For the Love of Yeast

I've been a bad baker. Neglectful, remiss, borderline snobbish in my refusal to bake bread for weeks now. See, E was getting irritated by the huge 60's era Tupperware cake carrier-turned-dough tote that had taken up permanent residence on the bottom shelf of our fridge. That's usually where the beer lives, so you'll understand his aggravation. I figured subbing one yeasty product for another wasn't such a bad thing. The I realized it was summertime, aka beach time, aka bathing suit season, and was forced again to look at my massive carbohydrate intake as a possible road bump in my goals. With all of the parties we had coming up, I had to make a choice. Cupcakes or bread? That was a no brainer.

Now that I've consumed my weight in cake and icing, the parties are almost over and I'm back in the bread baking saddle. As luck would have it, the week I decide to rejoin HBin5 is another gluten free week. Blast! Forget that crap, yo. Like last time, I blew off the assignment (I've skipped so many I doubt anyone cares) and made a big batch of Whole Wheat with Olive Oil instead. It makes my second favorite pizza dough (the Soft WW Sandwich Dough is awesomer) and was another perfect way to help me get rid of the massive amount of produce I bought last week. This one is zucchini, red onion, kalamata olives, roasted red pepper, artichoke hearts and goat cheese. Yum!

The rest of the dough was turned into a leftover saver and is all wrapped up and ready to go to the Ibey's today. It's Anniebelly's 2nd birthday party and I'm in charge of "Adult Appetizers." Normally, that would mean an ice luge and a handle of vodka or two, but the party starts at 10 AM, so I figured I'd make food instead.

Italian Sausage and Spinach Stuffed Sandwich Loaf
adapted from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients

Ingredients:
1 lb. portion of any whole wheat dough
1 cup cooked Italian sausage, crumbled or chopped
1 cup fresh baby spinach
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp. each red pepper flakes, oregano, and dried basil, mixed
olive oil

Preparation:
Grease a loaf pan (I always line it with parchment, too).
On a floured work surface, roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick.
Sprinkle with cheese, spinach, basil, and sausage.
Roll dough over the fillings, pinching seam and ends shut and folding them over.
Place the roll, seam side down, into the prepare pan and let rest for 60 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and when ready to bake, brush the loaf with olive oil. Sprinkle with spice mixture and salt and pepper to taste.
Bake for one hour or until top is browned and bread is firm. Cool slightly before removing from pan.
Slice and serve warm or at room temp.

Print the recipe


Don't forget to visit Michelle's blog in case you are curious about Gluten Free breads. Not everyone in the group is a scaredy cat like moi!

I think I'm addicted

I finally completed an entire assignment! And on time, too! Makes me feel like a bit of a goody two shoes, but then I never liked those girls in school. Like the one who always had the best grades, bought all her clothes at Gap, and was totally the teacher's pet forever, but her mom made her to-scale model of the North Church for sure in 5th grade, cheating brat, and I made this all myself, so there and take that Mrs. Phillips. Maybe I had too much caffeine today. Definitely too many carbs. I may need an intervention.

Anywho, this is the master recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day baked into a mini loaf, some garlic knots, and Turkish pita bread. The pita was delish stuffed with tabbouleh and hummus, perfect for lunch! Really, this dough rocks. Sigh. It can pretty much do anything, take any form, accompany any dish. I think I'm in love.

Tabbouleh Salad
Adapted from Weight Watchers Annual Recipes For Success 2009


Ingredients:

1 c. cooked bulgur
1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed
1 c. grape tomatoes, chopped
1 c. cucumber, diced
1/2 c. scallions, sliced thinly
1/2 c. crumbled feta
1/4 c. chopped parsley
1/4 c. chopped mint
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper
olive oil

Preparation:
Toss all ingredients in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and toss gently to combine.

Be sure to check out Michelle's blog to see what the other HBin5 members baked this week!

Frosted

Our latest assignment for  HBin5 was a sweet one in honor of May Day (which is Saturday of course, so go make some little basket thingies and hang them on your neighbors' doors. Or if you are like me and have never actually met any of your neighbors, but suspect a few of them may be complete jackasses if not actual criminals, skip it.). Specifically, we were to make ½ recipe Chocolate Espresso Whole Wheat Brioche for Cinnamon Crescent Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing (Pages 294-296) and ½ recipe of dough for a loaf of Milk and Honey Raisin Bread (Pages 270- 271). Again, I'm a hack, and I blew off the chocolate dough in favor of a whole batch of Milk and Honey. I added a bunch of chopped dried dates to the recipe and used it to bake a small loaf (made for kick ass toast, I tell ya) and these swirly treats. I don't often bake for breakfast, but with this dough lying around I couldn't resist. It makes gooood sticky buns. Top them with leftover Pumpkin Maple Buttercream and you've got it made.

Milk and Honey Sticky Buns

Ingredients:

1/2 recipe of Milk and Honey Raisin Bread Dough from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day

1/2 cup brown sugar

 2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preparation:

Grease a cake pan and line with parchment paper, set aside.

Floor your board or counter well and roll dough into a 1/4 inch thick rectangle. You can also do this on a silpat mat. Makes for easier cleanup! Toss pecans, sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle over dough. Roll dough into a log and slice into 1/2 inch slices. Arrange slices in the cake pan and allow to rest at room temperature for 45 minutes.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops are golden. Flip out of pan and serve upside down, smeared with buttercream or icing.

p.s. If your wondering what kind of wack job puts frosting on toast, yeah, that'd be me. When offered the choice between this melty gooey buttercream and plain ol' butter, there isn't even any discussion to be had.

p.p.s. Anyone else notice that Blogger is being completely annoying lately? Changing fonts without prompt, only allowing photos uploaded with Picassa or url's... what the f, Blogger. You're lucky I'm too cheap to pay for a blog host :P

Moley, moley, moley!

This week's assignment for HBin5 has proven to be a challenging one. Our assignment is to mix up a full recipe of Gluten Free Olive Oil Dough (page 238-239 of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day) and to then make 1 loaf of bread, a pizza, and a sesame baguette from the dough. This dough calls for soy flour, tapioca flour, and Xanthan Gum, which sparked a discussion about less costly and more readily available ingredients. That xanthum shit ain't cheap. I read along while a bunch of people started baking and subbing, and then complaining. Turns out this bread is a stank one, with a dough that smells unpleasant and a flavor to match. Not one person who has baked it thus far was very impressed. Therefore, I didn't make a gluten free bread. Blatant disregard for homework is not very me (maybe because I'm a teacher?), but I am not about to eat carbs that I don't even like. My metabolism isn't what it was. Since I decided to blow off this assignment, I went back in time to one I skipped in March: Avocado Guacamole Bread (pages 160-161).

Now, E and I adore avocados, and we especially love guacamole. I had some pretty high hopes for this dough. I made half a batch, spiked it with a rounded teaspoon of cayenne pepper, a teaspoon of cumin, lots of fresh cracked pepper, and a whole avocado instead of half. Then I shaped the dough into buns and sprinkled the tops generously with shredded taco cheese (you know, the seasoned cheddar blend you use on nachos and such). In the end they were pretty and I loved the flavor, but honestly, most of the bang comes from the cheese and cayenne. There is very little avocado or tomato flavor in the bread itself, which makes me think I should double both if I bake this again. I know some people used salsa in place of the tomato, and I think that would have been a good way to go. Ah well! Live and learn, then smear this baby with fresh avocado.

Stop by Michelle's blog and visit the Bread Braid to see the brave souls who actually made gluten free breads!

Enough already!

If it rains any more here in Joisey, I think I'll scream. The roads are flooded just about everywhere, and falling trees have destroyed I don't know how many adorable front porches around here. While we are lucky enough not to have been evacuated like so many people back home, it just sucks. I really wanted to make some cutesy Easter sweets today, but the gray wetness had me feeling grumpy. I made the next assignment for HBin5 instead. The Olive Spelt dough from page 96 of  Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients may be my favorite dough so far (sorry Soft Whole Wheat). The yogurt makes it a very soft dough, so it's partial to hanging out all over the place. Thus, it makes slammin' focaccia. Slammin', I tell you!

I used my new favorite olives for this: La Medina Classic Olive Mix. I get them on sale at Fairway and they have as many varieties as the Whole Foods million dollar olive bar. The only issue is that they don't come pitted, so you have to do it yourself. Don't have an olive pitter? Never fear! I don't either. As much as I love kitchen gadgets, I just can't justify buying more of them right now. Instead I drain the olives and dump them on a cutting board. Then I do just like I do with garlic cloves, smush them with the side of my largest chef's knife. I just press down until I feel resistance from the olive pit. Then I give the olive a little squeeze, and out pops the pit. Takes all of three minutes. Nice.

Once I mixed this dough and spread it onto parchment paper, I sprinkled it with sesame and poppy seeds and gave it a generous seasoning of salt and cracked pepper. A little drizzle of olive oil, and this baby was good to go.

But wait! What to eat with all of this bread? And why waste the heat of a 425 degree oven just for this? I had three humongous tomatoes and a head of garlic just waitin' for a roast, so I put them in, too. Never roasted garlic? Shame on you.

Just grab your garlic and peel off the papery outside skin, leaving all of the cloves intact. Slice the top (about 1/4 inch) off the head of garlic with a very sharp knife. Place the garlic in the center of a square of foil. Drizzle it with a tablespoon of olive oil and fold the foil up and around to seal. (Sorry to blind you with camera flash here, but honestly, it's pitch black night in my kitchen at 12:00 in the afternoon.)

If you are just roasting the garlic, you can place it in your oven now, but I put it in the middle of a large casserole dish. I filled the rest of the dish with quartered tomatoes, drizzled them with olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper and put the whole thing in the oven, just under my focaccia. 25 minutes later I had this...

And another 10 minutes later I had a gorgeous golden roasted garlic and some withered and browned roasted tomatoes. I've roasted garlic for up to an hour before, so you just need to test it. Give the foil packet a little squeeze (with your oven-mit-wearing paw, thank you very much) and if it gives, it's ready. I added the tomatoes and a few cloves of the garlic to my blender, seasoned it with salt and pepper and gave it a whirl. A little chicken broth and heavy cream turns it from slush to soup. Perfect for rainy day lunch, and for sopping up with focaccia. 

 Print the recipe!

Thinking Spring

After weeks of record snowfall and the biggest rainstorm to hit the area in 25 years, the weather is finally beginning to cooperate with my mood. Sunshine and 60 degrees? Yes, please! The crocuses are just beginning to pop up, and I have finally packed away my winter coats. I spent almost the entire day outside yesterday, no jacket needed. The only time I spent inside was baking the latest assignment for HBin5: Carrot Bread, pages 157-159 of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients. Somehow Michelle knew we'd all be ready for spring, so this bread, made with the ingredients of a carrot cake, is meant to celebrate spring flavors, and just in time for Easter.

After my experiences with the Pumpkin Pie Brioche and Chocolate Espresso Bread, I had a feeling this dough was not going to be very sweet. I loved both of those breads, but have noticed that I always need to increase whatever seasoning or spice is included in these recipes. For this dough I used Kretschmer Honey Crunch Wheatgerm (thanks to my BFF Jenny who turned me on to that years ago) in place of the plain wheat germ and increased the cinnamon by half. I added a few tablespoons of honey and 2 tablespoons of chopped crystallized ginger (one of my very favorite things!), too. In the end this bread was delicious. It made great toast and would make amazing muffins if you increase the sugar a bit. E ate some with hummus, which kind of makes me want to gag, but at least he ate it! The only thing I'd do differently next time is double the carrots! I used the required amount, but it just looks stingy and I'd like the bread to be more orange.

Other than bread and muffins, I'm at a loss for what else to do with this dough! It isn't the most versatile of recipes. I suppose I could make some rolls for Easter, but my family is so obsessed with the old school snowflake rolls that I could never replace them with carrot. That would be like forgetting the relish tray, a sin punishable by banishment (well, banishment to the kids' table, that is).

The bread braid isn't up yet for this bread (What? Am I early for once? Do I get a cookie?) but you can still visit Michelle's Blog until then to find her Carrot Cake Jam recipe.

I'm Late!

Oh well, what can I say? I'm so very late posting this week's HBin5 assignment, but for good reason. My mom has been having some health issues, so I drove out to Massachusetts to spend a few days with her. I brought along some of my Lazy Loaf, and this stuffed bread for the visit. The weather was atrocious in Carver, as it was pretty much everywhere in NE. Pouring rain for three days, winds that blew trees and power lines down, and cold, cold, cold. It sucked. It was good for cooking, shopping, eating, and an hour of deep tissue massage, though! Thanks, Mom! Now on to the bread!

I used one half of my Pesto Pine Nut dough for a large loaf. I didn't get a great rise on it, so it was used for a Brick Pressed Sandwich. I used capicola, pepperoni, and prosciutto with artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, arugala, and provolone. Love. The rest of the dough was rolled out to a half inch thickness and turned into Caprese Stuffed Pesto Pine Nut Bread. I placed strips of roasted red peppers, fresh mozzarella, and basil over the dough, sprinkled it with minced garlic, salt and pepper and rolled it up, pinching the edges to seal. I put this loaf into a loaf pan lined with parchment, brushed it with olive oil and sprinkled it with dried basil and sea salt. I'm not winning any beauty prizes for my breads lately. Despite the fact that this bread ended up looking a bit like some kind of yeasty tunnel system, it was delicious. 

And as always, stop by Michelle's Blog to see how everyone else used their pesto dough (and the Avocado bread I neglected to make this week) on the bread braid!

Chocolate, Cherries, and Cheese

The latest assignment for Healthy Bread in Five was ½ recipe Red Beet Buns, pages 180-181, and ½ recipe Chocolate Espresso WW Bread, pages 304-305, for Chocolate Tangerine Bars in honor of Valentine's Day. The latter had me excited, since I'm a huge chocoholic, the former... not so much. Can we talk about how much I dislike beets? The smell of them, the palm staining prep, the amount of work that goes into cooking them... Ugh. And the taste? Well, to be honest, I don't really know what a beet tastes like. I haven't taken the tiniest bite of a beet since I was 8 and my mother forced me to try one at Easter dinner, where sliced beets were once religiously served along with the relish tray and mint jelly. Thankfully, I'm not the only member of my family who's culinary tastes have moved on. While many members of the baking group raved about the lovely onion flavor and subtlety of these beet buns, I just couldn't do it. On to the chocolate.

I made a full recipe of the Chocolate Espresso Whole Wheat dough. First I baked the Chocolate Tangerine Bars. The loaf came out oddly misshapen, but I sliced it into squares and dipped the ends of each bar into the leftover melted chocolate from my Brownie Bites Valentines. While I did love the texture (so light!) and the flavor of cranberry and citrus in the bars, I didn't feel the need for the extra chocolate chips. I decided to mix cranberries, orange zest, and chopped walnuts into another half pound of dough and baked muffins (minus the extra chocolate). In the book they call their version cupcakes, but who are we kidding here? Cupcakes are made with cake batter. Yeast doughs can yield muffins, certainly, but not cupcakes. But I digress...

I also baked a regular loaf, then rolled the remaining dough out to make little Chocolate Cherry Ricotta Tarts. The loaf was delicious with a smear of peanut butter and I cut it up for French Toast on Valentine's morning, too. So good with sweetened vanilla Greek yogurt and leftover cherry filling! Cutting out the hearts left me with a bunch of scrappy bits, which I tossed into the food processor and pulverized into crumbs. I included that in my dessert recipe for that night, but I'll save that one for tomorrow (I can only fit so many recipes in one post, you know!).

Chocolate Cherry Ricotta Tarts 
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. Chocolate Espresso WW Dough
3/4 c. ricotta cheese
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbls. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup cherry pie filling.

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, lightly grease a muffin tin.

Lightly flour work surface, rolling pin, and the surface of dough. Roll out to an 1/8 inch thickness. Cut circles using a biscuit cutter. Press each circle gently into bottom of each cup of muffin tin. Set aside.

Mix vanilla, sugar, and cinnamon into ricotta until well combined. Spoon evenly into each cup of muffin tin. Top with a generous teaspoonful of cherry filling. Bake for 20 minutes or until set.


Don't forget to visit Michelle's Blog to see the latest creations on the Bread Braid!

Mission Accomplished

The end of the month means the end of the latest assignment from my HBin5 baking group. Thank goodness, I finally got one right :)

Our mission if we chose to accept it:
Prepare 1 Full recipe Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread, from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, Pages 92-93.

Use this dough to create 1 Loaf of Sandwich Bread, 1 batch of Hamburger or Hotdog Buns, pages 94-95, and 1 Loaf of Apple Strudel Bread, pages 277-278.

The sandwich loaf was my favorite bread so far, a little sweet, super soft, and perfect for any type of sandwich we thought up in a few days. My favorite? Fried Elvis Presleys, aka peanut butter and banana sandwiches pan fried in a little butter until the peanut butter gets all gooey and warm and the bread is nicely toasted. Thanks Nigella for that inspiration! This sandwich, full of cheap ingredients and with even-cheaper-than-store-bought bread,  is definitely a budget buster.

I brought about half of the loaf over to my cousin Libby's house last weekend and her kiddos (ages 1 and 4) went to town on it. It made wonderful toast with homemade wild blueberry jam from her family in Maine.

One down, two to go! I was excited about the apple strudel bread (even though we all know, this really is not a strudel!) because I planned to bring it to Sunday's party to celebrate my Aunt Cynthia's 10 year anniversary of being cancer free! Woop woop! I'll admit, I was a little nervous, too. I didn't feel like transporting my huge tub of dough to Libby's house and I figured I'd be too busy playing with the kids (and drumming for Rock Band) to prep it! I decided to do it ahead of time. I know, big risk :) Friday afternoon I rolled the dough, filled it with raisins, walnuts, a chopped Granny Smith Apple and cinnamon sugar, rolled it up tight, and set it into the loaf pan lined with parchment paper. I drove from Jersey to Connecticut, stuck it in my cousin's fridge, and baked it Sunday morning. When we arrived at the party on Sunday afternoon, half of the bread disappeared with coffee before lunch was even served. Not surprising the way we are in my family. With all of the women together, it gets pretty loud, pretty hyper and pretty messy. We all talk at once and we all love food, so what can you expect? We had an amzing time and I've converted at least 2 people to the HBin5 cult :)

Last task, hot dog buns. I have had this package of NY System Hot Weiner Sauce Spice Mix in my spice cabinet for a long while, so I decided this was the perfect time to use it. I'm not the only one who thought of hot dogs, but I think I'm the only Rhode Islander in the group, so I am definitely the only one who made gaggiz (aka gaggers, or hot weiners, the real way to eat a hot dog :)). These are not your sloppy, wet Coney dogs like they make in Michigan (which honestly, I think are gross) nor are they overflowing with stuff like Chicago dogs (pickles on a hot dog? Really?).  These dogs feature a slathering of yellow mustard, a spoonful of meat sauce made of ground beef, onions, and spice mix (yes, I'm being vague, but I don't know what's in it!), a handful of chopped white onion, and a sprinkle of celery salt. Usually they are served on a steamed white hot dog bun, but obviously I used the whole wheat buns. I also used turkey instead of beef and used 2 Tbls. of  butter instead of lard, but don't tell anyone. I think that's probably considered a major sin in terms of hot weiners.

We ate ours too fast for me to take photos, but you can visit the Olneyville NY System website to see how they look and to order your own spice mix! You'll get the recipe on the back, although we used more than the required amount of spice mix to get the right taste. I think I even doubled it. The turkey was a good substitute, but if you want to mimic the real deal, go beef.

If you're looking for more inspiration, don't forget to visit the Bread Braid on Michelle's blog to see the rest of the groups' offerings and visit the I Heart Cooking Clubs blog to see what everyone else there brought to the table for the Budgets and Bargains theme!

Cracker fail!

Sometimes things just don't work out the way you plan. Such was the case when I tried to make the Spicy Whole Grain Crackers for HBin5 this week. After reading some of the tips from other group members before I started, I decided to start with a piece of dough about the size of my fist. I floured it, put it between two pieces of parchment and rolled. Then I gave it a quarter turn and rolled some more. I rolled more. And more. And more. I was left with a sheet of dough so thin I could have fed it through my printer, so I figured it was all good. I figured wrong.

After cutting small squares and brushing the tops with a little olive oil, I sprinkled them with my own seasoning mixture. I thought the mixture called for in the book was a little bland (Salt and cayenne? Snore!), so I went with a little Indian inspiration instead. I mixed 1/2 tsp. each of cumin, curry powder, cayenne, chili powder, and kosher salt to punch things up a bit (did you think I'd say kick it up a notch? Come on now.). Then I popped the sheet pan in the oven and waited.

Failure. Every square puffed up into a tiny spiced pillow. Sure they were cute, but WTF? I seriously could not have rolled that dough into submission for any longer. I was irritated. They tasted good, but were chewy instead of crispy and not what I wanted at all. I was making soup for dinner and these friggin' crackers were meant to work with it, adding the necessary crunch to round out the meal. Foiled again! So I stretched the last of my dough into bread sticks, topped them with the remaining seasoning mixture and let it go. Deep breath.

As usual, E didn't notice anything wrong with anything I put on the table. He ate the breadsticks, the crackers, and the soup, which we both agreed came out well enough to cancel out any of my previous disappointment. We both love Indian dishes, but I was in the mood for soup, so I used Chicken Biryani as inpiration. It was quick and simple; I highly recommend it :)

Chicken Biryani Soup

Ingredients:

2 Tbls. olive oil

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast

1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. ginger
1 1/2 tsp. garam masala
1 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 32 oz. carton, plus 1 14.5 oz. can chicken broth
2/3 c. raisins

1/4 c. chopped fresh cilantro (or 2 cilantro cubes)

1/4 c. almonds, chopped

lime wedges

1 c. basmati rice

Preparation:
Heat oil in a dutch oven or large soup pot over medium high heat. Add chicken to pan and brown well on both sides, about 5-7 minutes a side. Add onion and cook until tender. Add jalapeno and garlic and cook until garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Add ginger, garam masala, cumin, and salt and stir. Add tomato and broth and bring to a boil. Add rice and wimmer 15 minutes or until rice is tender. Remove chicken and shred with a fork, return to pot. Stir in raisins and cilantro. Serve sprinkled with almonds and a squeeze of lime juice.

p.s. I did succeed in making a pretty nice epi this week when my parents came to visit. My mom is so impressed with my new bread skills (ha!) that she's going to buy the book. At least something worked!

Don't forget to visit the Bread Braid at Michelle's blog to see how nicely everyone else's crackers and epis turned out :P

Getting Back on Track

Finally! With the holidays and our move complete, I feel like I can actually get back to some semblance of normalcy! Even though most of my day is consumed by waiting on hold for the NJ Dept. of Ed. staffers to answer the damn phone, I have been able to make a little bit of progress getting the new house into a liveable condition. Of course, in doing so I may very well have broken my vacuum cleaner and destroyed one of my Calphalon pans. The former stinks like burning rubber (I may have sucked up a few screws along with the million cobwebs, piles of dirt, and insect carcasses in the basement); the latter has black plastic cemented all over the bottom. Crap.

Having a working kitchen of my own again does mean that I can get back to my baking goup. Yesterday I mixed up the first batch of master dough from my fabulous new Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book. (Thanks so much, Michelle and Zoe!) There are so many great breads that I just can not wait to try. I started with the basic loaf, brushed it with egg wash, and sprinkled it with a combination of pine nuts, flax seeds, and sunflower seeds. It came out beautifully. Soft and light on the inside and nice and crusty on the outside. I think doing it on the baking stone really does make a big difference (I use mine often, as you can see!). The bottom crust was just as crisp as the top. Since I can't post the recipe for you due to copyright (visit the HBin5 blog linked above for it!), I'm sharing the sandwich I made instead.

Yesterday I made a simple grilled cheese with brie and bartlett pears, which is pretty self explanatory! Today, I had an Italian Flag Chicken Sandwich. I'm sure you can figure out the name :)

Italian Flag Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients:
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1 can diced no salt added tomatoes
1 ball fresh mozzarella, cut into slices
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbls. dried oregano
1 Tbls. dried basil
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
3/4 cup chicken broth, heated
2 Tbls. flour
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
1 loaf of crusty bread

Preparation:
Heat olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Season chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Add to the hot pan and brown on each side. Add onions to pan and saute until tender. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in diced tomato, basil, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes. Cover chicken with spinach, cover and let simmer until spinach has wilted. Whisk flour into broth and then pour, stirring, into pan. Cook until sauce is slightly thickened. Arrange mozzarella slices over chicken breasts, cover and simmer until melted.
Serve over pasta or, for sandwiches, remove chicken breasts from sauce and lay on a cutting board. Slice each breast in half lengthwise. Slice bread in half lengthwise. Layer chicken over bottom half of bread, spoon any remaining spinach in the pan on top, then top with other half and slice into 3 inch slices. Serve with sauce for dipping.

Don't forget to swing by Michelle's blog for the monthly Bread Braid! You can check out all of the other group members' blogs and see what they've been cooking up.
Print the Recipe!

Pumpkin Pie Bread Pudding

After getting obsessed with Zoe and Jeff's Master Bread recipe, I decided to jump on board the baking group for their new book, Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. It's based on the same principles of the original book (baking fresh bread with ease and simplicity, and no kneading!), but with many healthier alternatives. Michelle of Big Black Dog is the group's host, and you can learn all about the baking group on her blog if you are interested in joining. Once the book is released in January, we will bake our way through it. I can't wait to get my copy, which I won from a random giveawy on Michelle's blog. There is also a "secret recipe" released just for the group in November and December, so we are all getting an early start. This month's bread was Pumpkin Pie Brioche. You'll have to visit the blog to get the recipe (we are not allowed to post the recipes due to the copyright), but it's well worth it!

The other nice thing about the group is that you have lots of participants to ask for tips and opinions, which is important for a bread baking newbie like myself. I'll be honest, looking at the breads made by other members of the group made me so very jealous! They are all beautfully golden, sparkling with sugar, and perfectly photographed. My bread, well, let's just say it came out badly. It looked flat, dense, and, even though I doubled the spices as recommended by group members, it didn't have the punch of flavor I had hoped for. I decided to dress it up a little and make a bread pudding. Of course, it turns out I wasn't the only person with this idea! Michelle's bread pudding is so pretty. I made mine after dinner, but I hate taking pictures of food at night because the lighting in my kitchen is garbage, and everything looks muted and sickly. Despite that, it was delicious, and I'd definitely make it again.

Individual Pumpkin Pie Bread Puddings:

Ingredients:
1 cup half and half
2 eggs
8 oz. pumpkin puree
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. allspice
4 slices of pumpkin pie brioche, slightly stale, cut into cubes
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preparation:
Whisk together all but the last two ingedients. Fold in bread and cranberries. Spoon evenly into greased ramekins and let stand for 15 minutes. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes, or until tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Serve warm, topped with a drizzle of maple syrup and whipped cream.

So yeah, not the prettiest dessert I've made, but E ate the whole thing, which sometimes attests to the fact that he loves something, and sometimes is only proof that he's hungry. He is a champ when it comes to inhaling a bag of Doritos in 3 minutes, so his finishing a dish isn't always the highest compliment :)

If you want to be really impressed by this bread, your best bet is to check out the mouth watering posts by the other group members here in the Bread Braid. You'll be drooling all over your keyboard, I promise.

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