Recipe Review

This Butterscotch Zucchini loaf gets an A++




It has been a total success. I got the recipe from Nikki and people are loving it. Its so simple to make and it's great to take with you to any get together. Also it freezes wonderful so you can have it on hand for when company comes over.

If you have any recipes (cookies, loafs) that you just love and are your favorite to take out please send me the recipe or the link.

Bread from the machine

This is the newest addition to Kate's kitchen. I picked this up early this summer when I was home at my parents house. Mom doesn't use it too much so she asked if I would get any use out of it. Immediate I replied yes! It seems these gadgets are in a lot of my friends kitchens.

I never thought I would enjoy the bread maker. I guess I felt it was a lot of flour for just one little loaf and most machines have a huge hole in the middle from the kneader. Luckily mom still had the instruction book with it and I found out that you can use these to just mix your dough!!! RIGHT ON in my mind. I mean I don't mind doing it but its great when you don't have to do it and make a mess all over the counter.

So the first time I made the bread I just followed a recipe in the instruction book but instead of setting it on a basic baking selection I decided to put it on the dough cycle. Once it was done I took it out and divided it into two balls. I placed these into two small round coffee tins and let it rise. Once it was about double I place in the oven and baked at 350 for 40-50 minutes.


The bread turned out great and tasted wonderful too. Especially when it was warm and smothered in peanut butter and molasses!!

Today I was busy preparing for our weekend camping trip and was using the oven to make pita bread and granola bars so I decided to just bake the loaf in the machine. It turned out OK but not as nice as when I cooked it in the oven. And of course there is the hole in the bottom from the kneader. I think that I will stick to using the dough cycle.



If you have any great bread machine recipes please post it or a link.

Whole grain bread recipe

1/3 cup water
1 cup butter milk
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp oil
1/4 cup molasses
2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup corn meal
1/4 cup rye flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 cup bread flour
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

layer ingredients as listed into bread machine. Select dough cycle to bake in oven or basic setting to make in machine.

*one change that I made is that I didn't have rye flour or buckwheat flour so I just used 1/2 cup of 12 grain flour.

Chocolate Cranberry Muffins

I found this recipe while search through some meal plans and put it in my "must try" recipe section. And since it's been raining all week it was a perfect time to catch up on some much needed baking.




The recipe was easy to follow and called for ingredients that were around the house. One ingredient it called for was butter milk. I know that this ingredient can be easily made by adding 1 Tbsp of vinegar to 1 cup of milk but I have been looking for recipe that called for this lovely ingredient because a while back I decided to freeze butter milk in one cup portions; so now it was time to see if the flavor and texture would remain the same. I did make some alterations to the recipe; I used 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, 1/2 cup dried cranberries and a few shakes of wheat bran.

The verdict: Once the batter was mixed it looked really thick and I didn't think that it would turn out. However they did and they tasted yummy. Next time I make these I would add 1/4 cup of apple sauce and 1/4 cup of oi.l

Pitas

While looking at some meal plans on Monday I happened to come across a recipe for homemade pitas. After venturing into the world of making my own tortillas I thought that this recipe looked a lot easier. The recipe found at fresh loaf was put into simple steps with lots of pictures making pitas look flawless to make. Plus what I really liked about this recipe is that there are a lot of comments and reviews about the success of this recipe. With just 6 basic ingredients that can always be found in my cupboards it wasn't long before this recipe was up on my meal plan for the week.

I did make an alteration to the recipe so here are my tips for making great homemade pitas

Recipe
3 cups flour (1 cup 7 grain flour and 2 cups white)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 1/4 tsp traditional yeast
1 1/4 cups water, roughly at room temperature
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

I used tradition yeast so I followed the instructions on the package mixing together 2 1/4 tsp of yeast with 1/4 cup of water and a sprinkle of sugar. I let that sit for about 10 minutes. Then I added the rest of the ingredients. (I am not sure if that is what you are suppose to do when you are working with tradition yeast or if you pour the yeast into the other ingredients, if anyone knows could you let me know). When I turned the dough out onto a floured surface I made sure my hands where floured as well and that I had lots of extra flour close by because the dough seemed very sticky. It took me a little while to get it the elastic consistency you want it to be. After the dough doubled in size (90 minutes or so) I punched it down and divided it into 10 balls.



Well the dough was resting I placed my pizza stone in the oven and preheated it to 400 degrees. This is an important step because it is the high heat the makes the pita fluff and separate the way you want them to. The dough was very easy to roll out...although I didn't always get a perfect circle.

Once you have your circle simply place the dough onto the hot stone and bake for 3 minutes. This is what will happen after approximately 2 minutes in the oven.


Remove from oven after 3 minutes (some of mine I baked for 4 or 5 for a more crispy pita) and place on a cooling rack.


I found that by the 4th pita they weren't fluffing as much so I decided to let the oven heat up again by leaving it for 5 minutes. Then I thought since the back of my oven gets the hottest that I would try to place the pita more towards the back of the stone. This worked out very well and ensured all my pitas were fluffy.

So here is the final product; 10 delicious homemade pitas.


They split apart nicely and we have been enjoying them everyday. I like mine warmed up and stuffed with peanut butter or almond butter. Last night we enjoyed them with our Mexican meal.



Now if any one has advice on how to store these that would be great. Right now I have them in the refrigerator but I think that I will try to freeze some.