Pumpkin Butter

When life gives you pumpkins, make butter. The good news is, this pumpkin butter doesn't actually have any butter. The bad new is, this pumpkin butter doesn't actually have any butter.

Quick flash back: I experienced a very dark time in my life 6 years ago. It started with a love affair with peanut butter. The affair soon turned into an unhealthy, overly-dependent relationship. Don't get me wrong, peanut butter can be a healthy addition to toast, bananas, smoothies, etc. However, there comes a point when a spoon becomes a dangerous and evil tool that allows pure, untainted peanut butter to melt on the roof of your mouth a couple dozen times a day. You begin to consider a Costco membership just to bypass those pesky 18oz. jars in exchange for a vat.

Don't act like you've never done it.

Ok, so maybe that's a little dramatic. But in all seriousness, I cannot purchase peanut butter and have it lying casually around the house. I've come to terms with this reality; the pumpkin butter helps ease the withdrawals.

Grab the following ingredients:

1 can pure pumpkin

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp cinnamon

1/4 C apple sauce

2 tbsp pumpkin spice

1/2 C sugar

Throw it all in a heavy pot or dutch oven. Bring to a boil, turn to low and simmer for at least 45 minutes. Inhale fall.

A spoon is totally appropriate.

8 Months Later All I Have to Share is an Egg Sandwich

Hi! Me again. I'm back for an admittedly half-assed post. Thanks for the strike of inspiration, Renz. Here's the first of what will become regular ramblings from my new kitchen in Denver. Not to worry, I brought my sous chef. He seems to be adjusting well.

Fortunately this new kitchen is shared with these beauties:

Who also happen adore baked goodies. They even say nice things about my experiments that don't turn out well.
So here it is, the Saturday Egg sandwich:

Remember that one time I made english muffins? Yeah, do it. Then saute some cherry tomatoes until they're wilty, slightly caramelized and spreadable. Fry an egg. Grab some goat cheese. Easy, right? I'll even lay it out in case you're still debating whether or not to make this Saturday, mid-morning.
Ingredients:
-English muffin (preferably home-made)

-Egg

-Goat cheese

-Cherry tomatoes

Directions:

1. Saute tomatoes with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Once they begin to wilt, smash em! Watch out, tomato juice to the eye is not helpful for clearing a post-Friday night fog.

2. Toast your english muffin.

3. Fry an egg, save a pan and crack it beside the tomatoes. They need a soft introduction before straddling one another in the sandwich anyway.

4. Spread goat cheese over english muffin. This will act as an adhesive for the tomatoes which you will spread over the cheese.

5. Add the egg.

6. Top with other half of the muffin. Press down, watch the yolk mingle with tomatoes and goat cheese.

Here is the part where you get some options:

1. Pair with a bloody mary, mimosa or a warm, half-consumed beer. It is Saturday, after all.
2. Savor the sandwich and go back to bed.

3. Combine #1 and #2 if you're feeling ambitious.

Amen.

Braided Bread

When I'm browsing through recipes, I often find myself ditching options that look too professional. Cakes with multiple layers, bagels that have to rise a dozen times and the dreaded, braided bread. I struggle enough trying to braid my own hair. Like always, Smitten gave me courage to conquer a "professional-looking" recipe.

It started with a sour cream dough that was divided into thirds and fringed at the ends.

Then it got filled with a cream cheese and lemon curd mixture. What is lemon curd? (I didn't know either.) Lemon juice/zest, sugar, butter and egg. If you're like me, you forget the key ingredients for most recipes and you'll have to sub in lemon jam.

The Braid. Why doesn't my hair ever look that pretty?

Let it do its magic in the oven.

Then put it in here. What is this, you ask?

It's the number one reason we rented this house. It's a pie cooler, of course. A little cupboard with a screened window to let the heat escape. Every house/apartment/condo/yacht should have one.

Beware of the braid. You will find yourself wanting to braid everything. It's so fun! So sophisticated! It's easy to pull apart! So versatile!

Savory filling?

Yes, please. (Spinach, Gruyere and ham.) Use your favorite pizza dough recipe for a savory bread base.

Sponge
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 cup (1 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour

Dough
Sponge (above)
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) sour cream or yogurt
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons or 2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs, 1 beaten for dough, 1 beaten with 1 teaspoon water for brushing bread
1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups (10 5/8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
Pearl sugar* or sparkling white sugar for sprinkling

Lemon cream cheese filling
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons (5/8 ounces) sugar
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) sour cream
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (2 ounces) lemon curd

Make sponge: In a small bowl, combine the sponge ingredients. Stir well to combine, loosely cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to proof for 10 to 15 minutes.

Make dough by hand: Whisk together sour cream, butter, egg, sugar and vanilla in a large, wide bowl. Stir in sponge. Add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon as best as you can; you may need to get your hands in there to form it into a shaggy ball. Turn ball of dough and any incorporated scraps onto a counter and knead until a smooth, soft dough forms, about 5 to 10 minutes. Place the kneaded dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 60 to 90 minutes, until quite puffy and nearly doubled.

Make the filling (while dough rises): Combine all the filling ingredients (except the lemon curd) in a small bowl, mixing until smooth and lump-free. Reserve the filling and lemon curd until ready to fill the braids.

Prepare bread: Gently deflate the dough and roll it out on a very well floured counter to a 10″ x 15″ rectangle. Transfer rectangle to a large piece of parchment paper, please; I did not and it led to all sorts of trouble. With the side of your hand, lightly press two lines down the dough lengthwise, dividing it into three equal columns. Spread the cream cheese filling down the center section, leaving the top and bottom two inches free of filling. Spread the lemon curd over the cream cheese filling.

To form the mock braid, cut crosswise strips one inch apart down the length of the outer columns of you dough (the parts without filling). Make sure you have an equal amount of 1-inch strips down the right and left sides. Be careful not to cut your parchment paper; if you have a bench scraper, this is a great time to use it. Remove the four corner segments. To “braid”, begin by folding top flap down and bottom flap up over the filling. Lift the top dough strip and gently bring it diagonally across the filling. Repeat on the right side, and continue down the entire braid, alternating strips until you are out. You can tuck the last couple that hand off decoratively under the end of the braid.

Carefully transfer the dough and the parchment paper to a baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic and set it aside to rise for 45 to 50 minutes, until quite puffy.

English Muffins

I've always been fascinated by recreating certain dishes or items I would usually buy from the grocery store or order from a restaurant. It usually comes in the form of a baked good. Every weekend, without a doubt, there's one morning that I'll toast an English muffin and top it with an over-easy egg. Even though it's not a gourmet breakfast, it takes a little more effort than the usual, Monday morning cereal. To make it feel a bit more like a luxurious Saturday morning breakfast, I decided to take a stab at English muffins.

Like any other worth while bread, it starts with a lot of waiting for the dough to rise and deflate.

Next, the dough is separated into the individual muffins, rolled in corn meal and left to rise again.

The most important step: brown in a pan until golden brown and admire.

Pop in the oven for 5-8 minutes and prepare your egg.

Recipe from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Located via Pete.

2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 Tbsp shortening or butter (at room temperature)
3/4 – 1 cup milk (at room temperature)
cornmeal for sprinkling

1. in a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt and yeast. mix in the shortening and 3/4 cup of the milk. add the remaining milk if the dough is too dry.

2. transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes. place in a lightly oiled bowl and roll to coat. cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour. divide the dough into 6 equal pieces and shape into balls. lay parchment paper on a baking sheet and spray or lightly coat with oil and sprinkle with cornmeal. move the dough balls to the baking sheet evenly spaced apart (giving them room to rise more). cover the pan loosely with plastic wrap and allow them to rise for another hour.

*I added a 1/4C flax seed to mine which gave it more of a nutty flavor. Next up: cinnamon and raisins.

3. heat the oven to 350 F and heat up a skillet on medium heat on the stove top. brush the skillet with oil and gently transfer the dough balls to the skillet a few at a time. allow them to cook on the skillet for 5-8 minutes, until the bottoms are nicely browned. carefully flip and cook the other side for about 5-8 minutes more. they should flatten as they cook.

4. when the muffins look as if they are about to burn, remove them from the skillet with a spatula and transfer quickly to a baking sheet. bake at 350 for 5-8 minutes. do not wait until all of the muffins have been cooked on the skillet before moving them to the oven – as the first batch is baking, move the second batch of muffins to the skillet.

5. transfer the baked muffins to a cooling rack and let cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing or serving. serve with lots of butter and jelly. store them as you would muffins you buy in the store – in a sealed ziploc bag in the fridge or freezer.

I added flax to these but I'll definitely be throwing in some raisins and cinnamon to the next batch.

The Great Meatfest of 2010

Sometimes hamburgers are not enough. When you don't have regular access to a grill, you have to make up for its absence. Hence: The Great Meatfest of 2010. We had cheese stuffed burgers, steak and sausage. Now that it's listed it doesn't sound so grand.

That's better.
Pair that with some of the awesome potatoes (courtesy of Kyle) and grilled asparagus and we were set! Oh, don't forget the beer.
Also, if you haven't tried sandwiching your cheese between the meat, TRY IT. After grilling, it oozes with cheesy perfection

On a side note, do not use cooking spray for photo-ops while grilling pita.

The other side took on a blackish hue...not the appetizing kind, closer to the kind that gets left on the plate because no one wants to touch. Lesson learned.
Oh, and if thought we forgot a meat-themed breakfast, think again.

To answer your question, yes, sausage was indeed added to this dish.

Berry Oatmeal Bars

Sunday afternoon I found time to try out a recipe I've been eyeing for quite some time. Smitten Kitchen's raspberry breakfast bars not only looked amazing (partly due to the photography) but they combined two of my favorites: brown sugar and oats. I followed the recipe closely but used a combination of frozen raspberries and blackberries. I also baked them an additional 6-7 minutes. They came out beautifully. The only complaint I have is the soggy condition I found them in the following morning after spending the night in an airtight container. Perhaps it was due to the frozen fruit? Either way, they are worth making...and finishing same day.