Onion and Garlic Rolls

We have a ton of onions and garlic (it's a figurative ton, but I think it might actually be a garlic ton and an onion ton if we define those as new units of measurement), so when we volunteered to provide the bread for our Thanksgiving dinner with the Makis, Ryan thought it would be a good idea to make onion and garlic bread. At least, that's what I thought he thought; he apparently thought it was my idea and I had a specific recipe in mind. After much internet searching, we based our rolls on this recipe. Of course, we didn't follow it exactly: we used 1 cup of wheat flour instead of all bread flour, chopped and pre-toasted (as in, toasted before putting in with the other ingredients) an entire (small--maybe 2 in. in diameter) onion, threw in some roasted garlic, used a lot more cheese (well, maybe twice as much), and of course only let the bread machine do the mixing and kneading and rolled the rolls ourselves. I think we baked them at 350 for 20-25 minutes. No one could taste the cheese, but the onions and garlic were detectable without being overwhelming (I was afraid they would be way too much).

Soda Bread

We made this recipe last night to go with our Italian Chili (which had no zucchini, but did have some sun dried tomatoes and spinach). We used bread flour instead of all-purpose flour (it's bread--shouldn't it have bread flour in it?) and I was lazy and kneaded it in the bowl instead of on a floured surface. Well, I attempted to knead it in the bowl. The line in the recipe that says the dough will be sticky--well, that's a bit of an understatement.

I'm not incredibly impressed with this bread. Ryan's assessment is that it's like cornbread, except with wheat. It definitely did not go with the Italian chili, but I really wanted bread. It was fast, which is a definite advantage some days. It's pretty good with honey or cinnamon sugar, but it will not make it onto the list of things I crave.

Pita

We bought a big thing of hummus at Costco (yes, we are now Costco members--milk is significantly cheaper there--so significantly, it makes the $50/year membership fee more than worth it right now), but we neglected to buy pitas. Hence, we made pitas using this recipe with 1 cup of wheat flour and 2 cups of bread flour but cooking them on top of the stove. Oh, yeah, we also added about 1 teaspoon of honey. They were/are tasty. Most of them puffed the whole way, but if we're just eating them with hummus, we don't care. However, we are going to use them for our sandwiches for our traditional Easter picnic tomorrow, so it's good that we have at least two sandwich-worthy puffed ones.

Aunt Kathy's Bread

My Aunt Kathy makes excellent bread, so I finally got around to asking her for her recipe (hoping that she did, in fact, have some idea of a recipe--I've watched her make bread and it didn't seem to involve a lot of measuring...). She sent me a much more detailed recipe than I was expecting (still a bit sketchy, but I could work with it), but seeing as she makes three loaves at a time and our bread machine can only handle one (she uses a Kitchen Aid mixer), I had to cut the recipe to a third of its size (which only makes sense since our family is a third the size of hers). I also substituted some wheat flour for some of the bread flour because we always have wheat flour and I wanted to see if it would make much difference. I've now made the bread (okay, I've put the ingredients in the bread machine, taken them out when the machine has nicely made dough for me, shaped said dough into a loaf, let the loaf rise, and baked it in the oven--I'm not sure everyone would call that "making" bread) many times and I'm a big fan. Ryan seems to like it, too (but, as Aunt Kathy says, you can feed anyone bread fresh out of the oven and they'll think it's amazing). It makes great sandwiches and toast. Thus, I will now share my version of Aunt Kathy's recipe with the world:

1 cup 7-grain flakes (we buy these in bulk at the Good Food Store--like Whole Foods)
1 cup wheat flour
1 1/2 -2 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 2/3 cups very warm water
1 heaping teaspoon yeast

Put all ingredients in bread machine in order directed by manufacturer (that's my favorite line in bread machine recipes--clearly something bad will happen if I put the flour below the water! If you're going to delay the start of the machine, I suppose it could, but if you're just using the dough cycle--which is all I ever use--nothing bad will happen if you deviate). Let machine make dough. Punch down, roll into a rectangle (I confess, I press instead of rolling), roll the rectangle up into a nice loaf, tuck the ends under, put in bread pan, and let rise in warm place until double. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Challah!

 As promised, here is the picture of the excellent loaf of challah that Rebekah made. Not only did it look delicious, it tasted spectacular. Since making this we have progressed to use the same basic recipe, but as small loaves with more wheat flour and some molasses. Making the bread in small loaves has made the bread easier to eat. We don't have to make a bunch of crumbs slicing it, and it is in a good size for one portion. Having it braided achieves this too as the braid chunks are easy to pull off.

I have been enjoying eating it by cutting a mini-loaf in half and toasting it with cheese (Tillamook special reserve white cheddar), then putting the two halves together and eating it with soup. Mmmmmmm.

Updates

Contrary to popular belief, we have eaten since December (I know our figures don't show it). I'm writing this to let all of our readers know about the delightful culinary adventures we have had and will write up. Due to lack of temporal assets, we have heretofore been unable to delight in the writing up of said adventures.

First we have Rebekah's recent success in making Challah. Since then we have modified the recipe to move closer to the lovely loaves of bread given at Outback Steakhouse (and with each step also closer to the coupe du monde de boulangerie).

Next we have pictures of myself in my new apron (an essential for all cooks!). I am sporting my new adornment while placing chicken on our grill. Little did we know that the grill was about five minutes from being out of gas.

Lastly we have the aforementioned chicken (after finishing its cooking indoors) shredded and mixed with various cheeses to make Robin via Rachel Buffalo Chip Dip (Rebekah uses the name Buffalo Chicken Dip, but we all know its true name).

This is simply to whet your appetite for what is to come!

Grilled Steak and Potatoes

We decided to contribute to the smoke by grilling steak and potato wedges. The wedges got a little burned and a lot dry, but they were ok with catsup. Albertson's gave us a coupon for a free bottle of Kikoman's Teriyaki sauce (and we got another coupon when we checked out) so we marinated our steak in it for about 30 minutes. It was very tasty, bringing back memories of teriyaki beef jerky when I was growing up (not because the meat was over done and dry, it was just right ... ok, a little over done). Our cat Missy used to go crazy over that stuff. We would come home find the bag with bite and claw holes all over it. Speaking of cats attacking bags, it's Mobius' favorite thing to do now. The other day when we got up in the morning we found bite holes all over our bread bag. She doesn't even like bread!