipe Collection Today!
The delicious mix of fresh apples, dried raisins and strawberry preserves leaves this tart bursting at the seams with tasty. Bake this recipe today and reign as the undisputed master of pie in your neighborhood!

Shrimp Sausage

I’m just going to stop apologizing for the extended breaks between posts… I have no excuses (other than laziness). I do have something interesting for you today though: a shrimp sausage recipe. I became interested in the idea of a seafood sausage when I saw them being made frequently by the contestants from Top Chef Season 3. Though I found the general idea to be a little bizarre, I could see the potential for deliciousness and with a little help from the olde food processor, that potential was recently realized.

I was actually surprised by how easy it was to make sausage. The only challenge I faced was flavoring. Obviously, I couldn’t taste the raw shrimp batter for seasoning and had to make adjustments to the mix after cooking a few testers. I make the mistakes so you don’t have to!

I also didn’t have casings, so I formed the mix into simple patties, kind of like shrimp burgers, which worked just as well. Their spicy flavor was characteristic of artisan sausages I often buy from the butcher and though the texture was slightly spongy, and the confettiesque view of the insides was a little creepy, overall, I think I’d make this recipe again.

Shrimp Sausage Recipe
1 pound of raw, cleaned, shelled and deveined shrimp
1 jalapeño – seeded and chopped
1 clove of garlic
¼ cup of heavy cream
¼ cup of bread crumbs
1 tablespoon of fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
½ teaspoon of black pepper
two teaspoons of lime juice

Method

Completing this recipe is made exceedingly easy by the use of a food processor. Begin by preheating your oven to 300 degrees. Then, simply combine all of the ingredients into the food processor and pulse until it reaches the consistency of ground turkey.

Form the mix into patties and brown each side in a skillet over medium high heat, about 5 minutes per side. After the sausage has been evenly browned, transfer the skillet (if it is oven safe up to 300 degrees) to the oven. Bake the patties for 20 minutes until cooked through.

Remove the sausages from the oven, allow to cool and enjoy! These sausages are great as patties or can be sliced or diced and used as pizza toppings. I would recommend this sausage as a topping for a pesto pizza.

Easy Mint Hummus

Fast, Simple, Delicious

Hummus is delicious on just about everything (pita bread, corn chips, vegetables… cookies), and luckily it is also super easy to make.

Mint Hummus Recipe

1 can chickpeas (reserve 1/2 cup of the liquid)

1/4 cup tahini, which is like a sesame seed butter (I use Sunland brand).

About a 1/4 cup of fresh mint

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 clove of garlic

3 tablespoons of olive oil

The juice and zest from one lemon

Method
With a food processor:Combine all of the ingredients and 1/4 cup of the reserved chickpea liquid in a food processor and pulse until it is smooth (you may require a little more reserved liquid to reach the consistency you enjoy).

Or with a blender:If you are using a blender, I would start by adding 1/4 cup of chickpea liquid, olive oil , lemon juice, and tahini and blend together. Gradually add the chick peas until it is smooth, then add the other ingredients and you should be good to go.

This recipe really is super easy. I plan on posting a more intricate version using dried chickpeas and homemade tahini in the future, but for the time being, this recipe is very convenient and yields a product that is all kinds of delicious!